Bridging The Marketing Gap

Board meetings are about top-line company performance, but the CEO and the CFO aren’t the only people contributing to that goal. CMOs — like other executives — play a critical role yet are often left off to the side. One reason CMOs may not speak at board meetings is because few board members have marketing expertise, which often means that “marketing speak” is lost on the people in the room.

In the Fortune 1000, one study found that only 26 seats out of more than 10,000 were held by former CMOs, which means that the marketing leader is often speaking to a room of people that have different priorities and terminologies. With these challenges in mind, CMOs may find that they get more from the meeting if they take an approach that connects with the people in the room based on their knowledge, goals and style of communication.

CFOs Can Help CMOs Translate To “Board Speak”

While a CMO is an expert at everything from their ideal customer profile to the competitive features of their products and even the capabilities of marketing technology investments, most board members are not — and usually get lost when presented with that level of detail. It’s best to stay away from marketing jargon or getting too much into the weeds.

Collaborating with your CFO can be an effective way to figure out the right balance of data and narrative to communicate with a board. This level of partnership will help align the marketing narrative with the rest of the board materials when the time comes. While day-to-day discussions are tactical, the CFO should be able to help the CMO determine which elements are important at that particular board meeting.

This help can come in the form of measuring and quantifying the financial and sometimes non-financial impact of marketing activities and collaborating on how to best present the information. CFOs typically have the most frequent communication with the board in between quarterly meetings and can help prepare CMOs for likely questions or concerns or validate a positive reaction.

Play To The Audience

Understanding the expertise and focus of the board members can also help marketing leaders shape their presentations. It is critical to learn about the composition, interests and priorities of the board of directors, which are usually heavily slanted toward financial expertise.

The other members of the board may or may not be marketing experts and often have their own focus. They could be former CTOs, sales leaders or have another value to bring to the meeting. Understanding what they care about will help CMOs relay the value of marketing more effectively. Getting to know individual board members by asking for insight between meetings can help the CMO better understand their perspective and build consensus that will help during budget or strategy discussions.

Data is also a great equalizer. CMOs can use data to demonstrate the impact of marketing efforts on key performance indicators (KPIs). The marketing leader should be able to provide examples of successful marketing campaigns that directly contributed to the achievement of strategic goals. Be it brand recognition, a product launch, an increase in pipeline, MQLs or something else, each will have its own set of expectations and measurement of KPIs. This approach is especially key when starting any new initiatives to set goals, milestones and hurdles along the way for easy measurement and flexibility to pivot. Actual results with data supporting it will excite any Board member.

Accept The Board Meeting For What it Is

Board members are people that are invested in the success of the organization, which means they’ll scrutinize the information delivered to ensure that it makes sense. The right approach for a CMO empowers board members with information and showcases the valuable role of the CMO and their team without going so deep as to lose their interest.

CMOs that successfully navigate a board meeting aren’t just good communicators, they’re also good interpreters and smart strategists that ultimately win the respect of the board. Board members are rarely as interested in the details as the company executives, and only get a snapshot of what’s happening. The marketing leader needs to play their cards right and not make big promises or hype up a new idea so much that the board members grab onto it too tightly. This is a time to play it safe, stick to the script of initial goals and their results and any learnings from that activity which the data provides.

Jim Ogle is the Chief Financial Officer of Anteriad, a full funnel marketing and B2B data solutions provider.

The post Navigating The B2B Boardroom: CFO Insights For CMO Impact appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

“The 2024 B2B Marketing Outlook: The Data Confidence Divide,” released by full-funnel marketing solutions provider Anteriad and personalized research services provider Ascend2, uncovered that:

• 59% of marketers ranked authenticity among their most important brand attributes, usurping customer-centricity, transparency, consistency and innovation;
• 49% believe it’s possible to strike the right balance between AI and authenticity;
• 66% indicated that improving data quality was their top priority, while 60% said it’s their top challenge; and
• 46% of marketers who were confident in their data strategies anticipated significant revenue increases, compared to just 15% of their less confident counterparts.

