B2B vs B2C Advertising: 8 Differences & Examples You Need To Know
Hey there new B2B marketer!Â
Diving into the world of B2B advertising can be confusing and overwhelming.Â
In this article Iâm going to walk you through 8 differences between B2B & B2C you need to know.Â
This article is part of our B2B learning track so if youâre serious about learning B2B advertising youâre in the right place!Â
Letâs dive into it đ
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- 8 Biggest Differences Between B2B and B2C
- The Cost of The Product
- How Purchase Decisions Are Made
- The Average Sales Length
- Smaller Audience Sizes
- Different Distribution Strategies
- Need to Support Multiple Sales Funnels
- Team Sport, Not Individual
- Go Further Than Just The First Conversion
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8 Biggest Differences Between B2B and B2C
In no particular order of importance, here are the 8 biggest differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) advertising.Â
The Cost of The Product
The first key difference between B2B and B2C is the cost of the product.Â
B2B marketers call this the average deal size or average contract value depending on what is sold.Â
Typically, B2B products are more expensive ranging from $1,000 to over $250,000.
How Purchase Decisions Are Made
In B2B buying, there will be more people involved in the purchase of the product compared to B2C where there is usually only one person involved.
This is often referred to as a buying committee, in B2B your job is to nurture, educate, and reach everyone in this group so they can collectively decide to purchase the product.Â
The Average Sales Length
There are more people involved with purchasing the B2B product or service and the product is typically a more expensive purchase, the length of time to purchase that product is typically longer.Â
Depending on the complexity of what is being bought, sales cycles can range from 30 days to 36 months. The higher and more complex the product or service is the longer the sales cycle typically is.
This is different from B2C because it can take me 30 seconds to buy something off an Instagram ad.Â
Iâm not sure if thatâs a good or bad thing đ¤Ł
Smaller Audience Sizes
With B2B advertising programs, youâll be targeting smaller audiences across ad channels.Â
Your audience will typically be less than 300,000 contacts with a focus on reaching the right person and company vs B2C where your audiences will typically be much broader than this since more people can purchase your product or service.
Different Distribution Strategies
Since youâll be reaching a much more targeted audience, and you may be dealing with a specific budget â the ad channels you decide to use may look different than your B2C advertising counterparts.Â
It all comes down to where your audience lives and breathes, digitally.
Believe me, Iâve been behind some powerful Facebook ads for B2B. But, you may think twice about using a TV commercial during the Super Bowl as a B2B marketer (wellâŚunless youâre Salesforce!)
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But again, this will all depend on your budget and the breath of your buyers.
Need to Support Multiple Sales Funnels
In B2B, your advertising campaigns will support and fuel multiple sales funnels and processes.Â
The big three are product-lead, sales-lead, and a hybrid of both.
You can learn more about each revenue model in our B2B Advertising Guide.Â
Team Sport, Not Individual
B2B advertising requires strategic alignment across multiple teams including sales, marketing, and customer success departments to support the buyerâs journey and close deals more effectively.
Given the fact that itâs not just about reaching a specific individual but also a company.Â
This increases the importance and complexity of working across teams.Â
Go Further Than Just The First Conversion
The B2B sales processes are more complex and there's more buyers involved.Â
Your advertising campaigns should be designed to help impact the entire buyer journey.
Not just the first conversion like B2C advertising.
I hope you found this article helpful!Â
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Jumpstart Your B2B Marketing Career
If youâre serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to check out my free course that will teach you the foundational knowledge to becoming a high-performing B2B marketer who knows how to use advertising to drive legit business and revenue impact without the fluff or wasting your time and money learning the ropes the hard way.
- Module 1: youâll get a crash course in the B2Bverse and master terminology, sales processes, and working across teams.
- Module 2: youâll learn how to become your customer's psychologist and understand them deeply with buyer personas that allow you to craft effective messaging.
- Module 3: youâll master the B2B funnel and learn how to think like a CEO to identify performance bottlenecks and convert more leads into revenue.
- Module 4: youâll learn how to put it all together and build your go-to-market strategy that gets your ad in front of your dream buyers and converts attention.
