Acceleration: Campaigns to Drive Faster Wins with Open Opportunities

What you’ll learn

This playbook is your definitive guide to launching acceleration campaigns designed to help open opportunities move swiftly to won revenue. It provides detailed steps on how to use Demandbase’s tools to target the right accounts, engage decision-makers more effectively, and optimize your efforts for maximum impact in real-time.

With this playbook, you will learn:

• How to create precise account and people audiences using Demandbase’s segmentation tools.
• How to target high-value accounts via multi-channel campaigns, including Demandbase display, LinkedIn, and Google Ads.
• Frameworks for syncing audiences into LinkedIn for better sales alignment.
• The methodology for budget planning to maximize efficiency per targeted account.
• Strategic optimizations for accelerating opportunities through the sales pipeline.

By applying these principles, you will support and accelerate the sales cycle by aligning marketing with sales at critical decision points.

Why is this important?

The sales pipeline is more competitive than it has ever been. Accounts in open opportunity stages often stall due to misaligned efforts between sales and marketing or lack of continued engagement. That’s where acceleration campaigns shine. They’re specifically designed for accounts already in conversations with sales but still require consistent, high-value touches to overcome doubts or delays.

Benefits of running acceleration campaigns include:

• Shortened sales cycles: By keeping targets engaged at critical junctures, you’ll drastically reduce time to close.
• Proven Impact: Acceleration campaigns directly influence revenue potential by hitting the accounts closest to buying.
• Better alignment across teams: Sales and marketing act with one purpose, amplifying messaging through coordinated outreach and advertising.
• Stronger buyer confidence: Third-party validation content and success stories help convince decision-makers that your solution is the right choice.

What you need to get started

A seamless acceleration campaign requires preparation. Below is everything you need to have in place before launching.

Tools and systems

• Demandbase platform: Ensure onsite tagging as well as journey stage and engagement minute configurations are complete (OOTB will work, though customizing journey definitions and engagement scoring is another critical way to optimize the acceleration plays across channels and teams).
• Audience syncing capabilities: For syncing to LinkedIn and other digital destinations.
• Intent keywords: A set of competitive and solution-specific keywords to refine targeting.
• High-value URLs and UTMs: Links to your most impactful content pages, properly tagged for tracking attributions.

Content and creatives

• Third-party validation: Analyst reports, ROI tools, or independent reviews.
• Success stories: Targeted examples of how your solution has solved similar challenges.
• Creatives: Assets formatted for LinkedIn, Google Ads, and display campaigns.

Budget

Display campaign per account spend to ensure reaching or exceeding benchmarks: $60-$75 per account for an expected 3,000-4,000 impressions per account.
Campaign duration: Multiply spend recommendation by # of months in campaign flight.

Collaboration

Sales teams: Coordinate on critical accounts and high-value content sharing.
Campaign alignment: Define shared KPIs for both teams to measure success.

Step-by-step playbook

Part 1: Building the audience

Step 1. Create a dynamic account list

1. Navigate to the Demandbase database.
2. Select Create New List > List Type = Dynamic > Visibility = Public.
3. Use the Advanced Selector Option to build your target list based on the following selectors:
   1. Journey Stage Selector: Target SQL Opportunity or Pipeline Opportunity stages.
   2. Add Opportunity Selectors to only include accounts tied to open opportunities relevant to the campaigns.
   3. Exclude any accounts with lost opportunities using logic filters.

Step 2. Build associated people lists

1. Use the Member of List Selector to link your audience with its respective account list.
2. Apply the Email Exists filter to ensure only Known Contacts are included.

Key consideration:

Dynamic audiences ensure real-time updates. This allows you to target accounts and known individuals seamlessly as they move into and out of pipeline and open opps.

Part 2: Designing the acceleration campaign

Step 1. Develop multi-channel campaign creatives

Include:

• Analyst reports or ROI calculators to justify investment.
• Success stories matched to the accounts’ industry, pain points, or size.
• Tailor creatives for each channel (Display, LinkedIn, Google Ads) while ensuring they reflect the overall campaign message.

Step 2. Set campaign goals and KPIs

Goal:

• Drive higher engagement and visibility within open opportunities.
• Align with sales-reported pipeline stages to estimate velocity gains.

Key metric categories:

• Engagement metrics, such as visits to high-value pages and time spent engaging.
• Conversion metrics tied directly to opportunity progression.

Step 3. Budget planning

• Use the Budget Calculator in Demandbase for per-account spend optimization.
• Plan for a $60–$75 spend per account for full campaign visibility.
• Adjust based on target segment size and conversion timeline.

Part 3. Syncing audiences to LinkedIn

Step 1. Sync audience lists in Demandbase

• Navigate to Audiences (Orchestration tab).
• For your Account List, assign the destination as LinkedIn. Name your audience and set start/end dates (optional).
• Repeat for your People List to ensure person-level targeting.

Step 2. Use LinkedIn campaign manager

• Open LinkedIn Campaign Manager and locate audiences under Third-Party Audiences.
• Combine Account and People audiences strategically, ensuring individuals are matched only to active accounts. This prevents wasting spend on non-relevant contacts.

Part 4. Launching the campaign and optimizing

Step 1. Track real-time performance

Focus on:

• Campaign influence on pipeline progression (conversion rates, velocity, etc.).
• Audience-level metrics, i.e., engagement per account.

Step 2. Iterate campaign performance

• For underperforming accounts, recalibrate targeting filters like intent keywords.
• Create additional campaigns showcasing complementary use cases for “stalled” accounts.

Step 3. Sales feedback loop

Use the Advertising Dashboard and Demandbase’s ABX tools to surface insights for sales teams, such as types and levels of content consumption across high-level pages. This ensures your sales reps have data to support the highest quality engagement with their prospects.

The results

By following these steps, you can expect:

• Measurable impact: Faster pipeline velocity and improved conversion rates from SQL to closed-won.
• Streamlined collaboration: Marketing and sales act as a cohesive unit in targeting and influencing prospects.
• ROI validation: Acceleration campaigns yield scalable and predictable results by concentrating on accounts already near decision points.
• Actionable insights: A clearer understanding of what content and strategies drive final decisions, enabling refinement for future campaigns.

Acceleration campaigns aren’t just another tactic; they’re the strategic play you need to supercharge sales efforts. By aligning each step of execution with your accounts’ buying journeys, you’ll see dramatic results that keep your teams and your prospects moving forward.