Ambassadors, Visitor Identity, LinkedIn CTV - The New B2B Rules

I’ve been sharing positive B2B updates over the past 2 weeks and the trends are pacing in the right direction!

As I’ve been transitioning back to my agencies since Rush was acquired and I stepped down, I’m plowing through a healthy pipeline of leads and new RFPs.

We signed two new retainers in April, had over a dozen sales discovery calls, and sent a few more proposals for reviews.

Some of our former leads from last year have been getting back to us and revisiting projects put on hold.

That’s a healthy sign of a rising economy after the slowdown - or a full stop - over the past several months.

But one that’s looking drastically different than 18 months ago.

1. Previous contracts have shifted into new SOWs with new priorities and requirements
2. R&D budgets have moved into growth and data capture budgets
3. Distressed channels are getting revamped attention - we’re closing more SEO work and social growth GTM plans for revamping social presence with new playbooks
4. Custom engineering work has shrunk to “launch faster and make compromises for faster iterations”

Some of my peers in the space who aren’t spending their time in the broader B2B ecosystem are puzzled about metaverse initiatives halted or partner portals or complex R&D integrations no longer relevant. These may come back to life in 12-18 months from now, but reviving funnels and restoring data attribution comes with a higher priority.

What are 3 key conversations we’ve been consistently having over sales calls, communities, and industry events lately?

Brand ambassadors are on the rise

As PLG or outbound motions are not effective today, partnerships are uncovering new opportunities. And tapping into other motions - community-led and event-led - working with B2B influencers is key.

I’ve been an acting ambassador and a prominent advisor for 11 years now - and I shared what ambassadors and advisors do and how to work with them in a recent LinkedIn post . Read it carefully if you want to enforce continuous progress this year.

Some of our Q4 and Q1 pipeline was attributed to our advisors at DevriX and I’ve generated mid six-figures to Flippa + some investment deals for SeedBlink through my ambassador work there.

This model works and the narrative is clear: work with trusted advisors and key opinion leaders, participate in the right conversations, and instil trust through multiple channels to elevate the brand.

People buy from people they trust.

Visitor identity is the new currency

If you’ve slept under a B2B rock over the past several years, you’ve likely missed some account-based identification tools such as Clearbit, ZoomInfo, Leadfeeder, Snitcher, 6sense, Lead Forensics…

All of them use a reverse lookup IP resolution of addresses tied to companies.

We’ve been using them since 2016 or so and keep a handy database of visitors browsing our sites and our landing pages. It’s especially valuable when a lead reaches out and we can track the entire journey.

Moreover, we can keep tracking portions of their due diligence process after the call: browsing our team pages, about page, reading specific case studies.

How valuable is that?

Now, this isn’t 100% accurate for several reasons:

1. Some IP addresses are wrongfully attributed to the wrong companies. A partner of ours quit his job 2 years ago, but his IP is still tied to the old company.
2. Office IP networks may be pretty useless. If a company with 5,000 employees is browsing your website, you can never find the right person browsing around.
3. There’s a lot of noise from universities or companies like Microsoft or Amazon. An intern or an admin assistant may be browsing random unrelated resources.
4. TOFU content is still generating a lot of noise that isn’t your ICP

Either way, it works well.

But nowadays, there are tools like Kwanzoo or RB2B doing individual identity resolution to a HUMAN LEVEL.

Therefore, we get access to a portion of our visitors straight to their email address or LinkedIn profile.

Some shared data pools and proprietary cookie networks reveal individual information and the digital footprint in the US to the right person in the org. This is a lot more valuable and uncovers a whole new suite of opportunities.

One additional effect of using these is the death of the paywall. Large B2B enterprises are now dropping their ebook download forms to enable frictionless engagement while they still recapture back a portion of the audience.

We know for a fact that many of these download leads are not in a buying stage, or assistants are downloading resources, or fake emails are used - so poor signals anyway.

This new normal is paving the way to a completely different way of segmentation and interactivity.

LinkedIn CTV

This one was just announced by LinkedIn a few days ago. However, the TV format is now enabling specific targeting similar to how you filter your audience with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

So B2Bs are not able to run paid ads to connected TV users and run video ads to a highly targeted audience.

Instead of paying millions for a Super Bowl ad targeting tens of millions of people, hoping to capture 100 of your ICP viewers, you can pay several thousand dollars to promote to 50 of them.

CTV users in the US are estimated at 110 million among millennials and Gen Z. The more networks unlock these opportunities and connect with LinkedIn + the more Smart TVs and digital networks featuring external ads, the better targeting will be over the next couple of years.

Tons of opportunities in the B2B landscape - along with more strategic partnerships, enhanced thought leadership by B2B leaders joining the game, more valuable digital communities to map the hallway track behavior at events.

Using these strategically will position you in the right circles to keep your pipeline steady in the new year.

Yours, Mario

My Take

???WooCommerce.com Returns - Marketing Wrangler Kevin Bates has?announced?that Woo.com will revert to its original domain name WooCommerce.com , on April 09, 2024.?Read Jyolsna’s latest article where she explores SEO reasons for this decision and features my opinion as well.

