Businesses need a constant flow of reasonably-priced leads to stay ahead. Whether you’re building up a client base or maintaining steady work, lead generation strategies/lead generation marketing are a constant need. That’s why in this post, we’ll go over the best place to find business-to-business (B2B) leads—Linkedin through professional Linkedin ads management.
LinkedIn is the largest global professional network and the number one platform for lead generation. The social network is responsible for 97% of a business’s social media leads, making it 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter.
What sets LinkedIn apart from other social networks is its professional community of business-minded members for which it was designed. 4 out of every 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions. This means a highly concentrated pool of potential B2B clients.
In this article, we’ll go over the benefits of using LinkedIn to generate leads or B2B leads and the best local B2B lead generation strategies.
Source: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/success/lead-generation
LinkedIn is where professionals keep up to date on their company and industry. In addition to its 774+ million members, LinkedIn has over 57 million business and 120,000 school accounts. LinkedIn’s active user base of professionals makes it a goldmine for potential B2B clients.
Plus, LinkedIn offers a host of professional data and news feed product or service. Because it is geared toward business professionals, LinkedIn sits atop all other social media platforms for lead generation strategies.
Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/linkedin-marketing-tips/
Generating B2B high quality leads on LinkedIn requires a good strategy. Here are some actionable steps to acing your approach to LinkedIn:
When done right, an attractive company page will draw in valuable business. To create a company page, log in to your LinkedIn account and click the “Work” icon in the top right corner. A drop-down menu will appear, at the bottom of which you’ll find a link to “Create a Company Page.” Press the link and you’ll be asked about your company type, name, details, and so forth. Creating your company page only takes a few minutes.
As you complete your profile, you’ll notice a “Build Your Page” progress bar at the top of the page. Make sure to complete your profile in full as completed pages get 30% more traffic.
Don’t only provide basic information and facts about your company. Structure your page in a way that leads to conversions. The tagline should immediately tell visitors what your business offers. The header image should be engaging. And the company description should include a clear and compelling pitch with calls to action (CTAs). Get straight to the pitch in the first two lines since LinkedIn hides the rest under a “see more” button.
Finally, keep your recent updates section filled with relevant, clickable content. An empty updates section shows that you are not engaged on the platform, and sales team-qualified leads will be less likely to trust you.
Showcase Pages allow you to segment your B2B leads for different products, brands, events, and more. Also known as affiliate pages, Showcase Pages are like LinkedIn’s version of a landing page.
Create a Showcase Page by clicking on the “Admin tools” drop-down menu in the top right corner. Then click “Create a Showcase Page” under “Reach.” From there, you’ll be able to set a showcase page name and URL extension.
Try to keep showcase page names short, so they are not cut off on the sidebar of your company page. Most of all, prime your showcase pages for conversion with succinct descriptions and CTAs.
LinkedIn has over 2 million groups where professionals with similar interests or industry background can share insights and make connections. Joining relevant and active groups is an easy way to grow your network.
You can find groups to join by searching at the top of the homepage. Look for groups that are medium-sized, big enough to be worth your while but small enough for you to be noticed. Keep in mind, LinkedIn only allows you to be a member of 50 groups at most.
After you’ve established yourself as a thought leader, you can even create your own group. This gives you extra admin rights to control who joins or leaves the group and to steer the conversation around a certain topic or industry.
No doubt, groups are an easy way to connect with others in a natural way without sending cold requests.
So far, we’ve talked about ways to attract high quality leads. But you can also actively seek out prospective clients on LinkedIn. Identify your ideal lead scoring by developing a buyer persona and then use advanced search to find them. A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target customer/potential customers.
With LinkedIn’s advanced search, you can narrow searches by connection type, location, company, industry, school, language, and more. Plus, you can narrow search results incrementally as you go. That way, you don’t need to start a new search every time you want to tweak the search filters.
If you want to streamline your outreach efforts, save your search criteria on LinkedIn and come back for new search results later. LinkedIn will even send you email alerts when new people match your saved search queries. This can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.
