Problems with account advertising (cont’d) No customization “ If content marketing is the hero Account-based advertising platforms today don’t of the modern marketing story, Pro tip allow for real customization or personalization. then banner ads are most certainly Directly purchased ads on social (Sticking the company name in the ad doesn’t networks like LinkedIn do not suffer count; that’s no better than saying ‘Dear [[FNAME]]’ the villain.” from many of these disadvantages. in an email.) By their very nature, ad networks force Consider making sure your LinkedIn marketers into larger segments to reach enough Michael Brenner, advertising strategy is working before impressions — the opposite of the smaller, more Marketing Insider Group tackling other ABM advertising tactics. targeted segments that ABM is all about. In many ways, account advertising is closer to targeted demand generation than true, customized ABM. Second-tier inventory The DSPs that power ABM advertising platforms typically have access to the ‘leftover’ inventory after publishers have sold their premium inventory on a guaranteed basis. This remnant inventory contains any ad units that have not been purchased by an advertiser. Markups and opaque pricing Only a fraction of the CPM (cost per thousand impressions or technically, ‘cost per mille’) price you pay your ad vendor actually goes to buying inventory. Some of it is margin for the vendor and some goes to pay middlemen in the transaction: data vendors, the DSP, and so on. As a result, you have no idea how to compare CPM pricing across different vendors and channels accurately. 83