Right Percent

Headlines make up 90% of a winning ad. Here’s how we create them for brands like Uber, Motive, and Zenefits. First order of business is to find your best performing messaging to use. 99% of companies can rework their existing marketing language into visual headlines. Find which product lines, features and benefits convert best for new customers, and test those as ads. Then, convert that messaging into visual headlines with the following tips: 1. Mention your specific target Ex. DocuSign targeting salespeople: Avoid: “Grow your business with DocuSign” Do: “Close sales 30% faster with digital signing” 2. Naming People (for the most part) don’t really care about your product naming. I recommend leaving it out. “Manage your business with Acme Business Corporation’s IT Singularity Cloud” vs “Manage your business from the iCloud” 3/ SUCCESS Framework Implement two of the following for each ad you put out: Simple Unexpected Credible Concrete Emotional Stories Make sure to use these 3 when writing out your next batch of visual headlines. And take this seriously. Like I mentioned, a good visual headline is the #1 indicator of a successful ad.

“Paying $500 per lead from LinkedIn ads sounds expensive” - my client’s before we run the 1st campaign. This is what I tell them to ease their worries: In the digital advertising space, ‘expensive’ just comes down to this question: How many dollars are you paying for every dollar of revenue you get? Things like CPC do correlate with that, but also don’t really matter. You could pay $100 per click and still run a profitable campaign if your CVR/LTV is high enough. That said, LinkedIn isn’t going to work for you if your LTV is $100. You should be making a minimum of 2k per customer. But this is LinkedIn. It’s made for B2B, where $5,000 isn’t even considered a big contract. So yes, LinkedIn ads are technically expensive in a certain sense. We have clients that pay $30 per click. And we even have clients that pay $500 for a single lead. But they’re still profitable. So don’t let high costs on LinkedIn ads deter you from running them. ‘Expensive’ is in the eye of the beholder. Do you agree with this? Or am I missing something?

This is the #1 mistake I see smaller sized companies make with their ads. (90% won’t scale past 7 figures because of this) Improve your offer. Most of the smaller companies I’ve seen struggle, tend to have a very direct approach to their offer. And 9 times out of 10, it doesn’t convert well because users aren’t given a reason to actually care. So, how can you make your offer 3X more compelling? A few ways. One way is to use lead magnets. A free E-book, a free guide, a free anything that will provide your potential customer base with something of use. Something that works just as good, if done properly, is an incentive. A gift card, free audit, etc. One of the best examples of an incentive that I’ve ever seen was from an agency that specializes in putting out (metaphorical) fires. They offered everyone who booked a call a free fire extinguisher, and it converted like crazy. So for all of my smaller companies out there still trying to find their footing, make sure you have something of value to provide upfront. The super direct approach will convert a warm audience, but that’s not sustainable in the long term. Get creative. Provide more value. And make your offer compelling. If you can do that, I guarantee you’ll see instant improvements in your performance.

4 things I learned way too late about lead generation for B2B. I’ve spent the best part of the last decade learning B2B lead generation. My business has spent in excess of $100m in ad budget. We’ve gathered heaps of data on what works and what doesn’t. If you’re just starting out in B2B ads, here are the things I wish I knew when I started: 1. Over half (68%) of Americans use Facebook and Instagram daily That includes 68% of pretty much any target customer. However, the rule of thumb for making ads work here is that you need a target audience of at least 200,000 people. So, if your target audience is accountancy practice leaders with over 100 employees, you might find Facebook/Insta to be the wrong pool to fish in. 2. Leads from paid social have less intent than organic leads With that in mind you’ll need to either have a specialist team for these leads or an outbound team confident at converting leads close to cold. 3. Timing matters more than you imagine So get a solid sales team in place asap and track time to calls. If someone clicks your ad and gets a call 5 minutes later, they’re much more likely to know why you’re calling than if you call them a day later. 4. Headlines count the most - be specific The headline of your ad should immediately tell someone if this ad is for them or not. ”Love cooking? You’ll love our robust pans,” is generic “Restaurant owners in downtown LA - never replace kitchenware again”, calls out the customer. If you could add just one thing to this list, what would it be?

“If we stopped running B2B ads, would we be getting these clients anyway?” This question is about the incrementality of your ad efforts. There’s basically two types of B2B attribution. 1) Direct. In this case you can see exactly where the lead came from, and if your systems are set-up correctly, all the ways they’ve interacted with you since first touch. This is the primary method we recommend, and except for things like branded search, is usually highly incremental. 2) Indirect. In this case you are not tracking leads directly. The way to measure is via lift test, usually splitting out two different geographies. This is the second way to measure incrementality. In general, click-through paid social and non-brand is usually highly incremental, and view-through and brand search are low incrementality.

This company in the B2B HR Tech space spent $200k+/m on LinkedIn Sponsored Content newsfeed ads. It was working to an extent, and their $200k+/m investment was seeing a return, but we knew they could significantly improve that. The magic is in ad unit diversification. Our team setting up more units (especially conversation ads) into the mix for this brand resulted in: - 30% decrease in account level CPL - 25% increase in sales-qualified lead metrics Why? Diversifying your ad units allows you to do three things well: >>> Get more efficient with bids in sponsored content >>> Invest the previous budget in a new ad unit for the same audience >>> Improve overall ROI

Okay, today’s post is a bit long but on a really important topic: How B2B Brand Campaigns Go Wrong. Here’s how B2B brand advertising campaigns normally work. - Brand picks channels with enough volume to reach users (Facebook and YouTube, sometimes LinkedIn) - Brand picks targeting that best fits their ICP - Runs ads, optimizing for views, impressions, etc Performance is usually measured in 1 of 3 ways: - Views, clicks, impressions - Before and after surveys - Lift test So, at what point do things usually go wrong? I’ve found on new account we jump on, targeting is the biggest problem. Companies running brand campaigns want to unlock new consumers. Consumers their direct response campaigns don’t reach. This means they want large audiences. But the problem is that on platforms with large audiences (FB, YouTube, Insta, TikTok, etc.), targeting isn’t good enough to work for B2B alone. Those platforms rely on algorithmic conversion event training to do effective B2B targeting, and brand campaigns don't have conversion events. Here’s what *does* work for B2B brand ads: - Precise audiences - just like an ABM strategy - Top-of-funnel content - Optimize for an event where you can qualify the user (like an e-book) Enlightened or confused? Drop your comments below, and we can chat it out.

I’ve spent 12+ years and $100m learning B2B ads → I’ve put my biggest learnings into a CMO’s guide. I’m giving it away for free: It contains some learnings I share regularly on this feed, and some useful new stuff. Most importantly, it’s all in one place for easy reference. If you think B2B ads will be important to your company’s growth in 2024, this is for you. It covers: - How to support your ad team with offers - How to track and attribute your ad efforts - How to support your ad team with effective B2B ad creative - Picking the right strategies and channels for your target demographic And much more besides! Want in? Like & add a message below, and I’ll send it to you. PS. Let’s connect so I can get it over ASAP (: