Amplifying Your Channel Marketing with Content Syndication and Display Advertising 

Today’s B2B buying journey is incredibly complex. According to data from Gartner, the typical buying group involves six or more decision-makers and a great deal of independent online research — with sales reps only getting 5% of a customer’s time during their buying journey.  

For channel marketers who work with third-party vendors and partner resellers, this means it’s essential to reach qualified prospects as early as possible. Capturing the interest of the buying committee during their research process is crucial to influencing their decision-making. And maintaining visibility and engagement throughout the long sales cycle is a constant challenge. 

This is where a coordinated, multichannel approach that leverages a precise combination of marketing tactics can deliver enormous impact — content syndication and display advertising, built on a foundation of data-driven audience targeting.

How content syndication and display advertising work together for the channel

Before we dive into how syndicated content and display ads work together, let’s unpack how each functions separately to increase awareness and generate leads for B2B tech vendors and their channel partners.  

Content syndication and the channel 

Content syndication for channel marketing involves republishing your (or your partners’) high-performing content on industry-specific websites, online publications, and social media platforms. When you work with a trusted content syndication vendor, this helps your teams reach and engage with audiences that align with your shared Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).  

By targeting relevant audiences with syndicated content on their preferred platforms and publications, you and your partners can reach them earlier in the research process. Delivering resonant, high-quality content helps establish your brand or partner as a trusted resource at a pivotal time.  

And by using lead capture forms and strategic CTAs, your syndicated content can turn passive readers into active leads — ready for your partners to engage and nurture throughout the buying journey. 

Display advertising in channel marketing 

Targeted Display advertising, including banner ads, interactive media, and video, helps you and your channel partners continually attract and engage leads across the open web.  

Eye-catching visuals capture attention and keep the brand top-of-mind, while compelling messages reinforce awareness of your partners’ values and offerings. This helps increase reach and maintain visibility throughout the complex B2B buying journey. 

The superpowers of content syndication + display advertising

Together, content syndication and display advertising create a powerful synergy that amplifies the benefits of each. By strategically combining these two tactics and delivering a multichannel experience, channel marketers and partners can see exponentially better results — enhanced visibility and increased engagement, sustained engagement throughout the buying journey.

Enhanced visibility 

Content syndication increases the reach of high-value content — and when paired with targeted display advertising, benefits from repeated exposure through visual reminders. Display ads reinforce the key messages of syndicated content, increasing its impact and keeping your brand consistently in front of your most relevant audiences.  

You can also use the combination of content syndication and display advertising to surround the buying process by ensuring the other members of the buying committee and influential coworkers experience the same multichannel engagement. Promoting content and retargeting with ads helps drive awareness across accounts and builds consensus that your brand or partners are recognizable and credible. 

Increased engagement 

Once your partners have received quality, top-of-funnel leads secured through your initial content syndication/display ad campaign, these tactics can be leveraged again to streamline the nurture process and increase engagement throughout the buying journey.  

Continually targeting prospects with syndicated content, coupled with the orchestrated repetition of messages through display advertising, builds a stronger and more persuasive narrative around your brand and your partners’ offerings. This early relationship-building smooths the transition from awareness to consideration and decision. 

Additionally, strategic CTAs placed in both syndicated content and display ads provide multiple touch points for engagement, increasing the likelihood of lead capture and conversion across the buyer’s journey. 

How these benefits work together 

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate how content syndication and display ads amplify results for channel marketers: a tech vendor wants to increase attendance at a partner-led webinar series about cloud security solutions.  

The vendor uses content syndication to distribute a series of thought leadership articles on cloud security issues across industry-specific platforms, highlighting the precise challenges the webinar will address. Simultaneously, they launch a display ad campaign specifically promoting their partner’s upcoming webinars. 

The articles raise awareness and establish credibility. The display ads dynamically target users who have engaged with the articles — an audience that is now problem-aware, primed to learn about solutions, and already familiar with the vendor’s expertise in cloud security. 

The essential role of data-driven targeting 

The key to driving these amplified results? Using data and account intelligence to target the most relevant, likely-to-buy prospects. 

Without targeting, you won’t see the same outcomes. Casting a wide net with display advertising is a surefire way to waste MDF and generate low-quality leads, and the same applies to content syndication. 

The best approach is to work with a trusted vendor that uses accurate, multi-layered data to identify and target the right audience segments at the optimal time in their buying journey. This helps ensure your campaigns will generate the highest-quality leads for your channel partners to nurture and engage.  

There are multiple kinds of marketing data your vendor should supply and use when employing content syndication and display advertising in tandem:  

1. Demographics: personal data about who your prospects are, such as age, gender, and job title 

2. Firmographics: company-level data like industry, number of employees, annual sales, and growth rate 

3. Technographics: data about how a company uses tech products, solutions, or services, including budget and renewal timelines 

4. Intent data: prospects’ online behaviors, such as visits to specific webpages, content downloads, or email clicks 
    

With multiple layers of data applied to content syndication and display ad targeting, you can maximize the value of your marketing spend at every step. Warm up relevant prospects within your ICP with display advertising. Surface the most relevant content offering when those prospects are actively looking for information. Compel them to share their contact information through strategic lead capture. Continue to nurture and engage with more content and display ads, until they’re ready for sales conversations with your channel partners. 
 
Targeting your audience also helps you and your partners home in on specific segments or personas with customized content. For example, you can create different versions of a whitepaper for multiple industries, then distribute that content on niche publications or websites. This kind of personalized syndication helps your messages become more relevant and impactful, and drives greater engagement with targeted leads. 
 
Intent data also helps your partners prioritize leads based on their likelihood to buy. Visiting product pages, engaging with pricing information, and downloading purchase-oriented content like buying guides are all strong intent signals. Leads who engage in behaviors like these are more likely to engage in one-on-one conversations and, eventually, make a purchase.  
 
Finally, you and your partners can use the engagement metrics from these campaigns — such as content interaction or ad clicks — to identify top-performing assets. This helps you refine your strategies, tailor your messaging, and continually improve the ROI of your channel marketing programs. 

How DemandScience delivers quality leads and higher conversion rates

The combination of content syndication and display advertising is powerful but often overlooked because these tactics are often sold separately at the vendor level. This means channel marketing teams must go through multiple vetting processes, sign multiple contracts, work with multiple success managers, and ultimately suffer from the inevitable results — data fragmentation. 

Without a unified data ecosystem, multichannel marketing solutions, and holistic approach, it’s difficult for channel marketing teams to execute a cohesive strategy. Retargeting the right buyers with a coordinated message is close to impossible when you are relying on multiple vendors, databases, and technologies to reach a single audience. Data fragmentation leads to inaccurate targeting, scattershot messaging, and poorly optimized marketing spend.  

But with DemandScience’s channel marketing solution, these issues disappear. You and your partners can benefit from a cohesive approach, preventing data fragmentation and significantly improving campaign ROI. Our platform delivers a single source for content syndication and display advertising, built on a powerful and precise data ecosystem.  

This unified data strategy bridges the gap between different marketing efforts, increasing visibility across channels and improving engagement with consistent messaging. Our seamless audience targeting across syndication and display ads ensures you will reach the right prospects with the right messages at the right time in their buying journey. 

If you’re ready to improve your channel marketing ROI, talk to our expert team about how DemandScience can help you — or learn more about how content syndication and display advertising work together to increase reach and engagement with your most relevant prospects.  

Jason P. Carriere

Sr. Director, Channel Sales

• [email protected]
• linkedin.com/in/jasoncarriere
• 847.893.9110