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What B2B Marketers Should Know About Running PPC Campaigns

When used correctly, PPC has the potential to accelerate up business growth by turning on the MQL tap. In the wrong hands, PPC can be a money pit that leads to despair and wasted marketing budgets. I’m cutting to the chase and spilling the beans on how to run campaigns for maximum ROI.

Is inbound marketing your hero? Yeah, it’s ours too. We all share that love affair with long-term B2B tech marketing strategy. We can’t get enough of the way it nurtures organic leads and lays the foundation of your customer base, but have you ever considered that you might be getting a little obsessed? 

Not in a bad way, that is. We wouldn’t want you to stop with inbound marketing. We’d just like to suggest that you share a little attention for today’s bad boy of marketing: paid ads. 

We’ve all heard the complaints that PPC is disruptive outbound marketing, but we believe it’s just misunderstood. When your Paid Ads campaign integrates with inbound marketing, you’re looking at marketing’s star couple. Paid media helps add more detail to target audience insights, so you can craft ever-more relevant content. With PPC, you can target the right people on every channel to generate quality leads, build relationships, and quickly scale your inbound marketing. It’s a beautiful friendship, and it’s in your hands.

Kicking off your B2B PPC Campaign

There’s so much to dig into with this topic that I’ve written a whole eBook about it, but we’re short on time, so let’s cut to the chase.  Here are the highlights:

Understanding the Buyer Journey

Like with inbound marketing, understanding the 4 stages of a buyer's journey is your foundation for effective Paid Media campaigns. 

  1. Awareness. Your buyer has a problem and is looking for information to help solve it. Spread the net wide, sharing informative, non-promotional content. 
  2. Consideration. The lead has defined their goal and is looking for non-sales content that differentiates you from the competition. 
  3. Decision. Your prospect is ready for content that firmly presents your value proposition without being salesy.
  4. Delight. Turn your customer into a brand ambassador by promoting shareable content on social media to drive engagement and reach. 

Match your targeting, channel  and offer to the buyer’s journey

So many channels, combinations and limited budgets. What you choose and when is key. We recommend:

  • For the Awareness stage, use LinkedIn lead generation ads, YouTube Video ads and Facebook ads. LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are your go-to channels for promoting entertaining and informative video content, informative blogs and fun infographics. 
  • The Consideration stage is when you should replace YouTube ads with Google Search Ads, but continue with LinkedIn and Facebook. Google Search Ads are very effective for targeting leads at this stage in their journey. Content such as eBooks, whitepapers and webinars will do well at this stage.
  • At the Decision stage, you’ll continue with Google Ads, Facebook and LinkedIn, but you’ll adjust your KPIs and content types to continue to meet your lead’s changing interests. Try case studies, product comparisons, demos and free trials. Remarketing on the Google Display Network and on YouTube is a great idea too.
  • By the Delight stage, you should only use social media channels. LinkedIn and Facebook are the most effective for pushing social shares and referrals. Consider sharing surveys, tutorials and referral programs.

See the Full eBook | Download the eBook

Maximize content exposure on LinkedIn

I’m an enormous fan of LinkedIn lead generation ads. One of the reasons why LinkedIn lead generation is so effective is that it’s one of the few platforms that still displays organic content, so you should make the most of it while it lasts. Build an ad that directs people to click through to follow your company page, so they’ll stumble over more of your excellent content. 

On the downside, Linkedin limits exposure for each blog post. Overcome this hurdle by promoting more than one blog at the same time. 

Build a target audience on LinkedIn

You should definitely take advantage of LinkedIn’s audience-building tools to target your lead generation ads carefully and effectively. Create ads based on your persona’s job title and related skills, and then use these tactics to develop target audiences that are most likely to be interested in your content. 

  • Upload a list of the companies that you’re aiming to reach
  • Use related groups to generate target audiences
  • Filter audiences according to related skills and/or job title
  • Use retargeting to include anyone who began to watch a video or opened a form, but didn’t finish the process. 

PPC Can Be the Flywheel of Business Growth

This is just the tip of the iceberg for PPC. PPC can kickstart your inbound marketing and generate the mass of qualified (and unqualified) leads that you need to test targeting, content, and creative. PPC delivers the customer data that helps you develop targeted and effective inbound marketing campaigns. 

However, if it’s not managed well your PPC campaigns could bleed you dry, as you throw money away on lead generation that leads nowhere. It takes a good 2-3 months to see results, but some marketers still believe that PPC is a magic spell for MQLs. Connect with the right marketing agency that understands how to integrate Paid Media with your other marketing tactics to really see results.

Our eBook contains a lot more inside tips and actionable takeaways for developing a powerful B2B tech marketing strategy that unites PPC and inbound marketing into a seamless marketing and sales funnel that scales business results fast.

Take Me to the Full eBook | Download the eBook

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