How to Make the Most of B2B PPC

Many of you may already be aware of pay per click advertising or have a pay per click campaign up and running. For those that don't, pay per click advertising (otherwise known as PPC) is a powerful form of advertising that is based purely online. As a PPC advertiser, you pay every time someone ‘clicks’ on your advert, hence the name ‘pay per click’.

Online PPC advertising is a powerful tool and is used to reach millions of consumers across the world every day via B2C (business to consumer) pay per click advertising. However what is not always so clear is how businesses can reach other businesses, rather than consumers, with their PPC.

So here we enter the world of business to business pay per click advertising or as it is better known, B2B PPC. The secret of B2B PPC is to make sure that you are using the right advertising channels to reach the right audiences. So you’ll need to think about where your target audiences are consuming their online content and, therefore, where they are most likely to see?your?adverts.

LinkedIn Ads

The platform of choice for B2B advertising is LinkedIn. This makes sense as it is the go to place where business people network and connect. Let’s think of an example. Say you have a web design business with a presence on LinkedIn. You’ll likely have connected with plenty of your customers and potential customers on LinkedIn.

So, in this scenario, you have a good network of business connections on LinkedIn. Perhaps you’ve followed some business executives from companies that you’d like to be your clients and they’ve followed you back. So in other words your ideal potential customers could already be aware who you are as a business or a person.?

Now, with these potential business connections already primed, you have the perfect opportunity to have an advert appear in front of them for your web design business. Your connections on LinkedIn may see this advert and if it is eye catching, click on it to learn more about what you can offer them. They then may go on to sign up for your website design services.

LinkedIn is also the ideal platform for enticing potential new customers with value-added content, like e-books and white papers. If your ad on LinkedIn encourages them to get a free resource that could help them, they are then potentially more likely to use your services, if they find this free resource useful.?

So, as we can see, LinkedIn can be a lucrative online advertising platform if you manage to get your ads in front of the right people who are primed to use your services. You can also potentially get interest from business people on LinkedIn that you have no connection with, that simply see your ad and are ready to buy the services you offer.?

However, many people may click on your ad who are simply browsing possible web design companies and are not ready to ‘buy’ their services. This is the same with all advertising platforms, clicks don’t necessarily mean that people will go onto convert into customers. Once they get to the landing page of your website, by having previously clicked your ad, your offering may simply not appeal to them.?

This means that having a PPC campaign on LinkedIn can become an expensive advertising avenue if you are not getting the conversions you want. So increasingly businesses are looking at cheaper ways to connect with other businesses, via different online advertising avenues.

Bing Ads?

As an alternative to LinkedIn Ads, search ads are a popular type of PPC ad. These are the ones that appear at the top of a search engine. Search ads on Google can be rather expensive so people are now trying alternative search engines like Microsoft Bing, where PPC ads can cost significantly less (around 20%) than on Google.?

Microsoft Bing Ads have more similarities to LinkedIn Ads than Google Ads, but work out far cheaper, so can offer greater return on your investment. Bing Ads allows for LinkedIn ‘Profile Targeting’ so you can target people on your LinkedIn profile with these search ads. Microsoft Advertising is the only platform (other than LinkedIn itself) that allows you to target potential customers based on their LinkedIn profile.

Search advertising campaigns, whether on Bing or Google, are not easy to get right and make successful however. Success depends on good keyword research, to get the right words to use in your ads. Search ads are generally best for call to action (CTA) campaigns, where ads features an action like “get a demo” or “sign up for a free trial”.

We hope this has made the world of B2B PPC a little clearer. If you would like some help with your business to business pay per click advertising, Digital Media Stream are a specialist B2B PPC Agency that can help set up and manage your B2B PPC campaigns for you.?

Because we are an expert B2B PPC company, our B2B PPC Services from our experienced pay per click advertising managers can accelerate your online ad campaigns and provide you with a successful, ongoing B2B PPC strategy.

If you have pay per click advertising already set up, then get a?FREE PPC Review?today, or alternatively contact us for a chat if you are new to the world of online advertising and want some expert advice from a?B2B PPC Agency. You can also visit our?B2B PPC Tips?page for further help and advice.?