5 Ways To Create a Successful PPC Business (B2B) Advertising Campaign

Presently over 50% of all B2B (business-to-business) leads are generated through the Internet. To stay competitive in today’s market a business needs to be present on the search engines. PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is not only a very effective marketing tool, but is also an excellent way for businesses to establish a website’s Internet presence.

A PPC (pay-per-click) campaign designed for B2B (business-to-business) is much different from a campaign designed for B2C (business-to-consumer).

Instead of relying on the high volume of traffic that a B2C campaign generates, a B2B campaign is designed to lower costs by filtering out irrelevant clicks that don’t convert into sales. The strategy for a successful B2B pay-per-click-campaign consists of driving quality leads to optimized landing pages which ultimately results in higher conversion rates. These assets will be used for PPC and SEO both.

The benefits of focusing on high value leads rather than the volume of CTR (click through rate) are that the cost per click is minimized while the sales generated by quality leads are maximized. Understanding some key components of what drives pay-per-click advertising is vital for a successful campaign.

Here are the 5 tips for a Successful B2B PPC Advertising Program:

1. Target Qualified Traffic – Knowing what a desired target audience searches for in terms of keywords is the most crucial element in driving quality traffic to a website. It is best to use highly targeted keywords while avoiding one-word keywords and opting for long-tailed keywords instead. Data from competetitive research, and continually testing keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to a product or service with insight tools, analytics and experimentation is just as important as bidding on the right ones. This will help determine which keywords are most effective in generating sales and which ones are underperforming and in need of replacement. Find more keywords using the Google Keyword Tool (search “keywords” in Google).
2. Provide Effective Industry Specific Ad Copy – Although B2B ad copy is targeted towards a more sophisticated audience and should be tailored to include industry specific jargon, it still needs to be visually appealing when you use graphic displays (like the Google content network). By using clever copy with a clear call to action that is also formatted to stand out among the crowd, the ad will actively sell a product or service. Using bullet points, numbers, and small blocks of text with plenty of white space will also make an ad easier to read and more likely to generate a sale.
3. Insert Keywords and page data – By using HTML Title + Meta tag descriptions inserted with keywords and sprinkled naturally into the body copy, the site will attract more relevant traffic. This is a “websites-only” opportunity to make a good first impression. There is no point in getting the traffic if no one wants to click through it.
4. Apply Negative Keywords – In many cases providing a comprehensive list of negative keywords is just as important as using applied keywords. Using negative keywords allows the search engines to weed out unnecessary clicks that would otherwise cost money for no conversion. In essence, using negative keywords helps direct the right kind of traffic to a website and is an easy way to improve the ROI for a search budget. For example, a keyword like “Cruise” may mean a “boat cruise” to you, but searches for “Tom Cruise” will also show up, and you waste impressions and clicks. A combination of keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) and negatives are important.
5. Continually Measure Results – It is most important to know what happens after the click. If a pay-per-click advertising campaign is resulting in a high bounce rate or a low conversion rate there may be a problem with the ad copy, landing page – or it may be a problem with the quality of traffic visiting a website. By continually testing different strategies for bidding on keywords and monitoring the number of relevant lead generations and page versions, a site can determine what is working to achieve higher conversion rates.

If done right, pay-per-click advertising costs are well worth the money spent. Not only does pay-per-click advertising help to establish a website’s Internet presence, but it is also a highly effective way for businesses to communicate with one another. B2B PPC helps businesses improve their website’s traffic and visibility on the Internet and continues to be one of the most popular marketing tools being utilized today. Your business can be up and running on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing in minutes!

Learn more about Pay Per Click Management for Business here.

How to Measure Social Media Marketing Success Easily

Tracking social media is a two-fold approach.

Know this: social media is a ‘media’ (press) darling. Consider how many posts and references show up for social media every hour, everyday. SEO, or search engine optimization, on the other hand – has been around a lot longer, but doesn’t get as much credit or love these days. Perhaps our friendly journalists think they are the same? Hope not. The professionals who understand the difference between user intent, tactics and overall strategies for the two forms of online marketing (drawing the line here), are clear that they both can have solid impact – for really any business. SEO tends to be easier to track for many (keywords to conversion as an example), social media – not. But, if you cannot answer the “what and the why”, you’re not doing great in either, or you are just getting started.

It’s hard to track real ROI with social media marketing. (Really?)

For most businesses the best sales and marketing campaigns involve forming strong relationships with customers/clientele. It’s because of these relationships that companies can flourish and grow as they build trust and loyalty with their patrons. As a result, it’s no doubt social media marketing found its way into the business arena. Effective networking is a key factor to implement in order to grow a business; and social media provides that opportunity. Yet how does a business know if its social media marketing campaign is effective? How can the level of success be measured? The answer is two-fold.

The first.

This is arguably the most important task to accomplish when deciding how to use social media marketing for your business. Determine your objective(s).

What is it you want to accomplish with your social media marketing efforts? And, do you know what is going on right now in your marketplace (conversation)?

Whether your business is a PR firm, recruiting firm, nonprofit organization or a simple ice-cream parlor in a small town, there is something you want/need to accomplish with social media marketing. It could be as tangible as increased sales and profits or less tangible like getting responses from customers about how to make improvements or getting success stories and testimonials to increase your credibility profile. Maybe your purpose is simply to increase your product’s brand awareness. Whatever your objective is, that will be what is weighed in order to measure your social media marketing success. Without a clear picture of your objective, the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign can never truly be measured. We think in terms of baselines to compare with as you grow.

The second.

When you want to measure the ROI on social media marketing efforts, the second option is probably what is most commonly meant when the question is raised. That is (analytics) “tracking”.

With pay per click or sales tracking a business owner has a tangible means of measuring; however, with social media tracking it is much less straightforward and the method depends on the site and approach.

Facebook, for instance, might be measured by the number of confirmed friends; Twitter might be weighed by the quantity of retweets following a tweet; number of followers acquired in a month; a Web Forum might look at the quantity and quality of its threads. The list goes on and will continue to grow as the world of social media continues to grow and evolve. Free tools like Social Mention helps to capture “sentiment” – another metric that can be used.

The bottom line is this: measuring the success of social media marketing is subjective, and each business must identify what objective it wants to accomplish. When that aim is being met, the business can say with confidence that its social media marketing campaign is effective and is a success.

Next, try some tools that can help:

Tweetburner – BudUrl – track how many times people click on a link you share via Twitter

Twitter Search – powerful search in real time, advanced search helps to drill down and inject yourself into the conversation as well

Tweetbeep – Google alerts for Twitter – free

Google Analytics – free – ability to track traffic, content, referrers (where traffic came from) and a lot more

Swix App – Like Google Analytics – for social media properties

Listen to fellow Jim Sterne - do you agree? (Recently from OMMA San Francisco):