âThis course was designed for absolute beginners in mind.
Accelerate your learning curve and start the course today for free.
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Other Articles You May Enjoy.
50+ Ad Specs for The Top 10 Ad Platforms
Have you ever wondered what dimensions does that ad require? đ¤
Then started searching to find the answer? (same here lol)
To save you (and ourselves) trouble, we gathered the most popular ad specs across 10 channels in one place:Â
- Google Display Ad Specs
- LinkedIn Ad Specs
- Twitter (X) Ad Specs
- Quora Ad Specs
- Reddit Ad Specs
- YouTube Ad Specs
- Google Discovery / Demand Gen Ad Specs
- TikTok Ad Specs
- Meta Ad Specs
âď¸ Bookmark this article and refer back to it when you need ad specs.Â
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Google Display Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
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LinkedIn Ad Specs
Source: business.linkedin.com
Browse examples at: linkedin.com/ad-library/home
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âX (Twitter) Ad Specs
âSource: business.twitter.com
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- You can request to have video lengths increased up to 10 minutes
- Carousel can use images or videos but must be in the same aspect ratio (ex: 1:1 or 16:9)
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Quora Ad Specs
Source: image ads, video ads
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Reddit Ad Specs
Source: reddit.my.site.com
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* Headlines will be truncated to 100 characters on mobile/mobile web for the conversation placement.
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Youtube Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
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Google Discovery / Demand Gen Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
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TikTok Ad Specs
Source: ads.tiktok.com
Browse examples at library.tiktok.com/ads
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âMeta Ad Specs (Facebook/Instagram)
Source: business.facebook.com
Browse examples at: www.facebook.com/ads/library
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Resources for Mastering B2B Advertising
Hope you found this ad specs article useful!
If youâre serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.Â
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Hereâs 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
â 100% free access.
â Taught by vetted industry experts.
â Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
â Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
â
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
⢠Scale their ideas
⢠Level up their careers
⢠Make a positive impact
â
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously I timed it đ)
3 Powerful Strategies For Scaling SaaS Google Ads You Need To Know
Google Ads is a blessing and a curse.
You're blessed with intent and cursed with scale.Â
Itâs a powerful channel for scaling pipeline for SaaS startups but low search volume is a challenge.Â
In this article youâre going to learn 3 powerful strategies for scaling your SaaS google ads further.Â
This wonât solve your limited search volume issues that's just the nature of your target keywords and B2B SaaS but these strategies will help you squeeze more performance from your account.Â
Letâs dive into it đ
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Strategy #1: Broad Match Discovery
- Strategy #2: Advertising outside of English
- Strategy #3: Industry campaigns
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Strategy #1: Broad Match Discovery
Before you click away Iâm not talking about using broad match in the traditional sense.Â
Where you let Google show your ads for WHATEVER they think is relevant.Â
Broad match discovery is where you combine broad match keywords AND an audience.Â
It essentially means youâre giving Google the flexibility to show your ads for whatever they feel is relevant but within the confines of your targeted audience.Â
I would not recommend testing this approach unless you have:
- Strong negative keyword lists
- Proven converting phrase match keywords
- Significant conversion volume (> 15/month)
The benefit is you get to scale your top keywords safely past phrase match.Â
How to implement broad match discovery:Â
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywordsÂ
Review your performance across converting phrase match keywords to identify which youâre going to prioritize testing with broad match discovery.Â
Donât rely on âtotal conversionsâ make sure youâre viewing performance by keyword based on the custom metrics that matter for your business (ex: Demo, Trial, SQL, SAL, Opp, etc).
