Google Ads for B2B Businesses

Have you considered Google Ads for business-to-business (B2B) advertising, or are you under the impression it is only for business-to-customer (B2C) advertising? Although intended as a B2C tool, Google Ads is a great way to generate B2B leads. You can adapt campaigns to work for your business, even if your small business has a limited budget. As Google Ads is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you only pay when a potential customer clicks on your advertisement.      

Google, owned by Alphabet, accounts for nearly 92% of the search engine market in Canada across desktop and mobile devices. It also holds nearly 83% of the worldwide desktop search engine market share. When announcing the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 results, the Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google said: “Our fourth quarter revenues of $75 billion, up 32% year over year, reflected broad-based strength in advertiser spend and strong consumer online activity….”

Whatever the size of your business, there is an opportunity for B2B marketing through Google Ads. Our marketing focus should be on the intent and quality of the overall experience of our business clients. How can you use Google Ads to reach your B2B clients?

Advertise When Your Business Customers Need You

A limitation of Google Ads is there is no advertising schedule as with traditional advertising, but there is a way to overcome this. With the assistance of information sourced by Google Analytics, you can find out when prospects are engaging with your business, whether they are passively researching your company or actively filling out forms. Why is this relevant?    

If your target client is an auto service and repairs company, will they look at your website for a product at night or during the day? What is your customer’s schedule? Use the information from Google Analytics for bid adjustments and to create a test Google Ads advertising schedule.       

Find Your Own Built-In Segment With Google Analytics

Have you tried Google Ads and could not find the built-in audience segment for your B2B business? And were the in-market audience that appeared not at all relevant to your business? There is a way to overcome this Google Ads limitation. Once again, we turn to Google Analytics, but this time to the demographics and interests report. With the information from this report, you can do the following:  

• Find the in-market and affiliate segments associated with traffic from all channels landing on your website.
• Use segments and filters to identify high-performing and low-performing audiences, statistically speaking.

Google Ads Enhanced Conversions

All companies, including small businesses, can use digital marketing to reach their audience. If you don’t have access to a marketing automation platform or a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, try Google Ads enhanced conversions.  

Google collects key information from users that submit a form on your website. When they become a customer, you upload the information into your Google Ads account, and get insights into which advertisement they clicked on before completing your form. There are two types of enhanced conversions:

• Enhanced conversions for web – tracks sales and events happening on a website.
• Enhanced conversions for leads – tracks sales that happen off a website from website leads, for example phone or email.

Responsive Search Ads For More Relevant Advertisements Through Google Ads

Ad customizers used to be a helpful Google Ads tool underutilized by B2B marketers but have now been replaced by responsive search ads. With this feature, you create multiple headlines and descriptions, and over time, Google Ads automatically tests different combinations while learning which ones perform best. You can tailor your headline and descriptions to your customer’s locations, regular locations, or locations of interest.  

Strand360 is a marketing company in Alberta specializing in digital and traditional marketing. After all, every target audience is different and deserves a unique marketing strategy. Is your focus business-to-business (B2B) engagement? Do you want to incorporate B2B-focused paid search advertising such as PPC into your digital marketing strategy? Ask Strand360 about Google Ads. Contact us today.