How to Audit B2B Google Ads Accounts [+Free Template]
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Google Ads is not getting any cheaper, so frequently auditing your account is critical to keep your campaigns profitable.
In this step-by-step guide, I will walk you through the exact same process we use internally to audit our clients’ Google Ads accounts.
As a bonus, you can get a free copy of my 8-Part Google Ads Audit Checklist from Module 1, Lesson 5 of my B2B Google Ads 102 free course, so you can have it on hand while you go through the tasks below.
So let’s get started 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Part 1 - Account Review
- Part 2 - Campaign Review
- Part 3 - Ad Group Review
- Part 4 - Keyword Review
- Part 5 - Ads & Extensions Review
- Part 6 - Landing Page Review
- Part 7 - Budget & Performance Review
- Part 8 - Visibility Review
- Resources to Master B2B Google Ads
- Google Ads Audit FAQ
Part 1 - Account Review
First and foremost, you can’t improve your account performance without mastering the basics. So let’s dive in!
1. Billing Information
Is your billing information correct?
Checking this will ensure that your ads continue to run smoothly and you don't face any unexpected billing issues.
To check your billing information, follow these steps:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click on the "Billing" icon on the left-hand menu.
- Click on "Settings" to view your current billing information.
Here, you can view your payment method, payer details (name, address, etc), and other important details.
Make sure all the information is correct and up-to-date. If you notice any errors, click on the pencil next to each detail to make the necessary changes.
It's important to note that any changes you make to your billing information may take up to 24 hours to take effect.
Additionally, if you have any pending charges on your account, you won't be able to make changes until those charges are paid off.
2. Is your time zone correct?
The accuracy of your account's time zone setting is more crucial than it may seem at first glance. The time zone affects how you schedule ads, interpret performance data, and manage billing cycles.
You cannot change your time zone manually, and it can only be reset once, so as Google advises, choose your new time zone carefully.
To request a change, you’ll need to fill out this form and follow the instructions below:
- The form must be filled out by an Admin user of a manager account.
- Your time zone can only be shifted eastward, for example, from GTM (Greenwich Mean Time) to IST (India Standard Time).
3. Do you have auto-tagging turned on?
Auto-tagging is an easy 3-step process:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- On the left-hand side, under admin> click on Account Settings
- Click on “Auto-tagging” - check the box and save.
Once you enable this feature, Google will automatically mark your source_medium as “cpc”
4. Did you turn off ad suggestions?
Have you ever gone to your Google Ads account and noticed a bunch of changes that weren’t made by you or anyone on your team?This probably happened because you didn’t turn off the ad suggestions 😅
So follow these steps to have peace of mind:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click on the "Campaigns" on the left-hand menu.
- Click on "Recommendations" and go to “Auto-apply”
Make sure you turn off all of the recommendations that aren’t relevant to your account.
I personally like to turn off all of them, so I don’t have any changes made by Google without my consent.
5. Is your conversion tracking still working accurately?
This is crucial because if your conversion tracking is not working correctly, you won’t feed Google’s algorithm with essential data to make the best bidding choices for your conversion-based strategies.
Here’s how you can check if your tracking is in place:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click on the "Goals" on the left-hand menu.
- Click on "Conversions" and go to “Summary”
- You’ll be able to see the status of your conversions - you want to see “Active”
Pro-tip: If you see the status “No recent conversions” - search for your keyword on Google and submit a test.
If you don’t see any activity and have been running Google Ads campaigns for a while, it probably means you’ll need to see what’s going on to ensure the tracking setup is in place.
Part 2 - Campaign Review
Depending on the size and organization of the account, this step will take longer or shorter. So let’s go 👷♂️
1. Do your campaigns follow a logical naming convention?
Having a solid naming convention in place isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s the foundation for good account management.
My campaigns usually have a naming convention that follows this structure:
- Region (NA, EMEA, APAC)
- Campaign Theme (Brand, NonBrand, Generic, Competitor)
- Keyword Topic
- Network (Search, Display)
- Keyword Match Type (Exact, Phrase, Broad)
- Device (Desktop, Mobile, All Devices)
- Offer (Demo, Trial, etc)
So if you have disjointed campaign names, it’s an opportunity to adjust that and make your life easier.
2. Are you targeting the right networks (display unchecked)?
You want to focus on the Search Network and search partners, avoiding the Display Network unless it’s a separate campaign.
- Select the desired campaign
- Go to “Campaign Settings” (on the right-hand side)
- Click on Networks
- Choose the desired Network and save
- At the campaign level
- Scroll over your campaign
- Setting logo will appear
- Click on the logo
- Under Networks, choose the desired Network and save.
3. Is your location targeting and options still accurate?
If you have a proper naming convention, you should be able to tell where you intend to target your campaigns, but you still need to ensure the correct locations are selected.
Similar to Networks, there are two ways to check your locations:
- Select the desired campaign
- Go to Locations (on the left-hand side - Audiences, keywords and content)
- Click on the pencil icon
- Choose the desired locations and save
- At the campaign level > Scroll over your campaign
- The settings logo will appear
- Click on the logo
- Under Locations, Enter location(s) and Save.
4. Are you targeting one language per campaign (with relevant ads + landing pages)?
In a perfect world, your ads and landing pages should match the primary language of the targeting locations.
Here’s how you can change the language of your campaigns:
- At the campaign level, toggle over your campaign name
- Click on the icon setting once it appears
- Under “Languages” you can select the desired language and click Save.
5. Is your daily budget still aligned with your goals?
Being an effective marketer involves strategically allocating your budget over the designated campaign duration while achieving the goals.
Ex. If your average cost per demo is $300 and you need to generate 10 demos, then you must have at least $3,000 - Now, if the plan is to run the campaign for 30 days, then you must allocate a $100 daily budget and check daily to make sure it’s pacing well.
Generally speaking, I don’t recommend running campaigns with less than $50/day for B2B campaigns, but this will obviously depend on your average cost per click.
Check our Google Ads Budget Calculator tool if you need help to define your budget 🙌
6. Are you using the correct bidding strategy?
When you’re first starting out, getting as many clicks as possible is important to get some early conversions, so the “Maximize Clicks” strategy is a good option.
If you have more than 15 conversions, you can switch to the “Maximize Conversions” strategy if your goal is to get as many conversions as possible.
If you have offline conversions set up, you can use the “Maximize Conversion Value” strategy or the “Target ROAS” strategy. These will help you get more relevant conversions.
Here are two ways to check your bidding options:
- Select the desired campaign
- Go to Setting (on the right-hand side)
- Click on Bidding > “Change bid strategy”
- From the dropdown menu, select the desired bidding strategy and save.
- At the campaign level > scroll over your campaign > Setting logo will appear
- Click on the logo
- Under Bidding, “Change bid strategy”
- From the dropdown menu, select the desired bidding strategy and save.
7. Do you have the correct conversion actions set? (if applicable)
Campaigns can inherit account-level conversions or have specific conversion actions set.
Both approaches are valid, but it’s essential to use the one that aligns with your campaign goals.
For instance, if a campaign-specific conversion action set is used, make sure it includes all relevant actions in the conversion funnel.
Follow the steps below to add/check conversion actions:
- At the campaign level > scroll over your campaign
- Setting logo will appear, click on the logo
- Under Goals, “Use campaign-specific goal setting”
- Click the pencil icon
- Select the appropriate (previously tested) conversions and save.
8. Are your ad rotation settings still accurate?
Generally speaking, I recommend using the “Best Performing Ads” option. This way, the Google algorithm will analyze your ads' performance and prioritize delivering the the ads with the best performance.
But if you see that Google is serving some ads dramatically more than others, then you can select “Rotate Ads Indefinitely” and Google will distribute each ad individually.
For conducting A/B testing on multiple ads, I recommend selecting the "Do not optimize" setting to make sure you’re collecting more precise data.
To review your ad rotation settings, follow these steps:
- At the campaign level > scroll over your campaign
- Setting logo will appear, click on the logo
- Click on additional settings > Ad rotation
- Click the pencil icon
- Select the preferred method and save.
You can also follow the steps above at the Ad Group level
9. Is your ad schedule still up to date?
You can review your campaign's performance by day of the week and time of day, then adjust your ad schedule as needed. To do so, follow these steps:
- Click on “Overview” on the left-hand side
- Under the “Day & Hour” table, you can choose the metrics that matter the most to you to view performance by Day and/or Hour.
Now that you know which days and times generate the best results, you can tailor your ad scheduling accordingly.
- Select the campaign or ad group
- Click on Ad Schedule on the left-hand side
- Click the pencil icon
- Choose the optimal time and save.
10. Are you targeting the right devices?
Similar to the ad schedule, you can follow the same steps to find the best performance by device and make adjustments. Steps as follows:
- Click on “Overview” on the left-hand side
- Under the “devices” table, you can choose the metrics that matter the most to you.
You can now update your targeting by device accordingly.
- Select the campaign or ad group
- Click on “When and where ads showed” on the left-hand side
- Edit bid adjustment
- To stop showing on a specific device, choose “Decrease with 100% ratio > Save
If you’re using the device on the campaign naming convention, you want to make sure the campaign is targeting the device it has on its name.
11. Are you excluding existing leads and sales from your campaigns? (bonus)
A practical approach to lowering costs involves not targeting existing leads and customers.
Google enables the upload of first-party data for use primarily in Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) and for creating exclusions. Steps below:
- Select audiences on the left-hand side
- Edit exclusions
- Select the Campaign or Ad group
- Choose the previously uploaded audience > Save
12. Do you have observational audiences added to your campaigns? (bonus)
Gain insights into how different audiences interact with your campaigns without altering who sees your ads:
- Select audiences on the left-hand side
- Audience segments
- Select Campaign or Ad Group
- Under observation, choose what is important to you and save.
13. Have you been actively running campaign experiments in the past? (bonus)
With the Experiments feature, you can execute A/B tests without needing to set up new campaigns.
If the outcome proves successful, the winning campaign can then be chosen as the primary one.
Part 3 - Ad Group Review
1. Are your ad groups broken out logically into related themes?
There are generally 6 buckets of themes for search ads:
- Brand
- Non-brand
- Competitive
- RLSA (Search Remarketing)
- Content
- Dynamic Search Ads
A clear naming convention aids in quickly identifying campaign and group themes. Example:
Campaign: NA_Non-Brand_Search_EN_Exact_All-Devices_Demo
Group: Non-Brand_Software
If there is no proper naming convention, then we have some cleaning to do:
- Download the data at the keyword level
- Delete: Ad spend < $ 1
- Open a new column called “Theme” beside the Keywords
- Tag the Theme of the campaign/group according to the Keyword
- Turn it into a pivot table to get the data by Theme
- Update the naming convention
If you don’t do a good job separating your keywords into themed ad groups, it will hurt your quality score.
Because if you have too many keywords in your ad group, it’s hard to make sure that the ads are relevant to all these keywords.
2. Do you have less than 15 keywords per ad group?
This is not a set-in-stone law, but it will help you mitigate the damage to your ad relevance.
Google allows up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions in Responsive Search Ads. The goal is for keywords within each group to have a relevant ad to boost the quality score.
At the end of the day, you know you are doing a good job with your ad groups and how you structured your keywords if you see that your ad relevance is above average.
3. Are your ad groups filled with relevant keywords, ads, and landing pages?
Each group’s keywords should align with an ad in the same language, context, and call to action as well as a landing page contextualizing the search terms.
Here’s a good example of a great message match from the CRM software folk.
They’re bidding on the keyword “CRM software for startups”, their ad mentions “CRM for startups”, and if you click on the ad, their landing page talks exactly about CRM for startups. Everything is aligned.
4. Are your best ad groups receiving enough budget?
With accurate conversion tracking in place for your campaigns (we covered this in Part 1), we can see which ad groups bring more conversions at a lower cost per conversion.After reviewing the ad group performance, you can optimize your ad groups in these ways:
- Pause the ad groups with more search volume that are just cannibalizing and eating up all the campaign budget without bringing conversions.
- Take the top performers' ad groups and put them into their own campaign.
- Run target CPA bidding and set different target CPA caps at the different ad group levels, so you can put a more restrictive cap on the one that’s eating up all the budget and then put a larger one on the one that hasn’t spent enough.
Part 4 - Keyword Review
1. Are your search terms as close to perfect as possible?
Regularly checking the search term report has 2 main benefits:
- Reduce CPA: Comparing the number of clicks to the number of conversions - exclude all irrelevant results.
- Increase Expected CTR: Compare the number of impressions to the number of clicks - exclude all irrelevant results.
How to check the search term report in Google ads:
- Under “Campaigns” on the left-hand side > Click “Insights and reports”
- Select “Search terms”
- Filter by campaign
- Evaluate the above recommendations.
2. Do you have a strong negative keyword list in place?
Negative keywords help us reduce the wasted budget and increase the overall quality of ads.
The broader the match type, the more important it is to have an extensive list of negative keywords.
However, even with Exact match type, search terms must be regularly checked, and negative keywords constantly be updated.
Maintaining a universal negative keyword list for your entire account can be beneficial. This list might include words related to profanity, employment, bargaining, etc.
Below you can access a sample list we use in our agency.
👉 Master Negative Keyword List
To avoid unintended blocking, please ensure these negative keywords apply to your business and do not overlap with any targeting keywords.How to create a new list in Google:
- Select “Tools” on the left-hand side
- Under “Shared library” click on “Exclusion lists”
- Select the “plus sign”
- Add the list of desired negative keywords and name the list accordingly.
3. Do you have the appropriate match types for your keywords?
If you don’t know which match type you should start with, then always start with the Exact match type and work your way up.
If you don’t get quality conversions with the Exact match type, then changing the match type won’t help.
Generally, Broad match types have the highest wasted budget - unless the campaign is layered with a first-data party audience.
4. Do you have underperforming keywords you can pause or optimize?
Usually, 20% of the keywords are responsible for 80% of the results. Make sure to check the performance of each keyword and pause underperformers continuously.
However, before pausing, analyze the relevance of search terms against keywords.
If they align, evaluate the click-through rate (CTR) to determine if the ad copy requires updates.
If users are still clicking on the ad without converting, consider revising the landing page.
5. Are your keyword bids set at an optimal amount? (if applicable)
If you're using automated bidding, you don't have to worry about this step.
But if you're using manual bidding, sometimes your manual bid is too low, so your ads won’t show on the first pages of the results.
I recommend that your Max. CPC amount is at least high enough to the first page bid estimate.
You can find the keyword bid simulator by hovering over the small chart in the Max. CPC field.
Part 5 - Ads & Extensions Review
1. Are your keywords in your ad copy?
This is an easy way to increase ad relevance and ultimately get more clicks.
I can’t stress enough the importance of having a strong message match.
When users encounter their specific search terms within your ad—especially if these terms are variations of your targeted keywords—the likelihood of them proceeding to your landing page significantly increases.
2. Are you title-casing the beginning of each letter in your ad?
Title casing is when you capitalize the letter of each important work in the sentence.
In my experience, title casing works better on paid search because your ads will look more professional, and it will enhance readability.
3. Do you have a minimum of two ads per ad group?
Running multiple ads allows for A/B testing or split testing, where different versions of ads can be compared to see which one performs better.
By consistently testing ads, you’ll drive a better click-through rate, and this will ultimately result in a better Expected Click-through rate, which will improve your quality score and reduce your costs while putting your ads in a better search results position.
4. Are you speaking one-to-one, communicating benefits, answering objections, and providing a CTA?
You want to make sure you are speaking one-to-one In your copy and not using corporate speak, where it seems you’re talking to an auditorium versus a person.Here are a few important points your ads should cover:
- Are you communicating benefits in the second headline to differentiate yourself from your competitors on the SERP?
- Are you answering objections? (If there are objections that you can answer on your copy)
- Are you providing a Call-to-Action (CTA) that moves people and motivates them?
Here’s a good example from Brevo:
- We can instantly see the benefit: 9000 emails free per month
- One-to-one communication: Don’t let them overcharge you
- CTA that motivates: Stop overpaying for email and get the best value in email delivery & email marketing tools.
5. Are you using all the characters available in your headline, description & path fields?
You don’t have to use every single one, but I recommend you use as many as you can.
Utilizing all available characters in Google Ads' headline, description, and path fields increases message clarity and impact, boosting click-through and conversion rates.
6. Are you using as many ad extensions (assets) as possible? (Especially core ones)
Extensions expand your presence on the search results page, improving the chances of receiving more clicks, which will increase your expected CTR and the overall quality score.
While assets such as the business logo and name are best set at the account level, it's often better to tailor other extensions, like callouts, structured snippets, sitelinks, etc., to reflect the the messaging of each campaign or ad group.
How to create new ad extensions in Google:
- Select “Campaigns” on the left-hand side
- Under “Assets” click on “Assets”
- Select the desired extension to see the ones you already have.
- Click on the “plus sign” to add new ad extensions.
7. Are you consistently testing new ad copy, types and modifiers?
If you are not doing this, you’ll know because you will see the click-through rate consistently going down week over week, month over month.
If you’re auditing someone else’s account, you can check the “Changes history” option to see if they are constantly testing new ads.
For modifiers, you can use dynamic keyword insertion in your ad copies to dynamically test different variations.
8. Are you sending searchers to relevant landing pages?
In my opinion, this is the most important thing.
If your prospects search for “CRM for startups”, your ads should say “CRM for startups”, and your landing page should say “CRM for startups”.
This sounds basic and trivial, but the amount of people who miss this is dramatic.
So make sure that you have a strong message match.
Part 6 - Landing Page Review
Remember that success will come from half traffic and half your landing page, so I highly recommend deep diving into your pages individually as you go through this.
1. Are you mirroring the message from your ad on the landing page?
As I mentioned in the last step of Part 5, the landing page experience is a crucial element of the quality score.
A page that fails to align with your ad's messaging is unlikely to offer value to the user.
2. Can the searcher understand what you do & why in 5 seconds or less?
This is called the five-second rule, and it’s essentially a test where if your prospects just look at the above the fold section of your landing page, can they understand in five seconds what you do and essentially why they should care?
In this example from Microsoft Clarity, we can easily understand that this is a free tool that will help you get insights into the behavior of users on your website so you can improve your products.
It’s also used by 100k+ sites worldwide and is GDPR & CCPA-compliant.
You don’t want to be vague on your landing pages, and you want to make sure that they have the following:
- Clear and concise headline
- Engaging subheadlines
- Visual elements
- Call to action (CTA) throughout the page
- Quick loading time for all devices
To learn more about landing page best practices, dive into the article below by Pedro Cortés:
10 Proven Landing Page Tips To Boost Your Conversion Rates
3. Is your landing page loading fast enough?
As mentioned above, the landing pages must load quickly on all devices. Tools like Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights can help you better understand areas of opportunity.