Of course, the purpose of LinkedIn is to make connections.
But don’t just try to connect with anyone. Strive for quality leads connections that are relevant to your business. Sometimes members try to connect with anyone just to get to the coveted 500 connections threshold, but it really doesn’t do you any good to have a bunch of mediocre connections and no actual leads.
So use the advanced search tactics outlined above to find your ideal clients. Always include a personal message with any connection request, so it has the best chance of being accepted. People won’t always accept requests from people they don’t know, so remind them who you are or tell them why they should connect with you.
LinkedIn is not only a networking platform but a publishing platform. You can publish content in regular news feed posts or full articles.
When you post, you can include a photo, video, event, or even a slideshare presentation. You want to keep these short and sweet because users don’t spend much time scrolling through the news feed.
To write an article, simply click on “Write Article” under the “Start a post” bar. You can then write a headline and the body of your article, which can include images, rich media, and hyperlinks. Articles should be around 300-1000 words with catchy headlines that draw the reader in. Once you’ve read the article over a few times and edited for mistakes, click “Publish” to share it.
With both types of content you can determine who will see it, whether anybody on LinkedIn and the web or just your connections.
As for what to publish, publish content that is engaging, takes on industry pain points, and shows your expertise. With enough effort and time, you can become a thought leader in your industry and clients will come to you.
Thought leadership is a major driver of LinkedIn funnel traffic. Consider the following statistics from LinkedIn:
Establishing credibility through daily content is a huge source of B2B leads. To make your voice heard, publish both under your company page profile and under your individual profile as someone representing your company. That way, you can maximize your content exposure on LinkedIn.
Use an editorial calendar to keep a steady flow of content. Try posting at least once a week but strive for once a day if you can. Eventually, your network will learn to look forward to your thoughts and insights.
Whatever you do, make sure your content always adds value to users. You should share innovative and original ideas backed by relevant data. Include visuals like infographics or high-quality leads and photos, anything to capture users’ attention. Discuss action plans that others can follow to show you have real value to offer. An excellent example of this is search engine optimization (SEO) guru Brian Dean. He’ll show off one of his accomplishments and then tell you how he did it:
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianedean/detail/recent-activity/shares/
If you can’t think of what to post about, check out the “what people are talking about now” box on the right side of the homepage for some inspiration. Try striking up new conversations by forecasting future industry pain points or digging into their causes. You can also always share other people’s content that you find especially helpful or insightful. Stay selective with what you share and users will come to appreciate your tailored taste.
Mention influencers to build extra credibility. Cite any conversations you’ve had with other thought leaders whose followings you want to tap into. This can mutually benefit you and them by merging your networks. So look for ways to collaborate with other industry leaders.
End every post with relevant hashtags. LinkedIn adopted hashtags from Twitter to categorize trending topics and improve searches. By including hashtags that relate to your client’s needs, you can attract potential customers or clients searching LinkedIn for that specific topic. But don’t overdo the hashtags. Otherwise, it may come across as tacky. 3 or 4 hashtags are enough.
Finally, don’t forget to reward user engagement on your content by liking and responding to comments and following up on any questions. The more you engage, the more likely users will want to engage with your posts.
Like other social networks, LinkedIn offers advertising on their platform. Though LinkedIn advertising is more expensive than advertising on Google or Facebook, it can also be more effective. Most LinkedIn users are already ready to do business. So your ads are already very targeted.
To start advertising on LinkedIn, first create a Campaign Manager account by clicking the “Work” icon in the top right corner of the homepage and then selecting “Advertise.” You’ll be asked for an account name, a billing currency, and a LinkedIn Page with which to associate the Campaign Manager account. Then click “Create account.”
The inbound lead generation Campaign/inbound lead generation process Manager will first ask you to choose from the following main objectives: brand awareness, consideration in form of visits and engagement, and conversions via the lead generation process. For the Business to business lead generation process, we recommend selecting conversions as your goal.
From there, you will choose your target audiences filtered by 20 different categories, including location, company, job experience, education, demographics, interest, and traits. You can even create custom audiences with LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences and lead generation tools.
