IP Targeting versus Cookies. Benefits and Limitations
Effectively targeting and communicating with the companies most likely to purchase your solutions is the prime goal of any B2B business. Tools and techniques that identify relevant prospects are constantly refined. Now that Google is planning to phase out cookies, businesses around the globe need to look at valid alternatives such as IP targeting.
What are cookies?
Cookies are lines of code collecting user data when individuals act online. The data is analysed and used to categorise the individual’s interests, enabling more efficient, cost-effective marketing strategies via behavioural targeting.
Benefits of cookies for B2B marketers
For B2B marketers, cookies empower the deployment of persona-based targeting. They also certify the usage of tailored messaging around individual preferences and potential needs. Cookies provide not only valuable information about an individual’s historical interests but also can track the specific timing of those interests. This means your personalised messaging remains relevant throughout an individual’s sales funnel, leading from the earlier phases of consideration and decision-making right up to the point of purchase.
The limitations of cookies in B2B targeting
Cookies can become less relevant for B2B targeting where account-level information and its interest on certain solutions is needed due to the complex decision-making process that defines B2B accounts.
The problem with cookies is that you can never really know the actual person you’re targeting nor where the targeting works. You’ve merely formed an idea of whom that person might be, based on the data collected that highlights an individual’s present behaviour. As the information has been drawn from a device, cookies don’t allow you to target the entirety of an account. Added to this, previously collected data can be made entirely redundant when a user decides it’s time to clean out the numerous cookies on their device.
IP based targeting as an alternative to cookies
Every device using the internet can be identified through a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address based upon its physical location within the network. Each company has typically its own IP address and all individuals connecting through the company’s network using VPN or in the office will be identified by the same address.
Identifying the IP addresses and their behaviour on the internet allows companies to target entire accounts rather than just the one person who visited a website. Clearly, this is an advantage over cookie-based technology.
Once you know a user’s main working location, this information can be cross-referenced with a whole host of accumulated data that can help identify the same user while working on the move, at home, in a hotel or connecting to the internet using a different IP address.
Increase marketing & sales efficiency with IP based targeting
IP targeting is not a perfect technology since you won’t clearly identify 100% of the traffic to a site and you still don’t know who the individual behind the device is. However, the technology combined with a strong and updated database of companies and decision-makers will allow you to implement very effective targeting, reduce the drastically wasted budget and increase the effectiveness of your marketing and sales effort.
IP targeting allows the timely positioning of highly relevant ads to all key decision-makers within an account throughout their entire journey from the initial fact-finding stage to the final RFP (Request For Proposal) stage. Your branding and demand generation programs will benefit from targeting an audience of both individuals and accounts who have already expressed interest in your solutions.
Working in synchronised combination, the many layers of information that traditional behavioural tracking and IP based targeting delivers is an invaluable means to monitor your marketing strategy’s performance and swiftly change your messaging when needed.
With IP based targeting, you know that you’re talking to the individuals of companies most likely to purchase your solutions, while also delivering the relevant, personalised messaging that’s more likely to lead to a successful purchase.
And that, naturally, is the prime goal of any business.
Want to know more about IP targeting and data solutions?
Boost your awareness and branding campaigns with Expandi IP targeting and ABA solutions.
If you’re interested in using IP targeting for your B2B business, simply contact our experts here for a demo today.
