5 Reasons Why B2B Advertising Fails
We show you what the common problems and difficulties in B2B advertising are and how you can solve them.
- General problem of B2B companies
- 1st mistake: target group targeting
- 2nd mistake: Placements
- How do you find the right placements?
- 3rd mistake: Target setting
- 4th mistake: Creatives
- 5th mistake: Budget
- Further tips for B2B companies
- Conclusion
B2B advertising is nothing new. And yet, many companies make the same mistakes. This leads to the marketing causing high costs - but being inefficient. To be one step ahead of your competitors, you have to understand how efficient B2B marketing works in practice.
So it's important to take this seriously and apply the right strategies. Because that's the only way a future-oriented, digital presence in the market can work.
To help companies avoid the typical B2B advertising mistakes, our guest authors and experts, Max Schöbel and Toni Liedtke, have highlighted the 5 most common mistakes for you - and offer direct solutions.
General problem of B2B companies
Before we get to the 5 typical mistakes in B2B advertising, we need to address a major issue. Because apart from advertising, many companies face the same problem.
They are not able to clearly and distinctly communicate what they actually do. And also not what value they offer - or which problems they solve. Many companies can't do this on websites, not with content and not with ads. They get lost in details that seem important to them - while they've already lost something much more important. The attention of potential customers.
This is a fundamental problem that must be solved before budget is put into websites, content, or advertising. Because if no one understands what you actually do, you don't need to show it to anyone.
This problem is often addressed incorrectly
Many companies think that they can explain the benefits in a conversation and try to pull users into demo-calls - which in the end are always sales-calls. Most users know this and don't feel like doing it.
If companies would instead clearly and simply communicate what they do, that would be much more efficient. Because then there will be fewer demo-calls and more users will engage with your products. And this also increases the efficiency of the individual sales-calls.
If you don't know exactly what you should communicate to the outside world, then analyze 10 - 15 demo-calls and see where it clicks with users. Because then you know what interests your target group. And you can then turn that into content and ads. For example, by communicating 5 benefits of your product in a 15 second video.
1st mistake: target group targeting
Bad targeting leads to high scatter loss and causes high costs (source: own representation)
Although target group targeting in advertising is one of the basics, targeting is often overlooked. Although the social media platforms offer extremely good targeting options. And this is essential for advertising in particular.
LinkedIn provides many tools that allow you to create exact target groups.
You want to reach the right contacts in B2B. Therefore, you run LinkedIn ads. However, you can't do this if you play ads to an entire industry. The result: large target groups with extremely high scatter loss - and you're burning your money.
Instead, you should select by job titles. And besides the industry, you should also consider additional company data, such as company size (number of employees) or annual revenue to reach the right users.
However, LinkedIn also offers the "target group extension" feature. You should avoid this. Because your CPM increases and you reach people who are not interesting for you. This function only makes sense if you have a product for the general public.
Interest-based target groups are a problem on Facebook in B2B. Because Facebook offers too few options for B2B. For example, if you want to target companies from a certain size, that is not possible.
The situation with Facebook Ads and lookalike audiences is similar. These are extremely efficient, but not when your Total Addressable Market (TAM) is too small. In this case, the algorithm will either find too few users or those you don't want to reach. Like with LinkedIn, high scatter loss and high costs are the result.
How to use Facebook for B2B Ads? First, you need to validate how many users of your target group use Facebook. If enough users are available, then the best thing to do is create a custom audience from your existing customers and based on that a lookalike audience.
Note: B2B is not the same as B2B. A company selling IT Security Management Software is B2B. The 19-year old business coach also falls into the B2B category. Nevertheless, these are two completely different worlds. While as a coach you can perform on Instagram with pure emotional ads, this is not possible for the IT company.
Google Ads
At Google Ads, too, there is a mistake that many companies make: Overspending on broad terms to achieve more search volume - for cheap clicks. This might look good on the report, but it doesn't bring anything. Your focus should clearly be on increasing lower-funnel results and not on trying to achieve the cheapest possible CPC. Especially in B2B, cheap clicks rarely lead to users who will actually take advantage of your offer. In the worst case scenario, it can even decrease your SEO ranking because your bounce rate can increase as a result.