I recommend you run your page through PageSpeed Insights and apply anything applicable.
You’re probably going to need the help of a developer, but it’s definitely worthwhile to improve the page speed because this is a big factor in terms of your landing page experience for quality score.
A simple thing to improve your landing page loading time is compressing the website images to reduce the file sizes.
4. Do you have one clear call to action on your landing page that mirrors your ad?
If your ad is talking about Downloading a Whitepaper but the landing page only has CTAs around Booking a Demo, then that will have a negative experience for the user.
Align landing page CTAs with ad promises to ensure a seamless user experience and encourage conversions.
5. Are you communicating benefits, answering objections, and providing a CTA?
The higher the ask, the more context must be provided on the page. This is specifically true for the “Book a Demo” CTA.
Ensure you address objections while emphasizing the key benefits of your product that will solve the users' problems.
I recommend that you talk with your sales team to get insights on different objections that come up in the sales process, this way you can add sections on your landing page to proactively communicate against those objections so that you can actually drive more quality leads.
6. Does your form, chatbot, or online booking widget still work?
Before launching any new offers, test the page to make sure everything is working as intended.
- Submit a fake test lead and see if it actually routes into your CRM.
- Go look for your lead record.
- Check if the page isn’t broken.
- Review what the experience looks like.
Make sure you audit that process because I can't tell you how many times people think their campaigns are failing, and then something just broke on the technical side.
Part 7 - Budget & Performance Review
1. What is the spread of budget and performance by campaign theme? (NonBrand, Brand, Competitive, RLSA, Content)
This is where you will need to export a lot of data from Google Ads and use Excel/Google Sheets.
👉 I recommend watching the Part 7 video above if you need a walkthrough on exporting and labeling the data to perform this analysis.
Here’s a common successful budget distribution you can use as guidance:
- Brand: < 20%
- Non-brand > 60%
- Competitive > 20%
You can use our free Google Ads Budget Calculator to find your ideal Google Ads budget.
2. What is the spread of budget and performance by region?
If you are targeting multiple regions, break out the campaign as such (ex: NA, EMEA, APAC).
👉 Check out the Part 7 video above if you need a walkthrough on the data analysis methodology using Excel.
Look for the highest-performing locations for each region and make sure low-quality conversions are not wasting your budget. If you’re not separating your campaigns into regions, you can still check how the budget has been spread around different locations through the Locations report:
- Select “Campaigns” on the left-hand side
- Go to “Locations”, under “Audiences, keywords, and content”
- Select the desired campaign
- Download the data under Location
- Summarize into a pivot table to get:
- Ad spent
- Conversions
- Cost per conversion
3. What is the spread of budget and performance by offer?
If you are separating the campaigns by offer, break out the campaign as such (Demo, Trials, eBooks, etc)
👉 Check out the Part 7 video above if you need a walkthrough on the data analysis methodology using Excel.
Here’s how to download the landing page report:
- Select “Campaigns” on the left-hand side
- Go to “Landing Pages”, under “Insights and Reports”
- Select the desired campaign
- Download the data
- On Excel:
- Delete: Ad spend <$1
- If there is no proper naming convention:
- Open a new column (Offer) beside the landing page (LP)
- Tag the offer of the campaign according to the LP
- Summarize into a pivot table to get:
- Ad spent
- Conversions
- Cost per conversion
6. What is the spread of budget and performance by match type?
If you are separating the campaigns by match type, break out the campaign as such (Exact, Phrase, Broad)
👉 Check out the Part 7 video above if you need a walkthrough on the data analysis methodology using Excel.
Here’s how to download the match type report:
- Select “Campaigns” on the left-hand side
- Go to “Search Keywords”, under “Audiences, keywords, and content”
- Select the desired campaign
- Add the column “Match type”
- Download the data
- On Excel, summarize into a pivot table to get:some text
- Ad spent
- Conversions
- Cost per conversion
7. What is the spread of budget and performance by device?
If you are separating the campaigns by devices, break out the campaign as such (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet, All Devices)
👉 Check out the Part 7 video above if you need a walkthrough on the data analysis methodology using Excel.
If the campaigns are not separated into devices, here’s how you can check the spread of budget and performance by device downloading the device report:
8. What is the spread of budget and performance by week days?
Check if you’re targeting all days of the week and if there’s opportunities to exclude some days when the performance is not good, so you can free up budget for the strongest days.Here’s how to download the day of the week report:
- Select “Campaigns” on the left-hand side
- Go to “When and where ads showed”, under “Insights and reportst”
- Select the desired campaign
- Choose “Day” in the right-side navigation if you only want to see the day of the week
- Download the data
- On Excel, summarize into a pivot table to get:some text
- Ad spent
- Conversions
- Cost per conversion
To learn more about how to create a winning Google Ads budget strategy, dive into the article below:
How to Create a Winning Google Ads Budget Strategy for B2B SaaS
Part 8 - Visibility Review
Here’s where we will talk more about Impression Share and Quality Score.
1. What is the search impression share by campaign theme? (NonBrand, Brand, Competitive, RLSA, Content)
There are different ways you can see the impression share by the campaign theme.
You can use Excel as I showed previously in Part 7, or you can go into your account and filter by campaign name, assuming you have good campaign naming conventions.
👉 Check out the Part 8 video above if you need a walkthrough on how to find this data.
2. What is the search lost rank by campaign theme? (NonBrand, Brand, Competitive, RLSA, Content)
The process here is the same from the previous task. The only difference is that you need to add the “Search lost IS (rank)” column.
👉 Check out the Part 8 video above if you need a walkthrough on how to find this data.
3. What is the search lost to budget by campaign theme? (NonBrand, Brand, Competitive, RLSA, Content)
The process here is the same from the previous tasks. The only difference is that you need to add the “Search lost IS (budget)” column.
👉 Check out the Part 8 video above if you need a walkthrough on how to find this data.
4. What is the search top IS by campaign theme? (NonBrand, Brand, Competitive, RLSA, Content)
The process here is the same from the previous tasks. The only difference is that you need to add the “Search top IS” column.
👉 Check out the Part 8 video above if you need a walkthrough on how to find this data.
5. Do 70% of your keywords have above 7 quality scores?
This is something I learned from Brad Geddes years ago, the OG of Google Ads.
Check the video below to see a complete guide on Quality Score and how to perform a Quality Score analysis:
6. What aspects of quality score do you need to improve?
After going going through the data in the previous task, summarize your findings to know where you have opportunities to improve.
Example:
- 100% of keywords have a Quality Score below 7.
- 94% of keywords are rated as “Below Average” for landing page experience.
- 45% have “Above Average” ad relevance.
- 100% have “Below Average” expected CTR.
Optimization strategies you can adopt to improve your Quality Score:
- Improve Landing Page Experience:
- Ensure pages are fast, relevant, and mobile-friendly
- Align ad copy with landing page content for a seamless message match.
- Ensure pages are fast, relevant, and mobile-friendly
- Refine Ad Relevance
- Group keywords into tightly themed ad groups.
- Write ads tailored to the specific intent of each group.
- Group keywords into tightly themed ad groups.
- Boost Expected CTR
- Test compelling ad headlines and descriptions.
- Use ad extensions to enhance visibility and clickability.
- Test compelling ad headlines and descriptions.
I hope you received a ton of value from this Google Ads Audit guide.
If you have any questions, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
From Clicks to Conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B 🔥
If you want to become a Google Ads pro, check out our free B2B Google Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B Google Ads 101 - How to Launch Dangerously Effective Campaigns for Beginners
- The Googleverse: The Game You're Playing & How To Win
- Measurement: How to Make Sure You're Profitable
- Targeting: How to Show Up For the Right Searcher
- Planning: Putting It All Together
🎯 Google Ads 102 - How to Clicks Into Profit
- Visibility: How To Find the Hole Sucking Profits
- Workflows: How to Optimize On a Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly Basis
- Experimentation: How to Test & Automate Profitability
- Troubleshooting: How To Solve Inevitable Problems
🚀 Google Ads 103 - How to Scale Google Ads For Advanced Advertisers
- Methodology: How to Vertically Scale Google Ads From A-Z
- Campaigns: Scaling Horizontally Through Campaign Themes
- Channels: Scaling Outside of Paid Search
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People Also Ask
How can a Google Ads audit improve my campaign performance?
- A Google Ads audit can significantly enhance your campaign performance by identifying inefficiencies and areas for optimization within your account.
How often should I conduct a Google Ads audit?
- It is recommended to conduct a Google Ads audit at least once every quarter. For accounts with significant spending or those in highly competitive industries, more frequent audits may be beneficial to stay ahead of competitors and efficiently manage advertising spend.
What are the key components of a Google Ads audit?
- Budget Allocation: Analyzing how the budget is distributed across various channels and campaigns to identify opportunities for reallocation.
- Campaign Themes: Reviewing the balance between branded, non-branded, and competitive campaigns to ensure optimal allocation for reaching new customers.
- Device Usage: Evaluating performance across devices (mobile, computer, tablet, TV) to tailor strategies for each device type.
- Match Types: Assessing the use of exact, phrase, and broad match types in campaigns to ensure efficient targeting.
- Quality Score: Examining the quality score of keywords, focusing on ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected CTR to identify areas for improvement.
- Visibility Metrics: Analyzing impression share and losses due to rank and budget to optimize bid strategies and campaign visibility.
How often should I perform a Google Ads audit?
It’s recommended to conduct a comprehensive audit at least quarterly. However, for high-spending accounts or during periods of significant change (e.g., new product launches or market shifts), more frequent audits may be beneficial.
Can I perform a Google Ads audit myself, or should I hire a professional?
While self-auditing is possible, hiring a professional can provide deeper insights and a fresh perspective. Professionals are often equipped with advanced tools and expertise to identify issues that might be overlooked otherwise.
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Once you understand the basics and set up initial campaigns, start A/B testing and experimenting. You could test many things, for example, different ad formats, creatives, messaging, campaign objectives or targeting - all of which can lead to better performance. From my experience, any significant improvement in advertising efficiency starts with a (sometimes random and "long shot") test. To make the testing process smooth and successful, I recommend starting with a hypothesis, creating a testing plan, and having clear KPIs and ways of tracking those.
Kris Wojcik
#1 tip for marketers getting into B2B advertising is to have fun with it. A lot of B2B brands take themselves really seriously to appeal to Enterprise buyers, but the reality is we're all human and you're marketing to humans.
Jess Bahr
People buy different, not better. So when you're advertising in B2B, it's crucial to sniff out your differentiator and explain that in a way that your buyers will clearly understand it, consume it, and resonate with it. Each of your buyers is different too so it's important to have a good mix of how you explain the difference.
Tim Davidson
One valuable tip I'd offer new marketers entering the realm of B2B advertising is to prioritize understanding your target audience deeply. B2B advertising differs significantly from B2C advertising in that you're not just targeting individual consumers but engaging with businesses, often involving nuanced decision-making units.
To effectively connect with your B2B audience, invest time researching and profiling your ideal customer profile (ICP). This means identifying their industry, company size, and job roles and delving into their pain points, challenges, and aspirations – try to get in the minds of your ICP from entry-level to executive.
By going that extra mile in understanding your audience, you can craft messaging and content that resonates with them—addressing their specific needs, providing solutions, and positioning your products or services as the standout choice.
Tyler Ray
Before you create any adverts, you need to figure out what your message is going to be. Don't rush into it until you know 'what problems you solve, how you solve them, and why your customer should solve them.' One sentence on each of those creates your elevator pitch, which should be present in some way, in all of your ads. It also represents the business case for your product. If you can't explain your story easily, how on earth do you expect your audience to remember it?
Joseph Hill
You know that crazy Marketing 'funnel' everyone talks about? Always start from the bottom up. Meaning, the first place to start is to know who your customers are and how they equate to revenue. Then work yourself up the funnel to drive the most impact.
Bryttney Blanken
Adopt the 'kill your darlings' mantra. You have to be ready to cut what you love if it isn't delivering results—be it an ad, keyword, or campaign. What was once a good performer might not stay that way, so never 'set and forget.' Always monitor and optimise.
Three macroeconomic principles should guide you:
1- Budget is limited.
2- Benchmark against your own metrics, not industry fluff.
3- Make trade-offs based on what performs better.
Kill the darlings that don't contribute to the revenue to make room for what does.
Canberk Beker
Focus on the audience/ICP first, not being the best/all-in-one product. When you address the pain and call the audience out, it resonates far more than simply stating 'We're #1/the best in ... category'. No one gives a shit about fancy review badges, Gartner, or other reports (maybe just a tiny bit) & enterprise studies/research. Everyone wants to know how your product will solve their pain or problem.
The best way (for me at least) to find out the actual problem of a customer is to go to G2 and your biggest/well-known competitor and read/scrape all the 'What problems is PandaDoc solving and how is that benefiting you?' answers. You'll find out that most answers are about one/two specific cases, and so then it's your job to address it right via website/ad copy messaging.
Alex Panchuk
Shift your mindset. You'll generate leads, but it's not just about lead generation. When they convert, focus on quality and intent. To do that, you need to understand the customer and how to reach them with the right and interesting message in the right places, consistently. Make it easy for them to remember you, find you, and buy from you when they are ready. For practical advice, Go through the LinkedIn ebook 'How B2B Brands Grow", study demand generation, join communities, and ask questions there.
Roman Krs
Before you blame the channel, do the research to see if there are some other reasons why leads aren't converting to opportunities.
For example:
WEBSITE
- Does the ad align with the landing page?
- Is it easy to understand how it works, who it's for, how much it costs, and the outcome it drives?
- Do you have relevant social proof?
CONVERSION
- Is the form simple and short?
- Does it offer an easy way to schedule a meeting?
- Are there clear CTAs across the website?
- Do you address common objections on the demo page?
LEAD HAND-OFF
- How long does it take to set up a meeting with a buyer after the form is filled take?
- Did we align the follow-up with the intent level?
- Do we offer a demo at the first meeting?
- Do we identify the core problems of the buyer and how our solution can help solve those issues?
SALES CYCLE
- Did we create a close plan?
- Have we gotten all key decision-makers involved?
- Do we add value along the sales process?
- Do we always set up the next meeting with a clear agenda?
- Have we properly differentiated ourselves against competitors and keeping with the status quo?
80% of the above don't directly involve the "channel"
Jonathan Bland
For someone starting with B2B advertising, I highly recommend following the right B2B content creators on LinkedIn, as well as other paid media ones - then block some time to go through their posts/videos to learn new strategies/tips, or merely understand their point-of-view. Then, find ways of testing those strategies/quick wins with your own clients to get your own insights and takeaways - plus, it's a great way of implementing what you learn
Gonçalo Prates
Make sure that you nail your fundamentals before you launch your campaign. Know where your ICP spends time online and what they are searching for.
If you don't, you won't be able to nail down your targeting for paid social and you won't go after the right keywords on paid search.
Start with the understanding of your buyer (the qualitative and quantitative) insights, and then go and build your strategy based off of that. There are a lot of great resources on how to technically set up your campaign - just keep it as simple as you can to begin with.
The final part of the fundamentals is to make sure you have tracking in place in your CRM. You need to be able to know what leads came in from your paid ads, and be able to track them throughout the sales process. Otherwise you'll never be able to answer the question at the executive level, "How are our ads performing?
Blake Strozyk
Seasonality in B2B is real & should be taken into account when optimizing & experimenting with paid ads.
Here is what I mean: We have grown very rapidly over the last 1.5 years and therefore don't have reliable base data from last summer, so only this year we started to feel the summer slow down properly. Many experiments that we ran have to be pre & post (sometimes it's technically not possible to run A/B), so if you launch an experiment in June & compare results with May the results will be heavily impacted by external factors (summer period slowdown).
It's not something new, but something we faced a lot this summer. So don't disregard the importance of taking seasonality into account.
Borys Khodan
1. When building advertising campaigns, be hyper focused on audience and targeting. Your best advertising campaign won't be successful unless you target the right people at the right time.
2. The biggest gold mine for ad copy is customer calls. If you have a tool like Gong, you should be listening to calls every day to find insights on what your customers care about.
Liam Barnes
The B2B Buyer's journey is complex, make sure you are filling all the content gaps on your paid ad strategy.
Miguel Sánchez
Offers are the most underused and underappreciated lever in B2B ad performance, and it’s not even close.
People associate Offers with e-commerce style, “buy one get one free” marketing messages. But the category is so much broader than that - it’s offering different things to your audience to see what they respond best to.
In short: Everything you promote with an ad is an Offer, whether you think of it that or not. Some example Offers that B2B companies can use:
a.) Click this ad and schedule a sales call
b.) Click this ad and get access to a demo
c.) Click this ad and get an eBook
d.) Click this ad and get an incentive.
You should start with an Offer when building campaigns, don't make it an afterthought.
Kevin Lord Barry
Advertising can be daunting as a new B2B marketer, when you don't have a full grasp on how the ad platforms work or you haven't spent as much money on them, you might feel like you are not ready to run ads.
But here's the thing, you will never be 100% ready till you actually take action, and as scary as this might feel, there's a great thing about this too, you are also more prepared than you actually think.
That first campaign won't be perfect, you will make mistakes, and you will lose some $$$ in the process (sad reality about advertising 😅), but as long as you see this as a learning experience, you will accelerate your knowledge about the platforms and become strong in them in no time.
Diego Oquendo
Never skip out on creative. With all the targeting features that we have access to as B2B marketers, creating content specific to the persona you're going after is important. Whether it's copy or the images you use, I recommend investing time into making sure they resonate with your ICP.
Ali Yildirim
Ultimately it boils down to establishing trust. Your objective is to educate prospects from various angles and persuade them to take the desired action. Providing value upfront through various means is the most sustainable approach to accomplish this.
Rory Conroy
Put a real effort into the ad creation on social channels. Create a list with the prospects’ pain points, their headaches, and how your product could solve any of these pain points, then transform it into ad copy that talks directly to your prospect in a humane language, it’s B2B but we’re talking to people, this will make ads that will stand out on the crowd. We can have the best audience and an infinite budget, but if we don’t master the message (and have a compelling design), chances are that our ads will not be noticed.
Jessica Amaral
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SEO for B2B SaaS: 10 Tips to Drive Pipeline and Revenue
Over the past five years, I’ve helped B2B SaaS companies like Clickhouse, WildSparq and EventsAir drive millions in pipeline and revenue through SEO.
My lesser-known strategies have been featured by CXL, Ahrefs, The Marketing Millennials and more.
Along the way, I’ve developed an SEO playbook that B2B SaaS companies can follow (step by step) to start seeing high quality inbound leads in a matter of months.