There are four different types of ads to choose from: Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Text Ads:
Once you’ve chosen an ad type, you can determine how you want to fund your campaign. LinkedIn offers three pricing options: cost per send (CPS), cost per click (CPC), and cost per impression (CPM):
At this point, you can let your ad campaign go live. Track how it performs in the Campaign Manager and make adjustments as needed. You can edit your ads, refine your target audience, and adjust your budget as you go.
Advertising on LinkedIn can bring in a lot of B2B leads because it’s the network that most professionals use. It’s no wonder that B2B display advertising is projected to keep increasing from 2018 to 2021:
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256362/linkedin-advertising-b2b-us/
Besides advertising, LinkedIn offers several internal and lead-generation tools to help you manage B2B leads. Check out it’s Conversion Tracking and Sales team Navigator tools, for example.
On top of that, there are a host of other digital inbound lead generation tools available when it comes to Business to business lead generation. Experiment and find ones that work for you.
Generating B2B leads on LinkedIn is an ongoing process. But with an attractive company page and showcase pages, relevant groups, advanced outreach techniques, stellar content, and targeted advertising campaigns, you’ll have plenty of leads in no time.
If you need help managing your LinkedIn ad campaign, ppc.co can help. Our experts have years of experience using LinkedIn to generate leads. We offer provable return on ad spend, concrete reports, ongoing consulting, flexible plans and pricing, all with a personal touch. Contact us today for a free, comprehensive pay-per-click (PPC) audit and advertising assessment.
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Most marketers love Google Ads.
We're no exception.
But we totally understand that businesses in certain industries sometimes have a deep resentment of Google Ads and their restrictive policies.
Google's policies for advertising are generally intuitive and straightforward, but for certain regulated and sensitive categories, the standards are much higher and less clear. Pharmaceutical companies, gambling websites, political campaigns, and other industries often struggle to get their ads approved consistently.
In fact, if you don't know what you're getting into, trying to advertise as a business in one of these categories can be a recipe for disaster.
How are you supposed to use Google Ads effectively if you belong to one of these regulated or sensitive categories?
Sensitive and regulated categories in PPC advertising face a number of challenges, including:
· Stricter guidelines. Most PPC advertisers are familiar and comfortable with basic Google Ads guidelines. But if you belong to a regulated or sensitive category, you'll have far more guidelines and more nuanced guidelines to deal with.
· Higher scrutiny. Google pays much closer attention to ads in regulated and sensitive categories, meaning you face closer scrutiny when your ads start circulating. Reports will be investigated quicker and much more strictly, and even minor violations can work against you.
· More ad disapprovals. Similarly, ads are much more likely to get disapproved in these categories. You'll face an uphill battle as you try to get your ads circulating.
· The risk of suspensions. Businesses in these categories also face the risk of frequent, ongoing suspensions. This trend is also worsening; in fact, in 2023, Google Ads suspended more than 12.7 million advertiser accounts – doubling their actions over the previous year.
This makes it much more difficult to advertise effectively and secure a positive return on investment (ROI). Additionally, failing to adhere to Google’s advertising policies can hurt your company's reputation and compromise your long-term potential for success.
The most important thing you can do to improve your results in a regulated or sensitive category is to plan for a sustainable, long-term strategy. Every year, thousands of business owners in these categories attempt to fool Google, find clever ways around its policies, and devise techniques that allow them to cheat the system.
These approaches can usually work temporarily. You can cheat your way into the listings and generate some traffic to your landing page.
But inevitably, these techniques fail, and they can ultimately get you blacklisted.
You're much better off taking the slow, steady approach, following the rules even if it means compromising your advertising effectiveness in the short term. Think about the long-term consequences and possibilities of each decision you make.
There is some good news here.
Google isn’t shy about publishing its advertising policies.
If you're willing to do the reading and research, you can thoroughly understand what Google expects from regulated and sensitive categories like yours – and you can easily adhere to the guidelines.