Focus on keywords at Google that are relevant for your target group and stay specific.
Why do companies commit these targeting mistakes?
This is mainly due to a lack of understanding of the platforms as well as the wrong focus. Many impressions and cheap CPM, just like many clicks and cheap CPC look good on a report. But these are vanity metrics. Your focus should be on ROAS, ROI, and sales.
Solving targeting mistakes
Approach this slowly and look at how you can best reach your target group. It is essential that you think ahead about who you want to reach. Because if this is taken into account, it improves the interaction with customers and also increases ROI.
In the beginning, many campaigns should be started to gain data from which learnings can be generated. Once the effect has been proven and you've developed a feel for it, you can segment down and focus on a few campaigns.
2nd mistake: Placements
Wrong placements do not optimally reach your target group (source: own representation)
Incorrect placement of advertisements is another problem. By placements, we mean platforms and the place where the ad appears on the platform.
Display Ads
Display ads are still popular. Because they are extremely cheap to buy and deliver numerous impressions. Then you have to evaluate whether these impressions bring you anything. Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw or clicked on a display ad?
In reality, display ads bring little to no added value. Often, there is the hope to buy leads and brand awareness as cheaply as possible. But apart from a few exceptions, this is not the case. As a rule, display ads do not bring anything for brand awareness, nor do you buy qualified leads.
Unfortunately, display ads are sold as meaningful by agencies and platforms. The argument is always based on extremely high impressions and low CPM. Ask yourself what is more important to you: lots of impressions and low CPM or qualified leads and high ROAS or ROI?
Incorrect placements on platforms
But not all placements on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn are sensible.
The low CPM is also ensured by the Audience Network on Facebook and the Audience Expansion on LinkedIn. The Audience Network shows your ads designed for the feed in apps or websites. Yes, this reduces the CPM – but it doesn't bring you anything else. And LinkedIn's Audience Expansion reaches more users, but not those you want to reach.
In-Feed and other native placements are the best choice on social media channels. Because this way, you reach your target group where they actually consume information.
How do you find the right placements?
You must set meaningful KPIs and test which placements give you the best results. On social media channels, these will probably be In-Feed placements. And no display ads.
3rd mistake: Target setting
If you only focus on the lower funnel, you will not be successful in the long term (source: own representation)
The target setting is about what you want to achieve with social ads. Often, companies approach this with the wrong mindset. In B2B, most think that lead-gen is the first choice of goal. That's how you collect a lot of emails. However, the users whose emails were collected are usually still far from conversion. And it's the conversion that counts. If you have 10 conversions with 100 contacts, it is better than having 1000 contacts but only coming to 3 deals.
So why do most companies insist on lead-gen? Because they would preferably convert every lead immediately. The lead should buy now. However, this is a utopian idea that doesn't work. At least not on awareness channels - which in B2B are almost all social media channels. And you can't start at the bottom funnel. Because that's destined to fail from the outset.
Target group targeting also plays a role here. If you market IT security software, it doesn't make sense to target CEOs of large companies. Why? Because they have hired a CTO for such concerns. And he might have a head of IT security for this. So you see, it is important to reach the right people. But that requires the right target setting in the first step.
An exception – For very specific keywords, you can definitely go for lead gen with Google Ads and test this. Due to the intention of the searchers, this is a different situation than social ads.
Combine Demand Gen and Lead Gen
A combination of Demand Gen and Lead Gen is the best approach. In the first phase (Demand Gen), you should make your target group aware of your product and show what advantages it offers. Over and over again. And if you've done that for a while, then some will come to you all by themselves. Moreover, you can now start with Lead Gen.
Avoid Vanity Metrics
Vanity metrics make you look good - but bring nothing. An example is impressions and CPM. Without context, these metrics are worthless. Why? If you want to generate leads, the number of leads and CPL are more important. As part of a brand awareness campaign, however, CPM and impressions are relevant again in the context of increased memory of the brand.