I’ll be breaking down my entire process below 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: Define Your Money Keywords
- Tip #2: Understand What's Already Ranking
- Tip #3: Build a Best-in-Class Page
- Tip #4: Nail the basics
- Tip #5: Build Quality Backlinks for $0
- Tip #6: Publish At Scale
- Tip #7: Design Pages That Convert
- Tip #8: Leverage sales calls, customer success calls, and customer research
- Tip #9: Keep Improving
- Tip #10: Scale as you grow
Tip #1: Define Your Money Keywords
Most B2B SaaS companies see SEO as a checkbox on their to-do list.
The CMO or CRO says, “Competitors are outranking us, we need to do some SEO.”
And marketers, who are already juggling a million different tasks, simply go to Semrush or Ahrefs, find some keywords with low difficulty and high search volume, throw them into ChatGPT, and publish a few articles.
Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t yield inbound leads and has minimal impact on revenue.
For SEO to actually drive results, you need to focus on the keywords that your dream clients are searching, or what I like to call “money keywords.”
Here’s a matrix that you can use to identify them:
Column 1: Make a list of your main offers (ie calendar scheduling)
Column 2: Make a list of the industries you serve best (ie sales, HR, marketing, etc.)
Column 3: Make a list of your main competitors (ie Chili Piper, Calendly, HubSpot)
Column 4: Make a list of the problems you solve, or jobs to be done (ie struggling to route leads efficiently)
Now, you can use these columns to create high-intent long-tail keywords. For example:
1. Best calendar scheduling software
2. Calendar scheduling for sales teams
3. Chili Piper alternatives
4. How to route leads more efficiently
Keep in mind, these “money keywords” will probably have a low search volume, and that’s okay. At the end of the day, you want traffic that will convert into pipeline, not a large number of visitors outside of your ICP.
When you’re doing this exercise, make sure to involve your founder (if you’re a smaller founder-led company) or your sales team (if you’re a larger sales-led organization) – they’ll likely have great insights related to the problems you solve.
Tip #2: Understand What’s Already Ranking
Now that you’ve identified those money keywords, type them into Google to see what type of content is already ranking organically.
For example, if you type in “Chili Piper alternatives” you’ll find that the top organic search results are something along the lines of “Top 10 Chili Piper alternatives to consider”, or what is commonly referred to as a product listicle.
Look through these existing articles and think about what your company can do even better. Can you include a comparative table or social proof, and clearly demonstrate why you’re the best without sounding overly biased?
Or, if you’re creating an article on how to speed up the lead routing process, look at the guides at the top of the SERP and think:
How can I create similar articles that are even more helpful? How can I demonstrate greater experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness?
Maybe it’s by going much more in-depth, or weaving in relevant videos, or highlighting screenshots of your product.
Pro tip: Don’t be afraid of highlighting your product throughout your articles. As marketers, we often worry about sounding too promotional, but the truth is, you need to show that your product is the obvious solution to a problem in order to drive revenue.
Tip #3: Build a Best-in-Class Page
Once you’ve researched what top-ranking pages are doing, it’s time to figure out how to blow them out of the water.
If you’re creating a listicle, can you add better visuals, weave in your product more, or add relevant CTAs?
If it’s a how-to article, can you link to a lead magnet or a YouTube video with more helpful context?
If it’s a landing page, can you add a more comprehensive FAQ section that answers all of your prospect’s questions?
Pro tip: Always consider where your prospect might be in their journey based on their search query. For a more top of funnel how-to article, you can include more subtle CTAs and connections to your product, while for a competitor comparison article, it makes more sense to include a clear demo request CTA.
Tip #4: Nail the basics
Technical SEO is important for e-commerce sites with thousands of pages, but most B2B SaaS websites (which are often 50 pages or less) don’t need a ton of technical SEO to win.
Sure, you still need the basics.
For example, let’s say you write an article related to the keyword “Best calendar scheduling software.”
You’d want your slug to be “best-calendar-scheduling-software”; you’d want to include your keyword in your H1, meta title, and meta description; and you’d want to incorporate the keyword naturally throughout your article.
You’d also want good UX, a clear menu nav, solid design and UI on both mobile and PC, some internal links to relevant topics throughout your website, and some other pages linking back to your article.
That’s really all you need.
After you have these basics in place, focus on producing a high volume of content that’s relevant to your prospects, and don’t lose sleep over technical optimizations.
Tip #5: Build Quality Backlinks for $0
Even if you have the best content, ranking for your dream keywords isn’t easy, especially if your competitors have been around for decades and have extremely high domain authorities.
To compete against the giants and set yourself up for success, you need high quality backlinks to your website.
Here’s one of my favorite ways to get them:
1. Go to Semrush or Ahrefs, whichever keyword research tool you prefer, and paste the LinkedIn profile URLs of your thought leaders (Founder or other execs) into the backlinks tab.
2. In the results, you’ll find a list of all the articles featuring your thought leaders and linking out to their LinkedIn profiles.
3. Message these companies and see if they can update the articles to link to your website, not just to the LinkedIn profile URL. Even better if you can get a backlink to one of your high-intent pages.
After doing this, you can go a step further and visit the podcast search engine Listen Notes, type in your niche (ie B2B ads, recruitment, sales enablement), filter by top podcasts in your space, and make a list on a Google sheet.
Next, have your thought leaders reach out to the podcast hosts via LinkedIn.
The message can be short and simple, such as: Hey Sam, enjoyed your recent episode on X, had an unusual idea for your show. Are you against a conversation?
From my experience, around 20% of hosts will respond, and your thought leaders will start getting featured on amazing podcasts, which will eventually lead to more backlinks to the company website.
Pro Tip: To start seeing results quickly, aim to send 5-10 messages per week to podcast hosts in your space.
Tip #6: Publish At Scale
With SEO, quality matters, but quantity is a massive competitive advantage.
Larger companies are spending a lot of money on ads, content marketing, and events, but they typically have a ton of red tape.
They may take two weeks to approve a topic, a month to plan out the content, a month for design, a month for web development, a month to publish… Which is to say, by the time they’ve published 2 or 3 pages, you could have published 30, 40, or 50 quality articles, and started stealing some of the market share.
To start seeing results, publish as much content as possible focused on your money keywords (occasionally weaving in more top of funnel content).
Also, remember, unless you’re a super authoritative company, it’ll usually take 2-3 months for Google to crawl your pages, so the content you publish today is setting you up for success 90 days from now.
Tip #7: Design Pages That Convert
If you’re investing a lot of money in content, make sure you also invest in great design. The better the user experience, the more likely you are to drive conversions.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Are your pages aesthetically pleasing?
- Is your content skimmable on both mobile and PC?
- Are you including screenshots, videos, or aha moments that relate to your product?
- Can you add more social proof (customer quotes, guides, walkthroughs) to increase trust?
- Are you sprinkling relevant CTAs throughout your content?
- Can you add sticky CTAs that are aligned with the funnel stage of each article (ie subscribe to newsletter for more top of funnel articles, request a demo for more bottom of funnel content)?
These changes, which might seem small, can lead to massive improvements in performance.
Tip #8: Leverage sales calls, customer success calls, and customer research
You can rank pages using generic AI-generated content that says things like “turbocharge your revenue” or “10X your productivity,” but prospects will immediately bounce.
If you want them to stay on your page – and possibly even schedule a demo – you need to write in-depth content that resonates with their exact pain points.
Looking at customer research and listening to calls is a great starting point. Even better if you can take your sales and CS teams out to lunch, walk them through the topics you’re tackling in your content, ask for additional insights, and weave these insights into your articles.
This way, all the content you create will be amazing for sales enablement in addition to SEO.
Tip #9: Keep Improving
As I mentioned previously, to win with SEO, you need to publish content quickly – when it’s ready, not when it’s perfect.
That being said, you should always be looking for ways to improve the content you’ve already published.
About 2 or 3 months after publication, check how your article is ranking.
For example, let’s say you write an article, and after a few months it settles at position number 7. You could look at this article more closely, and think of ways to get it closer to number 1.
Could you add a more comprehensive FAQ section, embed a relevant YouTube video, add nicer images of your product, include more customer quotes, or earn a few high quality backlinks?
These consistent optimizations can go a long way if you want to move up in the rankings.
Tip #10: Scale as you grow
SEO isn’t something you can set and forget – even if you’re an established company, there’s always room for improvement.
Once you’ve implemented tips 1-9, think of ways you can scale your efforts even further.
Can you increase your article production by hiring more team members or working with freelancers? Or create incredible resources (such as custom tools) that will be highly valuable to your ICP?
Also, don’t just think about SEO – after all, SEO is only a piece of the marketing ecosystem – think of ways to improve your ads, your YouTube channel, your podcast, your LinkedIn page, etc.
Improvements in all these areas will lead to greater brand awareness and trust, which will lead to more successful SEO.
Hope you found this article helpful!
Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn with any questions, or check out the Breaking B2B website or Breaking B2B podcast for more unusual B2B/SaaS SEO insights.
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People Also Ask
How can I effectively measure the ROI of my SEO efforts in a B2B SaaS context?
Utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) such as organic traffic growth, conversion rates, and customer acquisition costs. Implement tools like Google Analytics and CRM systems to track the journey from organic search to lead conversion and revenue generation.
What are the best practices for conducting keyword research tailored to B2B SaaS audiences?
Focus on identifying high-intent keywords that align with your product’s solutions to specific business challenges. Consider the different stages of the buyer’s journey and develop content that addresses each phase, from awareness to decision-making.
How can I optimize my website’s technical SEO to support scalable growth for a B2B SaaS company?
Ensure your website has a clean architecture with logical URL structures, fast load times, and is mobile-friendly. Regularly audit for issues like broken links or duplicate content, and implement structured data to enhance search engine understanding.
What role does content marketing play in enhancing SEO for B2B SaaS, and how can I develop an effective content strategy?
Content marketing is pivotal in attracting and engaging your target audience. Develop a strategy that includes creating valuable, informative content such as blog posts, whitepapers, and case studies that address your audience’s pain points and demonstrate your expertise.
How can I build high-quality backlinks to improve my B2B SaaS website’s domain authority and search rankings?
Engage in thought leadership by contributing guest posts to reputable industry publications. Develop shareable content assets like original research or infographics, and foster relationships with industry influencers to encourage natural backlinking.
10 Tips to Create Winning LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads
Since their introduction in 2023, I’ve run hundreds of LinkedIn thought leader ads, for my demand gen agency, Omni Lab, and for my clients in B2B SaaS.
Through my experimentation with this format, I’ve developed a list of best practices to maximize the chances of success.
I’ll be sharing all my insights below 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: Remember that thought leader ads are just sponsored posts
- Tip #2: Make sure your ads connect to your product
- Tip #3: Create content people would pay for
- Tip #4: Add Premium CTAs to your LinkedIn profile
- Tip #5: Test Non-Employee Influencer Campaigns
- Tip #6: Optimize your LinkedIn profile as if it were a landing page
- Tip #7: Look at the right metrics
- Tip #8: Give yourself a reality check
- Tip #9: Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes
- Tip #10: Focus on Awareness, Not Conversions
Tip #1: Remember that thought leader ads are just sponsored posts
First of all, remember that thought leader ads are not a silver bullet that will save your marketing program – they’re simply sponsored organic posts that can fit into your larger content strategy.
This isn’t to downplay the power of this format; targeting your ICP with content from your thought leaders is one of the most effective approaches to build brand awareness and mental availability.
That being said, your thought leader ads won’t be successful if you don’t have great positioning, messaging, content, or targeting.
The standard rules of marketing still apply.
Tip #2: Make sure your ads connect to your product
If you’re putting ad dollars behind organic posts, make sure they connect back to your product in some capacity.
I don’t mean adding a demo request CTA to every post, but the content you promote should have a core dotted line back to your product.
For example, at Omni Lab, I could promote a post highlighting our unique POV and approach to Google Ads, which is one of the services we offer. If this POV resonates with my audience, they’ll most likely think of me when they’re looking for support with their Google Ad campaigns.
Personal posts, such as occasional pictures of food or selfies on the beach, are okay, but they don’t deserve to be promoted.
At best, they won’t generate significant awareness for your product, and at worst, they’ll end up confusing your audience.
If your ICP loves you but they have no idea what you do, you probably won’t be in business for long 😬
Tip #3: Create content people would pay for
No matter how great your targeting or technical setup, you won’t get very far if you don’t have amazing content that people would be willing to pay for – this is true for ads in general, and especially true for thought leader ads.
Take some time to reflect on your offer. Are you just providing generic tips that people have heard many times? Or are you offering something unique and valuable that will pique the interest of your audience?
To give an example, for Omni Lab, I could run thought leader ads highlighting Google Ads bidding strategies. But it would be more effective to share in-depth campaign recommendations for my target accounts.
Or, if you’re a company like Navattic, you could run ads talking about interactive demos, but it would be more powerful to build out personalized interactive demos for your dream companies.
Next time you run a thought leader ad campaign, focus on increasing the perceived value of your offer, and you’ll see a massive improvement in performance.
Tip #4: Add Premium CTAs to your LinkedIn profile
If you’re looking to funnel people into an owned audience, such as your newsletter, consider adding a Premium CTA to your thought leader ads. This is something I do at Omni Lab, and it’s helped me generate hundreds of high quality email subscribers.
This CTA option is only available to LinkedIn Premium users: you can add CTAs such as View my newsletter, Visit my website, View my blog, etc., depending on the action you’d like your audience to take.
If you don’t have LinkedIn Premium, consider editing your post once the organic reach has died down (usually within 72 hours), adding a CTA with a link to your website.
Even though the primary goal of thought leader ads should not be to drive direct clicks and conversions, adding a CTA allows people to learn more about your company without having to go on a scavenger hunt.
Tip #5: Test Non-Employee Influencer Campaigns
After running hundreds of thought leader ads, both for Omni Lab and for my clients, I’ve found that thought leader ads from non-employees consistently outperform promoted posts from employees.
For example, at Omni Lab, we built out a media plan and campaign strategy for Navattic, and their Head of Growth and Operations (Natalie Marcotullio) made a post related to this.
We boosted this post to our target audience, and it was one of our top performing ads of all time, significantly outperforming all the thought leaders ads from me and my cofounder.
Clay is another great example of non-employee thought leadership. Members of their creator program post about how they use the software, and Clay promotes these posts to increase awareness for their company, while simultaneously expanding the reach of their creators – they’ve created a symbiotic relationship where everybody wins.
If you’re working with well-known people in your industry, consider how you might be able to partner with them: this could look like an audit, a strategy, a discount, access to exclusive features, etc. in exchange for promotion on LinkedIn.
Tip #6: Optimize your LinkedIn profile as if it were a landing page
When you’re running thought leader ads, your LinkedIn profile turns into your landing page – it’s the place where people go for more information about you and your company.
Here are a few tips to optimize your profile that I always share with my clients:
1. Make sure you have a banner image explaining what you do at a high level.
2. Make sure your profile photo is up to date, and use your primary brand color as the background.
3. Add what you do + the category you play in to your headline
4. Use the About section to explain why your company exists and how you approach things differently (bonus if you can also add a few testimonials)
5. Use the featured section to highlight your core CTA + top performing posts demonstrating your expertise
Tip #7: Look at the right metrics
Let’s say you have all the fundamentals in place: an optimized profile, great content, solid targeting, etc.
Now, the next step is to ask yourself: What metrics should we look at to understand if our content is working?
Here’s what I recommend to my clients:
1. First of all, check your LinkedIn demographics report to make sure that you’re actually reaching your ICP.
2. Check in-platform metrics such as impressions, engagement, and CTR. If these metrics look healthy, you’ll know that your audience is finding value in your content.
3. Look at smaller microconversions, such as engaged visits on your website. Are the people reading your thought leader ads eventually navigating to your site to learn more?
4. Look at the self-reported attribution field on your demo request form. Are more people mentioning your thought leaders? If the answer is yes, you’ll know that your content is building trust with the right people.
5. Finally, you can look at more bottom of funnel metrics, such as sign ups or meetings booked, but ultimately, DO NOT obsess over these metrics. Prioritize numbers 1-4 to understand if your content is resonating – it might take a while to see a significant impact on pipeline and revenue.
Pro Tip: If you’re not sure what content to promote as thought leader ads, look for posts that had a 2-3% CTR organically. In my experience, these posts with a higher organic CTR are also the top performing ads.
Tip #8: Give yourself a reality check
Most people – and B2B buyers especially – aren’t making impulse decisions and can’t be pushed through a funnel.
As the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has highlighted, if you look at how often prospects make a purchase in your category, you’ll quickly realize how few of the people you’re targeting are actually in-market.
Even if you run the greatest ads in the world, you can’t expect people to schedule a demo if they aren’t actively looking for a solution.
And even if they do book a demo, if you have a higher ACV, you’ll probably have an extremely long sales cycle.
My point is, you can’t expect hundreds of demos or millions in revenue right away.
Tip #9: Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes
This is a fun exercise I like to do with my clients.
I ask: “When you see posts on LinkedIn, what actions do you usually take?”
Usually, the response is something along the lines of:
“I read and keep scrolling…” or “If I like something, I might react or leave a comment…”
Then I ask the follow-up question: “If you see a post you like from a company you’ve never heard of before, would you immediately book a demo?”
And typically the answer is “No, of course I wouldn’t.”
Our prospects aren’t that different than we are; if we wouldn’t buy immediately, they probably won’t either.
If you’re getting good engagement and starting to see other signs of life (such as engaged website visits), you’re headed in the right direction, even if you’re not seeing more demos and sign ups right away.
Tip #10: Focus on Awareness, Not Conversions
Think of thought leader ads as a brand awareness play, not a direct response tactic.
Like any good brand marketing, your thought leader ads should relate to key buying situations, or category entry points.
For example, if I promote posts about how we help our clients improve their lead quality, prospects may think of Omni Lab if they ever run into lead quality issues.
Or maybe I talk about how we use paid media to increase brand awareness, and prospects may think of us if they’re having a brand awareness problem.
The key to succeeding with thought leader ads is putting the right messages in front of the right people. If you do this over a long enough period of time, the pipeline and revenue will follow.
Hope you found this article helpful!
Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or Omni Lab with any questions about demand gen or paid media.
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People Also Ask
What are LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?
LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads are sponsored posts that promote content from personal profiles, allowing companies to leverage the personal brand and credibility of their thought leaders to engage target audiences authentically. 
How can I ensure my Thought Leader Ads align with my product?
Ensure that the content in your Thought Leader Ads connects back to your product or service, even subtly. While not every post needs a direct call-to-action, there should be a clear link between the content and what your company offers to maintain relevance and drive interest. 
