Note
This functionality is limited to our legacy display advertising product (tactics/campaigns launched pre-spring 2023). This feature will continue to function for any legacy tactics that still remain active in your instance, but it cannot be utilized with any current or future campaigns.
To create audiences for the new display ads, please see the segment builder article.
Prerequisites
This feature is available to Terminus customers that have both Data Studio and Ad Experiences as part of their current subscription.
Feature Overview
Terminus Data Studio lets you identify which accounts in your Total Addressable Market you should be pursuing with marketing and sales outreach right now, and lets you easily create and manage those account audiences using Global Filters and saved Account Lists.
In Terminus Ad Experiences, you can also use Global Filters and saved lists as the basis for your advertising audiences on the display and LinkedIn advertising channels. Enhanced audience segmentation allows users to more efficiently filter their CRM data and broader accounts lists by additional behavior or buying stage-based filters, such as the presence of intent, or a certain opportunity stage, to create sophisticated ad progressions that lead accounts down the buying journey.
Pro Tip: Account Lists
Generally, Account Lists should be used to create groups or segments of accounts that you plan to target with marketing and sales programs over a specific time period - such as a quarter or a year. They should represent relatively static segments, such as high-fit accounts in a particular industry, geography, or company size (or however you segment your marketing efforts). This is the audience that you’ll measure progress against, and you’ll use it as the basis for different campaigns throughout the quarter or year.
Enhanced audience segmentation introduces the ability to filter down your saved lists to accounts you wish to advertise to within those segments, without having to create lists solely dedicated for advertising initiatives. You can also directly filter your connected CRM data, without having to derive your advertising audience from a saved list, for further flexibility.
Using Enhanced Audience Segmentation to Create an Advertising Tactic
Since the filtering in Enhanced audience segmentation will directly mirror your Global Filters in the Data Studio, (initially configured during your Terminus onboarding period), you should first check to ensure that the desired filter options have been configured in your Data Studio instance before launching an advertising tactic.
Feature Note: Cross-Object Filtering
Using Global Filters is the most efficient method for creating advertising audiences that reference multiple Salesforce objects. When you use the current SFDC audience rule builder, you can only reference a single object to bring in your desired accounts, which can limit your ability to whittle down to the exact audience you’re wanting to target.
Enhanced audience segmentation resolves this by letting you filter across any attribute available in your Data Studio Global Filters for a single audience. It is also not currently possible to create cross-object reports in SFDC directly - another added benefit of Terminus Global Filters!
Once you have confirmed that your desired Global Filters are in place, you will navigate to your Ad Experiences instance to create a new advertising tactic.
In the first step, you will select your advertising channel, and then select your audience source as “Terminus Account Hub".
On the next page, you will have the option to:
- Select Global Filter options to create an advertising audience
- Select a saved account list to use as your advertising audiences
- Select a combination of Global Filters and saved account lists to create an advertising audience
Like our existing SFDC integration, you will have the ability to layer in as many filter options as needed to get down to your desired list of accounts.
Pro Tip: Terminus SFDC Integration vs. Global Filters
While Enhanced audience segmentation brings a ton of flexibility and new possibilities for your advertising programs, some customers that have utilized our existing Salesforce integration for advertising in the past may find that there are some scenarios where it is more beneficial.
For example: You may choose to use the Salesforce rule builder to launch a marketing campaign when you want to measure the performance of individual accounts over a short period of time (e.g., an advertising tactic launched two weeks ahead of a field marketing event to provide additional air cover).
When measuring a broader set of strategic accounts across key segments, and over a longer period of time (like a quarter, or throughout the year), you should use Account Lists and/or Global Filters in the advertising tactic builder.
As you add in filtering criteria, the Target Accounts Preview box and count will update to show an approximate count of all the accounts that currently meet your criteria. We will also show a preview of the first 50 accounts that meet your rules, and will append that preview with our firmographic filters available in Data Studio, to further validate that we are bringing in the right accounts.
If you’d like to see all accounts that meet your audience rules, you can click on the link to the right of the audience account, and you’ll be navigated to your Data Studio instance.
With this audience source, you will still be held to our standard per-tactic account limits - 1,500 accounts for display advertising. Due to the potentially dynamic nature of this functionality, tactics with audiences of more than 1,500 can be submitted, however, if your audience does exceed the limits, accounts will be selected at random by our system when the tactic is set live. As accounts are inactivated (either manually or dynamically) in the tactic, accounts sitting in your audience queue will automatically flow in.
Once your criteria and additional tactic settings have been selected and you submit a new tactic for your review, your accounts will flow in via our next data cycle (over night), and we will bring in any accounts that meet your global filter + list criteria at that time.
Managing Lists & Advertising Audiences
Once your advertising tactic is up and running in Ad Experiences, there are a few ways you can manage your audience:
-
Launching an advertising tactic from a static account list will maintain your advertising audience for the entire runtime of your campaign, unless accounts are manually turned off, or are removed/added to that list in Data Studio. With Enhanced audience segmentation, however, accounts will move in and out of your advertising tactics dynamically, as they are updated in your connected CRM.
- For example: If you originally selected to target accounts in Opportunity Stage = “Demo Requested,” and an account in your CRM is updated from Stage = “Interest” to Stage = “Demo Requested,” that account will move into your advertising tactic after our next data cycle (overnight).
- Accounts will also be inactivated in a running tactic if they no longer match the Global Filter settings you originally selected. However, they will be reactivated in that tactic if they match that same criteria again in the future, (NOTE: This functionality is exclusive to tactics that are using Enhanced audience segmentation with Global Filters).
- For example: If you originally selected to target accounts in Opportunity Stage = “Interest,” and an account in your list is updated in your connected CRM to Opportunity Stage = “Demo Complete,” that account will switch to an inactive status during our next data cycle (overnight).