Intent & Personalization Powering Pipeline Growth

Additionally, marketers who were extremely confident in their personalization strategy were 3.5X more likely to expect significant increases in pipeline growth. Shifting toward intent data’s role in effective personalization, 57% of marketers who leverage intent data are extremely confident in targeting the right personas and ideal customer profiles compared to 48% who don’t use intent data.

Generational Preferences Influencing AI Sentiment

Confidence also varies across generations of marketers. Regarding the ability to balance AI and brand authenticity, 56% of Millennial and Gen Z marketers believe that it is possible to strike the perfect balance between authenticity and using AI, compared to 42% of Gen X marketers and just 29% of Boomers.

“We expanded our scope this year to include marketers around the globe, and found that while there are common priorities, especially around the importance of balancing AI with authenticity and prioritizing data quality, there are variations in strategies and tactics in use today,” said Lynn Tornabene, CMO at Anteriad, in a statement. “For example, while 38% of North American marketers use intent data for personalization, only 29% of marketers in APAC and EMEA do. We also found that marketers with high confidence in their approach tended to have experienced better results and expect higher growth. At Anteriad, we know that many elements can contribute to high confidence, including measurable success, access to quality data and implementation of proven best practices — all things that we work closely with our customers to deliver.”

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Many of these conversations are — as usual — directed at global B2C brands. But while these brands trade in volume, the more interesting story is B2B brands, which trade in accuracy and precision. Rather than using their data to reach bigger audiences, B2B brands can use data to refine their insights to further improve their highly targeted approach.

But wait, it gets more complicated: While B2C marketers are focused on individuals and households, B2B marketers are focused on individuals as part of accounts and buying groups within those accounts. A study from Forrester found that 94% of B2B marketers sell to groups of three or more, with more than one-third selling to groups of 10 or more. To successfully use identity-based advertising to reach an entire buying group, B2B brands need a slightly different approach than their B2C colleagues.

Getting The Data Right

ID-based targeting, which uses a stable unique identifier based on first-party data for more accurate targeted advertising than third-party cookies, is only as good as the data being used. That means B2B marketers need up-to-date and complete information about an entire buying group, which averages between six and 10 people, according to Gartner.

The first (and most important) step is to build out first-party data that’s organized around these buying groups. While B2C marketers have individual customer profiles, B2B marketers need to also have information about how individuals are connected. In a customer data platform (CDP) or other data management solution, this requires an extra layer of organization. When anyone in the buying group takes an action (completes a search, downloads an article) that information is added to the buying group record, not just the individual record. 

Connecting individuals based on the company they work with, their roles and responsibilities, as well as their activity and interaction with the company, requires detective work. While a B2B marketer builds up their own first-party insights about a buying group, they’ll likely need to augment this with partner data that can build out the complete picture, including important signals like intent. With a core record of a buying group, B2B brands are set up to have a view of all their activity across channels and create highly targeted advertising campaigns.

Getting Used To Identity Matching

With a database full of buying-group information, B2B marketers are in a good position to activate ID-based advertising campaigns. This is where those “data clean rooms” come in. Using first-party data for advertising requires a safe and secure way to share information with advertising partners. If a B2B marketer wants to use their own data set to advertise on a specific website, they need to “match” their data to that website’s audience using encrypted IDs. The clean room is where this happens.

Having data clean room capabilities helps B2B marketers securely activate their own data on a partner website and augment it with data from partners to further build out their profile. While some data sets can be matched up using a common key, such as an email address or cookie, in many cases, it requires an “identity graph,” also sometimes called an “identity spine.” Companies with a robust identity graph have enough insights about an audience to match two disparate data sets accurately to make that match even without those two sets sharing a common match key.

For example, if a B2B marketer collects data from activity on their own website, they’ll be able to record any recent site visits, downloads and clicks. However, there might be a partner with lots of additional insights, such as a reseller partner that has a high-volume website featuring a lot of different products. A B2B marketer can “match” the data from their partner site to gain additional insights about their target accounts, such as potential searches for competitor products.

