Do B2B Paid Ads Work?

The short answer is yes. In the ever-evolving realm of digital marketing, paid advertising is a powerful tool for businesses. Want to boost visibility? Drive leads? Expand your reach? Paid ads can help. A lot. 

In our latest episode of the Growth by Creativity Podcast, we sit down with Jonathan Bland, a seasoned professional from Omnilab, a B2B SaaS Demand Generation Agency. From defining objectives to selecting the right platforms, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide for B2B marketers navigating the paid advertising landscape. 

Warm before cold

First, we address the daunting question: where do you get started with paid advertising? By capitalizing on a cultivated warm audience. Strategically leverage the impact of engaging with an audience already familiar with your brand. With actionable insights, the podcast breaks down the fundamentals for beginners. 

Retarget, Retarget, Retarget

Retargeting is integral to paid advertising. Lots of people throw around required numbers for retargeting, like 7-9 touchpoints from a prospect’s awareness stage to conversion of them into a customer - but the most important calculation when it comes to retargeting is frequency within a certain time period. Ideally, 7 times in a 30-day window is a healthy frequency. Another key to retargeting? Content variety. From asset type to visuals to messaging, variety isn’t just the spice of life - it’s necessary to hook your target audience.

Narrow deep, rather than spread-out thin

In a digital landscape saturated with diverse channels, platform selection is key. We advocate for a focused presence on select channels where your target audience is most active. However, your ideal customer persona (ICP) is probably on multiple channels. This actually circles back to our first point about targeting warm vs. cold audiences - you want to build a presence, a community that draws your ICPs to you, making paid ads more effective. We recommend focusing on just 1-2 channels, but this requires testing. Use engagement to determine opportunities for channel growth - and which channels you need to ignore. 

Realistic budget for paid ads

Calculating a paid ad budget? If you’re setting up a very basic targeting campaign, a minimum of $2,000 a month is needed to see a return on your ad spend. If you want to target multiple prospecting audiences, which is ideal, consider a budget of $5,000-$10,000. To decide whether investing in paid ads will be effective with your budget, evaluate metrics such as cost-per-click (CPC) for Google Ads. Knowing that the average non-brand conversion rate on Google Ads is around 5% - is a ~5% click-thru rate a reasonable return for the investment you’re making? 

Bottom line

This episode of Growth by Creativity is more than a conversation - it’s a comprehensive guide with the knowledge and tools to navigate and succeed in B2B paid advertising. 

Tune into YouTube or Spotify to get actionable insights and next steps.