Introduction
In designing a marketing strategy, one of the fundamental questions is: Who is our target?
The answer to this question is crucial in defining the other elements of the marketing strategy (channels, messages, target, budget, etc.)
For example, there are many differences (motivations, expertise, etc.) between B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) audiences.
Marketing to a B2B audience therefore requires a different approach than marketing to a B2C audience.
To begin with, there are several fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing
Firstly, as mentioned above, the B2B audience is very different from a B2C audience. In B2B, we target individuals who make purchases for their company, so the end customer is a company. Whereas in B2C, the targeted people are buying for themselves, so they are individual customers.
The buying process in B2B is generally more complex: In B2B the primary objective will be to get prospects to request a quote online and to get the sales team to convert these prospects into sales.
The process therefore usually takes longer, on average 102 days
Another key point is the difference between B2B and B2C motivations. B2B prospects will tend to have a more rational approach than in B2C where buying is more emotionally based. Indeed, B2B companies will have to justify their investment with a ROI logic.
The indirect dimension in B2B is also important. The target being a company, which itself has customers, marketing must take into account the downstream markets, the customers of the client companies, and develop adequate solutions.
SEA for a B2B campaign
After defining our target audience and the other components of the marketing strategy, we need to define which channels to use to reach our audience.
There are many relevant channels to run a digital marketing campaign (SEA, SEO, social networks, programmatic display, emailing, etc.).
In this article, we will focus on Search Engine Advertising (SEA) and in particular SEA via Google Ads.
Indeed, SEA is one of the most effective channels for generating conversions. It is therefore relevant to include this channel in the media plan of a B2B campaign.
In 2022, the average conversion rate for SEA in the "business services" category was 4.37%.
Problem: how to ensure good B2B targeting in SEA?
SEA allows us to display ads based on users' search queries, i.e. the keywords they have typed. It is therefore necessary to define the keywords that we want to target for the B2B audience.
It is at this stage that we can be confronted with a major problem: how can we be sure to target only B2B customers?
As we have seen above, there are fundamental differences between B2C and B2B audiences, but do these differences translate into different semantics in search engine queries?
This is a crucial question, especially when targeting B2B audiences for a company with both B2C & B2B customers (e.g. Telco, banks & insurances, energy suppliers, etc.).
To solve this problem, we propose to compare two different approaches.
First approach: targeting B2B keywords
This first targeting approach would target only B2B specific keywords.
Let's take the example of a bank:
In the case of a bank, targeting fairly general keywords such as: "home loan", "car loan", "account opening" would not be efficient as it would risk appearing for B2C profiles.
To ensure that B2C customers are excluded, more specific keywords with a B2B component should be included.
We could therefore target keywords such as: loans for businesses, property loans for professionals, business vehicle loans, etc.
We have tested this approach in the past and the results were mitigated.
The volume of impressions and clicks was limited and did not generate a sufficient volume of conversions.
This approach ensures that only B2B prospects are targeted, but it is very restrictive and does not cover all demand.
Indeed, it seems unlikely that all professional profiles include B2B semantics in their queries when looking for a new bank.
We therefore tested a second approach which gave us better results.
2. Second approach " Audience in overlay of keywords" : targeting B2B & B2C keywords
For this second approach, we assume that business prospects enter similar queries to B2C prospects.
We will need 2 types of campaigns to implement this approach.
In the first type of campaign, we continue to target purely B2B keywords as in the first approach. Even if their volume is more limited, it is relevant to include them to ensure that we cover this qualified demand.
Next, we need to create a second type of campaign for which we will target B2C keywords.
To ensure a presence among relevant users, we add a targeting overlay with B2B audiences.
This means that our ads will appear for users who have typed in a query with B2C keywords, but only if they are part of one of our B2B audiences that we have defined.
It will also be important to exclude B2B audiences from your B2C campaigns to avoid cannibalisation between B2C & B2B campaigns.
B2B audiences to include:
- Remarketing des personnes ayant visité les pages B2B de votre site web.
- Lookalike remarketing
- Affinity segment: Business professionals
- In Market segment: Business service.
B2B audiences that may be relevant to test:
- In Market segment: business technology, Business & Productivity Software, Business Loans, Business & First Class traveler, Advertising & Marketing Services, etc.
- Affinity segment: Avid Business News Readers
Results
The test of the approach using business audiences on top of B2C keywords gave much better results compared to approach 1.
Although the campaigns with the overlay audiences had a lower conversion rate than campaigns with B2B semantics, they generated a significantly higher volume of clicks and conversions.
In our test, the difference in cost per action (CPA) between the two approaches was 64% in favor of the overlay audience approach.
Limitations & Conclusions
Given the specificities of a B2B audience, the implementation of an SEA strategy remains a real challenge.
The "Audiences in overlay of keywords" approach is one way of ensuring that the SEA demand is effectively covered.
In view of the results we have obtained with this approach, we recommend that you test it if it is relevant to your company/client.
Indeed, it should be remembered that this approach only applies if your target is likely to use B2C keywords as is the case for companies operating in both B2C & B2B.
To conclude, we offer a final recommendation to facilitate the launch of your B2B campaigns in SEA.
It is important to consider the duration of the conversion process. As this process is longer in B2B, it is risky to launch your campaign in "maximize conversion" with the sole objective of your final conversion (making an appointment, submitting a quote, etc.). We therefore encourage you to also include micro-conversions (e.g. visiting a specific page, clicking on a button, etc.) in your campaign objectives.
In this way, the campaign registers a sufficient volume of conversions more quickly, which facilitates the optimisation of the algorithm.
Vincent Magera
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