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As we enter 2023, B2B brands are facing an increasingly competitive landscape when it comes to paid media. With macroeconomic conditions uncertain for next year, many B2B advertisers are looking closely at their paid media spends to determine if current efforts are successful, where to cut or reallocate, and how to get more performance from existing budgets.
In order to succeed with paid media, it’s important to understand the key pillars of optimization that will drive the most effective campaigns. B2B marketing teams and brands should evaluate all channels and campaigns for the new year to ensure that the essentials of B2B PPC strategy are well-tuned to give campaigns the most leverage for success.
As your team considers paid media strategy for next year, here are four key pillars of B2B PPC optimization that are important to review and consider.
1. Precision Targeting
One of the key pillars of paid media optimization for B2B brands is advanced targeting capabilities. With Google Ads, you can use various match types, such as broad match, phrase match, and exact match, to control which search queries trigger your ads.
It’s important to check that your Google Ads match type strategy is aligned for B2B success. The actual search queries that Google is buying need to represent language that your target B2B buyer would actually use. Advertisers should make sure to check the Google Ads Search Query Report to review quality and accuracy. If you find too much waste, you may need to tighten match types to improve precision.
Additionally, Google Ads offers CPA (cost-per-action) targeting, which allows you to set a target cost-per-conversion for your campaigns and automatically adjust your bids to achieve that target. This can be a useful way to optimize your paid media efforts and drive more qualified leads to your website.
Similarly, advertisers should also review paid social targeting and segmentation reporting to check that the audience being reached is a close match to your ideal customer profile. For example, LinkedIn offers Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategies that allow you to target specific accounts and decision-makers within those accounts, enabling you to reach a highly targeted audience of potential customers. By leveraging these advanced targeting capabilities, you can increase the chances of success for your paid media campaigns.
Ultimately, the targeting techniques you choose will depend significantly on your overall digital marketing strategy. Some platforms are better for lead generation, others are more effective for generating targeted website traffic. Make sure to do your research and choose the best paid media channel for your business before investing your precious marketing budget.
2. Deep-Funnel Measurement
Another key pillar of paid media optimization for B2B brands is the integration of CRM software. By connecting your paid media campaigns to CRM software like Salesforce and HubSpot, you can track the progress of leads from initial click to final conversion. This allows you to see which leads are most likely to convert into customers and adjust your paid media campaign accordingly.
Ideally, platforms like Google Ads will be able to use machine learning strategies such as CPA bidding tied directly to deep-funnel metrics reported by your CRM. This level of insight and control is essential for maximizing the effectiveness of your paid media efforts in a competitive B2B landscape.
Additionally, deep-funnel tracking enables you to retarget your customers throughout the entire buyer’s journey. Since you’re tracking specific customer actions, you can guide their purchase decision with high-quality, targeted content marketing that speaks directly to their needs. When combined with email marketing automation, you can ensure case studies, white papers, webinars, and other forms of content reach your customers at the right stage of the sales cycle.
Marketers should also make sure that cookie-proof measurement strategies are in place wherever possible. This includes migrating to GA4 and implementing Google Enhanced Conversions and Facebook Conversions API. These steps will ensure that web data is as complete as possible even through tracking challenges such as Apple’s iOS14 changes.
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3. Aligning Media Platforms
To get the most out of your paid media efforts, choosing the right platforms for your business is important. For B2B companies, the most effective platforms are typically Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads, as these offer highly targeted advertising options that can help you reach potential customers who are already interested in your products or services.
You may also want to consider using Facebook Ads and display advertising to reach a broader audience and raise brand awareness. By focusing your budget on these platforms, you can maximize the chances of success for your paid media campaigns.
As you start getting your marketing plan ready for the new year, take stock of your total media spend for last year and consider where performance really came from. Per the above point, ideally your team can do this analysis using CRM data to find actual customer and revenue data. Based on overall media performance, the new year is a good time to realign spending plans to proven success.
4. Landing Pages
In addition to choosing the right keywords and messaging for your paid media campaigns, it’s also important to optimize your landing pages to maximize the chances of conversion. A landing page is the page that users are directed to when they click on one of your ads, and it should be designed to encourage them to take a specific action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
To optimize your landing pages, you can use tools like Google Optimize to run A/B tests and experiments, which allow you to compare the performance of different versions of your landing page and see which one performs best. By regularly testing and refining your landing pages, you can improve their performance and increase the chances of conversion for your paid media campaigns.
As marketing teams may be tasked to do “more with less” in 2023, often landing page improvements and conversion rate optimization are the highest-leverage activities B2B organizations can do, especially if current PPC campaigns are already mature. Improving conversion rate by 50% on a landing page is often easier than doing a comparable improvement in PPC efficiency. Plus, this can provide learnings that you can use to improve the conversion rate of other parts of your site, leading to tangential gains in your search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing campaigns.
Getting Ready for 2023
In conclusion, the pillars of B2B paid media optimization for 2023 are targeting, measurement, platforms, and landing page optimization and testing. By focusing on these critical areas, B2B businesses can create more effective paid media campaigns and drive more qualified leads to their business.
The challenges of the 2023 economy, including the potential for a recession, mean that it is more important than ever to optimize your paid media efforts in order to maximize the return on investment. By staying up-to-date with the latest marketing trends and marketing tactics, and by regularly monitoring and refining your campaigns, you can ensure that your paid media efforts are as effective as possible in the face of economic uncertainty.