What type of content works best for Thought Leader Ads?
Content that offers unique, valuable insights or information that your target audience would find beneficial tends to perform well. Aim to create posts that people would be willing to pay for, as this indicates high value and relevance. 
How should I optimize my LinkedIn profile for Thought Leader Ads?
Treat your LinkedIn profile like a landing page: use a banner image that explains your role, ensure your profile photo is professional, craft a headline that clearly states what you do, and utilize the ‘About’ section to detail your company’s mission and unique approach. 
What metrics are important to track for Thought Leader Ads?
Monitor metrics such as impressions, engagement rates, click-through rates (CTR), and audience demographics to assess whether your content resonates with your target audience. Additionally, track website visits and self-reported attribution to understand the broader impact on your marketing funnel.
How To Create a B2B Google Ads Optimization Workflow [+Free Template]
Hey there, B2B Marketer. If you don’t have a well-structured optimization workflow, managing just a handful of Google Ads accounts can be a struggle (been there, done that 😅)
In this article, I’ll walk you through the Google Ads Optimization Workflow template, the exact process I used to go from barely managing five Google Ads accounts to easily managing 30+ 🚀
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Google Ads Optimization Workflow Process
- Daily Google Ads Optimizations
- Weekly Google Ads Optimizations
- Monthly Google Ads Optimizations
- Quarterly Google Ads Optimizations
- Free Resources to Master B2B Ads 🔥
Why You Need a Google Ads Optimization Workflow Process
Without a consistent approach, managing Google Ads can feel chaotic. You may get lost in metrics that don’t matter or, worse, miss out on key optimizations that could boost your profitability.
I developed the Google Ads Optimization Workflow Template to help me stay organized and focus on impactful daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly optimization tasks.
👉 Grab your free copy of the template in Module 2, Lesson 1 from the B2B Google Ads 102 - How To Convert Clicks Into Profit course.
If you follow this approach, you’ll find yourself in control of your accounts, not the other way around.
Now let’s dive deep into the tasks by timeframes ⏰
Daily Google Ads Optimizations
Daily optimizations are essential for ensuring that your accounts are running smoothly. It’s your first line of defense against overspending and wasted ad spending.
Each day, you should:
1. Review your budget pacing
This way, you’ll ensure that you are not overspending or underspending.
2. Check for irrelevant search terms in the Search Terms Report
You want to add any irrelevant negative keywords. So every single day, you should review your search terms report and compare your search terms to your keywords to find the irrelevant ones and add them to your negative list.
3. Adjust bids as needed
If you’re using manual bidding, make sure to adjust your bids accordingly to get visibility.
If you’re using something like maximize clicks with a bid cap, make sure that you take a look at your average cost per click in relation to your bid cap. If you notice that your average cost per click is really close to your bid cap, you could be throttling yourself.
If you’re using Target CPA bidding, ensure that the CPA amount you set is large enough to get enough deliverability. I recommend increasing it by 20% if you notice you’re not spending your budget.
Pro Tip: Setting up Google Calendar reminders can be helpful, and something that I always tell my team that manages client accounts internally at our agency is to block an hour on their calendars every single day to go through their accounts and optimize them. We call it “optimization power hour”. ⚡️
By doing that, you will be proactive, and you’re going to catch things much sooner before they become potential fires.
Weekly Google Ads Optimizations
Weekly optimizations allow you to step back and review broader trends instead of getting caught up in the day-to-day fluctuations.
Instead of getting caught up in the day-to-day fluctuations, here you should:
1. Review weekly performance trends (visibility, cost, volume)
Every week you should look at search impression share, search lost to rank, search lost to budget, and search top impression share.
You also want to look at how much you have spent, your cost per conversion, your cost per custom conversion, meaning the cost per SQL, converted user, or whatever that KPI is that you’re measured against.
You will also want to look at volume. How many conversions are you getting? Is it trending up? Is it trending down? These are the things to keep an eye on every week.
Another thing you can do is check the charts in Google Ads to map different metrics and quickly see the trend of search impression share with this graph 👇
🚨Important: When you’re optimizing and looking at things weekly, don’t freak out if you see changes like 25% down search impression share. But if you see it happen consistently for two or three weeks in a row, then there’s definitely something that you need to make a decision about.
Lastly, breaking down your campaigns by themes like brand, non-brand, and competitive will help you to quickly identify underperforming segments and reallocate your budget where it will be most effective.
This will make the optimization process much more manageable.
2. Pause underperforming keywords
Pausing underperforming keywords is an opportunity to give more budget to the keywords with good performance.
You can quickly go to the keyword section in your account and filter by conversions to see which keywords have no conversions. Then, you can sort by cost and understand which ones are hemorrhaging the most budget and can be paused.
3. Add new relevant keywords
When you check the Search Terms report, there are certain search terms that can make sense to add to your campaign as keywords.
You can also go to the Google Ads Keyword Planner and find net new keywords that you might not be covering. This is an opportunity to expand your scope and reach, and it’s a good best practice to get into the habit.
4. Pause underperforming ads and add new ads to replace underperformers (<5% CTR)
Pausing underperforming ads is as simple as going to the ad section in your account and then pausing any ads that are not performing anymore.
So if you notice you have some underperformers, ideally anything less than a 5% click-through rate (but always compare it with your average performance), it’s time to shut off the underperforming ad and add a new ad into the mix.
This way you can continually improve your overall click-through rate performance to help boost your expected click-through rate and improve your quality score.
Monthly & Quarterly Google Ads Optimizations
Monthly and quarterly tasks focus on more strategic, higher-level adjustments.
Monthly Optimizations
It’s crucial to ensure that your campaign settings, quality score, and budget allocation align with your overall goals and haven’t been altered unintentionally.
This is also the time to assess the impact of your Google Ads efforts on your sales pipeline and to make necessary changes.
So at the end of each month, you should:
👉 Audit campaign settings (networks, bidding, location options)
This step is crucial if you manage multiple campaigns or accounts.
It’s important to double-check if you’re targeting the right network and don’t have display and search combined together.
You want to make sure your bids haven’t been updated by accident, or God forbid, you have the auto recommendations still turned on, and they’re automatically updating your bids without your consent. 💀
You also want to ensure that your location options are set to “presence” and that people are actually in your target location or regularly in, not people who are potentially in other areas and are interested in that location.
👉 Review month-over-month pipeline impact from Google Ads
We’re running ads to generate revenue, and revenue comes from initially having pipeline.
So you need a dashboard to track the performance month-over-month and connect your activity to revenue.
It can be as simple as having a report on a spreadsheet where you can see the evolution of your KPIs every month. You can create one from scratch or search for a template on the internet.
Pro tip: Check out our free Building a Paid Media Program course (Module 3, Lesson 2) to learn how to build an automated dashboard for less than $200/month using Google Sheets + a connector like Dataslayer or Supermetrics.
👉 Review performance by campaign theme (visibility, cost, volume)
The same analysis we discussed in the weekly optimizations above should be done on a monthly basis too.
How much are you spending per theme? What is your cost per conversion? What is your conversion rate? And what are the volumes?
Are you driving more volume in a certain theme versus another? Should you move the budget around?
These are the questions you should answer here.
👉 Review quality score (ad relevance, landing page experience, expected CTR)
How is your quality score by campaign theme? Is it increasing or decreasing month-over-month?
Ideally, you should aim for a quality score of 7 or above. If it’s lower than that, optimizing your ad relevance, expected CTR and landing page experience will improve things.
Check out this Quality Score Guide to learn the 80/20 of what you need to know about quality score to improve it.
👉 Review geographic performance and budget allocation
Here you want to go ahead and see how the campaigns you’re targeting in each region are performing so you can make the necessary adjustments.
I also recommend checking the Locations report to have a granular view of how each country grouped into a region is performing.
By doing this, you can find opportunities for new campaigns targeting a single country if it has a good performance and the campaign is limited by budget, or excluding low-performing countries to free up some budget for the top performers.
👉 Review device performance and budget allocation
In B2B, desktop usually performs better than mobile and tablet, so if you’re targeting all devices you can find opportunities to maximize conversions by breaking out the campaigns into different devices.
👉 Review keyword/match type performance and budget allocation
Are there certain keywords that are doing better for you than others? Certain match types? All of these are insights that will help you optimize your Google Ads campaigns.
👉 Review landing page performance and experiments
How are your landing pages performing? Are you running experiments? If you're not, that's definitely an opportunity.
👉 Implement new campaign experiments
If you’re not testing new experiments, this is a massive opportunity to improve performance, and you can run experiments easily in Google Ads with their campaign experiments tool.
Quarterly Optimizations
Every quarter, take time to conduct a competitor analysis and review your goals. It’s a great practice to see what new ads and keywords your competitors are using, giving you inspiration and helping you stay ahead in the market.
Pro tip: The channel ad libraries are great resources for competitor research. Check out these 10 tips for free competitor research using them.
This periodic check-in will ensure that your optimizations are aligned with your business objectives, providing a clear path for growth 🙌
Stay organized with the Google Ads Optimization Workflow template
If you get your free copy of our Google Ads Optimization Template, you’ll notice that we have daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks discussed above on the template.
The way this template works is very simple. We have our tasks on the left, the task title, and the different timeframes. There’s also a space for you to take notes while optimizing your account.
Then you can change the status of each task, so you and your team will know if a task is done or if it’s in progress, as well as define the task owner.
There are also some formulas where, based on the timeframe, the due date will automatically update. So for example, if you set the Last Complete date of a daily task as 2/2/24, it’ll automatically say the due date for that task is 2/3/2024.
In addition, if you do the same thing for a weekly task, it will add seven days to the due date, and now it will say 2/9/2024.
Lastly, you’ll also find all the different tutorials covered in this guide linked to each task. The goal of these tutorials is to show you how to do each step so you can use this as a reference.
By implementing these daily, weekly, and monthly optimizations, you’ll stay ahead of potential issues and make data-driven adjustments that boost your account performance.
I hope this guide helps you to manage your accounts efficiently 🙌
If you have any questions, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
From Clicks to Conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B 🔥
If you want to become a Google Ads pro, check out our free B2B Google Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B Google Ads 101 - How to Launch Dangerously Effective Campaigns for Beginners
- The Googleverse: The Game You're Playing & How To Win
- Measurement: How to Make Sure You're Profitable
- Targeting: How to Show Up For the Right Searcher
- Planning: Putting It All Together
🎯 Google Ads 102 - How to Clicks Into Profit
- Visibility: How To Find the Hole Sucking Profits
- Workflows: How to Optimize On a Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly Basis
- Experimentation: How to Test & Automate Profitability
- Troubleshooting: How To Solve Inevitable Problems
🚀 Google Ads 103 - How to Scale Google Ads For Advanced Advertisers
- Methodology: How to Vertically Scale Google Ads From A-Z
- Campaigns: Scaling Horizontally Through Campaign Themes
- Channels: Scaling Outside of Paid Search
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 😂)
People Also Ask
How can I effectively prioritize optimization tasks within my Google Ads workflow?
Assess tasks based on their potential impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion rates and return on ad spend (ROAS). Focus on high-impact areas first, such as budget pacing and search term relevance, to ensure efficient use of resources.
What tools or templates can assist in organizing and tracking my Google Ads optimization activities?
Utilize the Google Ads Optimization Workflow Template provided in Module 2, Lesson 1 of the B2B Google Ads 102 course. This template helps structure daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks, ensuring a systematic approach to campaign management. 
How can I ensure that my optimization efforts align with my overall B2B marketing objectives?
Regularly review your marketing goals and ensure that your Google Ads strategies support these objectives. Align optimization tasks with broader business aims, such as lead generation or brand awareness, to maintain strategic coherence.
What are the common pitfalls to avoid when implementing a Google Ads optimization workflow?
Avoid neglecting regular reviews of budget pacing and search term reports, as this can lead to overspending or irrelevant traffic. Ensure that optimization tasks are performed consistently to maintain campaign effectiveness.
How can I adapt my optimization workflow to accommodate changes in campaign performance or market conditions?
Stay agile by regularly analyzing performance data and being prepared to adjust your workflow in response to trends or shifts in the market. Flexibility allows for timely optimizations that keep campaigns aligned with business goals.
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Using the Jobs To Be Done Framework to Maximize Revenue in B2B Ads [+Free Template]
Understanding the Jobs To Be Done framework developed by Tony Ulwick can be confusing and overwhelming because most of the information you’ll find is focused on product development.
In this article, I’m going to unpack the Jobs To Be Done framework from a B2B advertising perspective.
Why? Because identifying what job your customers are truly “hiring” your product or service to do will be the secret to launching a powerful ad campaign.
This article is part of our B2B learning track so if you’re serious about learning B2B advertising you’re in the right place!
Let’s dive into it 👏
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Understand Why Customers Choose Your Product
- Using the Jobs to Be Done Interview Matrix Template
- Customize Your Messaging with Personality Insights
- Real Use Case of the JBTB Matrix Template
- Free Resources to Jumpstart Your B2B Marketing Career
Understand Why Customers Choose Your Product
In any industry, people don’t buy products, they invest in solutions to get a job done. It’s not just to buy another thing like your cat-hoarding grandmother. 😅🐈
For B2B marketers, Tony Ulwick’s Jobs to Be Done framework should be focused on why your customers “hire” your product or service, so you can put them and their needs at the heart of your advertising story.
This will help you to identify what pain points you’re helping your customers solve to get to the root of what motivates them because your advertising campaign should be about them — not you.
But how can you do that?
You can use the Jobs To Be Done framework when you're launching a new advertising campaign or when you want to improve the conversion rates of your existing advertising campaigns (aka your ads that aren’t converting)
The most impactful way to start is by identifying three to five recent customers who fit your target market (or Ideal Customer Profile - ICP).
If you need help identifying your ideal customer profile, check out this article: “How to Craft B2B Buyer Personas for Ad Targeting”
Select customers who either recently purchased or have the potential to represent your ideal buyer. These interviews will reveal why they chose your service and what specific pain points you helped them solve.
To make your life easier, I developed a free template called Jobs to Be Done Interview Matrix 🙌
You can find it in Module 2, Lesson 3 of my free B2B Advertising Foundations course, and it’s your roadmap for collecting insights during interviews.
Using the Jobs to Be Done Interview Matrix Template to Gather Actionable Insights
In this JTBD Interview Matrix Template, you’ll be looking for five key points that highlight your customer’s journey with your brand:
- Situation and Pain Points - What challenges are they facing?
- Motivation - Why did they start looking for a solution?
- Trigger - What prompted them to move forward with your service?
- Ideal Outcome - What result are they seeking?
- Competitor Evaluation - What other options were they considering?
The matrix helps you organize answers by each customer’s profile and offers a side-by-side comparison of their unique characteristics.
It also offers 8 helpful interview questions you can use to uncover the right golden nuggets that will make your campaign shine. ✨
Customize Your Messaging with Personality Insights
Finally, understanding your customer’s personality type is like having the key to crafting messaging that lands with confidence.
Resources like Crystal can help you determine each customer’s DISC personality type (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance) by scraping their LinkedIn profiles, labelling how they like and prefer to be communicated with, and their style and tone because this will ultimately influence the messaging that you can create for each of your advertising personas.
Here’s a real use case for you to understand each step of the JTBD Interview Matrix
Let’s take Spotify as an example. I love Spotify, so if I were doing an interview with a Spotify customer, it would look like this:
Situation & Pain Points
I get tired of hearing the same songs on the radio. I can’t easily listen to the exact song I want to hear.
Motivation
I want to listen to specific songs when I want
Trigger
I’m in the gym, and I need a song to pump me up
Ideal Outcome
I want to listen to the music I choose, everywhere
Other Solutions/ Products Evaluated – Competitors
Radio, XM Radio, Pandora, Apple Music, Silence
Personality characteristics (DiSC type, DiSC archetype, etc)
Trailblazer - ID. Confident style, with a mix of informality and formality gets their attention.
- Pace: Speak slightly fast. Sounds like a ‘gets shit done’ person.
- Tone: Do not sound too eager, as if you have met a friend suddenly after a long time. Keep the tone calm but confident.
- Tactics To Win: Strong words, focus on results, respectful confidence
Based on the JBT Interview Matrix, here are some Spotify ad examples:
The main takeaway is that you can make your ad campaigns even stronger when you really know what “job” your customers are “hiring” your product or service to take care of.
Use the Jobs To Be Done matrix to dig deep into what matters most to them and adjust your messaging to connect on a personal level. 🙂
I hope you found this article helpful!
Connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s keep the conversation going.
You can also visit my website here for more valuable content.
Jumpstart Your B2B Marketing Career
If you’re 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: you’ll get a crash course in the B2Bverse and master terminology, sales processes, and working across teams.
- Module 2: you’ll learn how to become your customer's psychologist and understand them deeply with buyer personas that allow you to craft effective messaging.
- Module 3: you’ll master the B2B funnel and learn how to think like a CEO to identify performance bottlenecks and convert more leads into revenue.
- Module 4: you’ll 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.
This course was designed with absolute beginners in mind.
Accelerate your learning curve and start the course today for free.
People Also Ask
How can I effectively identify the ‘jobs’ my B2B customers are trying to accomplish with our product or service?
Conduct in-depth customer interviews and surveys to uncover the underlying tasks and objectives your clients aim to achieve. Focus on understanding their pain points and the desired outcomes they seek. 
What are the best practices for integrating the JTBD framework into our existing B2B advertising strategy?
Align your marketing messages with the specific jobs your customers need to be done. Develop content and campaigns that address these needs directly, demonstrating how your solution effectively fulfills their objectives. 
How can the JTBD framework assist in differentiating our B2B offerings from competitors in the market?
By focusing on the unique jobs your product addresses, you can highlight distinct value propositions that set you apart. This approach shifts the conversation from features to the specific benefits and outcomes your customers can expect. 
What role does customer feedback play in refining our understanding of their jobs to be done?
Regularly gathering and analyzing customer feedback helps in accurately identifying and prioritizing the jobs that need to be done. This ongoing process ensures your offerings remain relevant and effectively meet customer expectations. 
How can we measure the impact of applying the JTBD framework on our B2B advertising ROI?
Track key performance indicators such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and customer satisfaction levels before and after implementing JTBD-informed strategies. Analyzing these metrics will provide insights into the framework’s effectiveness in enhancing your advertising efforts.
How to Create Tracking Templates in Google Ads
Hey there, Digital Marketer. Do you cringe a little when you hear the words “setting up tracking in an ad channel”? 😅
Tracking may be the unsexy side of marketing, but I promise that Google Ads Tracking Templates are simpler than they sound.
In this article, I’ll show you how to set up tracking right, capture accurate data, and see what’s really driving your conversions and revenue.
