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How Much Does an Omnichannel ABM Campaign Cost Anyway? We Broke it Down

You’ve heard about account-based marketing, and you’re ready to start harnessing the benefits of an ABM campaign. But you’re worried about tight budgets and ensuring your marketing spend is on target for 2023. No sweat. We compiled this guide to help you visualize the typical ROI for account-based marketing efforts per channel, so you can make better choices about how to allocate your ABM strategy per channel and implement ABM as a cost-effective strategy for your business. 

Want to be cost-effective? Lead with strategy-driven ABM

Achieving cost-effectiveness begins and ends with an omnichannel ABM campaign that is strategy-driven. When you’re strategy-focused, you’re consistent across the customer journey, showcasing your knowledge and value upfront. Likewise, your marketing spend is targeted. 

Done right, ABM places ads directly in front of high-intent accounts. With clear messaging and a carefully outlined strategy, you’ll be prepared to heighten your brand awareness and increase engagement across sales outreach. 

How much does it cost to advertise with an omnichannel ABM campaign? 

The cost of your omnichannel strategy depends on how you allocate your budget to different channels. We’ll review how much it costs per contact per week to advertise on LinkedIn and Facebook, with programmatic ads, and using Google. For 500 contacts, you’ll see that this averages to about $3.60 per contact per week, but let’s break it down! 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most popular channels for B2B companies, but it’s also one of the most expensive. LinkedIn is the perfect channel to run targeted campaigns for specific audiences as well as for your retargeting layer.

On LinkedIn, you can upload your own audiences and match account lists directly with account information. Then, you can build on their platform by inserting key criteria such as job title, seniority, location, and more. Generally, the cost per contact per week on LinkedIn can range anywhere from $1.50 to $3.00. With a smaller audience, your cost can be up to $20 per contact while a bigger audience will range from $1.40-$2.00. 

Facebook

Another popular option — and one of the most cost-effective — is Facebook. Due to its inexpensive ad options, Facebook is an excellent choice as a B2B retargeting layer. However, it does not excel with targeted list matching.

While running a Facebook ad campaign, you will want to do complementary sales outreach. This is because you’ll often have a higher rate of impressions, but a lower click-through rate.  

You can expect the cost per contact on Facebook to range from $0.25 to $0.50 each week.

This will vary based on your audience size. When you have a smaller audience, it is typically $1.40-2.00. However, with a bigger audience, it usually falls to $0.10-$0.50. 

All in all, Facebook and LinkedIn are terrific options for retargeting. When implementing retargeting, take advantage of the pixel to track website conversions. 

Programmatic Ads

Want in on a highly effective way to target specific accounts with tailored messaging? Programmatic advertising works well with small audiences of between 100-300 people so you reach your most meaningful audiences with the right message. It’s important to note that match rates are typically low.

Programmatic ads are static or dynamic. They can appear across the internet, often found as footers, sidebars, and headers. There are native and display ads. Native ads blend in with the website’s content, while display ads are flashy and pop out as the user scrolls through. These ads will typically cost about $0.20 per contact per week. Overall, with programmatic advertising, you can expect to spend between $0.10-0.90 per contact per week.

Google Ads

Due to Google’s restrictive cookie policy, you are not permitted to target audiences. But not all hope is lost!

Target keywords and keyword structure by focusing on product pain points that deliver solutions and drive brand awareness. You can even keep your normal keyword structure. Google is a form of broad match advertising, spend is determined on a per-keyword cost basis. Since keyword prices are industry-dependent, we cannot give exact prices for Google.

How to optimize your media cost

Now that you have a better understanding of budgeting for different media channels, how can you optimize the cost

Track buyer intent signals

It’s critical to track buyer intent signals. This allows you to effectively target the right audience. With Propensity, you can access millions of data signals to ensure you’re targeting customers who are actively in-market for your solution with messaging that resonates.

Automate ad creation to save time

Another key way to optimize media cost is with automated ad creation. Automating ads saves time by instantly generating ad copy and designs within the drag-and-drop designer. By  spending less time creating ads, you can spend more time optimizing your campaign and hitting your targets.

De-prioritize underperforming channels

Knowing which channels drive revenue helps you budget effectively. De-prioritize channels that don’t meet expectations and phase out any campaigns that don’t generate ROI. Instead, allocate your marketing budget toward proven strategies and limit spending to experimental strategies — but don’t cut them out entirely. You never know when you’ll strike gold in a new ad strategy. 

Keep track of your metrics

It may seem obvious, but don’t forget to keep track of your progress! Reporting tools like Propensity’s help you streamline processes and quickly make adjustments.

Measure frequency to avoid high frequency on the same accounts because you don’t want to be intrusive or spam accounts with your messaging, and stop the campaign if you don’t get a frequency of more than three times per week. Keep track of impressions as well. When the cost per impression (CPM) increases, the cost is higher to reach those people. If it diverges too far from your average, update the audience or pause the campaign to limit frequency.  

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In Conclusion…

Ultimately, each omnichannel ABM campaign will result in a different combination of outcomes 

based on the channels you choose to target and the number of accounts in your campaign. With Propensity, our customers can expect to discover how many leads you have to reach to create an opportunity, if your messaging prompts action from your target market, if your product and positioning are differentiated, if your CTA drives action and create conversion, and if your audience improves targeting efficiency.

To best ensure you can operate with a tight budget, you need to know where your marketing spend is going. At Propensity, we’re here to help you make the most of your marketing dollars. We give you full control over your advertising budget so you can make the best decisions for your ABM campaign. Ready to learn more about how you can improve typical ROI for account-based marketing efforts? Run your next ABM campaign with us. Take us for a test drive with our free trial.