Benefits of B2B Paid Advertising: Drive More Leads and Conversions
You may have heard the buzz about paid advertising, and how it’s instrumental in helping B2B businesses drive leads and convert more prospects. But knowing how each business has unique needs and goals, you may also be wondering whether or not paid advertising is the best route to take.
In this blog, we’ll tackle everything about paid advertising including its different options, benefits, and what it would mean for your business should you decide to incorporate paid ads into your B2B marketing strategy.
What is Paid Advertising?
Paid advertising is any type of advertisement that a company pays for on the internet. With paid ads, marketers rent an advertisement space from an owner. Advertisements are available on many different social media or search platforms.
Paid advertising falls into a few different categories including pay-per-click (PPC) which is the most popular. There is also pay-per-impression (PPI) and display advertising.
An amazing thing about paid advertisements is that you can target your audience exactly where they are.
Benefits of Paid Advertising for B2B
Paid advertising is one of the best marketing tactics to use because of the many benefits for businesses of any size. Paid advertising can:
1. Increase Conversions
In 2021, businesses spent around $153 billion on online ads. A whopping amount, if you ask us, but why exactly do businesses shell out so much money on paid ads? The answer is simple. Paid ads reach target audiences quickly.
This is mainly because paid ads can tap into specific audience segments, as opposed to the spray-and-pray marketing approach. A survey by Epsilon indicated that around 80% of buyers are more likely to interact with brands if they offer personalized experiences, something that’s important in helping them make purchase decisions.
Paid ads can yield results and boost conversions in more ways than one:
- Ebook downloads- Ebook downloads help convert prospects to customers. The more your audience segment gains access to your ebook, the more trust you build with customers.
- Signups- Prospect requested a demo? Good for you! Increased signups mean more sales opportunities. Your sales team would spend less time searching for leads and more time selling your product. A quick note: make sure your signup forms are optimized!
- Social following- In today’s business landscape, thriving in the digital space is crucial. Building a community around your brand not only increases followers and builds customer loyalty.
2. Drive Brand Awareness
Often startups can find it challenging to find their target audience and showcase their products and/or services. Paid ads can help with this since relevance is a big factor in ad placement. Paid ads also enable you to collaborate with other businesses from other parts of the world. This allows you to grow your audience base and make your business visible to as much of your market as possible.
Moreover, paid advertising platforms allow marketers to customize ad settings. You can choose the specific demographics, age, gender, location, preferences, and interests. Being hyper-specific with your advertising preferences ensures that you generate more relevant results from your campaign.
3. Boost Lead Generation
Paid advertising helps with B2B lead generation in more ways than one, including:
- Ranking your website on the first page of SERPs.
- Narrowing your audiences to specific demographics.
- Promoting your brand using unique messaging.
In addition, paid ads are a more cost-effective technique as you won’t need a lot of manpower to produce results — targeted ads only draw qualified leads. While it may be more expensive than organic search, it’s a lot more effective.
An added bonus? Paid ads are highly measurable. In the context of lead generation, you can track metrics such as click-through rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC), earnings per click (EPC), and leads, so that you can immediately know what’s working and what isn’t.
Types of Paid Advertising
There are different types of paid ads that you can leverage for your B2B marketing campaign. Below are some examples:
- Social media marketing: One of the best ways to market your business is by posting paid ads on social media platforms. Social media ads can appear in column formats, on newsfeeds, and on stories. Facebook is considered to be the primary platform for paid ads. Apart from Facebook, you may also utilize Instagram (photo-heavy ads), LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter for advertising.
- Search engine marketing (SEM): Considered one of the most popular types of paid advertising, search engine marketing (SEM) involves paying Google to appear on the top spot of SERPs. The SEM model is founded on keywords; comprehensive keyword research should be a part of your keyword management strategy so that your SEM campaign could be efficient.
- Display marketing: Those banner ads you see when visiting a website that seems to follow you wherever you go? Those are forms of display marketing. With the way they’re customizable in terms of content and dimensions, display ads can also be effective ways to promote your brand and establish a connection with your audiences.
- Influencer marketing: Sometimes, B2B marketing is a team effort. In fact, 94% of B2B marketers say that influencer marketing has been effective in meeting marketing goals. Generally speaking, customers would want to know if your company has something they’re looking for and if you have it at the price most convenient for them. Engaging influencers keeps your business ahead of the race without spending that much money — influencer feedback could be powerful enough to build credibility and convince prospects to try your product/service.
Key Takeaway
Many businesses have found success by incorporating paid advertising into their B2B marketing strategy. It’s easy to see why — with all of the benefits we’ve listed above. Investing in paid ads drives growth!
Ready to speak to the right audiences but need help in building your PPC strategy? We are here to help.