Better Campaigns & Better Results

Of course, all this work to create a great database is just the beginning of a new phase in B2B marketing and advertising. Data becomes the foundation of an omnichannel marketing strategy that is more accurate and more personalized. For example, a marketer could set a frequency cap of an ad across an entire buying group or trigger an email campaign to a specific stakeholder based on the actions of a different stakeholder. In other words, imagine being able to share an article about how secure your products are to the privacy stakeholder right after her boss just downloaded a white paper on your site.

The beauty of identity-based advertising is that it puts marketers in more control while still maintaining user choice and privacy. Not only can they be more precise, but they also get insights back that can build a better picture and inform the next touch in the customer journey. Marketing channels like email have had some of this for years now. Identity-based advertising brings this same capability to the bigger picture. 

Naomi Sherry is the Sr. Digital Demand Strategist at Anteriad, a full-funnel marketing solutions provider.

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Data pricing for audience augmentation and ad targeting is still stagnating where display inventory was more than a decade ago, when publishers could create a rate card using best guesses and competitive intelligence. Programmatic advertising emerged and inventory pricing evolved significantly. There was a period where good inventory was commoditized as part of a drive towardscale, and now we’re in a period where inventory is priced somewhat in line with its perceived value. 

I predict data is on a similar path.

No More Data Abuse

Throughout the inventory pricing roller coaster, the data itself was priced with a fixed CPM. While inventory has matured and programmatic bidding has proliferated, one fact holds true — only one ad can be placed per impression. 

On the other hand, hundreds of different brands can buy the same data and use it ad infinitum. Because of this ability for data to be used repeatedly, it has been misused and incorrectly valued. The lag of reporting and lack of control and insight over data use and pricing has led to some ridiculous situations.

Media buyers target using disparate data sets and don’t use any universal frequency cap. They amass data into target audience groups that are preposterously huge, much larger than the real population of soccer moms or sports fans that they are targeting. And when competitors use the same data to target the same audience, they gain absolutely zero competitive advantage.

By now, many media buyers have gotten a bit smarter about how they use data for targeting, efficiently breaking things apart into multiple attributes, evaluating data partners across multiple audiences and organizing them so that each one is its own tactic, with tens, if not hundreds, of rows or micro targets to test and optimize. But the price and value of data still exists in some realm outside of how it’s actually used and how frequently.   

A Change In Data Prices

Interestingly, the demise of third-party cookies has led marketers to take data more seriously. B2B marketers plan to increase their use of zero-party data by 30%, and first-party data by 26%. The increasing focus on their own data will bring the value of data in general into focus. Marketers already realize they aren’t going to be able to rely solely on their own data and are starting to scrutinize their data partners in new ways. 

There are a few changes coming to data that will create the opportunity for it to behave more like programmatic inventory, where it’s priced based on the market, with special deals and pricing on the side. As more brands accurately test and measure the performance of different data sets, they’ll be more confident about buying what works. Good data, from companies who take privacy and content seriously, will be in higher demand, and data providers can confidently change their prices based on the market response. 

What’s more, just like media buyers pay a premium to ensure that their competitors can’t advertise near them on a page, it’s likely marketers will also pay a premium to limit who else has access to data to ensure they have unique insights. Just like today’s programmatic guaranteed and PMP deals for inventory, it’s likely there will be similar deals for data — like getting “first dibs” on people who are shopping for a new car. 

A New Era Of Data Pricing

The changes in advertising influenced by the shift from third-party to first-party data open the door for a few different changes to data pricing, such as:

1. More bulk deals with agencies. Most holding companies have close relationships with data providers already. It’s possible that agencies continue with bulk deals to get data at a discount and then work with their clients to price the data in a way that works for them. This works best for big data sets that are used at scale across a lot of brands.
2. Dynamic bidding on data that’s more like today’s programmatic inventory market. The only difference is that until now, inventory was scarce and data was not. But there is the potential of adding scarcity to the market. If good data is used by too many companies, it’s possible that marketing performance goes down, creating a need for a mechanism to limit the number of companies that can buy it, thus increasing the price.
3. Cost of media model through programmatic channels. While it won’t work for all cases, applying pricing to data based on the cost of media could become more popular with advertisers who want to use audience targeting at scale in a way that’s affordable by capping the cost of data to the price of the media buy. 