We can go one step further: What do 100 leads bring you if zero convert? Right - nothing at all. If, on the other hand, you have 50 leads with 36 conversions - that's worth much more. It always depends on viewing the metrics in the right context.
4th mistake: Creatives
Creative variations have been best practice for years (source: own representation)
The most obvious stumbling block in B2B is poor creatives. It's amazing how little some companies value creatives. Neither the C-level nor marketing takes it seriously. No variations are created to test them against each other. No emotions are addressed. Often, a plakative CTA is just placed on the creative and then played.
Yet, the creative is essential. B2C companies understand this - B2B companies not so much. Because it's the creatives that users first see. Therefore, the quality here must be high.
And besides quality, the variations are essential. Because if your target group sees the same creatives for a long time, your ads lose effectiveness (Ad Fatique effect). Especially when budgets are increased, and therefore a higher frequency goes along with it, that should be taken into account.
Because it doesn't help to increase the media budget and ignore the creatives. At the same time, it also doesn't make sense if you spend $50,000 on a media budget per month - but skimp at $1,000 with the creatives.
How do you find out if your creative is bad?
If you have eliminated the first 3 errors (target group targeting, placements and target setting) and still don't achieve good results, then the error in your advertising is probably in the creative - or in the text. Low CTR and low VTR (for video ads) give the first indications that your creatives are not well received.
5th mistake: Budget
Often too much is expected with too little budget (source: own representation)
Unrealistic expectations of the results that your ads should achieve are a major problem in B2B advertising in Germany especially. Many companies want to spend 1,000 euros on advertising and expect a ROI of 20x.
Further tips for B2B companies
Marketing
You need to become visible to your focus target group and generate a demand for you. You do this with the Demand-Gen approach. This means that you educate your target group with your knowledge. Address relevant topics and show that you can solve their problems. And when users come into contact with your company again and again, then you also need less energy in the sales process, because people know you and know what you do.
Customer Satisfaction
Now, customer satisfaction is important. Do everything to solve your customers' problems. Quickly and effectively. Because then you get good reviews and recommendations. And that's the best marketing you can get. In the long term, your marketing becomes more and more efficient and severely reduces sales costs.
Transform good content into good ads and leverage them
If you already have content that is well received by your target group, then it makes sense to take this content as a basis for an ad. So you already have a validation that you understand your target group. With ads, you're just showing that to a lot more people - but be mindful of targeting.
Software for B2B advertising on OMR Reviews
If you need an overview of different software solutions, that facilitate B2B advertising for you, then check out OMR Reviews and compare the tools using the user ratings.
Falcon.io
Emplifi
Hootsuite
Marin Software
Kenshoo
Google Ads
Conclusion
Advertising is not magic. And in B2B, the topic is different than in B2C. You can't just quickly run ads and achieve success. You can't casually let this run on the side either. Or assign the inexperienced intern to the task.
No, B2B advertising is a complex discipline that requires long-term strategies. And especially at the beginning, you will invest money before you can reap the fruits of your investment. If you lack experience, consult experts who know what they're doing.
We wish you a lot of success with your B2B ad campaigns.
Als strategischer und operativer Partner begleitet Max Schöbel Unternehmen in den Bereichen Kommunikation, Marketing und Copywriting, um ihre Dienstleistungen und Expertise prägnant auf den Punkt zu bringen. Wir sorgen speziell auf Websites, in Unternehmenspräsentationen und auf LinkedIn für mehr Sichtbarkeit, professionelle Außenkommunikation und eine effektive Kundengewinnung.
Toni ist Gründer der Performance-Marketingagentur Elirius. Mit mehr als 12 Jahren Erfahrung im Bereich Social-Media-Werbung hat Toni in verschiedenen Branchen schon jede Herausforderung gestemmt – vom kleinen Start-up bis zu milliardenschweren Konzernen. Toni ist weltweit am längsten als Meta Certified Planning Professional zertifiziert und freut sich, zu den erfolgreichsten Social-Marketern zu gehören.
