The Role of PPC in B2B Marketing: Turning Clicks into Clients

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is a tool that helps B2B companies capture potential customers quickly and effectively by placing your business website in the top positions, attracting the most attention when users enter relevant search keywords.

Potential customers are searching for what they need every day, every hour, starting with typing relevant keywords on search engines.

Through this article, we will discuss the unique characteristics of the B2B market and its relation to PPC.

The Role of PPC in the B2B Market

B2B professionals know their target audience is narrower than B2C. They focus on other businesses rather than individual customers. Therefore, the number of B2B related keywords is also lower than B2C.

For example, in a month, the number of searches for “shoes” will sometimes be higher than the number of searches for “shoe making machines” in a year. This is understandable because B2B products (such as machines, technologies, components & raw materials) are clearly only for businesses, and are then used to create products and services for the B2C segment.

A B2B buyer persona can belong to various company departments. It could be an end user, an executive, an IT department, or a corporate purchasing officer. You should design and customize your PPC campaigns (including keywords, content, landing pages, etc.) to suit each unique audience you anticipate having a high interest in your product.

B2B customers also tend to do a lot of comparison, especially when considering large volume or dollar purchases, short/long-term contract types, and potential business relationships. 

Once you have grasped these characteristics, you need to provide as much information about your products as possible to your customers so that they have a clearer view of what you are selling, thereby increasing their persuasion to buy.

That information can be listed from research, evidence of efficiency, productivity, you can say like an information brochure. The difference here is that in B2C, the forms of promoting customers’ purchasing decisions are mainly direct promotions, hitting your price more than information.

A B2B sales cycle can last several months. It often takes this long for a PPC investment to demonstrate progress.

PPC Advice for B2B Businesses

A B2B PPC marketing campaign is similar to a B2C campaign. You will still need to set up campaigns, ad groups, keywords, etc., just like B2C, but it must adhere to the nature of the B2B market.

1. Research and study

For any B2B PPC marketing campaign, you must take the time to learn and do some thorough research, to optimize the content set up for the campaign and focus on the core and features of the product, not to waste money paying for CCP from an irrelevant search keyword.

For example, a “business cloud storage” solution should have negative keywords to avoid users searching for “personal cloud storage” or “iCloud storage,” for example. 

2. Keywords

B2B keyword research techniques are similar to those for B2C. You should consider the popularity and usage of the keywords and how they are used to really determine the right keywords. For example, the search volume for “IT software” will probably be higher than “information technology software” even though they both have the same definition, simply because “IT” is a more popular and widely used term than “information technology”.

Since we’re talking B2B, think from the perspective of the company searching for you. Their search terms often include words like “provider” or “solution”, “company”, “supplier”, etc.

For B2B negative keywords typically include tlerms like “review”, “hiring”, and “free”, for example.

3. Campaign & Ad Group

Due to the unique nature of B2B research, you should set keywords for each campaign and ad group according to the purchase decision process.

Consider the research through loyalty stages of a purchase funnel to inform your decisions when building your campaigns and ad groups. You can run separate campaigns for each stage of the funnel.

The benefit of this is that you’ll immediately identify which campaigns and ad groups need keywords relevant to each stage, so you can create more relevant and engaging content. For example, phrases like “suppliers” are likely to appear in search terms during the research stage.

Over time, you’ll be able to look at the ROI from each campaign that reflects each stage of the sales funnel, and reallocate your budget accordingly.

4. Ad Content

When creating content for B2B ads, you should consider the differences between B2B & B2C to create appropriate calls to action or promotions.  

For example, In B2B PPC, companies rarely use calls to action like “Buy Now!” or “Order Today.” Instead, they use phrases like “Get More Information” or “Contact Us Today.” This is because B2B buyers need time. The B2B sales cycle is often long.

They may just be researching or need consensus and approval from higher levels and departments within the same company before deciding to buy. It could also be that the price of B2B products is often quite high, with transactions involving large amounts of money, it is not as simple as just selecting a purchase and pressing “Pay” like when shopping on online shopping sites.

If you don’t know who your buyer persona is (CEO? Accountant? Purchasing person?), it’s best to write ads targeted to each of these potential customer groups and measure the performance of those ads. Use phrases like “cost-effective,” “easy to use,” “easy to integrate,” “top of the line,” etc. to see what resonates best.

Some notes when writing content for ads include:

List specifically

 You should be clear about what you sell, what type of product it is, and how much it costs because B2B buyers don’t really care about fancy copy, they just want to know the specs and features of the product they’re looking at. Listing prices also helps you eliminate some of the PPC dollars you’re paying for customers who can’t afford your product. 

The ad copy should also mention how your product will solve and support the problems and issues that the buyer is facing, emphasizing the practicality of the product.

Use evidence for quality

You should focus on increasing the appeal of your product and company to potential customers through reviews from previous customers, certifications, achievements and product recognition papers, so that potential customers can see the reputation and quality of what is in front of them.

5. Measuring PPC effectiveness

With long sales cycles, it’s imperative that you closely monitor your website visitors’ behavior using Google Analytics or another analytics software package.

Over a sales cycle lasting three to six months, your prospects may return multiple times to gather more information and weigh their decision, so you should regularly add more information to your website or use retargeting ads to reinforce their interest.

Conclude

Applying PPC for B2B business requires a more forward-looking vision and appropriate tactics, targeting the right audience than B2C. However, this work is extremely necessary and can be highly effective in attracting the attention of new customers in the technology era.