How Mobile is Changing the Way B2B Marketers Work

Most people across the globe now own 4 or more connected devices (closer to 13 in North America!), and many of these are likely mobile. More and more business is being conducted in a mobile environment as well. People are traveling, always on, and using mobile devices to do business when and where they need to.

Most people across the globe now own 4 or more connected devices (closer to 13 in North America!), and many of these are likely mobile. More and more business is being conducted in a mobile environment as well. People are traveling, always on, and using mobile devices to do business when and where they need to.

In a B2B world, this means marketers are having to track customers across multiple devices and somehow still connect with that customer in a targeted and meaningful way. How do marketers tie together all the devices being used and how do they decipher between personal and business use of such devices? What’s more, how do you tie the online world to the customer actions that are taking place in real life?

Managing Multiple Customer Identities

In our omni-channel cross-platform world today, proper measurement and effective attribution cannot be carried out without having an identity resolution system/process. With the proliferation of the number of devices that generate data (computers, laptops, tablets, phones, wearables) and the amount of data available, managing identity is becoming a very complex endeavor.

While we typically think of identity in the context of a person, in the B2B world, we have to think of the “Account Identity” and look at the larger set of people within the account (and not just an individual) to whom we need to be talking. As marketers track a customer through an account journey both online and offline, there must be a way to tie together a single person’s identity to a company with a universal identifier. This identifier can then be linked across devices to build one global identity for each person within the company and then rolled up to an account level so marketers can see all activity within each target account.

The Benefits Of Universal Identity Across Devices

When trying to track actions taken by individuals across devices, it’s important to understand how those individuals fit into their respective organizations. By understanding commercial, as well as legal, relationships within the accounts you are targeting, you are able to then build company hierarchies that give you a more complete picture of your target accounts, no matter how many devices are being used to interact with your company. Understanding who you are talking to within the company also allows you to determine how far down the funnel you are. For instance, if a procurement manager from a target account is taking actions on your site or content, it may be a sign you are fairly far down the funnel.

Cross-device identity management also allows marketers to highly personalize content per individual and per channel. Customers expect personalized messages delivered to them on the device of their choice. Without a unique identifier, a single person can be exposing themselves as seven to ten different IDs that are considered seven to ten different people. And this doesn’t even take into account the in-person interactions that customer has with your business. Now we have technology that allows us to bring those identities together and view them as one person, allowing for a connected and seamless customer experience.

One of the biggest benefits of managing identity across devices is that it allows for better campaign tracking over time, which is critical to account-based sales and marketing strategies. You need to know if the people you were targeting are, in fact, the ones who visited your website. By knowing this information, you can gauge campaign effectiveness and ROI.

The Future Of Mobile Marketing

Despite measurement and targeting obstacles, US mobile ad spending grew 25.0% in 2017 and will grow an additional 20% in 2018, according to eMarketer. Continued progress in measurement likely will sustain high growth rates.

It’s clear that the number of mobile devices a person uses on a daily basis is growing. From wearables to smart phones to tablets to laptops, marketers are going to have to continue to connect the dots in order to identify the right people within the right accounts, to deliver personalized content to those people, and to measure campaign success in a connected way by pulling in information from all devices. Those companies that can stitch together the pieces, through use of data and universal identifiers, will realize results the fastest.