Well, maybe not “easily,” but reliably.
Generally, Google splits content into two types:
· Restricted content. Restricted content is sensitive content that is subject to more regulations. You must precisely comply with requirements for copy, images, website content, and more if you want to remain in circulation.
· Prohibited content. Prohibited content is totally disallowed. You cannot include it without facing significant consequences.
Unfortunately, we can't give you a big list of all the rules you need to follow, as the rules are different for various industries. Some of the most popular industries and categories that face steeper restrictions include:
· Pharmaceuticals and healthcare products
· Weapons and explosives
· Financial services (including cryptocurrencies)
· Gambling/games of chance
· Alcohol, tobacco, and similar products
· Political ads
· Adult content and services
While there are certainly commonalities between regulations across these categories, each category has its own unique blend of restrictions and rules to learn. For example, pharmaceutical businesses require formal certification from Google and are only allowed in some countries. In the financial services industry, you'll likely need a specific license, and you'll need to provide adequate disclosures for your products and services.
The more intimately you know these rules and regulations and how they apply to your industry, the more likely you'll be able to advertise successfully. Don't advertise until you're sure you understand all applicable Google Ads policies.
One other important note here: you need to stay updated.
Google isn't stagnant, and its advertising policies are constantly in flux. Accordingly, you need to stay abreast of recent changes and update your ad approaches in line with them.
The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to Google Ads policy updates, but you should also regularly engage in Google Ads forums. If you're lucky enough to have a representative, maintain open and transparent communication with them and stay in touch regularly; they can be a massive benefit for businesses in regulated and sensitive categories.
The more research you do, the better. You need to thoroughly understand your advertising landscape before you try to thread this needle.
· Google Ads policies. Obviously, read and understand Google Ads policies as they relate to your industry. We mostly covered this in the previous section, but it's part of the research you need to do.
· Licensing and certification requirements. Even if it's not specifically required by Google, it's a good idea to get any appropriate licenses or certifications. It's a mark of authority and trustworthiness that might save you if any of your ads are reviewed for potential policy violations.
· Laws and regulations. Similarly, violating any laws and regulations in the country where you're advertising could be grounds for ad removal or account suspension, even if those violations aren't specifically listed in Google Ads policies. Always ensure legal compliance before advertising with Google.
· Competitor advertising. It's also a good idea to research your competitors. It's very likely that businesses similar to yours, in the same category, are already advertising successfully. Look at what they're doing. How are they phrasing things? Which disclosures are they including? Do you notice anything missing? You can learn a lot simply by studying previously successful ads.
· Market research. The success of your Google Ads largely depends on your ability to successfully target and appeal to your demographics. If you're properly informative and persuasive, with relevant messaging to the people you're reaching, you're much less likely to face reports, removals, and suspensions. Accordingly, you need to do a deep dive into market research so you better understand your target demographics and can appeal to them with relevant content. If you don't have buyer personas, develop them. If you don't know what your target audience is struggling with or what they want to, pause your ads until you figure it out. There are no shortcuts here, so do a deep dive into your market research if you want a reasonable chance to succeed.
When creating and preparing new ads, make sure everything is compliant, including your copy, your images, and any of your website content.
Remember that the rules and restrictions vary by industry, but these are some general rules that can help you get started:
· Stick to the facts. Don't exaggerate. Don't embellish. Certainly don't lie. It's important to stick to the facts as closely as possible, even if it makes your ad a bit stoic or “boring.” Purely factual advertising rarely gets removed.
· Avoid prohibited or sensitive terms. Review prohibited and sensitive terms that apply to your industry, and avoid those terms like the plague. Consider creating a list of alternatives that you can rely on instead.
· Be transparent. Be absolutely transparent with your target audience, even if you're forced to reveal things that weaken the appeal of your products and services. Offer disclosures when required, and potentially when not required if they can boost your credibility.
· Adopt a serious, professional tone. Don't play with fire. Your best course of action is to adopt a serious, professional tone across your ads. It's much less likely to be reported, and it will seem more authoritative and trustworthy.
