Insights
Today’s B2B marketing landscape is competitive, which makes lead generation more crucial than ever before.
In the world of B2B marketing, lead generation is the process of attracting and nurturing relationships with prospects in hopes of them converting. When it comes to generating leads, organic tactics like content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are effective but can take a good deal of time.
Paid media, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to rapidly attract and nurture leads for a cost. When used in combination with other tactics, paid media is a strong choice to support lead generation efforts.
Paid Media in the Lead Generation Landscape
Paid media refers to advertising where a company pays to promote its content, products, or services. It allows advertisers to target specific audiences, drive traffic to their websites, and capture leads through various channels. All of these are beneficial when it comes to B2B lead generation.
By understanding paid media channels, developing a strategy for paid media for lead generation, and setting a budget, businesses can leverage paid media successfully to generate and nurture leads.
Ideal Channels for B2B Paid Media Lead Generation
There are many channels available for paid media lead generation. Below, we provide a brief overview of some of the options.
Google Ads
This platform offers Search Ads, Display Ads, and YouTube Ads, enabling marketers to reach prospects actively searching for solutions or engage them through visual content.
LinkedIn Ads
As the largest professional network, LinkedIn offers Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Lead Gen Forms, making it an ideal platform for B2B targeting.
Paid Social
Paid social provides an opportunity to reach audiences where they are, making it ideal for targeting key decision-makers.
Meta Ads
While typically associated with B2C marketing, these platforms can be effective for targeting decision-makers and showcasing company culture.
X Ads
X’s advertising options allow marketers to promote posts, gain followers, and drive website traffic.
Industry-Specific Advertising Platforms
Depending on the industry, niche advertising platforms can provide targeted reach to specific B2B audiences.
How To: Select the Right Paid Media Lead Generation Channels
When looking to utilize paid media for lead generation, it’s important to align your channels with your marketing goals. Consider your target audience, first and foremost. What are their buying preferences? What are their behaviors? Where do they spend their time online? That will support you as you make decisions about what channels to use. In addition, be sure to evaluate your budget and resources wisely. Keep in mind any constraints — be they financial or otherwise — to guide your decision-making process.
Once you have an idea of what channels you’ll use for your paid media lead generation efforts, you can begin to plan your campaign using our nine easy steps.
9-Step Guide to Using Paid Media for B2B Lead Generation
1. Set SMART Goals
The first step in approaching paid media for lead generation is to understand your goals. We recommend SMART goals, which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals to set you up for success. Consider what you want your paid media to achieve, and your purpose for using paid over another tactic. Once you understand that, you can align your goals with overall business objectives to create a cohesive strategy. This is also a great time to set your key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll use to measure success in the future.
2. Calculate Budget
The next step is to calculate your budget, which can impact which paid media channels you utilize. Consider using customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (LTV) to clarify what your budget should be. Also, consider allocating budget based on channel performance and the return on investment you expect to achieve.
3. Define Target Audience
After you’ve defined your budget, it’s time to define the target audience. This is an excellent opportunity to use personas if you have them. Otherwise, you can use market research and customer data to build a buyer persona. You’ll want to identify key demographics, pain points, and buying behaviors, as well as align intent with your proposed action.
4. Select the Most Effective Paid Media Channels
Based on the budget and audience, you’ll be able to narrow down your paid media channels from many to a few. Then you can use channel performance and audience engagement to help further narrow your options. Finally, consider industry benchmarks and best practices as a way to align goals and objectives with the realities of different platforms.
5. Create Valuable Lead Magnets
Once the paid media channels are selected, you can begin creating your lead magnets. Whether you develop whitepapers, eBooks, webinars, or some other resources, you’ll want your lead magnets to address audience pain points and provide value to the user.
6. Design High-Converting Landing Pages
To go along with your valuable lead magnet, you’ll need a high-converting landing page. By optimizing landing pages for lead capture and user experience, you’ll have a better chance of getting a prospect to convert. Do this by following best practices, including utilizing clear calls-to-action (CTAs) and simple lead capture forms.
7. Develop Compelling Ad Creative
At this stage, you’re ready to begin your ad creative. Ad creative for paid media for lead generation should be attention-grabbing and clear throughout, from headlines to body copy to button text. In addition, consider using visuals and multimedia elements to further engage your target audience.
8. Optimize Campaigns
Once you start paid media lead generation campaigns, you can begin to optimize them. Monitor your KPIs, such as click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate. This is also an opportunity to optimize the campaigns in other ways, such as through A/B testing, targeting refinement, ad copy adjustments, and landing page optimization.
9. Analyze and Report
The final step in paid media lead generation is arguably one of the most important — analysis and reporting. By understanding how paid media is performing, businesses can better optimize campaigns to reach goals, such as conversions. Consider tracking lead volume, cost per lead, and conversion rate alongside other KPIs to support your paid media lead generation efforts. Allow these metrics to inform future campaign optimizations. Then, provide regular reports to stakeholders, so they can be informed about progress and successes.
Bring Paid Media Lead Generation to Your Organization
One key component of any paid media lead generation campaign is the audience. Taking an audience-centric approach to paid media leads to better results than other approaches, such as putting business needs first. A successful campaign will be data-driven, which can lead to better optimization for more, higher-quality results.
Looking to harness the power of paid media for lead generation? Look no further. Br8kthru’s talented subject matter experts will collaborate with you as if they’re an extension of your team. We’ll ensure your strategy aligns with your goals and that your paid media efforts achieve your desired results. Request a complimentary Digital Marketing Gap Audit and our team will review your paid media lead generation efforts and make recommendations for improvement.