Personalising your B2B marketing can boost revenue from both new and existing customers. According to marketing personalisation stats from Hubspot:

• 99% of marketers agree personalisation helps advance customer relationships.
• 80% of buyers are more likely to make a purchase if the brand offers a personalised experience.
• 83% of consumers say they would exchange data for a more personalised experience.

But 78% of brands claim they don’t have enough data about their customers for effective marketing personalisation. As third-party cookies are withdrawn to protect user privacy, advertisers need to make better use of their first-party data to segment, attract, and convert specific audiences.

That’s where hyper-segmentation marketing comes in. Shoham Eckhaus, CMO and Chief Strategist at Penguin Strategies, defines the hyper-segmentation strategy:

"The term hyper-segmentation refers to the practice of marketing where you segment your targeted audiences into very very specific groups: as granular as a single account. And within that, sometimes as granular as a single persona or a single person"
Shoham Eckhaus
CMO, Penguin Strategies

Communicating directly and effectively with decision makers via granular market segmentation can unlock untapped revenue for B2B brands. It can give you the edge over competitors, encourage brand loyalty, and make your marketing super efficient. 

In this article, we’re exploring the benefits of hyper-segmentation marketing for B2B brands. Learn about the importance of granular audience segmentation, understand how to collect and use first-party data, and see how automating CRM data segmentation can improve your performance marketing efficiency.

Hyper-segmentation in advertising: case study

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, automotive technology company GuardKnox relied heavily on in-person events for sales and marketing. But when events were restricted, they turned to a hyper-segmentation strategy. With the support of Penguin Strategies, GuardKnox created audience micro-segments according to their:

• Role
• Location
• Adoption stage of electrical and electronic technology

They then created highly targeted content for each micro-segment. Specific distribution tactics (including paid advertising, social media, and email) ensured the content would be seen by decision-makers within each micro-segment.

Their efforts paid off. The minutes each segment target spent on the GuardKnox website increased each month, as they saw increasingly personalised content. Ultimately, GuardKnox won multiple supply deals with their number one B2B target audience (far exceeding their goal of two).

Hyper-segmentation marketing won’t get you seen by more people, but it will get your ads in front of the right people. So let’s explore how you can replicate these results in your own B2B marketing and advertising strategy.

The importance of granular audience segmentation

Market segmentation is pretty common. But most brands limit their customer profiling to relatively large groups, which means generalising your customers’ wants, needs, and pain points.

The key to hyper-segmentation marketing is treating each customer as an individual. Using a segment of one approach helps you achieve this. According to Bruno Savoca Albors, Sales and Marketing Leader at Le Wagon:

"Hyper-segmentation is often referred to as a 1:1 personalization or a ‘segment of one,’ which allows for an advanced and real-time customisation of offerings."
Bruno Savoca Albors
Head of Marketing at Le Wagon

Essentially, this is a one-to-one account-based marketing (ABM) campaign. To make this approach work, you need a database containing all the information your prospect or customer has shared with you.

If you use a CRM, you may have already captured some useful information beyond a name, job title, and email address. With a segment-of-one strategy, you’ll continue to gather more data about your individual customers so you can tailor your marketing strategy towards them.

The more data you have, the more options you have for market segmentation:

• Psychographic segmentation — Internal characteristics like personality, values, beliefs, lifestyle, and attitudes.
• Demographic segmentation — External and environmental factors like age, gender, marital status, income, education, race, occupation, and nationality.
• Geographic segmentation — Location-based segmentation.
• Funnel-based segmentation — Segmentation based on where they are in the sales cycle.

87% of companies say ABM delivers a higher return on investment than any other type of marketing. ABM really shines when you can call out specific companies. Loom does this really well and they’ve documented their strategy which I highly recommend checking out. You can include the company’s logo in your ads paired with content that speaks directly to them. Or you could even consider building a custom landing page dedicated to that account if you’re serious about capturing their interest and converting them. Go behind the scenes on a Loom ABM campaign. 

Personalisation means you need to spend more time on your ad creative and landing pages. But new AI tools like Reply.io enable you to personalise landing pages at scale based on your lead data:

Collecting first-party data: The key to hyper-segmentation

Great data is at the heart of a good market segmentation strategy. It allows you to create personalised messaging within your ad campaigns, making them more impactful and compelling.

But with Google phasing out third-party cookies to comply with GDPR and other privacy legislation, it’s suddenly trickier to collect data about prospects and customers. So marketers need to make better use of their first-party data.

While it requires a bit more work, first-party data is actually better for all parties. Individuals are more open to sharing their information if it means they get a better experience. According to Accenture research, 58% of consumers would switch half or more of their spending to a provider that excels at personalising experiences without compromising trust.

Marketers, meanwhile, can collect just the information they need, without wading through reams of other data.

You can collect first-party data for your target market by prompting trackable actions on your website. Here’s what you need to track at each stage of the funnel, along with some examples:

1. Top-of-Funnel (TOFU)

• Newsletter signups
• Email interactions
• Quizzes

Here’s a TOFU example. Note the addition of the “Where do you work?” field, designed to capture simple but specific information about the person signing up.

2. Middle-of-Funnel (MOFU)

• Checklists
• Templates
• Guides
• Ebooks

This mid-funnel example lead magnet page from Salesforce aims to capture lots of data about a potential account, including number of employees and location.

