For many revenue leaders, enterprise customers are a key growth lever, bringing with them large annual contract values and huge potential for account expansion.

But connecting with enterprise buyers isn't as easy as it sounds. Reaching prospects with decision-making authority is tough. Long, multilayered sales cycles make targeting complex. And a lack of insight into the actual impact of your ad programs is near impossible when you're limited by your toolset and don't know whom you're reaching.

Contact-level advertising addresses those core B2B marketing challenges and helps revenue leaders connect with actual decision-makers.

But how does the game change once we drop that functionality into the mix?

The Current Challenges in Enterprise B2B Advertising

Selling to larger companies has an obvious upside: a huge revenue potential. But it's not without its challenges.

High-Stakes Sales Cycles

Enterprise sales don't close off the back of a single sales demo, ad click, or free trial. More commonly, the enterprise sales cycle looks something like this:

It's a complex journey made up of multiple channels, touchpoints, and decision-makers. The typical enterprise sales cycle lasts between six months and two years and, in nearly two-thirds of cases, involves four or more stakeholders.

To help push deals through the pipeline faster and reduce complexity, we need to know that our programs are reaching everyone in the buying group and that our spend isn't being wasted on non-decision-makers.

Generic Account-Level Targeting

Personalization is important to closing enterprise deals. In fact, 72% of B2B buyers expect personalized interactions.

But if we're relying on persona-based or even account-based targeting alone, we can't effectively personalize engagement to specific people and buying groups beyond a name merge tag.

We need to go a layer deeper.

Lack of Alignment in Messaging and Timing

The lack of alignment between Sales and Marketing is an age-old issue, but it has an outsized impact on our ability to close enterprise deals.

Too often, the two teams go after different prospects, target the same prospects at different times, or differ significantly in their use of messaging, hurting our ability to connect effectively with decision-makers and influence deals.

Difficulties in Measuring Results

We know we need to demonstrate the real-world impact of our programs, but often struggle to do so because traditional attribution models aren't shaped around enterprise-level deals.

Instead, it is binary.

Most attribution programs say, "Someone engaged with this marketing program, which led them to buy our product." That logic might work in some impulse-buy B2C contexts, but it's not enough to explain what influences buyers at B2B enterprise companies.

Why Contact-Level Advertising Is Essential for Enterprise Success

When targeting enterprise accounts, the first hurdle is getting in front of the people who are actually responsible for making a buying decision.

Here's how contact-level advertising helps get the job done.

Precision in Reaching Decision-Makers

Once we've mapped out the account and established which stakeholders are in the buying group—through careful collaboration with Sales—contact-level targeting allows us to directly reach those specific individuals.

There's no more spray and pray. We choose the person, the creative, and the timing, which also means we can then attribute the influence of our ad programs much more accurately.

Personalization at Scale

Real personalization isn't possible unless we're targeting at the contact level. With contact-level advertising, we can deliver tailored messages to each key stakeholder in the buying group, increasing relevance and engagement.

As we learn more about a given prospect—for example, Sales uncovers an objection from a core buying-group member—we can adjust our ad creative, keeping messaging relevant to the prospect's stage in the buying journey.

Real-Time Intent Signals for Sales