?? Rush Gets Acquired by Shop Circle - Recursive talks about Rush?getting acquired?by Shop Circle , and it is now fully managed by it. Shop Circle will directly integrate Rush into their portfolio of apps. The process is expected to take a few months to fully implement the new strategy.

?? Building a Successful Ecommerce Portfolio - Check out Flippa’s latest post about the video we did, discussing how to build a successful portfolio for Ecommerce .

Newsletter Recommendations

?? Stacked Marketer - One of my go-to newsletters and a business that we’ve worked with a while ago on the DevriX front. It is loved by marketers who get hands-on with campaigns, who need to stay up-to-date with frequently changing platforms., who need to get an edge, and who need to achieve outsized results with limited resources, aka performance-focused marketers.

?? Boldpush - А special newsletter for those interested in marketing intelligence and strategy to the most ambitious brands. Props to Julius Solaris for creating one of my top newsletter reads for GTM strategies and actionable content.

Business Strategy

??Spirit Airlines delays and layoffs - Spirit Airlines to defer Airbus deliveries, layoff 260 pilots to save cash . Spirit Airlines said on Monday it has reached a deal with Airbus to delay all aircraft deliveries scheduled from the second quarter of 2025 through 2026 and intends to furlough about 260 pilots, as the U.S. carrier looks to save cash.

??New plan to cancel 30 million student loans - Joe Biden announced plans to cancel student loans for 30 million borrowers on Monday , the administration’s latest push on addressing student debt before the presidential election. The?plan ?primarily targets borrowers who have accrued a high level of interest on their debt and those who have been in repayment for at least 20 years. Borrowers who face extreme economic hardship could also see some relief.

??Online privacy proposal hits Congress - U.S. lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan proposal that would create a national law regulating how companies can collect, use, and share a user’s online data. If the proposal is eventually signed into law, it would be the U.S. equivalent to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR forces companies to obtain permission to collect data on its users, and organizations which violate could be fined tens of millions of dollars.

??Llama 3 open source LLM coming next month - At an event in London on Tuesday, Meta confirmed that it plans an initial release of Llama 3 — the next generation of its large language model used to power generative AI assistants — within the next month. This confirms a report published on Monday by The Information that?Meta was getting close to launch.

??Fed says rate may hike before going down - Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said Friday that it’s possible interest rates may have to move higher to control inflation , rather than the cuts her fellow officials have indicated are likely and that the market is expecting. Noting a number of potential upside risks to inflation, Bowman said policymakers need to be careful not to ease policy too quickly.

Global News

?? The 1900s-era Dow Theory strategy dictates that the DJIA’s direction is higher if two averages — usually Dow industrials and the transportation index — reach new highs in the same short period. As that hasn’t happened, Saut says he will remain cautious of stocks.

• S&P 500: $5,152(-0.91%)

???“The Fed is not in a hurry to start cutting interest rates as the progress toward 2 percent inflation has encountered some turbulence,” says Greg McBride, CFA, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.

For now, the Fed expects to issue three rate cuts in 2024. When that happens, the rates on a variety of financial products, including mortgages, should follow suit.

• 30-year mortgage rate: 6.97%(+0.09)

• 15-year mortgage rate: 6.38%(-0.04)

????Jobs data, price rises and the strength of the U.S. economy are causing market watchers to question the U.S. Federal Reserve’s own signaling that it expects three quarter-point rate cuts this year.

?? Here are some of the most prominent headlines this week:

• Appeals court judge denies former President Trump’s bid to halt his criminal trial, a ruling that came less than 24 hours after another judge rejected Trump’s request to delay his impending criminal trial on other grounds.
• Israel has committed to opening the Ashdod port for deliveries into Gaza and the Erez crossing for aid into north Gaza
• Disney CEO Bob Iger fends off activist investors seeking to take the company in a new direction.

Investing Updates

• Corekees - raising €1M to facilitate profitable investment projects with a net positive impact.
• PerioTrap - raising €900,000?to scale?the first solution to prevent periodontitis, a chronic condition affecting half of the adults.
• Oveit - raising €400,000 to scale its live events automation solution.

Note: Got a round going that you want to feature - your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.

Now let’s have a look at the latest top Flippa offers

Online Identity and Document Verification SaaS - This B2B software solution works with clients including hotels, banks, financial services, telecommunication businesses and car rentals.

• Monthly profit:?$37.9K
• Profit margin:?82%
• Age:?5 years old

SaaS Writing Tool & Plagiarism Checker - This SaaS business contains several writing-based tools including a plagiarism checker, a grammar checker, and a paraphrasing tool.

• Monthly profit:?$10.7K
• Monthly page views:?1.8M
• Domain authority score:?42

Customer Service SaaS - AI sales and customer service SaaS business with strong month-on-month revenue growth.?

• Monthly profit:?$5.9K
• Monthly recurring revenue:?$19.7K
• LTV:?$6.7K

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?? Have you tried buying and selling digital property? Have a look at Flippa’s marketplace . They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer’s interests. Or if you’re ready for an exit, Flippa provides you with the necessary tools to list your business and close the deal.

???Looking for investment opportunities? Check out SeedBlink and use Nimity to manage it.

???Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments . Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton.??And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!?