How Unanet cuts ad campaign volume by 66% with Demandbase JourneyIQ

Executive summary

Unanet, a leading provider of ERP and CRM solutions for government contractors and architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms, joined the Demandbase JourneyIQ beta to simplify and scale its advertising strategy. Previously, the marketing team managed up to a dozen persona and journey-stage campaigns for a single motion. JourneyIQ reduced that number to four, automated budget allocation across funnel stages, and provided early signs of stronger engagement.

“I spent 50% less time managing campaigns this quarter because of JourneyIQ” said Eric Koch, Director of ABM at Unanet.

Introduction

Unanet serves industries where structure and precision are essential. Its marketing strategy reflected that same rigor, carefully designed around personas and buying-journey stages.

The strategy was effective but required constant manual oversight. Every new campaign added more work, especially during quarterly budget planning.

When Demandbase invited Unanet to pilot JourneyIQ, Eric Koch, Director of ABM, saw a chance to keep the sophistication of his team’s strategy while removing the operational burden.

The problem

Unanet’s persona-based approach was effective, but came at a cost:

“For one campaign with four personas and three journey stages, that’s literally 12 different campaigns,” Koch explained. “I had to figure out the budgets for each one.”

Each quarter, the team rebuilt spreadsheets to track spend and performance across every stage and audience. Managing that level of complexity made optimization slow and time-consuming.

The solution

JourneyIQ automates campaign orchestration so marketers can manage complex account journeys with less manual effort. Instead of building and tracking a dozen separate campaigns, JourneyIQ automatically allocates budget and optimizes spend across journey stages and audiences within a single campaign framework.

For Unanet, JourneyIQ automated what had previously required a dozen separate builds.

“That campaign where we were targeting four different personas was 12 different campaigns,” said Koch. “It’s actually four now. It helps cut down on the number of campaigns we’re doing, and it also helps visually understand how we’re using the money within those campaigns.”

The beta also gave the team a chance to refine journey stages and engagement scoring, improving data accuracy and ensuring ads reached the right audiences at the right time.

Results

After several weeks with JourneyIQ in market, Unanet saw clear operational and early performance improvements:

• Campaigns reduced from 12 to 4, cutting setup and management time.
• Quarterly planning became simpler, with budgets managed at the account-list level instead of by individual campaign.
• Visibility improved, allowing the team to see how spend shifted as accounts moved through the funnel
• Engagement rates increased compared to previous campaigns, all with noticeably less effort.

“I’ve only been doing it for a couple weeks, but so far it looks like the engagement rates are a little bit higher than what I’ve seen before, which is encouraging to see.” Koch said.

Key takeaways

• Automating journey-stage orchestration can dramatically simplify campaign management.
• Reviewing journey definitions and engagement scoring increases downstream accuracy.
• Consolidation frees time for strategic work instead of manual adjustments.
• Early data points suggest that simplicity and performance can go hand in hand.

Looking ahead

Koch plans to continue refining Unanet’s journey stages and engagement models as JourneyIQ becomes a standard part of campaign planning. The next step is expanding the framework across additional products and audiences, with an eye toward even greater efficiency and insight.

“I’m excited to see how this evolves and be able to leverage it going into next year.”

Conclusion

Unanet’s beta experience with Demandbase JourneyIQ shows that automation doesn’t replace strategy, it accelerates it. By collapsing twelve campaigns into four and automating spend across the funnel, the marketing team gained both efficiency and clarity. “It’s been a big time saver,” Koch summarized.