Let’s dive in! 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- What is a Google Ads Tracking Template?
- How to install Tracking Templates in Google Ads
- Benefits of adding Tracking Templates to your campaigns
- From clicks to conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B
What is a Google Ads Tracking Template?
Tracking templates allow you to streamline your link tagging process and pass static and dynamic values.
I created this little cheat sheet for you here to give you an understanding of a tracking template.
Here’s what each parameter means:
- {lpurl}: This is your landing page URL. So whatever the URL is in your ad, the template will automatically inherit it and then automatically append these different static and dynamic values based on these parameters.
- UTMs: These are your standard UTMs, like UTM source, UTM medium, campaign, term, and content.
Check out our Free UTM Tagger Tool to easily create them in bulk and for more info about each parameter. - Static Values: Static means it’s always the same, it’ll remain consistent. So a static value will always be a text.
So in the image example above, we always want the UTM Source to be google, the UTM Medium to be cpc, and the UTM Campaign to be trial. - Dynamic Values: Dynamic means it changes. The values here usually have squiggly brackets like {keyword} or {matchtype}, which tell Google Ads to populate that field dynamically.
For example, with {keyword}, the UTM Term will automatically insert the keyword that drove the click, giving you granular detail on the search behavior driving each visit. - Custom Parameters: These are parameters you can create that are not part of the UTM parameters, which are your standard ones.
You’ll probably want to use custom UTM parameters if you have some sort of advanced tracking setup.
Anything that is available in the URL, you can then set up with JavaScript the ability to pass the data from those parameters into hidden fields in your form, to then be able to route and track and do all sorts of things in your backend.
In the cheat sheet above, the ad_name parameter will give you details about which ad drove the visit.
So this is a tracking template, and it’s really important as this is going to allow you to get a lot better data and ultimately, better insights from your activities.
How to Install a Tracking Template in Google Ads
You can install a tracking template at the campaign, ad group, or ad level. You could even do it at the account level with the tracking script, but I recommend that you start off at the campaign level.
Here are the steps you need to follow in your Google Ads account 👇
- Open your account, then open the campaigns tab and choose one campaign. Now go into the settings by clicking on this little gear.
- Scroll down to additional settings.
- Go to the Campaign URL options and paste your tracking template in the “Tracking Template” field.
Here you’ll want to follow the format from the cheat sheet I shared at the beginning of this article because that is the syntax of the tracking template.
To be easier, you can copy this tracking template below and just add your static values in the highlighted fields:
{lpurl}?utm_source=entersource&utm_medium=entermedium&utm_campaign=entercampaign&utm_term={keyword}_{matchtype}&ad_name=enteradname
- UTM Source: People usually use Google or AdWords.
- UTM Medium: People usually put CPC or paid search. This 100% depends on you and your business, your company, and how you want to track things.
- UTM Campaign: You can put the name of your campaign. The downside is that you have to do this for each campaign.
- UTM Term: This will dynamically push the keyword that drove the click and the match type.
- Ad_Name (custom parameter): This is 100% optional, and most of the clients from our agency don’t really need custom parameters, but I just want you to be aware of it.
Once you’ve mastered basic tracking, custom parameters can add another layer of insights by capturing non-standard data. For instance, if you want to differentiate ad variations, you could set a custom parameter like ad_name=RSA1.
You can also find all the Value Track Parameters Google supports here:
I usually like to set my tracking templates at the campaign level, which suffices. So, in this case, each campaign must have a unique tracking template.
Another cool thing about the tracking template is once you create the tracking template at the campaign level, you no longer have to worry about tagging your ads with UTM parameters at the ad level.
It'll automatically inherit the campaign URL tracking template and tag your links appropriately.
If you're just putting all of the tagged URLs at the ad level, it can be really problematic sometimes and time-consuming to make changes and miss things. This helps streamline things and push those dynamic parameters.
Benefits of Adding Tracking Templates to Your Campaigns
Setting up tracking templates in Google Ads is a powerful way to automate link tagging and capture high-quality data.
The better data we pass through our tracking template, the more insights we can receive.
With standard UTMs, dynamic parameters, and custom fields, you’ll get a clear view of what’s driving performance and find better ways to allocate budget, optimize campaigns, and ultimately boost results. 🚀
Why deny yourself incredible insights such as “which keywords drive the most revenue?..” when you can capture that information at no additional cost?
That’s it about tracking templates! 🎉
Now go build your first one and let the data guide your ad strategies! 🤓
I hope you found this article useful!
From Clicks to Conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B 🔥
If you want to become a Google Ads pro, check out our free B2B Google Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B Google Ads 101 - How to Launch Dangerously Effective Campaigns for Beginners
- The Googleverse: The Game You're Playing & How To Win
- Measurement: How to Make Sure You're Profitable
- Targeting: How to Show Up For the Right Searcher
- Planning: Putting It All Together
🎯 Google Ads 102 - How to Clicks Into Profit
- Visibility: How To Find the Hole Sucking Profits
- Workflows: How to Optimize On a Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly Basis
- Experimentation: How to Test & Automate Profitability
- Troubleshooting: How To Solve Inevitable Problems
🚀 Google Ads 103 - How to Scale Google Ads For Advanced Advertisers
- Methodology: How to Vertically Scale Google Ads From A-Z
- Campaigns: Scaling Horizontally Through Campaign Themes
- Channels: Scaling Outside of Paid Search
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 😂)
People Also Ask
What is a tracking template in Google Ads?
A tracking template is a URL parameter setup in Google Ads that appends tracking information to your landing page URLs. This allows you to monitor specific details about ad clicks, such as the campaign, ad group, keyword, and device involved. 
Why should I use tracking templates in my campaigns?
Implementing tracking templates automates link tagging, ensuring consistent and accurate data collection across your campaigns. This leads to better insights into performance metrics, enabling more informed optimization decisions. 
How do I set up a tracking template in Google Ads?
To set up a tracking template:
- Log in to your Google Ads account.
- Navigate to the desired account, campaign, ad group, or ad level.
- Click on “Settings” and then “Additional settings.”
- Under “Tracking,” enter your tracking template URL, incorporating the necessary ValueTrack parameters.
- Save your changes.
This setup enables dynamic tracking of various metrics. 
What are ValueTrack parameters, and how do they work in tracking templates?
ValueTrack parameters are dynamic URL components that capture specific information about each ad click, such as the device used ({device}), the keyword that triggered the ad ({keyword}), and the campaign ID ({campaignid}). When a user clicks your ad, these placeholders are replaced with actual data, allowing for detailed performance analysis. 
How can I test if my tracking template is working correctly?
After setting up your tracking template, use the “Test” button in the “Tracking” section of your Google Ads account settings. This function combines your final URL with the tracking parameters to ensure it directs to the correct landing page and that all parameters are functioning as intended.
B2B Google Ads: How To Know If Google Is The Right Channel For Your SaaS
Hey there B2B SaaS marketer! Are you getting FOMO around Google Ads?
Every day thousands of SaaS businesses are converting clicks into profitable pipeline on Google Ads, and conversely thousands are burning clicks into wasted ad budgets.
After $10M in Google Ads spend management for incredible SaaS companies like ActiveCampaign, Mixpanel, and others, I’ve developed a criteria for Google Ads success.
I call it the Google Ads Sweet Spot. If you want Google to be a significant driver in your pipeline generation you need to make sure your SaaS company checks these 3 criteria.
After reviewing, it’ll be clear if Google is right for you, let’s dive into it 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Proven Concept
The first criteria in the Google Ads Sweet Spot is a Proven Concept.
You see, in order to succeed with Google Ads your product has to be built on a time-tested and proven concept.
Imagine running Google ads for a generative AI product before the invention of ChatGPT.
Because AI products still hadn’t gained popularity, you probably would have struggled to generate sufficient searches and clicks on your ads.
If you create an innovative product in a new category that no one understands, you likely won’t see a great return on effort from Google.
In this case, it’d make more sense to focus on educating the market about the problem you solve via demand gen channels such as paid and organic social.
Existing Demand
The second criteria of the Google Ads Sweet Spot is Existing Demand.
This is directly connected to the first criteria: you won’t generate pipeline or revenue if people aren’t actively looking for your solution.
If you only have, for example, 100 people searching for your product every month, it’s going to be impossible to generate significant results from Google.
For example, assuming the industry average conversion rate of 3%, and 5% clickthrough rate (CTR) you’re looking at 5 clicks from the 100 impressions, and you need a minimum of 33 clicks to generate a single lead. At 100 impressions/month it will take you six and a half months to generate ONE lead 🤯– extreme example but I hope you get the point.
You need enough search volume, so you have enough clicks, and ultimately conversions.
To verify that you have sufficient search volume, you can use the Google Ads keyword planner.
Let’s say you want to bid on the term Google Ads courses within the United States. You can see that there are approximately 2,900 searches every month for this specific term, which validates that there’s sufficient search volume to have a chance at success.
Keep in mind monthly searches in the keyword planner are just an average and always changing – use them to inform your estimates but take them with a grain of salt.
Sufficient Margin
The third criteria of the Google Ads Sweet Spot is Sufficient Margin.
You SHOULD NOT run Google Ads if you don’t have enough margin, or in other words, a high enough lifetime value (LTV) to offset acquisition costs. Without a high enough LTV, Google will never become a profitable channel for your company.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you have an LTV of $100 per user, and your average cost per click is $10. In this case, the likelihood of running profitable campaigns is slim – you’d have to convert 10% of your total traffic just to break even 😅 (when the industry average conv rate is 3-5%).
If you’re selling a variety of products and you have a small budget (<$10K/month), I recommend running ads for the products with the highest lifetime value to maximize your chances of profitability.
If your campaigns aren’t profitable right away, that’s okay, as long as you know you’ll recoup your investment 3-6 months down the line.
If you want to see if the math adds up to run Google Ads profitably for your company, check out our free Google Ads Budget calculator.
I hope you found this article helpful!
Google Ads definitely is not for everyone but if your SaaS meets these three criteria your chances of success are far greater than not based on my experience.
If you have any questions, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.
From Clicks to Conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B 🔥
If you want to become a Google Ads pro, check out our free B2B Google Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B Google Ads 101 - How to Launch Dangerously Effective Campaigns for Beginners
- The Googleverse: The Game You're Playing & How To Win
- Measurement: How to Make Sure You're Profitable
- Targeting: How to Show Up For the Right Searcher
- Planning: Putting It All Together
🎯 Google Ads 102 - How to Clicks Into Profit
- Visibility: How To Find the Hole Sucking Profits
- Workflows: How to Optimize On a Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly Basis
- Experimentation: How to Test & Automate Profitability
- Troubleshooting: How To Solve Inevitable Problems
🚀 Google Ads 103 - How to Scale Google Ads For Advanced Advertisers
- Methodology: How to Vertically Scale Google Ads From A-Z
- Campaigns: Scaling Horizontally Through Campaign Themes
- Channels: Scaling Outside of Paid Search
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 😂)
People Also Ask
What are some advanced targeting techniques for B2B SaaS Google Ads campaigns?
Utilize features like custom intent audiences to target users actively searching for solutions similar to your SaaS product. Combine these with demographic and location filters for precise audience targeting.
How can I effectively allocate my budget across different Google Ads campaign types for B2B SaaS?
Consider allocating your budget to a mix of search campaigns for high-intent keywords, display campaigns for brand awareness, and remarketing campaigns to re-engage potential leads.
How do I choose the right bidding strategy for my B2B SaaS Google Ads?
Select bidding strategies based on your campaign goals. Use target CPA (cost per acquisition) for lead generation or maximize clicks to drive traffic. Test different strategies to determine what works best for your objectives.
What are the common mistakes to avoid in B2B SaaS Google Ads campaigns?
Avoid broad targeting that wastes budget, neglecting negative keywords, and under-optimizing ad creatives. Regularly review and refine your campaigns based on performance metrics.
How can I use ad extensions effectively in B2B SaaS Google Ads?
Include ad extensions like callouts, sitelinks, and structured snippets to provide additional information, improve click-through rates, and enhance ad visibility. Highlight key features, testimonials, or unique offerings.
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LinkedIn Spotlight Ads In 2024: Are They Worth The Investment?
Should you invest in LinkedIn Spotlight Ads?
In this article you'll learn:
- The pro's and con's of LinkedIn Spotlight Ads
- How much LinkedIn Spotlight ads cost
- Examples of LinkedIn Spotlight ads
- 3 LinkedIn Spotlight ad strategies
By the end of this article you’ll know if this ad type makes sense for you.
Let’s dive into it! 👇
Contents
- What are LinkedIn Spotlight Ads?
- LinkedIn Spotlight Ad Specs
- 4 Reasons to Invest In LinkedIn Spotlight Ads
- 4 Reasons You SHOULD NOT Invest In LinkedIn Spotlight Ads
- 3 LinkedIn Spotlight Ad Strategies Worth Testing
What are LinkedIn Spotlight Ads?
Spotlight ads are only seen on desktop devices and use a combination of your audience's LinkedIn profile data such as photo, company name, and job title to dynamically change based on the user.
LinkedIn Spotlight Ad Specs
When creating a spotlight ad you’ve got the following options:
- Ad headline = 50 characters
- Company name = 25 characters
- Company Image = logo or image in JPG or PNG that is < 2 MB
- Background Image (optional) = 300x250 in JPG or PNG
I’d personally recommend not adding a background image as it removes the ad description, and the users profile photo will not be shown, which defeats the purpose of this ad type 😅
4 Reasons to Invest In LinkedIn Spotlight Ads
Reason 1: 74% Lower Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM)
After reviewing $1,726,264.56 in spend by ad type for our B2B SaaS clients, we found linkedin spotlight ads have an average CPM of $5.23, 74% lower than single image ads.
Reason 2: Increased Ad Recall
Spotlight ad placements are very “low key” and unintrusive.
They only appear on Desktop and are served on the right side of the newsfeed.
Given an average CPM of $5.23 and subtle placement you can rack large frequencies > 20 without negatively impacting your audience’s experience.
The combination of high frequency and low impression costs = greater potential ad recall
Reason 3: Low Creative Effort
Spotlight ads only require an image that is < 2MB making it an EXTREMELY low creative effort.
Compare this to formats like single image, carousel, or even video ads.
If you want more exposure without a ton of effort they’re an easy addition.
Reason 4: Flexible Bidding Strategies
Spotlight ads allow you to multiple bidding strategies depending on your campaign objectives.
- Maximum delivery = LinkedIn will automatically adjust your bids for the most exposure
- Cost cap = set a target cost per landing page click
- Manual bidding = set a specific bid per landing page click
With each of these bidding strategies you have flexibility to test and leverage the one that allows you the greatest exposure for the lowest cost.
4 Reasons You SHOULD NOT Invest In LinkedIn Spotlight Ads
Reason 1: 83% higher average CPC prices
After reviewing $1,726,264.56 in spend by ad type for our B2B SaaS clients, we found linkedin spotlight ads have an average cost per click of $7.93, 83% higher than single image ads.
Reason 2: You want to generate the most conversions
Spotlight ads have horrible engagement rates compared to other LinkedIn ad types.
If your primary objective is to drive conversions then spotlight ads are not the ideal ad type to use.
Reason 3: You’re trying to drive the most traffic to your site
Spotlight ads have below average clickthrough rates compared to other ad types which makes using them to drive site traffic a poor use case of budget.
Reason 4: You’re not already investing in other ad types
Spotlight ads are not a game changer ad type. They should be used in support alongside other more dominant ad types such as (image, video, or conversation).
The best use of spotlight ads is remarketing, allowing you to stay top of mind at a low cost in front of the audiences that already know/like/trust you.
3 LinkedIn Spotlight Ad Strategies Worth Testing
In no particular order, here’s 3 strategies worth testing with spotlight ads.
Strategy #1: Remarketing
The real advantage of spotlight ads are low distribution costs with an average CPM of $5.28.
This in combination with the fact that spotlight ads are a non-intrusive ad type on desktop devices and limited right-hand placements makes them great for remarketing.
You can leverage spotlight ads to remarket:
- All website visitors
- Company page visitors
- Past event attendees
- Contacts of customers, and leads in nurture
If you want to learn more about building a LinkedIn remarketing strategy check out our in-depth article on How to Build a Multichannel B2B Retargeting Strategy (Step-By-Step).
Strategy #2: Company Page Growth
Another potential strategy to test spotlight ads is growing your LinkedIn company page.
You can leverage this ad type to drive visitors to view your page (which will then hopefully lead to a follower), check out this example from Aurora who is using a CTA of “Follow”.
Strategy #3: Job Recruitment
Spotlight ads are available with the Job applicants campaign objective and given it’s dynamic element (automatically pulling the photo of the user) you can create personalized recruitment ads.
I hope you found this article useful!
And as promised, now know if this ad type makes sense for you.
Master B2B LinkedIn Ads with these 3 Free Courses:
If you want to become a LinkedIn Ads pro, check out our free B2B LinkedIn Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B LinkedIn Ads 101 - The Ultimate Crash Course for New LinkedIn Advertisers
- Foundations For LinkedIn Ads Success
- Measurement: Tracking & Key Principles
- Targeting: Reaching Your Dream Buyers
- Ads: Mastering The 9 Ad Formats
🎯 B2B LinkedIn Ads 102 - The Blueprint for LinkedIn Ads Optimization
- Monitoring: How To Spot Performance Trends
- Auditing: How To Find The Darlings You Need To Kill
- Reporting: How To Transform Data Into Insights
- Optimization: How To Make Your LinkedIn Ads Profitable
🚀 B2B LinkedIn Ads 103 - Advanced Scaling Strategies From $25M In Ad Spend
- Concepts of Scaling
- Divide and Conquer
- Learnings From $25M+ In LinkedIn Ad Spend
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 😂)
People Also Ask
How can I measure the long-term impact of Spotlight Ads on brand awareness?
While immediate metrics like impressions and clicks are helpful, track metrics like increased brand searches, company page followers, and repeat website visits over time to assess long-term brand impact.
Are Spotlight Ads effective for industries outside of B2B, such as B2C or non-profits?
While Spotlight Ads are tailored for professional audiences, they can work for B2C or non-profits if targeting aligns with LinkedIn’s user demographics and the campaign leverages professional-related messaging.
How should Spotlight Ads be used in multi-channel marketing campaigns?
Spotlight Ads are most effective when reinforcing messages seen in other channels. For instance, use them to retarget LinkedIn users who interacted with your Google Ads or visited your website from email campaigns.
How can Spotlight Ads support account-based marketing (ABM) efforts?
Pair Spotlight Ads with LinkedIn’s account targeting to focus on specific companies or industries, delivering highly personalized ads that tie directly into your ABM campaigns.
