If you run a small business or a startup aimed at the B2B sector, and have yet to experiment with performance marketing, especially social media advertising, now is a good time to start (well, a year ago was a really great time to start as more and more brands are starting to wise up to the power of social media advertising and thus it is becoming more competitive price wise).
Performance marketing refers to online advertising with a focus on specific leads, conversions, and sales – usually paying per action.
One of my recent projects involved performance marketing for a B2B tech start-up based in Europe, whilst targeting the US market primarily, along with a few key European regions. Instagram advertising, surprisingly for a B2B brand, became the key revenue driver in terms of tracked conversions and e-commerce sales.
Startup founders looking to target the B2B sector should consider that Instagram advertising can be a revenue driver for their businesses – it’s not just for B2C companies, as I have worked with B2B brands and have seen tangible results along with a positive Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) when experimenting with Instagram and Facebook advertising.
Small businesses that have not yet used Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/LinkedIn paid advertising to grow should try to explore these channels not only for generating revenue but more so for bringing marketing-qualified leads for their sales teams to nurture and convert.
A few points to keep in mind:
- It is vital to keep ads fresh to avoid ad fatigue and thus a low relevancy score and high cost per click (CPC).
- Test different target audiences based on specific metrics – CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC, bounce rate, time spent on site, and conversion rate.
Start experimenting with custom audiences (especially Lookalike audiences – individuals most similar to your best existing customers). These can include people on your e-mail list, those who did not complete the transaction, video engagement retargeting, and other forms of content retargeting.
