• Filter Out the Wrong Buyers
  • Reach the Roles That Buy

In business-to-business (B2B) marketing, PPC puts your ad in front of people searching for a service their company needs, and you pay when they click. The auction and bids work the same way whoever you sell to. Three things change when the buyer is a business: you filter out searches from consumers and job seekers, you aim at the roles that buy, and you keep counting long after the first click, because the person who clicks may not be the person who signs, and a contract may come weeks or months later.

Billed publishes this page. Google Ads facts are quoted from Google Ads Help, and LinkedIn profile targeting facts from Microsoft Advertising's help page, all checked October 31, 2026. The worked example uses sample figures.

For how the ad auction, bids and Quality Score work, start with what is PPC. This page covers only what's different when you sell to other businesses.

Filter Out the Wrong Buyers

A B2B service can share words with consumer searches, student searches and job searches. The negative keywords page in Google Ads Help gives the rule for choosing them: "look for search terms that are similar to your keywords, but might cater to customers searching for a different product."

For a payroll service sold to employers, that might mean adding jobs, course, salary and calculator as negative keywords. Google Ads Help adds a detail that matters here: "you'll need to add synonyms and singular or plural versions if you want to exclude them". So list job as well as jobs.

Reach the Roles That Buy

Microsoft Advertising's help page says: "Search or browse for a company, industry, or job function and then set a bid adjustment for it." Its LinkedIn profile targeting help page names three kinds of target: company, industry and job function, for example "Job function, such as sales, accounting, or purchasing."

Two points from that page change how you use it:

  • "LinkedIn profile targeting will not narrow your ads' audience. For example, by targeting a specific company, you aren't excluding everyone who does not work for that company." You set a bid adjustment for the targets you care about; other searchers can still see the ad.
  • "You cannot target more than 1,000 companies in a single ad group or campaign." If you keep a short list of named accounts, see account-based marketing for how to choose them and map who decides.

Write the Ad for a Business Buyer

  • Name the problem in the words the buyer's company uses for it.
  • Say who the service is for, such as company size or industry, so people outside that group can skip the click.
  • Offer a next step a buyer can take before anyone signs, such as a short call or a written scope.
  • Send the click to a page about that one service, with the details someone would forward to a colleague.

Count the Lead, Then Count the Contract

A form fill is a lead, not a client. Google Ads gives you two ways to keep counting after the click.

Set the conversion window. Google Ads Help's page about conversion windows describes the setting as "ideal for businesses that want more control when measuring their conversions, particularly businesses that sell products with a buying cycle that doesn't fit the default 30-day conversion window." It says: "You can set the conversion window anywhere from 1 to 90 days, depending on the source of conversions." And it warns: "If you set your conversion window to 7 days, any conversion that happens more than 7 days after the ad interaction won't be recorded."

Record offline conversions. Google Ads Help's page about offline conversion imports says: "Sometimes, an ad doesn't lead directly to an online sale, but instead starts a customer down a path that ultimately leads to a sale in the offline world, such as at your office or over the phone." For clicks, "Google Ads provides you with unique IDs, called Google Click ID (GCLID), for every click that comes to your website from an ad." You keep that ID with the lead, and report it back when the deal closes. For accounts that haven't set this up yet, the same page says: "If you have not already adopted offline conversion import, we recommend starting with enhanced conversions for leads instead."

Whichever you use, write down where each lead came from and the date it became a client, in your own records too.

Worked Example: Cost per Lead vs Cost per Client (Sample Figures)

These are sample figures for a fictional IT support firm, invented for this example. It spends $1,800.00 on search ads in one quarter.

  • Leads (forms and calls): 24, so $1,800.00 ÷ 24 = $75.00 per lead
  • Qualified leads (right size, real need): 9, so $1,800.00 ÷ 9 = $200.00 per qualified lead
  • Signed clients: 2, so $1,800.00 ÷ 2 = $900.00 per client
  • Contract value: each client pays $650.00 a month, so 12 × $650.00 = $7,800.00 in the first year, and 2 × $7,800.00 = $15,600.00 for both

One of the two clients signed 70 days after the click. With the 30-day default window that Google Ads Help describes for Search campaigns, that contract wouldn't be recorded as a conversion; a 90-day window would include it. The contract value is revenue, not profit: delivering the support has its own costs. For how return is calculated, see what is return on investment.

Where Billed Fits

When a lead signs, it becomes a client you invoice. Billed's client management software page says: "Save all of your clients in one centralized place."

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Frequently Asked Questions

How is B2B PPC different from PPC aimed at consumers?

The auction and bids are the same. What changes is which searches you exclude, which roles you aim at, and how long you keep counting after the click.

Can Microsoft Advertising aim search ads at a company or job function?

Its help page on LinkedIn profile targeting names three kinds of target: company, industry and job function. It also says the targeting "will not narrow your ads' audience", so it works through bid adjustments.

How long can a Google Ads conversion window be?

Google Ads Help says: "You can set the conversion window anywhere from 1 to 90 days, depending on the source of conversions." Set it at least as long as the time between a first click and a signed contract in your own records.

What should I measure instead of clicks?

Cost per qualified lead and cost per signed client, from your own records. In this page's sample, $1,800.00 brought 24 leads at $75.00 each, but each signed client cost $900.00.

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