Arriving late to the game, numerous B2B companies have invested significant effort and money into paid search advertising in recent years, aiming for cost-efficient sales. Today, paid search is one of the largest marketing budget items for B2B companies. However, the majority of these companies are overspending due to a combination of irrelevant KPIs, lackluster communication, and internal politics.
#1 Paid search should focus on Sales related KPI’s
Unlike traditional advertising, paid search doesn’t build brand awareness or create mental associations with potential customers. Paid search is more similar to buying shelf-space in the supermarket. Therefore, B2B companies should primarily evaluate paid search based on sales-related metrics such as – contact leads, webinar sign ups and other high intent conversions. If you can’t get action from your paid search efforts you should seriously consider revising your paid search campaigns.
#2 Limit your spend
A common question for many B2B companies is how big budget to set aside for paid search. While each company has its own unique conditions, a useful rule of thumb for many B2B companies is to maintain a 1:1 ratio between your paid search budget and generated revenue from the channel. This way you strike a balance between being present in Google but not wasting your money on too broad searches.
#3 Keep the campaign structure and tracking simple
Utilize UTM links with a clear campaign structure connected to leads and opportunities. This way, you can avoid the need for expensive attribution tools and won’t be misled by skewed attribution models from platforms like Google Ads, Google Analytics and Meta.
Break down your paid search into these four major categories:
- Brand and Product-Related Searches
- High-Intent Searches (Non-branded)
- Low-Intent Searches (Non-branded)
- Competitors
For most B2B companies, branded search terms are the most lucrative because they’ve already been paid for through other marketing activities. The performance of other campaigns will likely be less impressive and risk wasting your money. Start wide but quickly shut down not profitable keywords.
4# Understand the customer lifetime value
Google Ads is more and more driven by AI and big data and is of great help if you know your numbers. If you don’t understand what a customer is worth to your business the risk is high that you either underspend or overspend your budget. So make sure you know what a new customer is worth to your business over time. Here is a link how to calculate your customer CLV.
5# Use your negative keyword list
Many B2B companies struggle with an influx of B2C traffic, which dilutes their budgets with irrelevant visitors. This necessitates regular updates to the negative keyword list and a reduction in the use of broad matching—both of which are time-consuming tasks. However, this is a chore that pays off fast and should be done with regular intervalls to avoid spending unnecessary money.
6# Its all about conversion – Use Relevant Landing Pages
A significant number of B2B companies direct a large portion of their paid traffic to their homepage or standard product pages, rather than to personalized and dedicated landing pages that are relevant to the customers search queries. Today its much harder to stand out from the competition using only tactics in Google Ads (keywords, ads, budgets etc) Building better landing pages than your competition however will benefit your Ad rank in Google Ads as well as you conversion rate. Don’t miss out on it.
7# – Avoid Bidding Wars
Since many B2B companies lack business aligned KPI’s or just don’t have any other marketing ideas, there has been an intense competition for traffic the last years. This means increased prices. While it may be tempting to increase bids for more leads or revenue, this is a quick way to exhaust your budget. It’s crucial to employ a “defensive” strategy to protect your brand and product names from competitors first, then you can go after the less relevant searches.
8# – Raise above company politics with A/B testing
Running paid search campaigns can appear rewarding, especially if upper management lacks a clear understanding of which metrics to focus on. As a paid search marketer, it’s easy to impress your boss by reducing CPC by 20% or generating more leads—even if these don’t translate to sales. If you’re new to your role, suggesting a shift from website traffic to brand awareness campaigns may not be well-received, even if it’s the right long-term strategy. If you struggle convincing management that your approach is the right one, use A/B testing and see what really works.
