How do I tell if my Demandbase ad campaign is working, and what do reached, visited and engaged accounts mean?

As of October 2026.

Before you start

Access to Advertising > Campaigns, Advertising > Inventory Planner and Account Database > Account Lists.
Your campaign numbers: total budget, spend so far, average CPM, flight dates and the number of target accounts.
A control group: accounts from the same list that you leave out of the campaign. Demandbase's playbooks suggest holding some back so you can measure lift later. If you didn't, hold some out in your next campaign.

Step 1: Learn what each number means

Metric	What it means	What it tells you
Accounts Reached	Target accounts that were served your ads	Whether the campaign delivered at all
Visited	Target accounts that visited your website	Interest, but not proof the ad caused it
Clicked	Target accounts where someone clicked an ad	Direct response to the ad
Lifted	Accounts more engaged after launch than before it	Change compared with their own past
Campaign Influence	Opportunity, pipeline and revenue data for the campaign	The business result

"Engaged" isn't an ad metric. It's a Demandbase journey stage. Out of the box, an account is Engaged with an engagement score of 10 or more over the last 3 months. It's an MQA (marketing qualified account) with a pipeline predict score of 85% or more, or a marketing engagement score of 100 or more, over the same 3 months. Your admin may have changed these rules.

Keep in mind that a visit isn't proof the ad worked. Demandbase describes its Visits optimization as optimizing for website visits "via ad clicks or organic site searches", so a visit can come from search as well as from an ad. The dashboard also shows Interacted and New Onsite counts. For the exact rule behind each metric in your account, Demandbase's help article Measuring the Results of an Advertising Campaign is the official reference.

Step 2: Check that the campaign could reach your accounts

Go to Advertising > Inventory Planner.
Match the campaign: flight dates, account list, tier, CPM, geotargeting, ad type and ad sizes.
Click Calculate available inventory.
Review Reach, Reachable account count, Available impressions and the maximum budget.

If the reachable account count is well below your list size, more budget won't reach the rest. Change the list, the geography or the ad sizes instead. Demandbase calls the maximum budget a ceiling, not a recommendation to spend.

Step 3: Check impressions per account

Work out what the campaign can still deliver:

Projected impressions = remaining budget ÷ average CPM × 1,000.
Impressions per account per month = projected impressions ÷ target accounts ÷ remaining months.

Demandbase's budget playbook recommends 1,500 to 2,500 impressions per account per month. Below 1,500, consider adding budget if the campaign is performing "so-so" (Demandbase's word) and inventory is left. Above 2,500, Demandbase says more budget may not be needed just to raise impressions. In Demandbase's own example, $6,000 left at a $16 CPM across 300 accounts and 61 days comes to about 623 impressions per account per month, far under target.

Demandbase's spend guide sets the range by campaign type, so compare your result with your campaign's row. Awareness matches the budget playbook; acquisition and pipeline acceleration campaigns aim higher:

Campaign type	Spend per account	Impressions per account
Awareness	$35 to $50	1,500 to 2,500
Acquisition	$35 to $60	2,500 to 3,000
Pipeline acceleration	$60 to $75	3,000 to 4,000

Total budget = spend per account × number of accounts × months. Use the high end for enterprise accounts and the low end for small and mid-size companies. For example, $10,000 at $50 per account covers 200 accounts for a one-month awareness campaign.

Step 4: Compare reached accounts with your control group

Put the same measures side by side for the accounts you advertised to and the ones you held out: visits, journey stage changes and new opportunities. If advertised accounts move to Engaged or MQA, or open opportunities, faster than the control group, the ads are likely helping. Demandbase's Journeys can show how quickly accounts exposed to ads move through your pipeline compared with accounts that weren't. Don't rely on Lifted alone: it compares accounts with their own past, which can rise for reasons that have nothing to do with ads, like a product launch or a sales push.

Step 5: Tie it to pipeline

Open Campaign Influence in the Advertising Dashboard (opportunity, pipeline and revenue data), and check the same accounts in your CRM. Don't judge an awareness campaign on form fills: Demandbase's awareness playbook says to avoid "ask" content such as form submissions at that stage. A Demandbase user's May 2026 thread on r/b2bmarketing describes the result: very little click-through traffic from the ads, while stakeholders wanted conversions.

Step 6: Fix weak delivery or results

Too few impressions per account, with inventory left: in Advertising > Campaigns, open the campaign, click Edit Campaign, and in Step 4: Media Planning enter the new total budget (not just the increase). Click Check Budget, then publish from Step 5: Review and Publish. Watch results for 7 to 14 days.
Little inventory left: Demandbase suggests another strategy instead of more budget, such as retargeting highly engaged accounts or reaching new high-intent accounts.
The wrong optimization metric: Demandbase offers Visits (recommended), Clicks and Reach. Reach "maximizes the number of impressions your ads receive", so use it when getting in front of every account matters more than visits.
Some accounts over-served, others barely served: set frequency caps, exclude accounts above your impression or click threshold, and push budget to the ones below it.
Engaged accounts that don't convert: build a dynamic list, for example accounts with 4 or more ad clicks that also visited a high-value page, and retarget them.

Common problems

Problem	Why it happens	Fix
Few accounts reached	Many accounts on the list aren't reachable, or spend per account is too thin	Check the reachable account count; raise spend per account or shorten the list
High reach, few visits	People see the ads but don't come to your site	Test new creative and landing pages, and check impressions per account
Lots of lift, no pipeline	Lift compares accounts with their own past, not with a control group	Judge on the control group and on opportunities
Stakeholders want leads	Awareness ads aren't built to ask for forms, and few people may click through (Step 5)	Feed engaged accounts into a lead gen campaign, as Demandbase's playbooks suggest
Spend stuck below plan	Not enough inventory for your list, ad sizes or geography	Treat the maximum budget as a ceiling, add ad sizes, or switch strategy

Where Tofu fits

Tofu doesn't buy Demandbase inventory or read Demandbase reports. If you also advertise to the same target accounts on LinkedIn, Tofu can build the matched company audience from your Salesforce or HubSpot list, cap impressions per company with its audience penetration filter (by default 100 impressions in 7 days, and adjustable), and show account journeys from first impression through opportunity to closed-won.

Sources (6)

4 Ways to Maximize Your Additional Advertising Budget (Demandbase playbook), checked October 30, 2026
MultiChannel Acquisition and Mid-Funnel Campaign Playbook (Demandbase), checked October 30, 2026
Awareness campaign playbook: setup and execution guide (Demandbase), checked October 30, 2026
Determining content and spend for journey-based campaigns (Demandbase playbook), checked October 30, 2026
How to Use Advertising Performance Metrics to Elevate Your Account-Based Strategy (Demandbase blog, updated September 21, 2026), checked October 30, 2026
Anyone had success with Demandbase Advertising? (r/b2bmarketing, May 2026), not rechecked October 30, 2026 because Reddit blocks automated fetches