The majority of marketers — 70% — said that consumer data is the lifeblood of their organization, and the move to identity and first-party data gives marketers more control, insight and confidence to fine tune the way they use data. Smart marketers will get ahead of the curve and start forging the right data partnerships early, lock in good prices and gain access to the data that delivers the best performance before the coming surge in demand for the good stuff. 

Ben Goldman is the SVP of Business Development for Anteriad, a provider of full-funnel marketing solutions.

The post Data Is About To Be Priced Differently appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

• Anteriad acquired BNZSA to bring localized expertise to Anteriad’s global footprint, including the ability to execute campaigns in 26 languages.
• Anteriad and BNZSA share an approach that combines data, technology and a high-touch client service model.
• The combined organization seeks to deliver B2B demand generation, ABM solutions and in-market customization at global scale

Anteriad, a full-funnel B2B marketing solution, acquired BNZSA, a global B2B marketing agency, to provide clients with access to the combined company’s global scale and reach, as well as local expertise in global markets to help execute campaigns in 26 languages.

The acquisition will combine Anteriad’s intent data, account-based marketing, analytics and performance marketing capabilities with BNZSA’s GDPR-compliant data and tele-based conversion-oriented services. The goal is to provide differentiated, full-funnel B2B demand generation capabilities at a global scale that are supported by regional and local leadership. BNZSA will operate as “BNZSA, powered by Anteriad” and will function as the international division of Anteriad while also serving as its EMEA headquarters.

“Anteriad means to ‘get in front,’ and acquiring BNZSA delivers on that philosophy,” said Rob Sanchez, CEO of Anteriad, in a statement. “By expanding our global reach through this acquisition, Anteriad establishes itself as a true global leader in tech-enabled B2B marketing solutions. BNZSA brings an extremely talented leadership team and a differentiated offering that is made even more valuable by their local presence in key markets around the world. Leadership at Anteriad and BNZSA are both invested in our people, our clients and our growth. With this solid foundation, we will accomplish remarkable things for our clients in the global B2B marketing community.”

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At the same time, B2B marketers are increasing their reliance on data to create more relevant marketing and engage their customers more effectively. A recent study from Gartner found that while B2B customers expect that companies will use data to keep track of their movements during the marketing process, they want their data to be safe and kept private. This creates added pressure to get data privacy right. 

One way that B2B marketers can stay above the fray is to work with partners that take data privacy seriously. Whether it’s during the proposal and evaluation process, a contract renewal or before a new project kickoff, it’s never a bad time for companies to reach out to their data partners to get a better understanding of their data practices.

Here are five tough questions brands should ask every partner:

1. What security protocols and certifications do you have in place? 

An organization’s technology department can put together a risk assessment document that covers all applicable questions. At a minimum, any company that handles large amounts of data should be certified for SOC 2 and ISO. Marketers should ask companies to share certificates and recent penetration test results.

The tech department will likely want to know if the vendor of choice uses multifactor authentications, and the team will want more info on their file transfer protocol, where their servers are located and if they transfer data overseas. Once practitioners get the answers, the tech team can evaluate and determine any risks or gaps that need to be addressed. 

2. Have you ever had a data breach?

Hopefully the answer is “no,” but as we’ve seen on the news, many companies with good data integrity have experienced a breach. If the answer is “yes,” it’s important to understand what happened and what they’ve done to create better protections. Ask the provider questions such as:

• What additional layers of data security have you added?
• Was the data breach due to negligence?
• Have you had any other data issues?

Knowing if a data provider was reported to a regulatory agency due to an infringement of rights or if they were fined will help marketers understand if a company had bad data practices in the past. 