3. Bottom-of-Funnel (BOFU)

• Case studies
• Free trial signups
• Demo bookings
• Pricing sheet downloads

At the bottom of the funnel, customers feel they have a better understanding of your business. So they may feel more comfortable sharing more of their information with you. Slack’s sales contact page includes prompts about your role, challenges, and specific information you want from them:

Automating CRM data segmentation

Manually exporting and uploading data is time-consuming at best. At worst, it can lead to accidental (but irreversible) data inaccuracies which put your whole strategy in danger.

Fortunately, lots of systems can now automate your hyper-segmentation marketing. As well as creating customer segments in your CRM, they can automatically update your ad platforms with new information, allowing you to target audiences with paid ads even more effectively.

CRM systems like Hubspot allow you to create contact lists that update automatically as you gather more information about the contact. Here’s how it works:

1. Create a list.
2. Set the criteria for list membership
3. Contacts automatically join the list when they meet the criteria, and leave when they don’t.
4. List members are automatically export to ad networks (including Google and Meta).

Active lists like these allow you to:

• Group contacts based on known characteristics and behaviours, rather than assumed traits or buyer personas.
• Group contacts based on their lifecycle stage and sync this information with your ad networks, so you can retarget without third party cookies more effectively.
• Ensure your ad platform audience data is always up-to-date, so you can serve the most relevant ads to improve performance and minimise wasted ad spend.
• Create lookalike audiences in your ad network for more targeted digital advertising.‍

Jessica Tozer, Associate Director of Paid Media at Powered by Search, sums up why automation is so important for good market segmentation strategies:

You want to be using automation to send your prospect and customer lifecycle stages into the ad platform versus manual uploads.This means you get more accurate data. It means you’ve closed the gap of where someone is in the funnel. And, as we all know, having your client be in the right place at the right time with the right message can be the difference between a prospect choosing you, and choosing your competitor.
Jessica Tozer
Director of Paid Media, Powered by Search

How to create hyper-segmented content at scale

Automation can take care of many manual segmentation tasks. But creating content for a hyper-segmented audience at scale can be more difficult. In fact, Penguin Strategies identified this as one of the key challenges in their GuardKnox strategy:

It required significant effort to get quality, accurate content created, but the effort was showing results and we could track exactly how this KPI was gradually increasing as we personalised the content more.
‍Shoham Eckhaus
CMO, Penguin Strategies

Fortunately, if you have quality first-party data stored in an automated CRM, it’s much easier to create super-personalised content.

1. Use data effectively

Create active lists for multiple data points, not just lifecycle stage. For example, gather data on specific pain points your customers are facing right now, and create content to help them overcome these challenges.

As an example, Monday.com doesn’t just target people looking for a CRM. Instead, it targets users specifically searching for an alternative to more complex CRM systems with tailored messaging for each:

Doing this across multiple channels lets you target your audience from several angles, reducing ad fatigue while maximising exposure to your brand.

2. Create structured content

Recommend further useful content based on what your audience is reading. B2C brands do this well (Netflix and Spotify are constantly suggesting new content based on what you’ve previously watched or listened to).

But B2B brands can also make site visitors stick around by creating well-structured content that guides readers through the sales funnel. Update your existing content with relevant guides, ebooks, templates, and more:

3. Introduce AI

ChatGPT and other AI tools can help you generate a lot of content quickly. You’ll need to provide the right prompts to get the right output, so use your first-party data and existing content to create specific prompts that work.

You’ll also need to check any AI output for accuracy and relevance, so don’t overrely on it. But it can give you a great starting point if you need to scale up your content creation efforts.

It will take time and effort to create hyper-segmented content for specific audiences or accounts. But this approach can pay off more than throwing out lots of generic content and seeing what sticks.

How to use hyper-segmentation marketing

The more you segment your marketing lists, the more you can personalise the buyer experience and boost revenue. And with automated systems in place to gather, manage, and export quality first-party data, it’s easier than ever to implement great market segmentation strategies at scale.

Improving segmentation can also boost your PPC advertising:

• Automation software syncs market segment information with your ad networks, so there’s no additional work for you to do once you’ve set up your lists.
• Get your content in front of targeted decision makers, ensuring your messaging is in the right place at the right time.
• Funnel prospects and leads through the sales cycle with highly relevant messaging that resonates with your target customers.

Note: Watch our webinar to learn how to get more from your B2B advertising budget by increasing demand, investing in automation, and A/B testing your ads.

Protect your B2B advertising budget

Hyper-segmentation takes time and effort to implement. So don’t waste time segmenting and targeting fake users.

Invalid traffic can plague unprotected PPC campaigns, and it’s not always easy to detect. Fake users won’t convert to sales, so to avoid wasting your ABM efforts on them, use Lunio to remove fake engagements from your PPC traffic. As well as improving segmentation, Lunio can:

• Protect and reallocate up to 25% of your ad spend.
• Convert wasted ad spend into revenue.
• Protect your ad budget across all platforms.
• Ensure you never pay for clicks that won’t convert.

Personalising your B2B marketing can boost revenue from both new and existing customers. According to marketing personalisation stats from Hubspot: