sales-skills/sales-b2b-advertising

B2B Account-Based Advertising

Help the user plan and execute account-based B2B advertising campaigns — display, social, retargeting, and connected TV. This skill is tool-agnostic but includes platform-specific guidance for ZoomInfo MarketingOS, Demandbase, 6sense, Terminus (now DemandScience), RollWorks, LinkedIn Ads, and Google Ads (B2B targeting).

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What's your advertising goal?

   • A) Build awareness at target accounts (top-of-funnel ABM)
   • B) Accelerate pipeline — engage accounts already in-cycle
   • C) Retarget website visitors who didn't convert
   • D) Support outbound campaigns with air cover
   • E) Re-engage churned or dormant accounts
   • F) Promote content/events to a target account list
   • G) Not sure — need a B2B ad strategy

2. What channels are you considering?

   • A) Display / programmatic ads
   • B) LinkedIn Ads
   • C) Facebook / Meta (B2B targeting)
   • D) Connected TV (CTV)
   • E) Google Ads (search or display)
   • F) Multiple / all channels
   • G) Not sure — recommend channels

3. What ABM/advertising platform do you have?

   • A) ZoomInfo MarketingOS
   • B) Demandbase
   • C) 6sense
   • D) Terminus (DemandScience)
   • E) RollWorks
   • F) LinkedIn Campaign Manager only
   • G) Google Ads only
   • H) None — evaluating options
   • I) Other — describe it

4. How are you defining your target audience?

   • A) Named account list (specific companies)
   • B) Firmographic criteria (industry, size, revenue)
   • C) Intent signals (accounts researching relevant topics)
   • D) Website visitors (retargeting)
   • E) CRM segments (pipeline stage, lifecycle)
   • F) Combination of the above

Step 2 — Strategy and platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for B2B vs B2C comparison, campaign types, audience building, budget framework, attribution, and platform-specific guidance (ZoomInfo, Demandbase, 6sense, Terminus, RollWorks, LinkedIn, Clay, AdRoll, Reddit Ads, Google Ads).

You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.

Step 3 — Actionable guidance

Launching your first ABM ad campaign

1. Define your target account list (TAL) — start with 200-500 accounts max
2. Choose 1-2 channels — LinkedIn + display is the standard starting point
3. Create 3-5 ad variants — test problem-focused vs solution-focused creative
4. Set a 90-day pilot budget — commit enough budget to reach statistical significance
5. Align with sales — tell SDRs which accounts are seeing ads, adjust outbound timing
6. Measure account-level — don't judge B2B ads on clicks; measure pipeline influence

Creative best practices for B2B

• Lead with the problem, not your product — "Still managing compliance in spreadsheets?"
• Use specific numbers — "Reduce audit prep time by 73%" beats "Save time on audits"
• Match creative to intent stage — awareness (industry trends) → consideration (case studies) → decision (demo/pricing)
• Personalize by segment — different creative for different industries, company sizes, or personas
• Keep it simple — B2B display ads have 1-2 seconds of attention. One message, one CTA.

Metrics to track

• Account reach — % of TAL that saw at least one ad impression
• Account engagement — website visits, content downloads from ad-exposed accounts
• Pipeline influence — $ pipeline created at ad-exposed accounts
• Cost per engaged account — total spend / accounts that showed engagement
• Lift vs control — engagement rate of ad-exposed accounts vs unexposed (if you have a holdout group)

Gotchas

1. Don't judge B2B ads by click-through rate — B2B display CTR is typically 0.05-0.1%. That's normal. Measure account-level engagement and pipeline influence instead.

2. Small account lists need larger budgets per account — targeting 100 accounts with $1,000/mo means $10/account/mo, which isn't enough for meaningful reach. Either increase budget or expand the list.

3. LinkedIn matched audiences require 300+ matches — if your uploaded account list has fewer than 300 LinkedIn-matched companies, the audience is too small to run. Supplement with firmographic targeting.

4. Intent signals lag by 1-2 weeks — intent data from platforms like ZoomInfo, Bombora, or 6sense is aggregated weekly. Don't expect real-time intent triggering for ad campaigns.

5. Sales-marketing misalignment kills ABM ads — if SDRs don't know which accounts are seeing ads, they can't reference campaigns or time outreach. Share the target account list and campaign messaging with sales before launch.

• Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.