Once youâve identified some worthwhile keywords itâs time for step 2.Â
Step 2: Brainstorm your targeted audiences
Google has 5 audience types you can leverage for targeting in your search campaigns.Â
- Your data = website visitors or contact lists
- In-market = people actively researching a given topic
- Life events = people whoâve accomplished a life milestone (ex: create a business, get married)
- Detailed demographics = industries, company sizes, education level.Â
- Affinity = people who are interested in a certain topic
You can use a mixture of all these different types of audiences to layer on top of your broad match discovery campaigns.Â
If youâre dealing with < 500 searches/month for your keywords I recommend clustering a minim of 10-15 audiences on top of your campaigns to help with delivery.Â
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Step 3: Setup a campaign experimentÂ
The safest way you can test broad match discovery is in a 50/50 experiment alongside your top converting phrase match campaign.Â
You can easily AB test in Google Ads using the campaign experiments feature.Â
Located under Campaigns > ExperimentsÂ
Using this feature build an experiment splitting the traffic by 50% for your original campaign vs the experiment version using broad match AND the targeted audiences you brainstormed in step 2.Â
Strategy #2: Advertising outside of English
English is the most competitive language in the world with the majority of advertisers.Â
Weâve seen reductions of up to 70% in our average CPC targeting other languages.Â
If your company has the resources to sell in multiple languages â take advantage of localization!
Localization campaigns are when you target keywords, write ad copy, and design landing pages that all are in your audience's native language (ex: Spanish, German, Portuguese).Â
Youâll reap the benefits of lower costs due to less competition.Â
The downside however with localization is search volume.Â
If youâre already advertising in English outside of North America and finding success, definitely recommend testing this strategy.Â
How to implement localized campaigns:Â
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywordsÂ
Review your performance across converting phrase match keywords to identify which youâre going to prioritize testing with broad match discovery.Â
Donât rely on âtotal conversionsâ make sure youâre viewing performance by keyword based on the custom metrics that matter for your business (ex: Demo, Trial, SQL, SAL, Opp, etc).
Step 2: Brainstorm your targeted languages
Ask your internal team what languages your sales team is able to sell in.Â
Based on your options make a list of potential languages.
Next, if youâre advertising outside of North America, review the top performing countries and identify their local languages and see if you have the internal resources that can speak that language.
If you canât sell in this language then this strategy wonât make sense.Â
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Step 3: Hire a local translator Â
Donât make the mistake of relying on Google Translate to perform the bulk of your translation.
Youâll want to hire a translator that grew up in the area in which you want to advertise.Â
For instance, if youâre advertising in Portuguese.Â
The dialect for Europeans living in Portugal and those living in Brazil is very different.Â
A local brazilian can tell if itâs not their dialect just like a native portuguese.Â
I recommend hiring locals off Upwork can be as low as $12/hour depending on the language.Â
These translations will make a world difference in your ad and landing page copy.Â
Strategy #3: Industry campaigns
Industry campaigns can be great for coverage and quality.
This is where youâre going to bid on a desired keyword and add a related industry term.Â
For example, letâs say bidding on the keyword âcrm softwareâ hereâs how you can modify this keyword to make it industry specific:
- healthcare crm software
- crm software for fintechÂ
- crm software for small businesses
The benefits of industry campaigns:Â
- Personalized ad copy that can yield greater CTRs
- Higher quality leads due to a more qualified search term
- Lower cost per click prices due to less competition
The downside however is search volume (the constant struggle of Google for SaaS đ ).
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How to implement industry campaigns:Â
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywordsÂ
Just like the other strategies weâre going to identify proven keywords first that we can create industry variations for.Â
Step 2: Brainstorm your target industries
Run a win rate analysis in your CRM and understand which industries have the shortest sales cycles and largest deal sizes? Based on your findings, prioritise the industries in which you want to target.Â
Step 3: Build and prevent keyword overlap
Once you have your keywords and target industries youâre ready to build your campaigns.Â
Make sure to add your industry terms as negative keywords in your generic non-brand campaigns.
Otherwise you can have people seeing your generic ads for your industry terms.Â
Hope you found this article helpful!Â
Best of luck scaling your Google Ads campaigns for your SaaS.Â
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Resources for mastering B2B advertising
If youâre serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.Â
âHereâs 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
â Â 100% free access.
â Â Taught by vetted industry experts.
â Â Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
â Â Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
- Â Scale their ideas
- Level up their careers
- Make a positive impact
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously we timed it đ)
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