3. What is your privacy policy?

Of course, marketers should be able to access the policy on the company’s website, but it’s important to dig in and ask more questions. For example, a brand should see if they process sensitive personal information and if they are being transparent about their use of data and what they collect, store and transfer. All data companies should use GDPR, CCPA and other regulatory best practices when it comes to collecting, storing and sharing data. Marketers should see if the provider has sufficient opt-out and “do not sell my personal information” links. 

Transparency is key: Companies that take their privacy policy seriously will update it frequently, discuss their adherence to regulations clearly and conduct regular audits and third-party oversight to keep them on track. What’s more, upstanding companies should train their entire staff on the data best practices and have plans in place should an issue occur, such as a breach notification policy, and a “whistleblower” policy to allow people to report security beaches and concerns safely. 

4. Who else do you work with?

Ask potential data providers for testimonials, look at their case studies and search their website to see if any of your competitors or peers use them (which is a good thing, in this case.) Look for other accreditations and awards that they may have received with attest to security, competency and compliance, e.g., if they are an “approved” vendor for very large companies with stringent vetting processes. 

5. Can you safely deliver and scale to meet the needs of my company?

The aftermath of Covid-19 and the shift to remote work heightened the need for seamless technology. As B2B marketers increase their use of digital channels, data is becoming a bigger part of their business. Partners need to practice good data management and assure B2B marketers that they can do so at scale and grow with the company as needed without any future issues. Data companies should be able to offer features like API deliveries, direct platform access and 24/7 support across necessary regions and languages.

Finding good partners is tough enough for B2B marketers looking for campaign performance. It can seem like an added burden to also require top notch data privacy, too. But good data management is good performance: More B2B marketers will be held to high standards, which means their partners need to meet or exceed those standards. Better to ask the tough questions before investing than having to deal with issues down the road. 

Karie Burt is the Chief Data and Privacy Officer at Anteriad, a full funnel B2B marketing solutions provider. Since joining the company in 2013, the organization has relied on Burt’s expertise in B2B data-driven solutions, including ABM strategies with a specialty in global brands. In 2021, she took on the role of Chief Data and Privacy Officer and now oversees Anteriad’s privacy matters and advises clients on best practice and compliance. Burt’s two passions are international travel and her large, badly behaved rescue dogs — and she’s still trying to figure out how to combine the two!

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Snowflake Marketplace — powered by Snowflake’s cross-cloud technology, Snowgrid — is designed to provide companies with direct access to raw data products and leverage data quickly, securely and cost-effectively. Strengthened by Anteriad’s data, the Marketplace hopes to provide more intent insights, firmographics and technographics for B2B marketers to leverage.

“B2B marketers need data solutions that operate between platforms within their tech stack to help support various use cases,” said Todd Love, Chief Commercial Officer at Anteriad, in a statement. “To empower marketers for adtech or martech initiatives, Anteriad delivers a broad set of differentiated data solutions that can help clients test, match and deliver data through Snowflake Marketplace. Driving value from your first-party data is not new, but the ease and speed of which it can happen will help solve for various use cases without having to sign up for another black box.”

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TruAudience solutions seek to provide scalable identity to enable audience targeting and consumer engagement across offline, digital and streaming environments. The Data Marketplace, in particular, helps advertisers reach connected homes and consumers across their myriad devices. 

“CTV and streaming audio are valuable advertising channels for B2B marketers looking to differentiate from their competition,” said Todd Love, Chief Commercial Officer at Anteriad, in a statement. “With the TransUnion partnership, they can access Anteriad’s highly relevant data to accurately reach their audiences in a new context that can move more leads down the funnel.”

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In response, marketers need to take steps to stay abreast of data security and privacy legislation. The current regulatory environment means the challenges are greater than ever to stay on the right side of privacy and security compliance.

So, what can marketers do to meet rising consumer expectations — and regulatory requirements — regarding data privacy and still be successful in meeting their business goals? Better yet, how do B2B marketers create a data-privacy-compliant marketing strategy?

