Here's an uncomfortable truth about account-based marketing: accounts don't make purchasing decisions. The account is not signing your contract. Individual humans are committees of them, actually. Gartner research shows 6-10 decision-makers participate in typical B2B purchases, a number that's grown from just 5.4 stakeholders in 2014 to 13+ stakeholders for enterprise deals today.

Traditional ABM treats "Company X" as the target, running advertising to anyone employed there and hoping the right people see it. This approach wastes significant budget reaching employees with zero purchasing influence, the facilities manager, the intern, the sales rep in an unrelated division. Your CFO, CTO, and VP of Operations each see maybe 1% of the impressions you're paying for.

Person-based marketing corrects this inefficiency by targeting specific individuals rather than company logos. The result: 100% of your advertising budget reaching people who actually influence purchasing decisions, faster pipeline progression through multi-stakeholder engagement, and dramatically higher ROI from concentrated rather than diluted reach.

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The problem with account-level targeting

Account-level targeting sounds precise until you examine how it actually works. "Target Company X" means your ads appear to anyone LinkedIn or your ABM platform associates with that company. For a 500-person organization, maybe 10-15 individuals influence your category purchase. Traditional account targeting reaches the other 485-490 employees just as readily.

The waste compounds quickly:

If you're running ABM against 500 accounts averaging 300 employees each, you're reaching 150,000 potential impression targets. But with typical buying committees of 10 people, only 5,000 of those individuals have any purchasing influence. Over 96% of your reach is wasted on people who will never participate in evaluating your solution.

This waste creates three downstream problems:

Budget inefficiency. Every dollar spent reaching non-decision-makers is a dollar not reaching decision-makers. Account-level targeting spreads budget across hundreds of employees when you need concentrated frequency against the dozen who matter.

Measurement pollution. Engagement metrics become unreliable when most engagement comes from people who don't matter. The marketing coordinator who clicked your ad out of curiosity counts the same as the CFO researching solutions. Account-level measurement can't distinguish between the two.

Sales misalignment. Sales teams target specific contacts, the VP they're trying to reach, the champion they're nurturing. When marketing runs account-level campaigns, there's no guarantee those specific individuals see anything. The disconnect undermines sales-marketing coordination.

What is person-based marketing?

Person-based marketing (PBM) shifts the targeting unit from companies to individuals. Rather than reaching "employees at Company X," you reach "Sarah Johnson, VP of Marketing at Company X" specifically.

The approach requires different capabilities than account-based tools provide:

Individual identification. Systems must identify and track specific people, not just companies. This means matching individuals across platforms (LinkedIn profile, Facebook account, Google identity) to enable cross-channel delivery.

Contact-level delivery. Advertising platforms must deliver to named individuals rather than company audiences. LinkedIn's matched audiences support this; proper configuration of programmatic platforms can enable it across display networks.

Person-level measurement. Analytics must track engagement by individual, showing which specific humans clicked, visited, and engaged not just which companies showed activity.

The critical distinction: Traditional marketing targets audiences. ABM targets accounts. Person-based marketing targets people. Each evolution increases precision and reduces waste, with compounding effects on ROI.

Leading practitioners recognize that "the account is not signing the contract; the person is." By targeting the actual humans who evaluate, influence, and approve purchases, person-based approaches achieve engagement rates and conversion efficiency that account-level targeting cannot match.

The person-based ABM advantage

Moving from account-level to person-level targeting transforms ABM performance across four dimensions.

Precision eliminates waste

When advertising reaches only decision-makers, every impression has potential value. Companies using person-based targeting report that 100% of their ad budget reaches their ICP not the company logos that match their ICP, but the actual individuals who fit their buyer personas.

This precision becomes particularly valuable for growth-stage companies with limited budgets. Spending $50,000 monthly on ads that reach 1,000 decision-makers delivers different results than the same budget diluted across 50,000 mostly-irrelevant employees.

Personalization becomes practical

Effective personalization requires understanding your audience. When targeting broad account populations, personalization is limited to company-level variables (industry, company size). When targeting specific personas, personalization extends to role-specific challenges, responsibilities, and success metrics.

A person-based approach enables distinct creative for the CFO focused on ROI and cost reduction, the CTO concerned with integration and security, and the end user caring about daily workflow improvement. Each sees messaging relevant to their specific concerns rather than generic company-level content.

Multi-threading drives deal velocity

78% of sales representatives remain single-threaded in most deals, engaging only one contact per account. Yet research consistently shows that multi-threaded engagements—reaching multiple stakeholders—dramatically improve outcomes.

Person-based marketing enables systematic multi-threading through advertising. While sales works their primary contact, marketing simultaneously reaches the other 5-10 committee members—building familiarity and credibility before sales ever connects with them.

Sales-marketing alignment improves

When marketing targets the same individuals sales is pursuing, coordination improves naturally. Sales can brief marketing on which contacts matter most. Marketing can report exactly which of those contacts are engaging. The shared focus on people rather than logos creates common language and clear accountability.

This alignment delivers measurable results. Organizations with aligned sales and marketing achieve 36% higher customer retention and see ABM programs perform at levels non-aligned organizations cannot match.

Implementing person-based ABM

Transitioning from account-level to person-level targeting requires systematic changes to processes and technology.