-
Similarly, if accounts were originally selected based on the criteria Last Engagement Spike = “Last 30 Days,” and an account is inactivated in that tactic when it’s engagement spike date exceeds 30 days, the account will reactivate if a new engagement spike occurs while the tactic is still active.
- Users can manually deactivate accounts off at any time in the Tactic Details Page.
A few additional notes on functionality to consider when using this feature:
- If an Account List associated to an advertising tactic that has global filters applied is deleted in Data Studio, all active accounts in that tactic will be inactivated in the next data cycle (over night).
- If one of the Global Filters (or corresponding Field Names) are updated or changed (either in the Terminus Data Studio or in your connected CRM), all accounts that were previously matched in a tactic will be inactivated in the next data cycle.
Ideas for Getting Started
For users that may be new to this feature, or for existing users looking for some new ideas, here are a few core use cases to get you started:
(1) Activate Advertising When Intent or Engagement Spikes Occurs
Automatically turn on advertising as soon as an account shows off-site intent for your product, or a competitor’s product, or shows an engagement spike on your website, so you’re the first to act.
You can do this by first creating a list in Data Studio for accounts that are high-fit (meaning, they align closely with your ideal customer profile) prospects or existing customers, or applying Global Filters directly in the Ad Experiences tactic builder.
Next, create a new tactic in Ad Experiences using Data Studio as the audience source. In the next step, you’ll apply filters and/or select from a pre-existing list to filter on further to determine when accounts will receive advertising:
Segmentation Filters in Ad Experiences:
- Intent Topic = [list all intent topics tracked - or create a tactic for each topic so your messaging is tailored to the specific intent topic]
*Note: You will need to have the Terminus <> Bombora integration configured to do this.
AND/OR
- Engagement Model = [Desired Terminus Engagement Model]
- Last Engagement Spike = [Desired Timeframe]
We recommend selecting 30 or 90 days as a baseline for Last Engagement Spike and Last Intent Surge, especially if you’re working a smaller volume of accounts or if your accounts are less active online.
You can then choose to layer in additional account details and/or select from a pre-existing list of accounts, to narrow this audience further.
(2) Serve a Progression of Ads Based on Opportunity Stage
The goal of this setup would be to target accounts with different sets of ads as they progress through the buying cycle.
As a starting point, you could work from a saved Data Studio list of high fit, prioritized accounts in your key business segments (tiers, industries, sizes, etc.), or apply account and stage-specific global filters across all your connected CRM data.
From there, you can create an advertising tactic for each stage where you want to engage different people with different content.
For example:
Tactic A:
- Account List = Opp Acceleration (*optional)
- Global Filters = Opportunity Stage = Interest
- Global Filters = Industry = Construction
- Ad Creative / Landing Page = Pain Point/Challenge-Focused / Blog Post
Tactic B:
- Account List = Lead to Opportunity Acceleration (*optional)
- Global Filters = Opportunity Stage = Consideration
- Global Filters = Industry = Construction
- Ad Creative / Landing Page = Feature-Specific/Value Prop / Webinar Invite
Tactic C:
- Account List = Lead to Opportunity Acceleration (*optional)
- Global Filters = Opportunity Stage = Negotiation
- Global Filters = Industry = Construction
- Ad Creative / Landing Page = Competitive Messaging / Case Study
As accounts are updated in your CRM to new Opportunity Stages (as reflected in your Global Filter selections), your advertising audiences will also update.
(3) Activate Advertising Plays for Accounts with Sales Accepted Leads/Contacts
Running account-based advertising plays in tandem with outbound sales prospecting cadences is a great way to compound engagement and drive better outcomes in those accounts without spreading your budget too thin.
Let’s say your BDR/SDR team is focused on a key set of accounts this quarter, and marketing wants to help drive additional engagement in those accounts once a key influencer or stakeholder has been identified.
To start, you could pull from a list you’ve already created in Data Studio to track overall progress in your SDR target accounts, and include a filter for all accounts that have a contacts that have a status of “Accepted/Working”:
- Global Filter = Account List = Q2 SDR Targets
- Global Filter = People, Contact Status = Accepted/Working
This means you’d be targeting any prospect accounts from your “Q2 SDR Target List” who also have a contact with a status that is “Accepted/Working.”
FAQs
Can I use Enhanced audience segmentation for IP (Global) targeting, or my retargeting campaigns?
- No; currently this feature is only available for display or LinkedIn-integrated advertising tactics.
In Data Studio, will I be able to see which display/LinkedIn tactics my accounts are in?
- No; currently we will not surface which specific advertising tactics accounts are a member of in Data Studio.
Can I set progression rules in advertising tactics using Enhanced audience segmentation?
- No; progression rules can only be applied when using our direct Salesforce integration for advertising. However, with Enhanced audience segmentation, accounts can still move in and out of your advertising tactics dynamically as they are updated in your connected CRM.
I already use the Terminus <> Salesforce direct integration to launch advertising tactics. What are the advantages of using Data Studio Lists + Global Filters instead?
- The enhanced functionality enables cross object rule building. This means customers can more easily create scalable, automated tactic audiences.
- While some cross object functionality is available in the current rule builder between opportunity and accounts, this feature will allow you to expand to the 5 primary objects including: Accounts, Opportunities, Campaigns, Contacts & Terminus Information including Firmographic and Behavioral Intelligence data.
Why can't I use some tactics from the Advertising Experiences tool in Web Experiences?
- Enhanced Audience Segments must use the Account Hub as the audience source. ONLY EAS (Account Hub audience) tactics are eligible to be used as Web Experiences segments.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.