Before recommending a specific platform skill

This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill (any /sales-{platform} listed in ## Related skills, e.g., /sales-mailshake, /sales-klaviyo, /sales-apollo), read that platform skill's actual SKILL.md first. The 1-line description in ## Related skills is enough to identify a candidate — it's not enough to commit to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.

How to read it:

• If ~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md exists locally, Read it.
• For sales-* skills, WebFetch directly from this repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md — e.g., for sales-mailshake: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/sales-mailshake/SKILL.md.
• For non-sales-* skills (third-party), look up {org}/{repo} in ~/.claude/skills/sales-do/references/skill-sources.md if installed and fetch the same skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md path under that repo.

After reading, ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, a sub-flow, its argument-hint shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." negative trigger). Align any generated invocation with the platform skill's argument-hint. If the platform skill turns out not to fit the user's situation, swap to another or handle the question here directly rather than recommending a poor fit.

Related skills

• /sales-6sense — 6sense platform help (display ads, LinkedIn audience sync, retargeting, contextual targeting — advertising integrated with ABM intent data)
• /sales-zoominfo — ZoomInfo platform help (for MarketingOS-specific setup)
• /sales-intent — interpreting buying signals and prioritizing accounts
• /sales-account-map — mapping buying committees at target accounts
• /sales-cadence — coordinating outbound sequences with ad campaigns
• /sales-prospect-list — building target account lists for advertising
• /sales-funnel — funnel strategy (ads feed the top of the funnel)
• /sales-clay — Clay platform help (enrichment, audience building, Ad Sync)
• /sales-adroll — AdRoll platform help (RollWorks ABM, display retargeting, ecommerce integration)
• /sales-reddit-ads — Reddit Ads platform help (subreddit targeting, community-based B2B ads, Lead Gen Ads)
• /sales-retargeting — Retargeting strategy across all platforms (consumer and B2B)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: ABM air cover for outbound

User says: "We're launching an outbound campaign to 300 target accounts. How do I run ads to warm them up before our SDRs reach out?" Skill does: Recommends starting display + LinkedIn ads 2-4 weeks before SDR outreach. Build audience from the account list, create brand awareness creative, run for 2-3 weeks, then launch outbound. Share the TAL and campaign messaging with SDRs so they can reference the ads. Result: User has coordinated ad + outbound plan with timeline and budget.

Example 2: Retargeting website visitors

User says: "We get 5,000 unique B2B visitors per month but only 2% convert. How do I retarget the other 98%?" Skill does: Recommends identifying visitors with ZoomInfo WebSights or similar IP-to-company tool, building retargeting audiences from identified companies, creating bottom-of-funnel creative (case studies, demo CTAs), and measuring return visit rate and conversion lift. Result: User has a retargeting strategy to capture more value from existing website traffic.

Example 3: Choosing a B2B advertising platform

User says: "Should I use Demandbase, 6sense, or just LinkedIn Ads for our ABM campaigns? We're spending about $10K/mo." Skill does: Compares platforms based on the user's budget, tech stack, and goals. At $10K/mo, recommends LinkedIn + RollWorks (if HubSpot) or LinkedIn + ZoomInfo MarketingOS (if already a ZoomInfo customer) over Demandbase/6sense (which require larger budgets to justify the platform cost). Result: User has a platform recommendation with rationale based on their specific situation.

Troubleshooting

Ads running but no account engagement

Symptom: Impressions are being delivered but target accounts aren't visiting the website or engaging Cause: Creative isn't resonating, audience is too broad, or frequency is too low to break through Solution: Narrow the account list to highest-priority accounts, increase frequency cap, test new creative angles (problem-focused, specific pain points), and ensure ads link to relevant landing pages (not generic homepage).

LinkedIn matched audience too small

Symptom: LinkedIn says your matched audience is too small to run campaigns Cause: Account list has fewer than 300 matches in LinkedIn's database, or many companies are too small for LinkedIn to match Solution: Supplement the matched audience with firmographic targeting (industry + company size + job function). Or combine the account list with a broader LinkedIn audience and use account-level reporting to measure impact on target accounts specifically.

Can't measure pipeline impact

Symptom: Ads are running and accounts are engaging, but can't tie it to pipeline Cause: No attribution system connecting ad exposure to CRM pipeline Solution: Use your ABM platform's built-in attribution (ZoomInfo, Demandbase, 6sense all offer this). If using LinkedIn only, implement UTM tracking + CRM reporting: tag all ad links with UTM parameters, track first-touch and multi-touch attribution in CRM. At minimum, compare pipeline creation rate between ad-exposed and unexposed accounts.