The pain points of online B2B lead generation campaigns
Companies selling to the B2B market are increasingly using ppc advertising, which was still dominated by B2C advertisers in the pre-covid period.
Knowing best practices for B2B online advertising is essential for successful lead generation advertising.
In this blog article we would like to help those who are just starting to consider ppc advertising as B2B advertisers, but we also provide useful tips for those who want to achieve better results in the B2B market with their lead generating online ads.
Online advertising is not an expense, but an investment
It is very important to consider online advertising as an investment rather than a cost element. Although this seems like a marginal question, it is not!
It makes a big difference whether we consider an item to be paid as a cost or an investment in the company’s future. Costs can be reduced and saved.
But our online advertising budget is certainly not a cost.
If we look at it as a cost, we will not be able to make the right decisions about it.
What are the costs? Costs are e.g. office rent or office equipment.
But online advertising really is an investment. The reason we spend on online advertising is to generate future revenue through it. If we don’t advertise, we ultimately don’t have customers, right? We are advertising in the hope of generating quality B2B leads and then, by nurturing those leads, we can continue to close high-value deals.
If we stop our online advertising, we are also cutting ourselves off from generating revenue (especially if our company website is not search engine optimized and we cannot get free enquiries organically).
Don’t fragment your advertising budget!
When advertising online, it is important to have an advertising budget that is proportionate to your business goals. The nature of PPC campaigns is that sufficient data and information is needed to optimize advertising campaigns (whether through manual optimization or by relying on so-called smart bidding strategies).
Set realistic goals and listen to the advice of an experienced performance marketing professional/agency when planning your campaign!
For example, if you have 300.000 HUF per month available for online advertising, you should run Google search ads, focusing on those in the final stages of the purchase decision process! You shouldn’t want to run brand awareness ads on 2-3 online advertising channels with this amount of advertising budget. To advertise on such a microscopic amount of money per campaign and per channel is a recipe for failure and frustration.
Run branded campaigns as well!
Even today, many online advertisers think it is a waste of money to advertise for their own brand name in Google search, claiming “we are the first to show up in organic search results for our brand name anyway”. But remember that anyone else can advertise on your brand name in Google search. That means your competitor’s paid ad will be at the top of the page.
Advertising on your own brand name is mandatory! Why risk losing the prospects you’ ve reached for precious money at the finish line, once they take the final step towards contacting you by searching for your brand name?
Last but not least, the change in the search volume for your brand name over time can also provide useful feedback on the success of your overall marketing activity, so it is crucial to monitor it.
Priority order: bid, target, creative
Many people over-emphasise the role of the creative in advertising. However, it has to be said that the quality and content of the business proposition itself is far more important than the visual appearance of your ads. If your business proposition isn’t strong enough, no professional online advertising campaign or pretty creative will work wonders.
Online advertising can only be as successful as the professionalism, thoughtfulness and attractiveness of your business proposition and value proposition, and the quality and effectiveness of your website.
Finding the right target group – taking into account the specificities of each online advertising channel – is the second most important factor, followed by the advertising creative. So it is not true that only the best, most professional visuals get results!
Match the tool to the target!
In fact, the two dominant players in the Hungarian ppc advertising market are Google and Meta (aka Facebook). However, there are many other online advertising channels available alongside these. Choose the right online advertising channel not based on the current fashion trends, but on your main business objective and your main target group (using even Microsoft ads, TikTok ads, Pinterest ads, LinkedIn ads, even Quora ads).
Summary
If you would like to run lead generating online ads, there are a few basic things you should be aware of. There are some specific characteristics that are specific to B2B lead generation advertising that are quite different to B2C online advertising.
In order to maximise the potential of online marketing for your B2B business and to attract quality leads, you may want to contact a specialist performance marketing agency for guidance or for help with planning, campaign set-up and campaign management.