So you have looked at your B2B marketing roadmap for 2017 and made the decision to put programmatic display or display advertising in the mix. How do you make sure that your B2B display advertising campaigns are effective and, ultimately, drive sales?

Your choice of display advertising, or programmatic display, as a resource to drive sales, has probably come about because you are utilizing data mined from your ABM (Account-Based Marketing) platform. You have a target account list generated and was able to gather enough insights so you can deliver relevant content to them. The Intent Signals® you have received lets you know when prospects are ready to make a purchase and at this point you are eager to place your product offerings within their range of digital awareness.

 Designing a Display Advertising Campaign

1. Review the important details again.
   What’s the main goal of your campaign? Is it to convert views into clicks? Or converting clicks into leads? Whatever it is, the important thing is that you write down the goal so that everyone can run with it. A focused target is key to any successful campaign. Once you have the goal, make sure that you have your target audience (even persona) set down in stone with all the relevant and important insights and demographics that will be necessary to create the personalized and targeted display advertising campaign.
2. Decide if you’re going to manage your programmatic display campaign or let an algorithm take the risks for you.
   Most digital marketing and advertising platforms offer customizable packages that can be tailored to your comfort level. From one end of the spectrum to the other, you can choose to completely automate the process of display advertising (meaning that you’ll just be checking in every week or so to check on the statistics) or if you want to control and decide every small decision that needs to be made when creating the campaign.
3. Mind your platform & publisher
   Even if you choose to automate your programmatic display campaign, you should not be remiss in checking what platform and publishers you are using. You want to get connected to the most appropriate websites to deliver your advertising. Which highway is going to bring the right traffic to your door? Online ad networks are your usual middleman that match space from publishers with advertiser demand. SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies will aggregate the highest quality sources of traffic in order to deliver sophisticated prospects to your landing pages. Some of the most used networks include:

    

   • Google Display Network –quality traffic, massive ability to scale
   • BingAds – 2^nd to Google, great in tandem with Google campaigns
   • Native Ad Networks –looks like recommended content or news format, excellent for driving traffic to white papers and blog posts, non-salesy (Largest of these are -Outbrain, Taboola, Content.Ad & rev:content)
   • Direct Buys –buying space directly from publisher, ability to negotiate price, better dealsIf you have picked a demand-side platform (such as one that Anteriad® provides) well, then you should also be able to see the publishers that have been chosen to spread your message. You should have ad inventory from publishers that resonate with your brand, so you’re going to choose a website that is a perfect fit with your audience and product. This is where the demographic intent signals that reveal the psychographics of your potential prospects comes into play. This data will highlight their other interests and you can target the sites where they “hang out.” Fact-based analytics is the answer that will give you the edge above your competitors in this regard. Some of these publishers will take the form of the following:
   • SEO News Sites –these encompass internet marketing websites. The publishers displaying SaaS ads use publishers like Marketing Land and Search Engine Land
   • Tech News Sites –Businesses want to stay at the forefront of technological breakthroughs. They will trawl tech industry news websites like TheNextWeb.com and Mashable.com
   • Job Listing Websites –Businesses are looking for exceptional human resources and visit these sites regularly. If they can afford a new hire they could afford your offering.
   • Business news websites –Business brains are going to need their fix of Business.com, Forbes and Business Insider. So it’s a perfect place to display your ad.

4. Strategize The Perfect Bait
   You landing page MUST be designed for conversions. You can have the best copy but if you can’t convert you are waving your positive ROI goodbye. Less is more, simple is best. You need a potential customer to click on your Ad. A straightforward offer is the best plan. You have your landing page and ad creative to tantalize and win your company a click. However, there are other options to illicit the click:The Ethical Bribe – You offer a guide, white paper or case study that outlines your proposition while educating the prospect about how other companies have also used your offer to solve their problems. You are piquing their curiosity on the subject matter. They give you their attention and valid email address and you reciprocate with the downloaded PDF/eBook/white paper. You can now follow up with an email.Free Trial Offer – This solution lets a user sign-up for a free trial of your offering. But this option is not as effective as the ethical bribe. Many people only log on once.
   
   
5. Decide On Your Brand Design Formula

This 2017, one of the trends that we noted being mentioned by marketing professionals is that creating a strong brand will be one of the fundamental and foremost things that marketers should be doing.

Design tips:

• Use the same company colors throughout your campaign so the prospects associate the chosen colors with your brand.
• Solidify brand identification by always adding your company logo.
• Utilize screenshots of the software being used on a mobile or monitor. You are leading them to the give-away guide and you are showing them what they could expect from the content you are about to give them.
• The copy chosen should always be benefit driven. You want the prospect to know what they are going to be receiving by engaging with your product.
• Last up, a call to action button that simply states they can now download the free guide. People know how these buttons work as they are used to clicking on them.

6. Retarget Traffic

There will always be a huge number of people who won’t opt in for any of the above options. But if they have seen your page there is a way to connect with them called “retargeting.” Their “cookie” leaves crumbs so that you can follow them around on to other websites. Otherwise fondly known as “stalker ads,” and can even be downright psychic for some of your target audience. Retargeting is extremely successful because people need constant reminding as they might have become distracted the first time round.

Accelerated ROI

Your programmatic ad platform can be used for all social media advertising as well as mobile and video campaigns. According to the IDC, spending on this area will accelerate by a 59% compound annual growth rate through 2016. It is the fastest growing segment of digital advertising. Some brands have already experienced an ROI of up to six times! Your B2B programmable display advertising becomes powerful when it is backed up by intent signals generated by ABI (account-based intelligence) using real time analytics. Your best friends in this process will be A/B testing to ensure the effectiveness of your designed display advertising and… patience.