When you can double your return on your investment for any type of B2B marketing, it makes sense to focus on perfecting your strategy and methods. Pay per click (PPC) advertising shows considerable benefits for companies that provide products and services to other businesses instead of consumers. With the help of an experienced and knowledgeable ad agency, you can realize a much higher rate of click throughs and responses from the generated leads.
What Does B2B Mean for Digital Marketing?
Business-to-business (B2B) digital marketing is all about using online platforms to reach out to other companies and professional organizations. It can be used to promote products or services, build brand awareness, or generate leads. B2B digital marketing differs from consumer-focused digital marketing in a few key ways.
Since the PPC target audience is different, the message has to be different. B2B content needs to be more focused on the business’ needs, rather than on the features of the product or service. Digital Authority Partners say that the power of pay per click marketing remains just a strong for company-focused campaigns as for consumer-focused ones.
Important Terms to Understand in the PPC World
Even if you work with a professional PPC agency, it helps to understand basic terms so you understand their efforts and the results you receive. These are also helpful for search engine optimization (SEO) in the quest for organic search traffic.
Keyword – The target word or phrase that searchers input in order to find the information they are looking for. You place a keyword bid on each of these to generate clicks.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) — How many people clicked your ad divided by how many people saw your ad. This is a measurement of how attractive your PPC ad is to your audience.
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) — How much you pay to get a click on your ad. This combines your keyword bid with your click through rate to determine the actual value of each one.
Conversion Rate – What percentage of people who click your ad end up becoming leads for your business? Since this is the end goal of all B2B marketing, it is an exceptionally important number to keep track of.
Quality Score – Google gives this number to your PPC ads based on their text, keyword focus, and landing page relevancy.
How to Set Up B2B PPC Campaigns
Setting up a B2B PPC campaign requires careful thought and strategizing. Choose the right keywords. When setting up your campaign, think about what your target audience is likely to search for. Use online research tools or the skills of your professional digital marketing agency to find keyword ideas, get traffic estimates, and determine an effective bidding strategy. This type of data gathering and predictive analytics can minimize wasted money that could be better used for other business operations or marketing efforts.
Write ad copy that resonates with your B2B audience. It should include the target keyword and relevant information to attract business representatives. Set up targeted ads campaigns. Google and other platforms allow precise focus based on industry, niche, location, and more. Furthermore, you can research the best marketing strategies for B2B here and see which ones can be integrated into your own. This way, you’re getting a proven strategy that works while personalizing it to fit your company’s specific needs.
Targeting Options for Pay Per Click
Although it is important for consumer audiences too, precise targeting makes B2B marketing possible. Different platforms offer a variety of options that go beyond basic industry information. The five main varieties on Google include search, display, placement, keyword, and audience targeting. They can all play a pivotal role in increasing the efficacy of your PPC efforts.
The most common is search targeting. This identifies people who have already searched for topics relevant to your business. There is a sense of built-in responsiveness and an opportunity to outshine your competitors with these types of campaigns.
Display targeting focuses on person’s behavior on websites beyond the search engine. For example, if a company representative clicked through and spent time on an informational site adjacent to the product or services you offer, it makes sense to target them for your ads.
Placement targeting puts your ads on a specific list of websites or platforms. This can be exceptionally important for B2B organizations that may not want their ad to show up on a competitor site or one with limited authority in the industry.
Audience targeting is the way you specify exactly who gets to see your ads. Google and other platforms have entire suite of tools dedicated to narrowing down and segmenting your campaigns for the highest returns possible.
The Benefits of PPC Advertising for Businesses
B2B pay per click campaigns can provide benefits at the top and middle parts of the sales funnel. It all comes down to targeting, keyword choice, ad text, and bidding strategies. Different ads can focus on brand awareness and recognition that represents the first couple points of exposure to your business. This is especially important for startups looking to work their way in to a specific industry or niche.
PPC also helps generate leads further down the funnel the targets are still trying to make up their mind whether they should reach out or not. In this stage, use keyword phrases that align with common questions or concerns that business contacts would ask when evaluating your organization. This is where things get more competitive and you must focus on the highest search engine page rankings possible.
How to Make Sure Your B2B PPC Works
The matter what type of PPC campaign you launch and run, it is important to track the results so you can figure out whether or not the campaign succeeded. One way to do this is to collect data about how many people clicked through to your site from your ads, and how many of those people then made a purchase. The click through rate and the conversion rate are two essential data points to keep an eye on.
Also track how much money you are spending on the campaign and how much revenue each one generates. This information will help you determine whether the campaign is worth continuing, and whether you need to make any changes in order to improve its performance. When you partner with an experienced and skilled digital marketing agency that specializes in PPC, you will get regular reports that contain all essential data and expert recommendations on the best path forward toward a more B2B success.