Paid Search For B2B Marketing

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The Importance of Paid Search in B2B Marketing

Paid search engine marketing—also known as SEM, paid search, PPC, or CPC—is a crucial piece of a larger B2B marketing strategy. Consisting of the paid ads that appear on search engines, paid search connects your content or ads with an audience actively searching for what you offer. These ads target search queries containing specific keywords decided by the advertiser. This generates the highly sought-after traffic to your site, which in turn keeps your marketing campaign running.

Paid search marketing, if done correctly, can’t be matched when it comes to following and tracking your target’s activity across digital properties. A potential account Googles a topic relevant to your business, and boom, within a microsecond (depending on the speed of their Internet), your content or name has appeared on the screen. Similar to content marketing, paid search ads should be differentiated by buyer personas and by location in the sales funnel.

While at its core, paid search sounds like the easiest way to find potential customers (they are searching for what you offer, or something similar), you have to remember one thing: B2B marketing campaigns succeed when you target the most qualified accounts, ones that are most likely to convert later on down the sales funnel. But the marketing process begins with traffic: a simple click on an ad and visit to a website reveals a significant amount of data (their location, which search term was used, which ad they clicked on, which site pages they visited).

This is where the digital acumen of The ABM Agency team generates unrivaled success. Using a combination of Google Analytics, Google AdWords, the aforementioned on-site data, and our reverse-IP lookup software, our paid search efforts produce a wealth of information to ensure your sales team knows exactly what to do with every target moving down your sales funnel.

Here’s how our paid search B2B marketing strategies can help you (and generate sales and a greater ROI for your company):

From A Google Search to Moving Down the Funnel: 3 Stages of Paid Search in B2B Marketing

Awareness

In this phase, prospective accounts will begin by searching the basics:

“What is (insert product name here)?”
“Reviews of (insert product name)”

With the right content fed to the right buyer persona, a paid search strategy will start the chain of the right people or accounts familiarizing themselves with your site and offerings.

Consideration

At this stage, the account is looking at options, considering turning to your business as a solution. They’ve browsed your site, and from that data, our team creates audience lists. This data can then be used across the marketing board. The beauty of both paid search, and B2B marketing in general, is the way in which all channels can seamlessly work together to achieve the main goal: conversion. For example, paid search along with paid social and programmatic strategies can be employed simultaneously to seemingly “surround” your target audience in order to work them down the funnel.

Validation

Here, your targeted accounts are ready for direct outreach from the sales team. They know who you are, what you do, and you know they’re interested. They’re either actively searching for your particular brand or a competitor. The chance of a sale is high; you have what they’re looking for.

Another way to utilize paid search in B2B marketing is through Google AdWords. There, you upload targeted CRM lists which can be used to make matched audiences for search campaigns and display ads. This type of campaign, one that is very much audience-based, will allow you to bid higher on clicks to your site/landing page if that particular search is done by someone already on your CRM list. But here’s the drawback to this method: If the target isn’t associated with a specific Google account, Google can’t match the search and data. So yes, this method is viable from a bid adjustment perspective, but it doesn’t generate the highest return.

That’s why our ABM specialists at The ABM Agency win with paid search and B2B marketing every single time—we combine Google’s best practices, on-site data, and our reverse-IP lookup software to stay at the top of search pages, drive traffic and sales, and make sure you’re achieving success with the best possible ROI.

Interested in how The ABM Agency can help you achieve your goals and KPIs?