B2B SEM/PPC Strategy
Getting a return on your investment with B2B SEM strategy can differ from B2C due to the length of the typical decision-making process. Wiideman Consulting Group will work with you to shorten the break-even point on your PPC or display advertising investment by taking the time to fully understand your target audience and buyer persona.
To start building a comprehensive SEM plan with our team of corporate PPC Strategists, simply contact us (or call (562) 732-4417). Read on to learn more about our approach and methodology.
What’s Involved in a B2B PPC Strategy?
Similar to a lead generation PPC strategy, business to business pay-per-click (or display) strategy should start with choosing the right publishers and creating a budget allocation to push the majority of the budget where the majority of leads are likely to come from.
Choosing the Right Publishers
LinkedIn can be a great place to start when targeting businesses, followed by Bing, AdWords and (when available) remarketing platforms. Keep in mind that not all PPC networks will be relevant to your customers, and care should be taken when choosing a publisher.
Budget is a primary variable in helping us determine where to advertise and how much should be allocated. LinkedIn, for example, has a very high minimum spend threshold to consider, where AdWords ads can be live in a matter of minutes. Cost-per-click will likely be much higher the closer we get to the niche audience, which could mean going for the lower cost publishers as a starting point.
Campaign Architecture
A B2B campaign blueprint may differ from a B2C in that focus is less on impulse and more on social proof and trust signals. Two types of general “builds” we start with include:
- Campaigns based on website hierarchy
- Campaigns based on user behavior and user intent
When using the “campaigns based on website hierarchy” approach, it’s expected that our client have a page for each service and sometimes with each service attribute. This strategy helps through extremely targeted ad groups pointing to specific content, allowing for higher Quality Scores and lower overall CPC.
A behavioral-targeted campaign focuses energy on campaigns that may yield the highest ROI when the service (or product) is searched for often using behavior-driven keyword modifiers, such as “buy”, “purchase”, “order”, and so forth, maximizing the budget toward users already in the buying phase of the purchase lifecycle.
Both styles of building a campaign architecture allow for new “Exact Match Only” campaigns driven by search term data collected over time.
Other campaign-level considerations we review during our assessment include:
- Campaign types (Remarketing, Search, Display, Call Only, App, etc.)
- Location targeting and extensions (if applicable)
- Day-parting based on business hours and conversion data
- Campaign negative keywords
- Bid strategy (CPC, CPA, dynamic, etc.)
- Mobile bid adjustments
Ad Group Strategy
How relevant are your ad groups to the landing page the user is taken to? Are you using a balanced mix of broad modified, phrase and exact match based on the keyword or potentially targeting too broadly using broad match type keywords? Your PPC strategy should be laser focused, so you don’t waste a single dime on unqualified clicks.
We’ll look at how your ad groups are organized, ad extension usage (location, call, site links, call outs and so forth), and will make recommendations based on our experience in corporate search. We’ll also help you build automation scripts to optimize ad groups (and keywords) based on business rules we’ll discuss during the research phase.
Why Choose Us to Build Your B2B SEM Plan?
Our team is comprised of specialists with a corporate background under their belt, managing or playing a role with millions of dollars in ad spend for large brands as employees or account managers under prestigious agencies.
Reporting is a key component to making real-time decisions, as is having an easy-to-follow cadence for improving performance. With our strategy, you’ll be provided with copies of our reporting templates or support molding your existing reporting into what may help you with ongoing campaign optimization.
Simplicity and organization are everything. There is nothing worse than an unorganized AdWords account or a lack of maintenance and optimization checklists. We’ll provide everything in our arsenal to help equip your PPC team with everything they will need to be successful.
We are platform pros, acclimated to Kenshoo, Acquisio and Marin Software. We also work with WordStream and other popular cross-publisher paid search management platforms and can help lock down campaign name consistency, budget strategy and integrated reporting.
Talk to Our SEM Strategists Free
To get started with Wiideman Consulting Group to build a B2B SEM strategy with our PPC Strategists, simply contact us (or call (562) 732-4417) for a complimentary consultation to discuss your current performance, KPIs and overall goals.
