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RSM Marketing’s In-Depth Guide to B2B PPC

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The goal of every B2B company is to create brand awareness and leads. Approximately 50% of all content created by B2B marketing has this end goal. Leads are one of the most essential aspects of B2B marketing, to the point that 78% of B2B companies utilize their lead conversion numbers as a performance metric. There are many approaches to improving lead conversion, but few work as well as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

What Is PPC?

PPC stands for pay-per-click, which is an advertising channel for digital marketers. Advertisers are the ones who pay when people click the ads. They do so through a bidding method. PPCs don’t only refer to paying for clicks; this is also used for any ads in bidding strategies. The bidding could refer to paying for impressions or interactions.

Ultimately, PPC is used to refer to the strategy of buying specific, targeted traffic to your website by way of either search results or other platforms. Often, PPC is used on search engine results pages (SERPs).

How it Works

For example, a user searching for car maintenance services will type a specific keyword into the Google search bar. The search engine returns several relevant results about car maintenance.

Above the organic results is an entry indicated by “Ad.” It appears at the top of the page, immediately catching the user’s attention searching. A car maintenance company would pay to put their website on an ad like this so that it’s the first thing that a qualified lead would see.

For B2B companies, it’s done similarly. Using short, targeted ads, one company can target other businesses that require specific services. An auction system determines if your ad will show up on the results, and your company only pays when someone clicks the ad or interacts with it.

Advantages of PPC

According to Google, one of the primary channels for PPC marketing for B2C and B2B, the average ROI for a PPC ad is up to 200%. The amount that a company pays in the auction bidding for the advertisement doubled thanks to the number of people clicking on the ad.

Furthermore, PPC ads boost brand awareness by up to 140%. The paid-search advertising has exceeded even the ROI results of organic traffic, with up to 50% more conversions than organic traffic. As a result, most marketers now prefer social media PPC ads to generate their leads, with up to 40% of businesses planning to increase their marketing budget towards this strategy.

Crucial Factors to Consider

B2B companies benefit the most from PPC as the direct engagement is targeted toward other companies’ decision-makers and executive leaders. This type of marketing can be geared specifically to these company leaders, creating a shortcut to qualified leads who can immediately make big decisions on behalf of their companies.

Because of this, it can be more complicated to create a PPC campaign for B2B. Remember the following factors that can affect your PPC campaign.

Keyword Search Volumes are Lower

The audience will be much smaller. While, on the one hand, this means that it’s easier to find qualified leads among the target audience, it also results in much lower keyword search volumes. As a result, a business needs to gear its PPC campaign to target a more specific and unique subset of the population.

Target Multiple Department Heads

To reach qualified decision-makers in other companies, the campaign needs to target more than just the heads of one department or just the administrative heads. These decision-makers could come from different areas, such as the IT department, purchasing department, or other company areas.

This means it’s crucial to design your company’s campaigns to target these areas. You have to define why your services are profitable to other departments. For example, if your business services offer office lighting services, appeal to the design team by introducing the benefits of floor lighting. You can also appeal to the IT department by explaining why the right lighting helps productivity.

Structuring with Best Practices Is Crucial

Companies need to abide by the best practices for B2B PPC advertising campaigns since the targeting is far more specific. Google Ads has an account hierarchy, and if your company’s campaigns don’t match it, the ads may underperform.

Google considers the account itself the highest in the hierarchy, followed by ad campaigns, ad groups, and keywords. PPC ad campaigns, therefore, need to have organized ad grouping targeted related, competitor, and branded search terms.

Clearly define the budget, which is the amount per day your company is willing to spend on the ads. The landing page has to be targeted directly to your audience. Finally, you need to define how much your company is willing to bid. How much are you ready to pay so that someone will click on your ad?

B2B Buyers and Shoppers Compare More Than Consumers

The shoppers among B2B companies are more discerning. They will very likely consider your competitors and other competing brands. Therefore, your company must create PPC content that defines why your company is superior. Testimonials, case studies, and white papers can help the decision-makers see your company as more authoritative, relevant, and ultimately the better choice for their needs.

Reach Out to Experienced Marketers

The specifics around PPC marketing geared to target other companies are best performed by experienced campaign managers. These people would have experience managing campaigns in the B2B PPC environment. Specialists fully understand the best practices techniques, and most of all, they have the patience to handle a campaign with a long sales cycle, which is another thing to expect from B2B PPC.

RSM Marketing’s PPC management services team has veteran strategists who can work with your company to design a specialized lead generation campaign that puts your company above the competition. Our goal is to ensure that you get the highest ROI on your PPC campaigns and long-term results. Contact us today to start designing a lead generation ad campaign or read more about what we can do for your company.

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