Step 1: Map buying committees by account

For each target account, identify the 5-12 individuals who participate in purchasing decisions for your category. Research typical buying committee composition for your solution type:

• Economic buyers: Who controls budget? Usually VP+ level in finance or the buying function

• Technical evaluators: Who assesses fit? IT, Engineering, or functional experts

• Champions: Who will advocate internally? Often mid-level managers experiencing the problem

• End users: Who will use the product daily? May have influence but rarely decision authority

• Blockers: Who might resist? Competing priorities, incumbent solution owners

Populate your CRM with specific contacts filling each role at target accounts. This contact database becomes your person-level targeting foundation.

Step 2: Enable contact-level advertising

Configure your advertising platforms for person-level delivery:

LinkedIn Campaign Manager: Upload matched audiences from your contact database. Create separate audiences for different personas to enable role-specific creative.

Meta (Facebook/Instagram): Use custom audiences from hashed email lists. Decision-makers are people too. They scroll Instagram on weekends and check Facebook during breaks.

Programmatic display: Work with platforms supporting deterministic (not just probabilistic) matching to ensure ads reach specific individuals rather than modeled lookalikes.

Google Ads: Customer Match enables targeting based on email addresses across Search, Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and Display.

Platforms like Hey Sid specialize in orchestrating person-level delivery across these channels, handling the audience management complexity while ensuring advertising reaches the specific decision-makers in your target accounts.

Step 3: Develop persona-specific creative

Generic creative wastes person-level precision. Develop messaging tailored to each persona's priorities:

Create distinct ad sets for each persona, showing different value propositions based on what each role cares about most.

Step 4: Coordinate with sales outreach

Person-based marketing reaches its potential when synchronized with sales activity:

Pre-meeting air cover: When meetings are booked, increase ad frequency to all committee members at that account. Attendees arrive familiar with your brand; non-attendees gain awareness for future multi-threading.

Stalled deal intervention: When deals go quiet, targeted advertising reminds stakeholders of their interest and addresses common objections.

Deal stage messaging: Adjust creative based on opportunity stage. Early-stage accounts see awareness content; late-stage accounts see proof points and competitive differentiation.

Step 5: Measure at the person level

Reporting must show engagement by individual, not just account aggregate. Track:

• Which specific contacts have clicked ads

• Individual website visits and content consumption

• Person-level engagement trends over time

• Multi-threading depth (how many committee members engaged per account)

This granularity enables optimization that account-level measurement cannot support. When the CFO ignores your ads but the VP of Ops engages consistently, you've learned something actionable about your messaging and targeting.

Person-based content strategy

Content strategy shifts when your audience is individuals rather than companies. Develop assets that speak to specific roles and buying stages.

Role-specific content:

• Executive summaries for C-suite: High-level value proposition, ROI evidence, strategic alignment

• Technical documentation for evaluators: Integration guides, security whitepapers, architecture diagrams

• Use case content for end users: Workflow examples, day-in-the-life scenarios, feature tutorials

• Internal selling tools for champions: ROI calculators, comparison guides, presentation templates

Stage-specific content:

• Awareness: Thought leadership addressing category-level challenges

• Consideration: Solution comparisons, capability overviews, analyst reports

• Decision: Customer case studies, implementation guides, pricing/ROI tools

Map content to both persona and stage, ensuring every combination has appropriate assets. When the CFO (persona) reaches consideration stage, they should receive different content than when the end user (different persona) reaches the same stage.

Measuring person-level engagement

Person-based measurement transforms ABM analytics from guesswork to precision.

Contact-level metrics:

• Individual reach: How many of the 10 committee members have we reached?

• Engagement by contact: Which specific people are clicking, visiting, downloading?

• Engagement recency: When did each contact last engage?

• Multi-threading score: What percentage of the buying committee has engaged?

Account health indicators:

• Committee coverage: Are we reaching all relevant personas or just one?

• Engagement breadth: Are multiple contacts showing activity or just our champion?

• Engagement velocity: Is committee engagement accelerating or stalling?

Revenue correlation:

• Closed-won patterns: What person-level engagement patterns precede wins?

• Closed-lost patterns: What committee gaps correlate with losses?

• Velocity impact: Do heavily multi-threaded accounts close faster?

This person-level intelligence enables continuous optimization. When certain personas consistently engage while others ignore you, adjust creative and targeting. When multi-threaded accounts close at 6x the rate of single-threaded ones, invest more in committee-wide coverage.

The evolution from account-based to person-based marketing represents the next frontier in B2B precision. Companies making this shift report 3x higher engagement from decision-makers and dramatic improvements in pipeline efficiency.

The logic is inescapable: accounts don't sign contracts people do. Targeting the actual humans who evaluate, influence, and approve purchases delivers fundamentally different results than hoping the right 2% of a company's employees happen to see your account-level advertising.

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Start by mapping buying committees at your target accounts. Build contact databases by persona. Configure advertising platforms for individual delivery. Develop role-specific creative. Measure at the person level. The precision you gain will transform ABM from a promising concept into a predictable revenue engine.

Ready to move beyond account-level guesswork? Discover how Hey Sid enables person-based ABM with precise individual targeting, multi-channel activation, and deep buying group insights. Visit Hey Sid to see how targeting the right people not just the right accounts drives stronger pipeline and revenue.