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Beginner’s Guide to Google Ads Competitor Analysis In 2024
Looking to research competitor's Google Ads?
In this guide I'll walk you through how to find their best ads, and reverse engineer their strategy.
Regardless of if your budget is as low as $10/day or $10,000/day, the same process applies.
We’ll first focus on analysis in this guide and then dive into strategy.
Let’s get into it! 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- How to Find & Research Competitors Google Ads
- Free Tools to Find Examples of Competitors Google Ads
- Paid Tools to Find Examples of Competitors Google Ads
- How to Break Down Your Competitors Google Ads Strategy
How to Find & Research Competitors Google Ads
Pablo Picasso once said “good artists copy, and great artists steal” taking inspiration from what works from your competitors and transforming it into “your own” way is a sound approach.
Just remember this can sometimes lead to a situation where everyone is copying each other and no one has any real idea of what their doing in the first place 😅
Ultimately beating your own baseline performance is what you should obsess about.
With this disclaimer out of the way, you first need to know what competitors you want to research.
You can find who you’re up against with the auction insights report in Google Ads.
Find this report by navigating to Keywords > Auction Insights within your Google Ads account.
- Sort this report by Impression Share to understand how visible you are against your competitors for your targeting criteria (ex: keywords, locations, audiences).
- Review the Top of page rate as well to understand how often you and your competitors appear within the top 3 positions of Google.
Now that you have an understanding of who your competitors are.
Let’s dive into the free and paid tools you can use to conduct Google Ads competitor analysis.
Free Tools to Find Examples of Competitors Google Ads
Each of the following competitor analysis tools can be used for free, leverage whichever resonates.
Google Ads Transparency Center
Source: https://adstransparency.google.com/
The Google Ads Transparency Center was released on March 29, 2023 as a way to help you quickly and easily learn more about the ads you see on Search, YouTube and Display.
Since the release of this tool it’s become an absolute goldmine for Google advertisers.
Here’s how you can leverage the Google Ads Transparency Center for competitor analysis:
1. Visit the Google Ads Transparency Center and enter your competitors domain URL
2. Scroll down to see the most recent Search, YouTube, and Display ads
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When scrolling through the results take note of the following:
- Number of total ads to understand how active your competitor is.
- The language the ads are written in to know if your competitor is running localization strategy.
- The primary keyword your competitor is trying to target in the ad copy.
- {Parameters} in the ad copy to know if your competitor is using dynamic search ads or keyword insertion.
3. Once you find an interesting ad click on it to reveal the target location
- Click on the show anywhere button to reveal the target location for the ad.
Armed with this information you can decide if you want to advertise to these same regions.
If you only used 1 tool for Google Ads competitor analysis I’d recommend the Transparency Center.
ISearchFrom
Source: https://isearchfrom.com/
If you’re planning to advertise somewhere you’re not physically located and want to know which competitors are bidding on your target keywords, ISearchFrom is a great free tool to use.
Here’s how you can utilize ISearchFrom for google ads competitor analysis:
1. Visit ISearchFrom and enter your target country and keyword
2. Review the ads to uncover advertisers in your target location you might not be aware of
From this simulated result for someone “physically” located in the United Kingdom I can see Coursera is advertising on google ads courses in this region.
From here I can leverage the Transparency Center to uncover more ad examples from them.
Again this is a great tool for finding competitors you’re not familiar with in locations you’re not in.
Paid Tools to Find Examples of Competitors Google Ads
Each of the following competitor analysis tools can be used for a fee, use whichever resonates and fits your budget.
SpyFu
Source: https://www.spyfu.com/
Price: $39-$79/month
If you’re looking for a simple tool to review examples of competitors Google Ads copy, target keywords, and landing pages.
SpyFu is a great tool to start off with, here’s how you can use it.
1. Visit SpyFu and enter your competitors domain
2. Review your competitors estimated Google Ads budget and quantity of paid keywords
3. Navigate to “PPC Research > PPC Keywords” to see all paid keywords
4. Head to “PPC Research > Ad History” to see all competitor ad examples by keyword
5. Uncover other top competitors “PPC Research > Competitors” you might know of
With this one tool you can get estimates of competitors' Google Ads budgets, review keywords, ads, and uncover opportunities across new competitors you might not know of.
Other paid tools:
There’s no shortage of paid tools you can use to research your competitors.
Here’s a list of some others worth exploring:
Don’t get hung up on the tools.
Achieving the end outcome is ultimately key.
Now that you know how to find and research your competitors Google Ads.
Let’s walk through how to break down their strategy.
How to Break Down Your Competitors Google Ads Strategy
Knowing what keywords and ad copy your competitors are using is a great starting point.
But getting answers to questions like:
- How are my competitors structuring their campaigns?
- How are they allocating budget?
are crucial insights that can separate you from them.
1. Reverse Engineering URL Parameters
Once you know your competitors landing pages, which you can get from:
- Searching keywords in Google and clicking on their ads
- Reviewing landing page URLs in SpyFu’s Ad History report
You’ll want to review their UTM parameters to get insights on the goal of this campaign, target keyword, and anything else around how it was set up.
URL Parameter Example #1 - Zoho
For example, I searched CRM software and clicked on this ad from Zoho:
When reviewing the URL post click I can see the following parameters:
/?network=g&device=c&keyword=crm%20software&campaignid=14928929712
&creative=552506800726&matchtype=e
&adposition=&placement=&adgroup=130022006802&gad_source=1
&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3tCyBhDBARIsAEY0XNlAKXey
TKDzEJQDpeNh2giI4p8sVSnWKqsvlND5bvZa_J
q62wCqSFoaAsc1EALw_wcB
By reviewing the URL structure I can gather the following information:
- Network = g | they’re advertising on Google Search
- Device = c | they’re running ads on Desktop devices
- Keyword = crm software | they’re bidding on crm software
- Matchtype = e | they’re using exact match
URL Parameter Example #2 - Freshworks
Let’s use one more example to drive this home with the Freshworks ad that was underneath Zoho:
?tactic_id=6071454&utm_source=google-adwords&utm_medium=FSales-Search-InsideEU-FSE-RLSA-New
&utm_campaign=FSales-Search-InsideEU-FSE-RLSA New&utm_term=crm%20software&device=c
&matchtype=p&network=g
&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3tCyBhDBARIsAEY0XNkaG_AiGqCRYj-AEcuQcnvJS_3eI0bS6jIKu_
M7JRmqOYwSIGwuc6UaAvYqEALw_wcB&gad_source=1
Here’s what I’m able to gather from the URL structure:
- Source = google-adwords | they’re advertising on Google Search
- Campaign = FSales-Search-InsideEU-FSE-RLSA-New | they’re advertising in the EU and running a remarketing list for search ads campaigns.
- Term = crm software | they’re advertising on the keyword crm software
- Device = c | they’re bidding on desktop devices
- Matchtype = p | they’re using phrase match
With this information you can start to get answers into how your competitors are structuring their campaigns and it’s freely available and ready for those advertisers that are savvy enough to look.
2. Keyword Classification
How are your competitors allocating budget?
Now you’ll never know the answer to this question with absolute certainty but with some manual work here’s how you can try and piece together a sense of their strategy allocation.
You’ll need one of the paid tools listed above in order to perform this keyword analysis.
I’ll be using SEMRush for the sake of demonstration but the general process is the same across tools.
1. Export all of your competitors paid keywords into a CSV
2. Filter the Last Seen column by the most recent month to see active keywords
3. Add a new column called “Theme” and classify each keyword by campaign theme.
This step can take some significant time but can be well worth the effort to understand your competitors keyword strategy and budget allocation priorities.
With your custom column of “campaign theme” you’ll want to manually classify each keyword.
Here’s the four campaign themes you’ll utilize for classification:
- NonBrand = high-intent keywords that don’t include your brand name
- Brand = keywords containing your brand name
- Competitive = keywords that represent your competitors
- Content = keywords that are informational and research oriented
Watch this video for a deep dive on how to perform this advanced classification:
4. Summarize your classified keywords into a pivot table to understand your competitors strategy and budget priorities
From here we can make some assumptions about what is working for our competitors.
- 87% of Udemy’s keywords are NonBrand, 9% Brand, 4% Content, and barely 0% Competitive.
- It’s safe to assume that the majority of the budget is supporting NonBrand, followed by Brand, Content, and ultimately Competitive.
Based on this allocation I might want to focus on NonBrand first given the volume of investment Udemy seems to be spending on it, and avoid competitive keywords to start.
This isn't 100% exact science but an advanced way to research your competitors Google Ads.
Need help calculating your stating Google Ads Budget?
If you’re in need of help calculating your starting Google Ads budget check out our calculator.
Hope you found this article useful!
See you in the next article or one of our free courses!
From Clicks to Conversions: Master Google Ads for B2B 🔥
If you want to become a Google Ads pro, check out our free B2B Google Ads courses, where you'll learn how to launch, optimize, and scale your campaigns to drive pipeline and revenue.
Here's what you'll learn in each course:
⚙️ B2B Google Ads 101 - How to Launch Dangerously Effective Campaigns for Beginners
- The Googleverse: The Game You're Playing & How To Win
- Measurement: How to Make Sure You're Profitable
- Targeting: How to Show Up For the Right Searcher
- Planning: Putting It All Together
🎯 Google Ads 102 - How to Clicks Into Profit
- Visibility: How To Find the Hole Sucking Profits
- Workflows: How to Optimize On a Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Quarterly Basis
- Experimentation: How to Test & Automate Profitability
- Troubleshooting: How To Solve Inevitable Problems
🚀 Google Ads 103 - How to Scale Google Ads For Advanced Advertisers
- Methodology: How to Vertically Scale Google Ads From A-Z
- Campaigns: Scaling Horizontally Through Campaign Themes
- Channels: Scaling Outside of Paid Search
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 😂)
People Also Ask
How can I identify indirect competitors in Google Ads?
Beyond direct competitors, consider businesses offering alternative solutions that address the same customer needs. Use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to discover who is bidding on related keywords, revealing indirect competitors.
What are the ethical considerations when analyzing competitors’ ads?
While it’s acceptable to study competitors’ public ads, avoid deceptive practices like clicking on their ads to deplete budgets. Focus on gathering insights without engaging in unethical behavior.
How often should I conduct a competitor analysis for my Google Ads campaigns?
Regular analysis is crucial. Aim to review competitors’ strategies quarterly to stay informed about market trends and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
Can competitor analysis help in identifying new market opportunities?
Yes, by examining competitors’ ad strategies, you can uncover underserved niches, emerging trends, or gaps in the market, allowing you to capitalize on new opportunities.
How do I ensure my Google Ads stand out in a competitive landscape?
Focus on unique selling propositions, compelling ad copy, and high-quality visuals. Regularly test and optimize your ads to differentiate your offerings from competitors.
How To Get Your Ad Budget Approved In 2024
Looking to ask your boss or client for more ad budget?
This can feel really uncomfortable the first time but I promise it gets easier.
With a simple shift in mindset and some solid tactics you’ll be securing budget in no time.
Here are 3 simple but effective steps for you to implement before having that budget conversation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Step 1: Pull the numbers
Your client or boss wants to be successful.
They want to surpass their goals (just like you).
If you can show them how your increased budget will make this happen, they will gladly give it to you.
Remembering this will help you release the anxiety associated with asking for more budget.
The key is you need to sell your stakeholders on WHY they should invest more and the way you'll do that is by building a case that makes them as certain as possible.
Don’t assume your clients or managers will be able to realize this on their own.
Build a no-brainer case that makes saying anything but yes sound illogical.
This starts with pulling the numbers 👇
Answer your critical questions
Put your investor hat on and answer critical questions such as:
- Which channels are performing best?
Ex: Google Ads driving the most opps at the lowest cost
- What's the overall blended trend? (paid + organic)
Ex: Opps are increasing QoQ at a 25% lower cost
- What's the current return on investment?
Ex: $6 pipe-to-spend and 150% ROI
Depending on your company, goals, and what you’re asking budget for this will vary.
Brainstorm all of the key questions you’ll need to pull data to answer.
The difficulty of this step will vary on your current level of reporting.
If you don’t already I HIGHLY recommend building a Paid Media dashboard that connects your ad spend to pipeline and revenue performance reported in your CRM.
Here’s an example of our Paid Media Dashboard Template in our Building a Paid Media Program course:
You can get free access to this template and learn how to set it up in Module 3, Lesson 3 of the course.
It’s going to be hard to ask for more ad budget if you can’t prove that your current campaigns are actually contributing to the bottom line.
Don’t have any data?
If you’re reading this and saying, Silvio how can I pull numbers if I don’t have any?
Maybe you’re trying to secure budget for a new channel.
If this is the case I have two recommendations:
1. Run a pilot campaign for $100
Let’s say you’re trying to secure budget to test X (Twitter) Ads.
Put together $100 (most companies can afford this) and launch a pilot campaign.
The only goal of this campaign is to understand what are your real costs (ex: CPM, CPC).
Once you have this information you can work backwards from your goals to create a starting budget.
For example:
- $3 CPC at a 5% landing page conversion rate = $60 cost per lead
- $60 cost per lead at a 3% lead to opportunity ratio = $1,980 cost per opportunity
- $1,980 cost per opportunity at a 20% win rate = $9,900 cost per closed won deal
If you need help running the numbers, check out our Google Ads budget calculator.
From here you’ll have a good idea of what a starting budget would look like.
You’ll also have a sense of what’s possible on this channel.
2. Do some research
Ask around or search for benchmarks associated with the channel you’re looking to invest in.
Even just collecting anecdotal evidence (ex: screenshots of others) talking about how much success they’ve had with this specific channel, tactic, etc can go a long way.
LinkedIn polls are a great way to collect this feedback:
You can DM the respondents asking for more information.
The TL;DR here is don’t let lack of data be an excuse to show up empty handed.
Once you’ve pulled all the necessary information it’s time to find the story.
Step 2: Find the story
Behind the data there is a story being told, it's your job to find it and tell it.
Here's some key questions to answer to help find it:
- What went well? (the highlights)
- What went bad? (the lowlights)
- Where are we today vs before? (the journey)
- What were the biggest blockers? (the obstacle)
- Where do we go from here? (the opportunities)
Data alone won't persuade, and stories without data are subject to suspicion.
A combination of both is required in order to effectively present your case.
Image above is Module 6, Lesson 1 of our Building a Paid Media Program course
For example, perhaps I’m trying to secure more budget for Google Ads:
- What went well? (the highlights) some text
- Google Ads contributed 25% more opportunities at a $7 pipe-to-spend ratio.
- What went bad? (the lowlights)some text
- We missed out on 57% more volume due to budget limitations.
- Where are we today vs before? (the journey) some text
- We’ve optimized our pipe-to-spend efficiency from $3 to $7.
- What were the biggest blockers? (the obstacle)some text
- High search lost to budget for our top contributing campaigns.
- No landing page testing due to limited development resources.
- Where do we go from here? (the opportunities)some text
- With an additional $25,000 in budget we can scale our top contributing campaigns and yield up to 35% more demo requests at a $15 CPC and 5% landing page conversion rate.
Here’s a simple presentation template you can use to present your case and answer each key question:
Once you've found the story and pulled the numbers you're ready to present.
Step 3: Present your case
After steps 1-2 the majority of the prep work is done.
Now it’s time to get the meeting scheduled with your boss or client.
You could have the most beautiful slides and compelling case but if you can’t effectively communicate the significance of what you’re asking it won’t matter.
Thankfully, like any skill, communication is something you can improve on with practice.
5 unconventional tips to implement in your budget presentation:
1. Remember you both want the same thing.
Ultimately, your stakeholders want you to be right. If you can drive more pipeline/revenue they'd happily give you the budget (assuming financial availability).
The challenge though is like an investor they are analyzing the potential upside and downside of your plan, and don't believe the promises you're making.
You need to addresses their concerns with a combination of data and storytelling that makes them as certain as possible.
Just remembering this simple truth will help you show up differently.
2. It’s a conversation, not a lecture.
You’ll want to keep this discussion conversational.
Make sure to check-in frequently with your boss or client and ask things like:
- Is this making sense?
- Did you have any questions?
- Are there any concerns you have that I haven’t addressed?
The last thing you want to do is to speak to them for 30-minutes and then ask:
“soooooo did you have any questions…..? 😅”
3. Replace “I think” with “the data suggests”
You’ve pulled the data and done the homework.
Don’t water down your points by saying “I think” get in the habit of replacing this with “the data suggests” and then calling out the data point that comes to mind.
This will make your perspectives and points of view far more compelling.
Which ultimately lead to more certainty from the decision maker.
Greater certainty = greater chance of budget approval
4. Don’t forget to smile.
This might sound silly 😂 but it’s really easy to forget to smile.
This conversation is about new opportunities, and that’s exciting.
Instead of telling yourself I’m nervous, reframe it as I’m excited.
This is called anxiety reappraisal and Alison Wood a psychologist at the Harvard Business School found evidence to support.
Here’s a quick excerpt from her abstract: “Across several studies involving karaoke singing, public speaking, and math performance, I investigate an alternative strategy: reappraising anxiety as excitement. Compared to those who attempt to calm down, individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement feel more excited and perform better” — Alison Wood Brooks
Don’t knock it until you try it!
5. Turn your weakness into a strength
Maybe you’re reading this article and saying to yourself:
- I’m not a good presenter because I’m an introvert
- I’m not a good presenter because English isn’t my first language.
Whatever your weaknesses are, turn them into strengths with humor.
When you start budget approval call begin by addressing your big weakness with humor.
Here’s what this might look like for the weaknesses above:
- Hey {First Name} thanks for the time today. As you might have noticed I’m not going to be giving a Ted talk anytime soon with my English so if you’re having trouble understanding just stop me at any point.
- Hey {First Name} thanks for the time today. I just wanted to start off by saying I’d rather chug a bottle of hot sauce then give a presentation but I believe so much in what I’m going cover today that I had to do this – so I appreciate you baring with any mishaps I might have.
Whatever your weaknesses are don’t run from them.
Embrace it and transform it into a strength.
Additional Resources
If you want to learn more about securing budget checkout Module 6 - Lesson 1 of our Building a Paid Media Program course, it’s 100% free and takes < 90 seconds to sign up.
If you want to dive deeper into B2B advertising check out some of our other top articles:
- B2B Advertising in 2024: The Definitive Guide
- How to Build a Multichannel B2B Retargeting Strategy (Step-By-Step)
Thanks for reading, good luck on getting your budget approved!
(you got this) 🎉
People Also Ask
How can I address concerns about the risks associated with increasing the ad budget?