Starting With The Basics

To stay compliant with regulatory schemes, it is important to understand what they require. From the European Union’s GDPR to the CCPA, data privacy laws are numerous and nuanced. However, both are grounded in the necessity to protect the rights of data subjects and provide transparency about:

• What data is held;
• Who has access to the data;
• How it’s used or activated (and by who); and
• Where it’s transferred/sold, with the right to stop any movement.
• Being able to answer these important questions is the best place for marketers to start when creating compliant strategies and activities to engage prospects and customers.

Shifting To First-Party Data Is Just The Beginning

Marketing and demand generation departments have relied on third-party data to serve ads to prospects. The deprecation of cookies and platform-data restrictions are impacting the way marketers are creating audiences, resulting in a noticeable shift from third-party, cookie-driven audience identification tactics.

In the new privacy landscape, first-party data becomes infinitely more important. Strategies utilizing first-party data allow for personalization and targeting while likely being more compliant than relying on third-party data that has no clear permission or audit trail.

The use of more first-party data (or clearly permissioned data) along with building experiences, creating engaging content or offering promotions in exchange for information are key parts of a successful data-collection strategy. It’s not enough to rely on information captured at the bottom of the funnel; you must build relationships with your audiences at every stage.

Generating Better Compliance Through Technology

Privacy, like many other practice areas, has become automated. Platforms and tools can help you:

• Maintain good data governance and compliance;
• Ensure requests are answered; and
• Ensure information is retrieved and returned to data subjects in accordance with applicable legislation.

Most privacy laws require “rights of access” to individuals. This means prospects and customers must have a way to ask for a copy of the data categories being gathered, or for their data to be deleted. To comply with these requests quickly and reliably, businesses need easy-to-use solutions for automating tasks like data deletion and archiving. Robust, compliant processes are must haves — not nice to haves.

Building Trust

It’s important to understand that we are in a new era of empowered individuals. Prospects and customers want to understand how their data is being collected, shared and used, and now they have legislative rights as to what information advertisers can access and how they can use it.

Common themes across the regulatory landscape, both enacted and under consideration, include requirements to provide consumers with more information and choices about data usage and the need for transparency. Marketers must earn prospects’ and customers’ trust (and stay compliant) with the following best practices:

1. Audit and review the data you have in-house, whether it’s first-, second- or third-party data, and assess how you plan to use each type of data;
2. Run a privacy risk assessment for each type of data.
3. Document what data you’re collecting, how you’re collecting it and what you are going to do with it;
4. Think about the customer or prospect journey in terms of the benefits prospects will receive, such as a better user experience or more personalized content; and
5. Update your privacy policy to ensure you are transparent about what types of data you collect, process and store.

The landscape is set for a proliferation of new legislation, and the calls for a federal approach in the U.S. are loud and gaining traction. Privacy and resultant legislation should be embraced by marketers, who can use it as a tool for driving demand and engagement for their products or services. Creating a culture and environment that respects the shift to transparency and data subjects’ rights in the workplace creates a win-win for marketers, clients and employees.

Karie Burke is the Chief Data and Privacy Officer for Anteriad, formerly MeritB2B. Since 2013, the organization has relied on her ever-growing expertise in global B2B data-driven solutions. Burke launched Anteriad’s flagship International Database in late 2013 and has overseen that product from inception to its current day, GDPR-compliant iteration.

The post How B2B Marketers Can Thrive In The Age Of Data Privacy appeared first on Demand Gen Report.

Anteriad

Tornabene, who was previously a Global Marketing VP at Oracle, will focus on building Anteriad’s brand and thought leadership strategy, further develop the global marketing team, manage analyst relations and deliver content for clients and prospects at every touchpoint.

“Lynn is the kind of marketing leader that we need to help execute our ambitious growth strategy,” said Rob Sanchez, CEO at Anteriad, in a statement. “With our newly combined organization and the depth of talent on our marketing team, we have all of the pieces in place to power B2B marketing success for enterprises and mid-market companies. Lynn’s expertise in go-to-market strategy, thought leadership, demand generation and marketing growth is truly impressive, and I’m thrilled to welcome her to the executive team.”

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