Whether or not you use a B2B google ads agency for your brand’s marketing, Google Ads can be a powerful tool for your lead generation goals.
If you’re already using Google Ads, but perhaps aren’t quite seeing the return-on-investment (ROI) you had hoped for, chances are there are one or two little tweaks you can perform, which may make all the difference.
Any marketer will already know that creating a lead-gen ad campaign and putting it out there and hoping for the best isn’t enough to guarantee success – even if you’re already taking advantage of Google’s nifty advertising service.
Instead, you need to firmly grasp the conversion tactics that come with a successful campaign result, as well as understanding the fundamentals behind Google Ads. This article delves into both.
Understanding B2B Google Ads
Google Ads are simply the platform’s native PPC (pay-per-click) ad service that allows marketers to harness the platform to create content ads with the purpose of encouraging the specific audience to take the next step in their Buying Journey.
Google Ads will bolster various advertising tricks, such as keyword usage, to encourage a target user to convert, visit a website, broaden their awareness of the brand behind the ad, and so on.
As of 2023, almost 100% of web experiences begin via a search engine, and as Google is the most powerful and widely-used one, PPC ads via the platform can be extremely profitable for a B2B brand.
B2B PPC vs B2C/eComm PPC: The Key Differences
While there are similarities between the two, the most notable differences are:
- The sales length cycle is typically longer than that of B2C/eComm PPC. This is because B2B brands will have more stakeholders and decision-makers which influences the final purchasing stage.
- B2B PPC has a lower lead volume. This is because, naturally, B2C audiences are much wider than that of B2B, and for the latter brands, this can mean less conversions per sales period.
Google Ads For Lead-Gen: Top Tips
To implement Google PPC ads into your marketing strategy, it is important you understand the fundamentals and how to leverage the platform’s ad service to the best of your ability. This means:
Coordinating the Ads into Your Current Sales Cycle
Because the sales cycle has seven important steps (find leads, connect, qualify leads, present, overcome objections, close the deal, nurture), it is important that you implement Google Ads to harmonise with each step, which means understanding the objective behind your ad campaign and where it fits into the cycle.
It’s important to bear in mind that a Google Ads campaign for lead generation must feature copy, landing pages, and a CTA (call-to-action) that encourages the reader to take action.
Keyword Research
Keywords and Google Ads go hand-in-hand, so you will need to have a strong understanding that your ads will be based on your ad groups and your ad groups are based on your keywords, and that this structure is the foundation of your ads’ success.
The reason for this is because Google Ads are based on search engine hits from web users, and the keywords you use will be the ones that those users punch into Google. Google’s algorithm will then understand that your ad should be placed in front of the user. This is why methodical keyword research is imperative.
In a nutshell, Google’s algorithm deciphers keywords in terms of relevance to the target audience and ranks your ad accordingly.
Avoiding Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are words you do not wish to be associated with your brand and your campaign. Misuse of keywords can lead to your ad being poorly ranked and regardless of how fantastic and relevant your content may be, it will get lost into the ether of the internet and completely missed by your target audience.
The three categories of negative keywords on Google Ads are:
- Negative exact match. This means your campaign won’t appear if the search contains the exact keyword terms in the same order and without extra words.
- Negative broad match. This is when a search contains all of your negative keyword terms.
- Negative phrase match.This means your campaign won’t appear if the search has the exact keyword terms in the same order.
The purpose of your negative keyword list is to lessen the amount of ‘unqualified leads’ that may be generated by your campaign. Even though these ads are fundamentally click-based, unqualified clicks will not positively enhance your engagement, and certainly won’t provide a ROI.
Remarketing
Finally, a powerful use of Google PPC ads is for remarketing campaigns. This is because many of your web visitors may not be ready to convert. If that is the case, a retargeting campaign later down the line is the organic next solution.
Google Ads actually has a remarketing feature exclusively for this purpose, which will target previous visitors to your website. Because your brand is targeting other users (who may have you and a handful of other prospects in their sights), a remarketing campaign is a great way to remind them that your products/services are still up for grabs.
Create Ads With Lead-Gen As The Focus
Because your Google Ads campaign is designed to appear on the SERP (search engine results page), every aspect of your ad’s visuals need to be relevant to what the user was searching for.
This means clear images, titles, and text. What they see should make it clear what you’re advertising, highlights your unique selling point, enhances brand awareness, and has an obvious, easy to understand CTA that correlates with your landing page.
Optimise Your Landing Page
It’s important to remember that your landing page is an extension of both your ad campaign and the brand itself. Because you’re paying for clicks, you need to make sure those clicks are profitable, which means your landing page is top-notch. This means:
- Not having your homepage as your landing page. Users will not want to have to search to find what you’re selling, so take them there immediately.
- The images and text on your landing page should align with the ones in your ad.
- Call-to-actions must be extremely obvious and easy to find.
- Your landing page should be compatible with mobile devices.
- A/B testing is a good way to see if your landing page is well-optimised.
Data & Bidding
Finally, it’s important to use the most relevant data for smart bidding. This means paying mind to conversion values over generic data like lead generation. Google’s data collection can be a little complex insofar as individual conversion actions have different values, which depends on the type of ad you created and what the overall objective was. Where smart bidding strategies factor in is that, when aligned with conversion values, you can implement them into future auctions.
It is also worth noting that you shouldn’t underestimate the power of including a “call” feature on your website when working with Google Ads PPC. Google provides call tracking for those who call you (instead of filling out a form, for example). Depending on your target audience (for example, older generations are more likely to call instead of form-fill), you could see a conversion rate of anything between 50-80 percent.
Conclusion
We hope this guide has drummed in how beneficial Google Ads can be for B2B companies, and how – if understood and executed properly – can help brands profitably elevate their marketing campaigns.
If you’d like to learn more about how we help B2B SaaS and Tech companies grow their MRR through Google ads, contact us online or send us an email today at info@getuplead.com to speak with someone on our team.
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