Acknowledge potential risks by presenting a risk mitigation plan. This could include strategies like phased budget increases, continuous performance monitoring, and predefined criteria for scaling back if certain KPIs aren’t met. Demonstrating proactive risk management can build stakeholder confidence.
What if my initial pilot campaign doesn’t yield strong results?
If a pilot campaign underperforms, analyze the data to identify areas for improvement. Adjust variables such as targeting, ad creatives, or bidding strategies, and consider running a second pilot. Use these learnings to refine your approach before requesting a larger budget.
How do I align my ad budget request with broader company objectives?
Ensure your proposal clearly connects the ad spend to company goals like revenue growth, market expansion, or brand awareness. Illustrate how the investment will contribute to these objectives, using data and projections to support your case.
What are some common pitfalls to avoid when presenting a budget proposal?
Avoid using jargon that stakeholders may not understand, overloading the presentation with excessive data, or failing to anticipate potential objections. Practice your presentation to ensure clarity and conciseness, and be prepared to address questions confidently.
How can I demonstrate the potential ROI of the proposed ad budget?
Utilize tools like the Google Ads Budget Calculator to forecast potential returns based on different budget scenarios. Present these projections along
Top 10 LinkedIn Tips on Mastering Objectives & Bid Strategies
Looking to increase your return on ad spend (ROAS) on LinkedIn?
Your bidding strategy and campaign objective play a critical role.
Here’s my 10 tips from over $10 million investment in LinkedIn paid ads.
(In no particular order, they all matter)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: The Power Behind Manual Bidding
- Tip #2: Fine-Tuning Your Bids
- Tip #3: Aligning Ad Type & Offer with Objectives
- Tip #4: The Optimal Objective for Thought Leader Ads
- Tip #5: When to Leverage Video Views Objective
- Tip #6: Match Your Content to the Most Suitable Objective
- Tip #7: Take Advantage of Document Ads
- Tip #8: Scale Conversions with Conversation Ads
- Tip #9: Top 3 Objectives for Single Image Ads
- Tip #10: When to Avoid Reach Objective (Brand Awareness)
- Conclusion:
- Resources for Mastering B2B Advertising
Tip #1: The Power Behind Manual Bidding
Unlike automated bidding, which leaves bid amounts at LinkedIn's discretion, manual bidding allows advertisers to set clear cost boundaries.
This ensures that your campaign expenses align with your budgetary constraints and campaign goals, offering a level of precision that automated bidding simply can't match.
By specifying the maximum amount you're willing to pay for clicks, the manual bidding places you in the driver's seat.
The LinkedIn algorithm, while powerful, may not always allocate your budget most economically when given full control.
Start collecting data quickly for your new campaign by bidding above the minimum threshold recommended by LinkedIn.
When to Consider Automated Bidding:
Automated bidding can be the best choice for specific situations, such as focused Account-Based Marketing (ABM) or retargeting campaigns with small audiences.
Once the campaign starts spending and there’s a benchmark, you can switch to manual bidding to regain full control.
Tip #2: Fine-Tuning Your Bids
A successful manual bidding requires daily checks on your spending against your budget to avoid overbidding or underbidding.
This is a straightforward yet insightful process, comparing the previous day's spend against the current daily budget to adjust your bids for optimal performance.
The Process of Bid Adjustment:
By subtracting your daily budget from the previous day's total spending, you gain clear insights into your bidding strategy's effectiveness.
A negative result suggests underbidding, where you're not fully utilizing your daily budget
While a positive result indicates overbidding, where you're potentially overspending.
Previous day spent - allocated budget = + number indicated bid is too high
The previous day spent - allocated budget = - number indicated bid is too low”
One challenge of manual bidding is finding the sweet spot where your bid is high enough to consume your daily budget fully but not so high that it leads to inefficient spending.
Side note:
If your audience size is too small, even a high bid will not cover the campaign’s full budget.
Tip #3: Aligning Ad Type & Offer with Objectives
LinkedIn ad campaigns' success deeply depends on the alignment between the chosen ad type and the content you're promoting.
Understanding the nuances of each ad + offer and matching it to the applicable objective is key to maximizing engagement and conversion rate.
Selecting the Right Ad Type for Your Objective:
Video Ads:
When promoting video ads, gravitate towards the Video View or Engagement objectives.
These objectives are designed to maximize viewership and interaction with your video content, making them ideal for capturing and retaining audience attention.
Example of a video ad:
Document Ads:
The Engagement objective tends to yield the most success for document ads, which include PDFs, presentations, and other downloadable content.
Keeping document ads ungated and focusing on engagement allows your content to reach a broader audience, enhancing brand visibility and thought leadership.
Example of a document ad:
Single Image Ads:
Engagement and Website Traffic objectives can be effective when using single-image ads.
Your choice depends on whether your primary goal is to foster interaction with the ad or drive traffic to your website or landing page
Example of a single image ad:
Tip #4: The Optimal Objective for Thought Leader Ads
If you're looking to boost your presence and authority on LinkedIn, thought leader ads present an attractive option.
These ads turn organic content from individual profiles into sponsored messages, maintaining the authentic voice and personal touch that resonates with audiences.
These campaigns can achieve lower costs per engagement by leveraging the engagement objective, enhancing their effectiveness and reach.
Understanding Thought Leader Ads:
Personal Touch:
Unlike standard ads that originate from company pages, thought leader ads come from personal profiles, offering a humanized approach to advertising.
This method harnesses the inherent trust and relatability of individual thought leaders, amplifying their messages across targeted audiences on LinkedIn.
As of March 2024, businesses can promote content from any connected user on LinkedIn with Thought Leader posts, as opposed to just verified employees.
Seamless Integration:
To the audience, thought leader ads appear as regular posts but with the added benefit of targeted reach and visibility.
This seamless integration into the newsfeed portrays a natural engagement experience, hence fostering higher engagement rates compared to traditional ad formats.
Implementation and Best Practices
The success of thought leader ads hinges on selecting organic content that has already demonstrated shares and engagement.
By sponsoring high-performing posts, you capitalize on proven interest and ensure your ad budget is allocated to content with the highest potential return.
Pro tip:
When creating a new single-image campaign, you can click “browse existing content” to find the post by searching for the LinkedIn member and sending a request for approval.
Since these ads will not be sent to a landing page, it’s best to place the intended page link in the first comment and pin the comment.
Tip #5: When to Leverage Video Views Objective
When promoting video ads, selecting the Video View objective will increase the likelihood of getting the highest percentage of videos watched at the lowest cost.
This objective is designed to maximize the number of views your video receives, optimizing for visibility and engagement among your target audience.
Creative Specifications:
For video creatives, the recommendation is to use a square format (1080x1080 pixels) and include captions.
This format is not only visually appealing but also takes up the most space in the feed property.
Cost Efficiency and Performance:
The cost for video views on LinkedIn typically ranges from 10 to 15 cents per view.
While this might be higher compared to other platforms like YouTube, which has been gaining traction in B2B sectors for its cost-effectiveness, LinkedIn's targeted audience can justify the investment.
Best Practices for Video Campaigns on LinkedIn:
Starting with the lowest feasible cost per view (CPV) in your bidding strategy can help manage costs while assessing the content's performance.
Adjustments can be made based on initial results to find the optimal balance between reach and budget efficiency.
Tip #6: Match Your Content to the Most Suitable Objective
Understanding the type of content you're promoting determines the most effective objective and ad type for your campaign.
For event promotions, for example, certain ad formats have proven to yield higher results and drive registrations at a lower cost.
Let’s break down what type of assets yield the highest results for this example:
Lead Generation Forms (LGF):
The premier choice for driving event registrations.
Lead-gen forms provide a seamless and streamlined user experience, with pre-populated forms making the conversion process as frictionless as possible.
The convenience of instantly filling out forms within the LinkedIn platform significantly increases conversion rates for registrations.
Pro tip:
To improve the performance of LGF, it's best to keep the number of custom fields below three.
While leveraging pre-populated fields can maintain high conversion rates, adding more than two custom questions or actions can deter completions.
Event Ad Format:
This is one of the most effective ad types for event registries, but it is important to note that it cannot be combined with any of the conversion objectives.
Unique to this type of ad is the inclusion of social proof directly within the ad, such as the number of people who have shown interest or are planning to attend the event.
While its conversion rate may not match that of Lead Generation Forms, the added visibility and credibility from social proof make Event Ads a valuable tactic.
To learn more about promoting events, dive into these articles below:
- 4 Unique LinkedIn Ad Strategies to Drive More Webinar Registrants
- 10 Insider Tips on Event Promotion From $1M+ In Ad Spend
Website Conversion:
Directing users to a landing page for event registration is generally less preferred due to higher costs and lower conversion rates compared to previous tactics.
Exceptions exist, such as directing traffic to a calendar link or for specific targeting scenarios, but overall, this method is seen as less efficient for event promotion.
Design and Copy Considerations:
For campaigns opting to use landing pages, prioritizing copy over design is key.
The hero section, or above-the-fold content, is critical in capturing user interest.
Ensuring message consistency between your ads and landing page, alongside efficient conversion tracking, will set you up for success.
To learn more about landing page best practices, dive into the article below by Pedro Cortés:
10 Proven Landing Page Tips To Boost Your Conversion Rates
Pro-tip:
Streamlining Campaign Tracking with Dynamic URL Parameters:
LinkedIn's introduction of dynamic URL parameters at the campaign level presents a major leap forward in simplifying and enhancing tracking capabilities.
This feature allows marketers to set up the tracking once for the entire campaign, eliminating the tedious process of manually tagging each ad with unique UTM parameters.
Tip #7: Take Advantage of Document Ads
Document ads have proven highly effective for marketers looking to deepen engagement and build a robust retargeting pool.
They typically have impressive click-through rates, often reaching 6-7% or higher.
The best results from document ads are seen when paired with the engagement objective.
Users who interact with this ad type demonstrate a clear interest in your content, making them ideal candidates for subsequent, more targeted marketing efforts.
For more information on setting up your first document ads, check out this guide provided by LinkedIn
Tip #8: Scale Conversions with Conversation Ads
Conversation ads offer a unique, direct method of engaging with your target audience by delivering messages right into their LinkedIn inboxes.
These ads are billed on a cost-per-send basis, making it crucial to manage bids effectively to maximize both reach and budget efficiency.
Start your bid as low as possible and make adjustments depending on how well it’s pacing.
A good starting point is a $1 bid.
Due to LinkedIn’s second-price auction model for convo ads, they typically keep the actual cost close to the average historical cost per send.
This model charges you just enough to outbid the next highest bidder, not the maximum amount you're willing to pay.
Adaptation to Platform Changes:
Despite recent updates like the focus inbox change on LinkedIn, conversational ads have continued to perform well.
The direct nature of these ads keeps them effective, maintaining their status as a top-performing ad type.
Best Practices for Conversational Ads:
Because convo ads are more intrusive than other ad types, it’s important to ensure your targeting is precise. This precision prevents user annoyance and increases the likelihood of engagement.
The content of your conversation ads should be compelling and offer clear value to a specific job function.
Pro-tip:
The sender should resonate with the target audience for the highest credibility.
Choosing someone with a similar job function or an industry expert/influencer can immediately boost credibility.
For additional tips on convo ad’s best practices, check out this post by AdConversion
Tip #9: Top 3 Objectives for Single Image Ads
Single-image ads are versatile and can be tailored to meet various objectives, but understanding which objective to prioritize can have a noticeable impact on the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Lead Generation:
The primary objective for many single-image ad campaigns is lead generation.
LinkedIn’s Lead-gen focuses on gathering user information through forms that are pre-populated with LinkedIn profile data, making it easier for users to submit their information without leaving the platform.
Engagement:
The second most common objective for single-image ads is engagement.
This objective aims to maximize interactions such as likes, comments, and shares.
It's particularly useful for increasing brand visibility and engagement within your target audience.
Fostering interactions also enhances the organic reach of your ads through the network effects of user engagement.
The visual appeal and message of your single-image ad should resonate with your audience and encourage interaction.
Regular testing and adaptation of your ad creatives can help maintain high engagement levels.
Website Visits:
The third objective focuses on driving traffic to your website or specific landing pages to achieve conversions.
Whether your goal is to increase sign-ups, sales, or another conversion action, directing users to your website allows for more detailed tracking and nurturing of potential leads in your sales funnel.
Tip #10: When to Avoid Reach Objective (Brand Awareness)
Brand awareness, which prioritizes impressions and broad visibility, often comes under scrutiny due to its cost implications and lower engagement metrics compared to other objectives.
The reach objective operates on a cost-per-impression (CPM) model, where you are charged each time your ad is displayed, regardless of user interaction.
This can lead to higher expenditure without the guarantee of equivalent engagement or conversions.
The inherent nature of paying for mere visibility rather than actionable engagement makes this objective less appealing for many advertisers seeking tangible returns on their investment.
This objective is also inefficient for retargeting.
Building retargeting audiences requires not just impressions but meaningful interactions that signal interest or intent.
The reach objective's focus on maximizing views rather than fostering engagement makes it less effective for gathering a meaningful contribution toward the retargeting pool.
Conclusion:
In this article, we covered 10 actionable tips for matching the most suitable objectives and bidding strategies to your LinkedIn campaigns.
Whether it’s choosing manual bidding to control costs, aligning ad types with your marketing objectives, or understanding when to leverage specific ad formats, each tip offers a pathway to better performance.
By implementing these top 10 tips, you can navigate through the complexities of LinkedIn paid ads with greater precision and efficiency.
I hope you found this article insightful and that it leads to successful outcomes for your future campaigns.
If you’d like to reach out or get more tips, please connect with me via LinkedIn.
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People Also Ask
How can I determine the optimal bid amount for my LinkedIn ad campaigns?
Begin by setting bids slightly above LinkedIn’s recommended minimum to gather initial data. Monitor daily performance, adjusting bids to ensure your budget is fully utilized without overspending. Regular analysis helps in finding the balance between cost-efficiency and achieving desired reach.
What are the best practices for aligning ad creatives with specific campaign objectives?
Ensure that your ad format and content match your campaign goals. For instance, use Video Ads with the Video View objective to maximize engagement, or Document Ads with the Engagement objective to share downloadable content effectively. Aligning creatives with objectives enhances campaign performance.
How do I choose between manual and automated bidding strategies?
Manual bidding offers control over costs, allowing precise budget management, while automated bidding leverages LinkedIn’s algorithm for potentially broader reach. For Account-Based Marketing (ABM) or retargeting campaigns with small audiences, automated bidding can be effective. However, starting with manual bidding can provide valuable insights and control.
What factors should I consider when selecting the appropriate campaign objective?
Identify your primary marketing goal—brand awareness, lead generation, website traffic, etc. Choose objectives that align with these goals and consider the ad formats that best support them. For example, use the Engagement objective for Thought Leader Ads to boost authority and reach.
How can I effectively measure the success of my LinkedIn ad campaigns?
Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, cost per click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS). Regularly analyze these metrics to assess performance and make data-driven adjustments to your strategies.
How to Build a Multichannel B2B Retargeting Strategy (Step-By-Step)
With long sales cycles staying top of mind is half the battle when it comes to B2B.
In this blueprint you’ll learn how to build a multichannel B2B retargeting strategy across:
- Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
- X (Twitter)
- & YouTube
So you can stay omnipresent and convert users across channels.
I know you’re going to love it, let’s get started! ❤️
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Recommended Channels
- Step 1: Confirm Your Remarketing Pixels are Installed
- Step 2: Create all possible retargeting segments by time frame
- Step 3: Adjust targeting and exclusion parameters
- Step 4: Align on retargeting content and offers
- Step 5: Build all Relevant Retargeting Campaigns
- B2B Retargeting FAQ
- Launch Checklist
- Conclusion & Free Courses
Recommended Channels:
- LinkedIn Ads
- Meta (Facebook & Instagram)
- X (Twitter)
- YouTube
Minimum Budget:
- $1,000/month (for 1 channel)
Recommended Targeting:
Step 1: Confirm Your Remarketing Pixels are Installed
This is a mandatory first step, and something that needs to be done first.
These pixels are how the ad platforms are able to track users activity and provide you the ability to remarket them with various campaigns and offers.
Even if you’re not planning to advertise soon on any channels, I HIGHLY recommend creating a free ad account and installing that platform pixel on your site to start building your remarketing pool.
Here’s what this will look like for each channel.
How to Install the LinkedIn Ads Pixel In 4 Steps
- Create a free LinkedIn Ads account
- Navigate to the “Analyze” → “Insight Tag” section
- Choose how to install your tag (recommend Google Tag Manager aka GTM)
- In Google Tag Manager, create a new tag type with LinkedIn Insight and fire on all pages
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How to Install the Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads Pixel In 6 Steps
- Create a free Facebook Ads account
- In the Ads Manager navigate to “Events Manager” → “Connect Data Sources”
- Connect “Web” as a new data source and name your pixel (ex: Meta Pixel)
- Select your new pixel under “Data Sources” and navigate to “Overview” → “Setup Pixel”
- Choose how to install your pixel (recommend Google Tag Manager aka GTM)
- In Google Tag Manager, create a new tag type with Custom HTML and fire on all pages
How to Install the X (Twitter) Ads Pixel In 4 Steps
- Create a free X (Twitter) Ads account
- In the Ads Manager navigate to “Events Manager” → “Add Event Source”
- Install with “Pixel code” and allow 1st-party cookies
- In Google Tag Manager, create a new tag type with Custom HTM and fire on all pages
How to Install the Google Ads Pixel In 5 Steps
By installing the Google Ads pixel you’ll be able to remarket to website visitors on YouTube because Google owns YouTube and all campaigns are created in the same ads manager.
- Create a free Google Ads account
- In the Ads Manager navigate to “Audience Manager” → “Your Data Sources”
- Select “Google Ads Tag” → “Edit Source”
- Select “Tag Setup” recommend “Use Google Tag Manager” and copy your ID
- In Google Tag Manager, create a Google Ads Remarketing tag and fire on all pages
Once complete, confirm all pixels are installed correctly on your website with GTM Preview:
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Remarketing audience size requirements for Meta, YouTube, LinkedIn & X (Twitter)
- Meta (Facebook & Instagram) = 1,000 audience members
- YouTube = 100 audience members
- LinkedIn = 300 audience members
- X (Twitter) = 100 audience members
Now that you’ve installed all the pixels for the platforms you’re interested in you’ll need to allow the pixels time to build your cookie pool to meet audience minimums.
I’ve seen it take 7-30+ days depending on monthly engagement or traffic volumes for the retargeting segment you’re trying to build (ex: website visits, video views, post engagement, etc..).
Step 2: Create all possible retargeting segments by time frame.
Once your remarketing audience has met minimums it’s time to build your segments.
