How Can You Make PPC Work For B2B Firms?

Over the years in the digital marketing industry, I’ve realized why Pay-Per-Click (PPC) doesn’t suit the needs of B2B firms. A lot of business-business firms believe that PPC wouldn’t work them, and you know what, most of them are right.

PPC or paid search is a fairly easy way to lose a lot of money; particularly so if you market in a niche market, which is mostly the case with B2B firms.

Essentially, the smaller the market is, the more difficult it becomes to identify profitable search keywords. The struggle doesn’t end even when you’ve found profitable keywords. This is so because it’s arduous to convert clicks into sales.

There are, however, certain ideas you need to explore before pulling yourself completely out of paid search. And if done right, paid search could turn out to be a rich source of leads and sales and help you grow your business substantially.

Let us see how a handful of companies manage to succeed with PPC while most others fail:

Precisely identify your audience

Unlike B2C companies, B2B companies aren’t completely familiar with their audience and do not exactly know of the keywords that can potentially produce results. Most often, whom they think they are targeting isn’t the one they actually intend to target.

This struggle is very real in compact niche markets and B2B marketers end up bidding on keywords superficially related to their services. It does not indicate any relevant search intent. As a result, the wrong traffic barges in, which, of course, never converts.

Less is actually more

When you identify the particular keywords your targets are using, what mostly happens is that click volume comes down while conversions remain just about the same. The key here is to eliminate the irrelevant clicks. This, in turn, would kill the cost associated with such irrelevant terms.

With a lot of saved budget in hand, you can focus on additional relevant terms to bring back the lost traffic volume. You’ll not just witness a rise in the traffic but also in conversions.

Leverage your large LTV

Even with meager profit margins and a huge Cost per Acquisition (CPA), B2B companies can produce tremendous Return on Investment (ROI). I guess it’s fairly simple for us to understand that higher the profit margin, the more space there is for us to figure out things. You can invest your time in coming up with a well-optimized campaign.

Beginning smart from the start would help you keep your costs low while on the learning and experimenting curve.

Make sure there exists a value proposition

It’s often found that B2B companies struggle to communicate their message across. Of course, you put in a lot of time and efforts to come up with the services, but if there’s no explicit mention, it wouldn’t do you much good.

In all honesty, people are not interested in the features of your products. They are looking for solutions to their problems. And if you want people to convert, you need to correctly address the cause that triggered the search.

Simply put, you need to speak directly to the pain point.

You can also choose to consider alternate approaches. There are a few rare instances where Google Search Network would never work for B2B companies. In such a scenario, you can begin with Google Display Network for its cheaper clicks and ultra-specific targeting.

This is particularly helpful when you’re directly competing with mega brands. With Google Display Network, your online presence will build up over time.

With everything said, giving up on Google Search network too early would simply be imbecilic. It all boils down to how well you understand the fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing, and put in efforts accordingly.

If all this feels like a lot of trouble to you, Brandsmartini can definitely help. We can plan, create and implement successful PPC campaigns just for your industry. Feel free to contact us for a PPC campaign that can make you money.

• Published on
• 04/07/2017
• By
• Brands Martini


• Categories: Google Advertising, PPC Campaign