Strategies and Challenges in Leveraging LinkedIn, Meta, and Programmatic for B2B Marketing: Insights from Experts
This document summarises a discussion with digital marketing experts from various industries to discuss strategies and challenges in effectively leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Meta and Programmatic Display. Key themes that emerged included the need for precise audience targeting to minimize wastage, balancing brand building with lead generation, optimizing channel mix to manage costs, and finding solutions for attribution given long sales cycles. While LinkedIn's depth of professional data enables granular targeting, its auction-based pricing model can become prohibitively expensive. Programmatic advertising through platforms like Stack Adapt helps manage costs while still reaching niche audiences. However, attribution remains difficult with display advertising. Developing multi-channel strategies is essential to sustain engagement over months-long sales journeys.
Hosts
Joaquin Dominguez and Tom Gatten, were joined by three growth marketing experts to discuss the topic.
Guests
James Palmer Paid Media Specialist at AbCam
Luke Rose-Smith Paid Media Specialist at SureCloud
Charles Oben, Digital Marketing Manager at TalkTalk Business
Key themes that emerged include:
Precise Audience Targeting: Essential to minimize marketing wastage.
Brand Building vs. Lead Generation: Balancing long-term branding with immediate leads.
Channel Mix Optimization: Managing costs by choosing effective marketing channels.
Attribution in Long Sales Cycles: Addressing challenges in tracking marketing success over extended periods.
LinkedIn's Cost Challenges: High expenses due to its auction-based pricing.
Programmatic Advertising for Niche Targeting: Using platforms like Stack Adapt for cost-effective targeting.
Multi-Channel Strategies: Necessary for sustained engagement in long sales journeys.
Adapting to Market Needs: Tailoring strategies for different industry verticals and buyer groups in the evolving marketing technology landscape.
Introduction
With varied backgrounds spanning life sciences, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and advertising technology, the guests offered distinct viewpoints on targeting B2B audiences, platform strategies, campaign approaches, and emerging directions in the field.
Targeting Challenges and Strategies
For Abcam operating in the niche life sciences space, precise targeting is critical, as James Palmer explained: "Our addressable universe is so small that minimising wastage is key." Unlike mass-market consumer branding, "if you use more traditional targeting methodologies, you can easily hit 10 million reach overnight and realise that a lot of that must necessarily be wastage."
Luke Rose-Smith agreed, noting the "tricky balance" of "reaching the right people and also casting a bit further so you can touch them multiple times." According to Charles Oben, "trying to get as granular as you can" with "custom audience uploads" helps, but targeting can also be "too robust" if audiences get "too niche".
Another dilemma is the gap between target audiences and actual buyers. James Palmer noted, "The people you advertise to are not necessarily the same people who are making the purchase." While scientists see Abcam's ads, procurement teams often place the orders. Luke Rose-Smith emphasised the need to target "the whole buying committee, not just the chief information security officer" with account-based approaches.
“Programmatic platforms like Stack Adapt provide strong targeting capabilities at a fraction of LinkedIn's cost” Luke Rose-Smith
Platform-Specific Insights
LinkedIn enables robust targeting due to rich professional data, as James Palmer commented: "You can go as granular as job titles, experience, industries, locations." However, its auction-based pricing means "you can potentially end up paying considerably high." Luke Rose-Smith explained, "It's amazing for audiences, but there needs to be a balance" given LinkedIn's limited active user base.
Facebook offers scale but lacks depth in B2B data. As Luke noted, it has "no user-generated job titles or company information." Charles Oben remarked that TalkTalk Business faces "overlap between consumer and B2B audiences" on Facebook. He mitigates this by "custom audience uploads" to "focus specifically on a set audience."
Programmatic platforms like Stack Adapt provide strong targeting capabilities at a fraction of LinkedIn's cost, as highlighted by James Palmer and Luke Rose-Smith. However, Charles Oben noted stakeholders want to "show direct impact on sales" which is difficult with top-of-funnel display advertising. Attribution remains a key challenge.
"In TalkTalk we face overlap between consumer and B2B audiences. We mitigate this by custom audience uploads to focus specifically on a set audience." Charles Oben
Marketing Campaign Strategies and Challenges
Balancing long-term brand building versus short-term sales activation is an ongoing tussle, according to Charles Oben. While ideal to have "always-on brand building" paired with "regular sales-driven bursts," stakeholder pressures often focus too narrowly on the latter. Luke Rose-Smith emphasized sustaining engagement across "nine, ten, eleven touchpoints before a decision" in B2B given extended sales cycles.
Attribution was flagged as a universal "nightmare" by Luke Rose-Smith. Cookies and privacy changes have exacerbated matters. Charles Oben highlighted "econometric modelling" as the "Holy Grail" but noted its inaccessibility to most. AI-powered "hybrid attribution models" were suggested by James Palmer as potential solutions.
"Our addressable universe is so small that minimising wastage is key." James Palmer
Industry Experiences and Future Directions
Charles Oben shared TalkTalk Business' experiences where top-of-funnel marketing failed to deliver immediate sales, causing internal stakeholders to question its value despite proven long-term benefits. However, he aims to ensure it is "protected" and "understood as part of the total funnel." Looking ahead, Tom Gatten suggested exploring "less specific marketing approaches" beyond hyper-targeted personalization for better results, since people also value belonging to a peer group receiving your communications.
As James Palmer concluded, tapping into audiences' mindsets through "contextual targeting" aligned to their interests offers promising directions for B2B marketing.
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