For most B2B professionals, developing a successful PPC strategy can feel like a game of inches. With narrow markets and high CPC on average, B2B professionals will need to leverage every opportunity they have to gain conversions.
Effective PPC strategies take into consideration a wide range of factors that influence the purchasing decisions of an industry. While many of these factors may vary, there are also practical strategies that PPC managers can take to improve the value of their conversions. To help you start on the right foot, we’ve organized 3 PPC strategies that will improve lead quality for B2B companies:
Strategy # 1: Experiment with Keywords
Finding the best keywords for your PPC campaign can be a hair pulling experience, especially in highly competitive B2B industries like tech and health. It is common for smaller to mid-sized companies to find themselves in direct competition for conversions with large corporations. For companies with high-levels of competition, PPC managers will need to pick their battles and find creative ways of maximizing their conversions.
Bid on Technical and Market Terms
Bidding on highly targeted keywords can place you at risk of running out of budget too quickly. While you do want to have skin in the game, most of these some highly targeted keywords can be too broad and generate few qualified leads. PPC managers may find a better use of their budgets by bidding on technical and market-term keywords that decision makers are using.
Stay Ahead of Industry Trends
There are many factors that can influence the search trends of an industry, such as changing regulations, technological innovations, social pressures, and economic events. In B2B, not only do you need to monitor trends within your industry, you’ll also need to monitor trends within your customer’s industry.
For example, if you’re company sells medical equipment and the majority of your customers are mid-sized healthcare facilities, you’ll want to be well informed about the aging population in certain regions of the United States. Test the queries from these regions and adjust your bids for optimal conversions. Placing your advertisements where facility administrators can see them may lead to more conversions.
Strategy #2: Advertise an Experience
Many PPC managers fall into the trap of constraining their advertising message to describing a product or service. In B2B, most customers are aware of their needs and will have an idea of how your product can help them reach their business goals. Instead, these customers are much further into the sale lifecycle and are shopping for a valuable customer experience.
Mid-cycle and late-cycle customers will want to learn more about your business and its unique qualities that will offer them a competitive advantage. Ad copies should highlight qualifiers that promote the achievements of the company and its product, like certifications and awards, whitepapers, case studies, unique product or service features, and promotional offers.
Strategy #3: Test The Content of Your Landing Pages
Not only should PPC managers experiment with the advertisement copies, they should also test variations of their landing pages. Factors such as design trends, evolving search engine algorithms, and customer expectations have a strong influence over your conversions and are always changing.
The content of the landing page should be relevant to the searcher in substance and delivery. For example, if you’re selling SaaS and your target audience are CIOs of large corporations, you may find it best in providing information about the guarantees of your product support and case studies that highlight recent customer experiences.
The key to a successful PPC campaign for B2B companies is always giving yourself variables to test. Search trends, markets and customer expectations are always changing. PPC should be a regular process within your digital marketing mix that allows you to test your markets and selling points for more quality leads.
To learn more about the latest PPC strategies that will offer the highest ROI for your budget by contacting a PPC expert at Strongpages. We offer account management services with extensive experience in goal analytics, campaign architecture, and advertising on search engines like Google and Bing. Reach out to a Strongpages PPC expert today!