This step will vary depending on how large your retargeting audience is.
In a perfect world we’ll want to create retargeting segments for the following timeframes:
The advantage of creating retargeting segments by time frame is:
✅ Easily see which cohort performs best
✅ Allocate more budget to the top performing time frame
✅ Align offers and messaging accordingly
Watch this video to better understand the thought process behind leveraging different remarketing segments by timeframes:
In addition to testing timeframes we want to combine as many relevant remarketing segments together in each cohort so we can scale up our overall audience size (more on this in Step 4).
Depending on the channel you’re advertising on, the available remarketing segments will vary.
Here are my go to choices for each channel below.
Top 10 LinkedIn Ads retargeting segments:
Top 9 Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads retargeting segments:
Top 5 X (Twitter) Ads retargeting segments:
Top 4 YouTube Ads retargeting segments:
Depending on your audience sizes you might not be able to use shorter timeframes.
If that’s the case, default to the next longest one:
For example:
❌30 days < 1,000 audience size? Try 90 days
❌90 days < 1,000 audience size? Try 180 days
❌180 days < 1,000 audience size? Hold off on remarketing until your audience sizes build
Build out each relevant remarketing combination for the channels you want to advertise on.
Step 3: Adjust targeting and exclusion parameters.
Equally important to who you’re targeting is who you exclude.
With all your retargeting segments created it’s clear who you’re going to target.
Now it’s time to get clear on who you’ll exclude for each cohort (e.g. 30, 90, 180 days).
Exclusion audiences allow you to remove users who aren’t a good fit for your targeting.
Here’s my go-to exclusions by channel.
Top 8 LinkedIn Ads Exclusion Audiences:
Top 9 Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads Exclusion Audiences:
Top 6 X (Twitter) Ads Exclusion Audiences:
Top 6 YouTube Ads Exclusion Audiences:
Feel free to remove and add the exclusions that make sense for your business and who you’re ultimately trying to reach with your retargeting campaigns.
By no means should you only use the ones I outlined above, some will make sense others won’t.
Once you’re clear on who you’ll exclude it’s time to align on content and offers.
Step 4: Align on retargeting content and offers.
Now that you’re clear on who you’ll target and exclude for each cohort. Let’s chat about what content and offers you’ll want to show them.
First things first, don’t make the mistake of only showing offers to people in your remarketing audience. This is the equivalent of following someone all day asking them to buy something.
This is what Corporate Bro has to say about that 😂
Recommended B2B Remarketing Budget Allocation:
Avoid leaving a bad impression and potentially hurting your brand by also adding content in the mix.
50% of your remarketing budget should go towards adding value to your audience, and 50% goes towards asking them to convert on something (ex: Demo, Trial, Event, etc…)
With this budget allocation you’re rotating offers and content equally to your remarketing cohorts (e.g. 30, 90, 180 days) and letting the users decide which asset they're interested in.
Which leads us to common remarketing mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
4 Common Mistakes to Avoid with Retargeting:
1. Only promoting offers
Avoid a pitch fest and split your remarketing budget 50/50 between content and offers as outlined above.
2. Retargeting on assumption instead of action
Don’t create these crazy retargeting flows where someone must do X then Y and finally you’ll give them Z. This kills your retargeting audience size and you’re assuming that you’ll be correct 3/3 times (idk about you but I’m not great at guessing).
Instead show them everything equally (content and offers) and then once they decide to click on an ad, watch a video etc… you can now create unique campaigns to remarket off that activity (now you’re no longer assuming they are interested).
3. Not using all available retargeting segments
Don’t rely on 1 segment alone like a website visitor segment. Instead combine multiple segments together with an OR statement in the same timeframe to scale up your overall retargeting audience so you have more flexibility to layer filters.
4. Failing to refresh creative to offset fatigue
There’s nothing worse than seeing the same ad 1,000 times. This can be easily avoided by creating a workflow to refresh your creatives on a monthly basis.
Just changing the creatives for the same offers and content will create a new experience for users and help offset ad fatigue.
Watch this video to learn more about how to monitor and overcome ad fatigue:
When we talk about remarketing content and offers equally – what exactly does that mean?
- White papers?
- Webinars?
- Tutorials?
- Demos?
- Trials?
The list goes on, and on…
There are 1,000s of offers and content you could potentially promote.
To help simplify and conceptualize this, here are 4 useful remarketing buckets inspired by Canberk Beker, Global Head of Paid Media at Cognism from episode 2 of Behind the Ads.
Recommended Remarketing Buckets by Timeframe:
B2B Retargeting Ad Examples:
Product Marketing
(Content that focuses on promoting the capabilities of your product)
Social Proof
(Leveraging others words and results in our ads)
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Thought Leadership
(Content that educates your target audience and positions you as an expert)
Offers
(Any other type of ad where you’re asking your target audience to convert)
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Armed with your content and offers by time frame there’s one last step to do.
Step 5: Build all Relevant Retargeting Campaigns.
After going through steps 1-4 you should be clear on:
- Which channels you’re going to advertise on
- What retargeting segments you’ll leverage
- Which exclusion audiences you’ll block
- What content/offers you’ll showcase
Let’s wrap up with how these campaigns should be built.
B2B Retargeting Campaign Structure:
Here’s what the retargeting campaign structure will look like at 10,000 feet:
Couple of important call outs:
Every campaign has its own unique timeframe and retargeting bucket.
This makes pacing, optimization, and reporting really easy.
All retargeting segments within the same timeframe are grouped together as an OR.
This allows you to scale your retargeting audience size overall within the cohort.
Combine segments together with OR not AND.
Naming conventions are clear and consistent from the campaign to ad level.
This allows you to easily find your campaigns and reporting on performance.
Here’s how to build these campaigns out for each channel.
How to Build LinkedIn Retargeting Campaigns:
Make sure to disable Audience Expansion and the LinkedIn Audience Network for all LinkedIn retargeting cohort campaigns.
This will prevent LinkedIn from serving your ads to people not in your retargeting audiences and outside of the LinkedIn platform.
Create the following campaigns in the LinkedIn Ads campaign manager across whichever timeframes are applicable for your account:
Cohort #1: 30-Day LinkedIn Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (30D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (30D) | Video | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (30D) | Carousel | Engagement
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Brand Awareness, Engagement, Video Views
- Conversion focus = Lead Generation or Conversion
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible):
- All website visitors (30D)
- All company page visitors (30D)
- All document interactions (30D)
- All past event attendees (30D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (30D)
- All single-image ad interactions (30D)
- All 25-97% video viewers (30D)
- All closed lost contacts (30D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize delivery
- Conversion focus = Manual CPC
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial)
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Cohort #2: 90-Day LinkedIn Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (90D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (90D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (90D) | Video | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (90D) | Carousel | Engagement
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (90D) | Image | Awareness
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Brand Awareness, Engagement, Video Views
- Conversion focus = Lead Generation or Conversion
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible):
- All website visitors (90D)
- All company page visitors (90D)
- All document interactions (90D)
- All past event attendees (90D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (90D)
- All single-image ad interactions (90D)
- All 25-97% video viewers (90D)
- All closed lost contacts (90D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize delivery
- Conversion focus = Manual CPC
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
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Cohort #3: 180-Day LinkedIn Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (180D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (180D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (180D) | Video | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (180D) | Carousel | Engagement
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (180D) | Image | Awareness
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Brand Awareness, Engagement, Video Views
- Conversion focus = Lead Generation or Conversion
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible):
- All website visitors (180D)
- All company page visitors (180D)
- All document interactions (180D)
- All past event attendees (180D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (180D)
- All single-image ad interactions (180D)
- All 25-97% video viewers (180D)
- All closed lost contacts (180D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize delivery
- Conversion focus = Manual CPC
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Optional: 30-Day LinkedIn Offer Bouncers Campaign
If you have the audience size available creating an offer bouncer campaign that shows personalized creative to folks who visited your intent pages and didn’t convert is worth testing.
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | {Offer Name Bouncers} (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | Demo | Demo Page Bouncers (30D) | Conversation | Lead Gen
Recommended Objectives:
- Conversion focus = Lead Generation or Conversion
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible):
- All pricing, demo, trial, and case study bouncers
- All meeting no-shows
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Conversion focus = Manual CPC
Ads: Offers
How to Build Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Retargeting Campaigns:
Highly recommend selecting manual placements of feeds and stories for Facebook & Instagram with creative in the correct dimensions to prevent your ads from appearing in the wrong formats.
Also don’t recommend delivering on the Audience Network or Video Feeds based on our past results, and make sure to not to run on Reels unless you have unique creative for that placement.
Always make sure your creative matches the placement it appears for.
Create the following campaigns in the Meta Ads campaign manager across whichever timeframes are applicable for your account:
Cohort #1: 30-Day Meta Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (30D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (30D) | Video | Sales
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (30D) | Carousel | Traffic
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Awareness, Traffic, Engagement
- Conversion focus = Leads or Sales
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (30D)
- All Facebook page visitors (30D)
- All Instagram page visitors (30D)
- All past event attendees (30D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (30D)
- All 25-95% video viewers (30D)
- All closed lost contacts (30D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize reach of ads, link clicks, engagement, or views
- Conversion focus = Maximize number of conversions or leads
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial)
Cohort #2: 90-Day Meta Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (90D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (90D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (90D) | Video | Sales
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (90D) | Carousel | Traffic
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (90D) | Image | Engagement
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Awareness, Traffic, Engagement
- Conversion focus = Leads or Sales
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (90D)
- All Facebook page visitors (90D)
- All Instagram page visitors (90D)
- All past event attendees (90D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (90D)
- All 25-95% video viewers (90D)
- All closed lost contacts (90D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize reach of ads, link clicks, engagement, or views
- Conversion focus = Maximize number of conversions or leads
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Cohort #3: 180-Day Meta Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (180D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (180D) | Image | Awareness
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (180D) | Video | Sales
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (180D) | Carousel | Traffic
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (180D) | Image | Engagement
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Awareness, Traffic, Engagement
- Conversion focus = Leads or Sales
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (180D)
- All Facebook page visitors (180D)
- All Instagram page visitors (180D)
- All past event attendees (180D)
- All lead gen form opens and submits (180D)
- All 25-95% video viewers (180D)
- All closed lost contacts (180D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Maximize reach of ads, link clicks, engagement, or views
- Conversion focus = Maximize number of conversions or leads
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Optional: 30-Day Meta Offer Bouncers Campaign
If you have the audience size available creating an offer bouncer campaign that shows personalized creative to folks who visited your intent pages and didn’t convert is worth testing.
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | {Offer Name Bouncers} (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | Demo | Demo Page Bouncers (30D) | Image | Leads
Recommended Objectives:
- Conversion focus = Leads or Sales
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All pricing, demo, trial, and case study bouncers
- All meeting no-shows
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Conversion focus = Maximize number of conversions or leads
Ads: Offers
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How to Build X (Twitter) Retargeting Campaigns:
With X (Twitter) we don’t have the ability to filter by time frame so we’ll create the following campaigns in the ads manager:
Cohort #1: All Time (Twitter) Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (All Time) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (All Time) | Image | Reach
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (All Time) | Video | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (All Time) | Carousel | Engagement
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (All Time) | Image | Reach
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Reach, Video Views, Engagement, Website Traffic
- Conversion focus = Conversions or Keywords
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (All Time)
- All 50-100% video viewers (All Time)
- People who saw your tweets (All Time)
- Followers of your X (Twitter) profile (All Time)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content or conversion focus = Autobid
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Optional: All Time X (Twitter) Offer Bouncers Campaign
If you have the audience size available creating an offer bouncer campaign that shows personalized creative to folks who visited your intent pages and didn’t convert is worth testing.
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | {Offer Name Bouncers} (All Time) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | Demo | Demo Page Bouncers (All Time) | Image | Conversions
Recommended Objectives:
- Conversion focus = Conversions or Keywords
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All pricing, demo, trial, and case study bouncers
- All meeting no-shows
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content or conversion focus = Autobid
Ads: Offers
How to Build YouTube Retargeting Campaigns:
Create the following campaigns in the YouTube Ads campaign manager across whichever timeframes are applicable for your account:
Cohort #1: 30-Day YouTube Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Views
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Views
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Get views
- Conversion focus = Drive conversions
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (30D)
- All YouTube video viewers (30D)
- All YouTube subscribers (30D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Max CPV
- Conversion focus = Maximize conversions
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial)
Cohort #2: 90-Day YouTube Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (90D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Get views
- Conversion focus = Drive conversions
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (90D)
- All YouTube video viewers (90D)
- All YouTube subscribers (90D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Max CPV
- Conversion focus = Maximize conversions
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Cohort #3: 180-Day YouTube Retargeting
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (180D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views
- EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Conversions
- EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views
- EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views
Recommended Objectives:
- Content focus = Get views
- Conversion focus = Drive conversions
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences:
- All website visitors (180D)
- All YouTube video viewers (180D)
- All YouTube subscribers (180D)
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Content focus = Max CPV
- Conversion focus = Maximize conversions
Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership
Optional: 30-Day YouTube Offer Bouncers Campaign
If you have the audience size available creating an offer bouncer campaign that shows personalized creative to folks who visited your intent pages and didn’t convert is worth testing.
Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | {Offer Name Bouncers} (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}
- EX: USA | Demo | Demo Page Bouncers (30D) | In-Stream | Conversions
Recommended Objectives:
- Conversion focus = Drive conversions
Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day
Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible):
- All pricing, demo, trial & case study visits
Recommended Bid Strategies:
- Conversion focus = Maximize conversions
Ads: Offers
B2B Retargeting FAQ
There’s no shortage of questions around implementing successful retargeting campaigns.
We completely understand the complexity (especially when it’s your first time building them).
Here’s 5 of the most common retargeting questions we hear from clients:
How long does it take to build a retargeting audience?
- 7-30+ days depending on monthly engagement or traffic volumes for the retargeting segment you’re trying to build (ex: website visits, video views, post engagement, etc..)
How many channels should you advertise on?
- Focus on one advertising channel at a time when you have a limited budget (ex: < $3,000/month) master it and then expand to other channels over time.
How do you calculate your starting retargeting budget?
- $25-$100/day is a general rule of thumb you can follow as it’s enough to support the average costs per platform and coverage for small retargeting audiences when starting out.
How does retargeting work?
- Leveraging first party and third party data ad platforms are able to track user behavior in-app and out of platform allowing you to remarket to them based on past behavior.
How often do you need to refresh creatives for retargeting?
- A smaller audience size (ex: < 50,000) typically requires more frequent creative refreshes vs a larger one (ex: > 50,000) to prevent ad fatigue. At minimum you should aim to refresh ad creatives on a monthly basis to stay ahead of ad fatigue.
Launch Checklist
We’ve covered quite a bit in this blueprint!
Here’s a checklist we put together to help you easily reference when launching your retargeting campaigns to make sure you don’t forget anything and avoid common pitfalls.
- LinkedIn Retargeting: Launch Checklist
- Meta Retargeting: Launch Checklist
- X (Twitter) Retargeting: Launch Checklist
- YouTube Retargeting: Launch Checklist
Conclusion & Free Courses
Hope you received a tremendous amount of value from the blueprint! 🎉
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Insider Benchmarks From $1,041,978 In YouTube Ads Cost Data
If you’ve ever asked yourself:
- How much does YouTube Ads cost?
- What’s a good view rate for YouTube Ads?
- What’s a good CTR for YouTube Ads?
We analyzed $1,041,978 In YouTube Ads data from 2023-2024 to find the answers.
Now It’s important to stress that benchmarks and stats should not be seen as law.
Use these benchmarks and stats as helpful starting point for perspective.
But ultimately you should hold yourself accountable to your own results.
The data set is comprised of the following sample:
- Companies with > $10,000 in YouTube spend
- Historical performance from 2023-2024
- 100% B2B SaaS organizations
For my fellow nerds 🤓 you can review and play with the anonymized data set here <<
Let’s jump into the insights!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- How much does YouTube Ads cost?
- Average Cost Per Click (CPC)
- Average Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
- What’s a good view rate for YouTube Ads?
- What’s a good CTR for YouTube Ads?
- Additional Resources
How Much Does YouTube Ads Cost?
Average Cost Per View (CPV)
The average cost per view for YouTube in-stream ads is $0.05, ranging from $0.01-$0.19.
A view is only counted if someone watches at least 30 seconds of your video.
Average Cost Per Click (CPC)
The average cost per click for YouTube Ads is $3.56, ranging from $0.05 - $10.71.
Average Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
The average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for YouTube Ads is $9, ranging from $1 - $23.
What’s a Good View Rate for YouTube Ads?
The average view rate for YouTube in-stream ads is 29.24%, ranging from 3.47% - 51.39%.
What’s a Good CTR for YouTube Ads?
The average clickthrough rate for YouTube in-stream ads is 0.51%, ranging from 0.09% - 1.64%.
Additional Resources
If you’re looking to uplevel your paid advertising skill set check out our free on-demand courses and join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their skill sets.
If you want to dive deeper into B2B advertising check out some of our other top articles:
- B2B Advertising in 2024: The Definitive Guide
- How to Build a Multichannel B2B Retargeting Strategy (Step-By-Step)
- How to get LinkedIn-like Targeting with YouTube Ads for B2B
Hope these benchmarks and stats gave you some insight on YouTube Ads.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article benchmarks should only be used as a starting point.
Your performance and beating your current benchmarks is ultimately all that matters most.
People Also Ask
How can I optimize my YouTube Ads to achieve a lower Cost Per View (CPV)?
To reduce CPV, focus on creating engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Utilize precise targeting options to reach viewers more likely to engage with your ad, and experiment with different ad formats to determine which yields the best performance.
What factors influence the Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) for YouTube Ads?
CPM is affected by factors including audience demographics, geographic location, industry competition, and seasonal demand. Understanding these elements can help in strategizing your ad placements and budgeting effectively.
How does the bidding strategy impact the overall cost of YouTube Ads?
Choosing between bidding strategies like Cost-Per-View (CPV) and Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM) can significantly influence ad costs. Selecting a strategy that aligns with your campaign objectives—whether focusing on views or impressions—can optimize spending.
What are some best practices for achieving a higher click-through rate (CTR) on YouTube Ads?
Enhance CTR by crafting compelling ad creatives with clear calls-to-action, ensuring relevance to the target audience, and conducting A/B testing to refine ad elements. Monitoring performance metrics allows for continuous optimization.
How can I effectively measure the return on investment (ROI) for my YouTube Ad campaigns?
Calculate ROI by comparing the revenue generated from the ad campaign to the total ad spend. Utilize tracking tools to monitor conversions and assess the profitability of your campaigns, adjusting strategies as needed to improve outcomes.
