Digital advertising is often the first Transform use case companies activate. The fundamental
shift here is moving from “spray and pray” advertising to precision targeting. This dramatically
reduces waste while increasing relevance, which improves both account engagement rates,
cost per engaged account, and return on ad spend.
You’re running paid campaigns through 6sense Display, LinkedIn, Meta, and Google that target
specific accounts based on ICP fit, buying stage, and intent signals rather than broad
demographic targeting that reaches anyone who might fit a general profile.
The maturity progression breaks down like this:
Crawl
You’re targeting high-intent, in-market accounts through at least one paid channel. You’ve
segmented your ICP accounts by buying stage and are serving different creative and
messaging to each segment. You’re measuring account reach and buying stage progression,
not just clicks and impressions.
Walk
You’re running campaigns across multiple stages of the buying journey:
- Late-stage demand capture
- Awareness-building campaigns for early-stage accounts
- Nurture campaigns for accounts in consideration
You’ve also established collaboration between marketing and sales where marketing provides
“air coverage” to support sales on active opportunities, showing ads to buying committee
members at accounts where deals are in play to maintain mindshare and combat competitive
pressure.
Run
You’re creating truly differentiated experiences throughout the buyer journey using intent and
engagement signals to dynamically adjust creative, messaging, and offers. You’re using
keyword clusters that track back to specific buyer persona pain points, and studying keyword
signal patterns to identify content gaps and area to bolster. An account researching basic
category education sees different ads than an account comparing vendors, and both see
different ads than an account revisiting your pricing page.
Your campaigns adapt in real time based on account behavior rather than running on static
schedules.
Watch out for these common traps:
Launching on too many channels at once dilutes focus and budget. Start with one channel
(typically 6sense Display or LinkedIn since they support account-based targeting natively),
prove the model works, then expand.
- Treating all buying stages the same. Early-stage accounts need educational content that
builds awareness; middle-funnel accounts often feature a champion who needs content
tailored to other personas that they can use to build consensus with fellow buying team
members; late-stage accounts need proof points and differentiation. Running the same
“request a demo” message to all stages generates poor results because it’s misaligned
with where accounts are in their journey.
BUTTON: Content Recommendations for Buying Stages - Measuring only clicks and conversions rather than account-level engagement misses the
point of account-based advertising. The goal is to engage target accounts, keep your
brand top of mind, and influence buying committee perception. An account that saw your
ads 15 times but didn’t click might still include you on their shortlist because you built
awareness. - Failing to coordinate with sales means your ads might be promoting one message while
sales is having different conversations. The best implementations have regular sync
between marketing and sales about which accounts are in active deals, what objections
are coming up, and how advertising can support sales conversations.
What you’ll need to make this work:
- A platform that integrates with advertising channels for audience syncing and account-
level reporting - Budget appropriate to your ICP size and target reach
- Creative resources to build stage-specific assets and messaging
- A demand gen manager who can optimize campaigns based on account engagement
rather than just lead metrics - Regular coordination with sales on which accounts need advertising support
Measuring success
At all maturity levels, track these core account-based metrics:
- Reach: What percentage of target accounts saw your ads?
- Engagement: What percentage of reached accounts engaged (clicked, viewed, or
otherwise interacted)? - Buying stage progression: Are accounts moving from Awareness to Consideration to
Decision after ad exposure? - Total engagement rate: Combined account click-through rate (aCTR) and account
view-through rate (aVTR)
At Walk and Run, add pipeline and revenue metrics:
- Conversion rate from reached accounts to 6QAs, then 6QAs to opportunities
- Pipeline generated from accounts engaged through advertising
- Win rate for deals where advertising supported sales
- Influence on deal velocity (do advertised deals move faster through stages?)
The key is connecting advertising activity to business outcomes, not just measuring marketing
activity metrics. Your exec team cares less about CTR and more about whether advertising is
generating pipeline.
Demand gen typically owns this use case with partnership from brand/creative teams for asset
development. Sales should have input on messaging and visibility into which accounts are being
targeted, especially at Walk and Run maturity where advertising supports active opportunities.
