It's often easier for B2C businesses to drive results through PPC than B2B businesses. However, if you use it properly and plan out your campaigns, PPC is an effective tool for driving leads. We'll have a look at how in more detail in this blog.
71% of B2B customers start their research with search engines, so if you’re a B2B business, you need to have an effective and well-thought-out PPC strategy.
Whether you’re not getting the results you want from your PPC efforts or unsure where to begin, we’ve got you covered with our ultimate guide. In this guide, we’ll explain:
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a type of digital advertising where businesses pay a fee to run ads on a platform. This includes search engines, Google Bing, social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and eCommerce platforms like Amazon. These ads are designed to drive traffic to your site (or a dedicated landing page) and motivate users to perform a specific action. Businesses only pay when users click the ad (hence the name pay-per-click).
With B2B PPC ads, the primary goal is to reach your target industry's key decision-makers or leaders. These ads motivate users to visit your website, fill out a lead generation form, contact your company, or complete a purchase.
Most businesses use the following platforms for their PPC advertising:
B2B and B2C PPC advertising have slightly different goals. This is because B2B purchasing decisions often have a longer sales cycle and involve more people than B2C decisions. The primary goal of B2C ads is to generate a sale, whilst the aim of B2B ads might be to gather contact information or ensure that your company's products or services are considered during the B2B purchase cycle to generate a sale in the long term.
When conducting keyword research and choosing which keywords to target for a B2B PPC campaign, it’s important to consider audience targeting. Who will be searching for the solution, product or service your company offers, and who will be involved in purchasing?
Adjust the keywords based on the language your target audience will likely use. For example, a PPC marketer probably wouldn’t search for ‘pay-per-click solution’. Instead, they would most likely search for ‘PPC solution’.
Research is incredibly important to help you understand your target audience and the language they’ll use. B2B terms can be incredibly specific and differ based on companies and regions. For example, if a company only sells a specific type of air compressor (such as rotary screw compressors), be specific when choosing which terms to target. Don’t waste money targeting terms that are vague and not applicable to what your business offers. Negative keywords help ensure that all your PPC ads are relevant and specific to what your company sells.
It’s essential to create your ad copy with your target audience in mind and use language that resonates with them. For B2B companies, you’ll likely want to target a specific business size, such as SMBs or enterprise-level businesses. Refereeing who your product or service is designed for in your ads can help qualify leads and help you save money on your PPC ad campaigns.
It’s also important to be careful with writing appropriate calls-to-actions (CTA’s) and offers. For example, you’ll rarely see CTAs like ‘buy today’ or ‘order now’. Instead, CTAs such as ‘contact us today’ or ‘download our ultimate guide’. This allows you to capture contact information and follow up with the potential buyer to achieve a sale at a later date. B2B buyers are rarely able to buy products immediately and instead will need more information or talk to a member of your company before making a purchase.
You can also use your ad copy to prequalify leads. You can do this by mentioning the price in your ad copy. This immediately disqualifies any users who can’t afford your products or services.
Tracking data is incredibly important for paid advertising, so you must ensure this is set up correctly to maximise your PPC campaigns. You can track users in many ways, for example, through PDF downloads, free trials or demos.
Track any conversions or actions that are valuable to moving customers along the buying journey and getting them to the point of purchase. Although downloading a free pdf might not be as valuable as requesting a demo, it still helps to move the customer forward by providing them with more information about your solution to their problem.
Remarketing is similarly essential to an effective PPC strategy. Retargeting helps you to connect with the 98% of visitors who leave a website without making a purchase. This gives you another chance to convert these customers and helps to increase brand awareness. For example, you can capture contact information (by offering an online quiz or pdf download) and create a list of users to remarket to on different platforms through PPC campaigns. You can retarget them with the next step in the marketing funnel to help get them closer to making a purchase.
This is sometimes confused with remarketing. However, remarketing shows your ads to users who’ve previously visited your site, while customer match uses your existing customer list (like an email list) to reach people across Google properties (search, display and YouTube).
Customer Match can be a useful strategy to move B2B prospects down the sales funnel. You can segment your email list according to buying cycle segments. Then you can design specific ads for each segment relevant to their stage in the buying cycle and their previous actions.
Dynamic search ads use your website content to generate ads that target relevant searches automatically. You can control which pages Google will use to generate these dynamic search ads. It’s best to use content-rich consistent pages for the best results. This can be an effective B2B strategy because it targets any keywords other paid search campaigns might have missed.
Creating an effective and cohesive B2B strategy that generates qualified leads for your business can be challenging. If you’re not seeing the results you want from your PPC campaigns or are struggling to stay on top of your campaigns, getting some specialist help could boost your PPC results.
Logica Digital has over a decade of experience managing successful PPC campaigns for B2B and B2C clients. We’ll use the latest strategies and best practices to help you generate qualified leads and conversions using a wide range of PPC ads.
We also offer a free initial audit if you’d like help with other aspects of your marketing strategy. Our team will look at your existing marketing activities (PPC, SEO, social media and your website) to see how you're currently performing and what steps you can take to drive better results for your business.
Contact the team today to learn more about what we do, or check out the results we’ve driven for clients in the past!
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