5 Important B2B Advertising Lessons
“Don’t tell me what your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what your priorities are.” James W. Frick
This quote has underlying truth when it comes to spending your marketing dollars. All too often we can look back on our paid marketing campaign’s progress and see that we’ve wasted a large portion of our budget on something we probably should have known would happen. Testing is always important, but we can make educated guesses.
I’m here to hand you my experience to help prohibit these mistakes. These aren’t one-time problems, but repeat offenders. Here are five things I wish every B2B marketer knew.
Lesson #1 Don’t Just Choose AdWords to Choose AdWords
Sometimes we talk about Google AdWords as if it is the very definition of paid ads. However, there are so many options out there now that those with smaller budgets and expensive clicks tend to dive head first into AdWords when there are less expensive options out there for them.
Have you considered Bing, native, programmatic, or social? In most cases, the competition is less fierce. I’ve found that those who try unique ways to spend their money tend to find crevices that are hidden from their competitors.
Here is my #1 tip if you are determined to do paid search. Try Bing first. Yes, there is lower search volume, but time and time again we are able to land great leads for a lower cost and minimal competition.
Lesson #2 Try LinkedIn. Just Try It!
Ok, so this is a really specific one. LinkedIn is not for every business, but below are a few ways to identify if you are a good fit.
- You have sales cycles of 6 months or longer
- You have high price tags on your product or service
- A sale requires educating your customer
- You sell to large enterprises
If one or more of these descriptions apply to you then you are most likely a great candidate for LinkedIn Ads.
LinkedIn isn’t limited to this criteria, but if you fit this mold it will most likely do amazing things for you. I’m a huge fan because in AdWords you are most likely paying a dear price for your clicks. I work with a big data client that pays an average of $30 a click in AdWords. That’s average. When we moved to LinkedIn our clicks were significantly cheaper, and the leads were hot.
Not enough marketers are taking advantage of LinkedIn. Start generating some content worth sharing and use LinkedIn’s hyper-targeted user data to get in front of the person that will win you the sale.
Lesson #3 Focus on LTV, Not Cost per Conversion
Pay close attention to customer lifetime value (LTV). If all you care about is cost/conversion, you will certainly cut off spending in the very place where you find your best customers. When I took over a client’s LinkedIn account, we cleaned up their audiences and got hyper-targeted. I almost panicked at first when I saw the CPCs and cost/conversion go up from their performance with the last marketing agency. However, the leads were on fire and my client said they literally didn’t care how much those leads cost, they wanted more of them. Measure what a customer is worth and be willing to pay for a good lead.
Lesson #4 Create a Flow Chart
Simply put, create a full remarketing strategy. We have the power of audiences today. Don’t just decide to start remarketing one day without looking at the whole picture. That is why I recommend a flow chart to visually map out what is happening to everyone who comes in contact with your business online, whether through organic, paid, referral, or other channels.
When I create a visual I realize that I’m often not accounting for those who bounce from a certain landing page, or for visitors to a certain section of the website. Now you can remarket to a single audience using multiple channels across search and social. Don’t forget the incredible opportunities that are opened up to us with custom audiences.
Lesson #5 Remember, It’s Not One Size Fits All
This may be the most important lesson yet. Every word of advice you receive is just based off of a case study. It needs to be tested and customized to your needs. I’ve faced many failures by taking a strategy that was successful for one person and assuming it would be successful for a completely different vertical.
Overall, with these tips you will be headed in the right direction to avoid common pitfalls of B2B marketers and will have established a foolproof paid strategy that gives you the leads you are looking for at a lower cost.