· Eliminate sensationalism. In line with this, eliminate all forms of sensationalism. Graphic or revealing content, exaggerated claims, and other techniques designed to evoke strong emotions are probably going to work against you.
· Focus on using images for context. If you're going to include images, make sure they provide meaningful context. Advertisers sometimes select images based on how easily they grab attention or how exciting they are, but this is a surefire way to fail if you belong to a sensitive or restricted category.
· Include warnings if necessary. If there are any warnings that are relevant to your products and services, include them. More information is typically better in matters like these.
· Leverage the power of AB testing. The more relevant and effective your ads are, the more likely they are to succeed. Leverage the power of AB testing to learn more about what your audience wants to see and how to give it to them.
Don't forget about your landing pages.
These are important to Google as well.
If your landing pages deviate from Google Ads guidelines, or if they contradict what's in your ads, it could work against you.
These are some tips to get you started:
· Keep it relevant. Always make sure your landing page is completely relevant and in line with whatever is included in your ad. If users click your ad and find something unexpected, unpleasant, or otherwise jarring, Google might take action.
· Issue disclaimers and warnings. This is an opportunity to double down on disclaimers, warnings, and important disclosures. Err on the side of caution and make these prominent to show that you're in full compliance with both Google Ads policies and laws in your area.
· Make your business information accessible. Make your business information transparent and accessible. Offer your brand name and business location information, and give visitors some way to contact you, preferably via phone and email. It's a sign of trustworthiness and it can proactively resolve potential disputes.
· Be straightforward and transparent. Everything on your landing page needs to be straightforward and transparent. Follow the same rules you did for your ads, and avoid exaggerations and sensationalism.
· Double check Google Ads requirements. Always double-check Google Ads requirements when constructing your landing page. You should fulfill or comply with each item on your landing page to be safe.
You've already done significant market research, so make sure you apply it correctly. Target your audience very specifically so that your messages are only shown to people for whom they are relevant. If someone outside the scope of your target demographics sees your ads, they'll be much more likely to issue reports – and your ads will be much more likely to be removed. It's especially important to target people in the right geographic area.
There are some Black Hat techniques designed to circumvent Google Ads rules and regulations, or otherwise give you an unfair advantage in a sensitive or restricted category. These techniques typically violate Google policies and are largely considered unethical by the advertising community.
One of the most prominent examples is cloaking. Using one of several techniques, cloaking can allow you to advertise to audiences with content different from what you showed Google for approval. It's obvious why this is potentially beneficial, but it's also obvious why this is unethical.
As you might imagine, these techniques can work temporarily. They can give you a significant short-term advantage, allowing you a better strategic position and potentially more ad opportunities. However, if you use them, you could get your account suspended, or even permanently blacklisted. Even if you evade that, you could ruin your company's reputation and jeopardize your long-term results.
Do not follow these strategies. If a PPC agency recommends any such strategies to you, fire them.
They simply aren't worth it.
Navigating the world of Google Ads isn't easy.
In fact, it's stressful and incredibly difficult if your business happens to belong to one of these sensitive or restricted categories.
The good news is it's much easier to be successful when you work with a PPC advertising agency that has experience creating and managing ads for a business like yours. We're deeply acquainted with all the rules and restrictions you need to worry about, and we know how to make target demographics like yours convert.
If you’re ready to get started with a free consultation, contact us today!
When you want to use paid search marketing platforms, Google Ads often leads the list. Because of its versatility, simplicity, and popularity, it’s obvious why it’s a popular choice. But when you drop all of your PPC advertising money into one marketing strategy, you could lose some leads.
That’s why some businesses explore paid advertising marketing outside of Google, with many turning to Linkedin Ads.
Google Ads and Linkedin Ads are highly efficient ways to market your products and services to businesses and consumers. But each marketing channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Whatever you choose, make sure you discuss the matter with your web development company.
Below is a closer look at each option.
We think it’s reasonable to conclude that Google reaches a vast audience worldwide – its ad reach is a stunning 4 billion people. Google search handles about 70% of desktop searches, and many companies report that they get about 90% of their organic traffic from the search engines. Also, up to 95% of the mobile search market comes from Google.
People use Google’s search a lot, and having the ability to target search terms with specific search ads is a massive benefit of Adwords. People tend to search for very specific things in Google, so if you can customize your Google advertising for your targeted audience, you’ll receive plenty of leads.
So, we can assume that most people’s targeted audience uses Google to some degree. That’s a massive advantage for companies when they want to target an audience.
However, businesses that want to narrow down their search may have issues getting their Google ads settings right with both Google Ads. And if you blunder when segmenting your audiences, your digital ad campaign could suffer.
LinkedIn features a narrower audience – 500 million users – namely businesses and business professionals. But this more limited audience makes it the perfect place for effective B2B marketing. LinkedIn lets marketers serve online ads to decision-makers and vital audience members in several ways.
Summary: For B2B firms that want to reach decision-makers, Linkedin is a terrific advertising platforms. If your B2C company intends to increase its reach, Google Ads could be the best fit.
When you target your audience with Google Ads, you have a few options: location, affinity, technology, buyer behavior, demographics, and interactions with your app or website.
No matter how much you know about your buyer, you may struggle to avoid clicks from worthless leads that cost too much.
In some cases on Google, people may not even know what they’re looking for. You can try to advertise to your desired targeted audience on Google Ads, but it can be challenging to get to the precise people who will most likely buy what you sell.
When people sign up for LinkedIn, they usually provide many details, such as their occupation, title/job title, experience, industry, education, interests, and more. All of this information can be leveraged for great advantage when you start your marketing campaigns.
Also, LinkedIn users can join many groups, start conversations, and obtain followers. The data is priceless when you want to target a specific audience and market to them. LinkedIn also has a Matched Audience that helps advertisers match their email marketing lists and website visitors with users on LinkedIn.
Many marketing experts think that LinkedIn Ads offer more value. LinkedIn has refined targeting, and you can make your product known to them so that you can tell them about something they didn’t know existed.
Summary: For B2B and B2C companies looking for a broad audience, Google Ads has enough targeting features. But for B2B firms that want to target specific groups, LinkedIn Ads has about 100 segmentation methods for micro targeting.
When you want lead generation, Google Ads has a broader reach and is the most effective. First, you can bring in a lot of prospects to your site without breaking the bank. The audience you’re after on Google visits the search giant with the idea to find the best product or service. This makes generating leads easier.
Getting leads from LinkedIn can be more challenging. Users of the platform may sign in to read industry news or talk to group members. No matter how perfect your ad is, viewers may not be in the mood to buy anything.
That said, Linkedin has a way to target ad leads through in-site messaging, which can generate plenty of leads.
When it comes down to dollars and cents, LinkedIn Ads usually are more pricey than Google Ads. As in Google, you can select cost-per-click or cost-per-impression.
LinkedIn also features a cost-per-send for InMail advertising. Typically, you’ll pay about $5 for each click, $6 for 1,000 impressions, and .80 for each send.
With Google Ads, the average CPC is $1. But to leverage that low cost, you need to work on your audience segmentation. If you don’t your ROI may be below what you want.
Summary: Advertising budgets for each platform depends on several factors. On average, Google Ads cost less than LinkedIn Ads. If your B2B company has a tight budget, you may want to focus on a limited variety of LinkedIn ads instead of a broad range of Google Ads.
So should you advertise with Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads? Yes!
What we mean is, it depends. The correct choice depends on your budget, product or service offered, marketing goals, and target audience. You should not assume that when you need a digital marketing campaign, Google Analytics Adwords is the only choice.
It’s critical to evaluate the market, understand who your buyer is, and make a data-driven decision about the best marketing platform to reach your well-defined goals. One type of company might do better with Google Ads, and another may find LinkedIn Ads preferable.
The great news is you don’t need to choose between the two platforms. Many businesses use both, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you have the budget, it may pay off to diversify your paid search advertising to get the best ROI.
