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
Other Articles You May Enjoy.
10 Tips to Make LinkedIn Ads Work for B2B SaaS
Over the past few years, I’ve helped dozens of B2B SaaS companies develop their LinkedIn Ads strategy.
Below, I’ll be sharing ten tips that I always give to my own clients, and that will significantly increase your chances of success with LinkedIn Ads 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Tip #1: Research Your Customers
- Tip #2: Define Your Targeting
- Tip #3: Distribute Your Content
- Tip #4: Repurpose Your Content
- Tip #5: Test Lead Gen alongside ungated content
- Tip #6: Capture Demand With Retargeting
- Tip #7: Use Text and Spotlight Ads
- Tip #8: Leverage your SMEs for thought leader ads
- Tip #9: Set up the right tracking combination
- Tip #10: Make a commitment of at least 6 months
Tip #1: Research Your Customers
As a marketer, it can be challenging to fully understand your customers, especially since you’re not in direct contact with them.
In order to gain a better understanding, it’s a great idea to watch 3-5 sales calls, recommended to you by the Head of Sales.
Analyze how your sales team is presenting the product to make sure your messaging is aligned.
In addition to this, you can pull transcripts and summaries from hundreds of calls and have ChatGPT develop a content matrix and empathy map for you, summarizing the top pain points of your prospects.
Here is a templatized example of the outcome. ChatGPT can pull it out in this format based on the call summaries and give you a good foundation of commonalities for different prospects.
Once you’ve identified the top pain points and topics with the help of ChatGPT, send them over to a few people on your sales team to validate them. It can be very subjective but can help you to ensure that you haven’t missed any important nuances.
Tip #2: Define Your Targeting
Next, define your targeting.
What job titles, job functions, industries, and company sizes do you want to target?
Once you’ve drafted your audiences, you can share and refine with your stakeholders.
To start out, you can use a simple targeting combination such as Job titles + Company Sizes + Industries.
If your audience is too small using only job titles, you could substitute for Job Function + Seniority + Skills.
A few additional notes:
1. Make sure to check the audience insights section of LinkedIn Campaign Manager to find exclusions that you could potentially make. (video walkthrough)
2. If you have multiple personas, make sure to separate them into different campaigns so you can tailor your messaging.
3. There is no ideal audience size on LinkedIn Ads – small audiences of 10K can work well and larger audiences of 100K can also work well. Start by targeting your ideal customers, and you can expand over time.
Recommendation: Use a validated company list for better targeting and reporting.
Tip #3: Distribute Your Content
Once you’ve set up your audience, the next step is to distribute content towards them.
I highly recommend optimizing your ads for in-feed consumption – talk about the problems you solve directly in your ad copy.
This way, even if people don’t visit your landing page right away, they’ll still be learning about your company and can be retargeted later down the line with a more bottom of funnel offer.
Videos are a particularly great format for delivering these in-feed messages, and they also allow you to generate large retargeting pools.
When you run these ads, look at your impressions and views to make sure that you’re reaching your ICP. And check your engagement rate and dwell time metrics to ensure that the content is resonating.
Don’t expect demos or trials right away – the goal of these ads is to start generating some initial interest.
Tip #4: Repurpose Your Content
Do you have any great podcast or webinar clips related to your solution?
Has anyone on your team created a product demo walkthrough recently?
Do you have any customer testimonials from recent events?
This type of content can be easily repurposed for ads, and is great for both generating and capturing demand.
Before you start creating new content, look at the content that you already have.
Tip #5: Test Lead Gen alongside ungated content
I know lead gen is an unpopular strategy, but it can be a great approach to run lead gen campaigns alongside ungated content.
If you’re getting leads from incredible people within your ICP, you can show that to your stakeholders as proof that you’re reaching the right audience, and this can help you get approval to run more ungated content.
I don’t recommend lead gen as a standalone tactic, but it can be a solid way to get some initial results and build your retargeting audiences, while also validating the quality of your targeting.
Tip #6: Capture Demand With Retargeting
On LinkedIn, lead gen forms aren’t just for content like ebooks and whitepapers.
They’re also great for capturing demo requests.
The benefit of using lead gen forms is that people don’t have to leave the LinkedIn platform to request a demo, so it helps to simplify the process.
To start, I recommend running these ads to your retargeting audience, since people who have already interacted with your brand are the most likely to convert.
Also, when it comes to these demo campaigns, don’t be discouraged if you don’t see success right away.
In order to succeed, you need to test different types of messaging, different content, and different creatives until you find the right formula.
Another word of advice: Make sure you refresh the creatives in your retargeting audience at least once a month. Retargeting audiences tend to be small and have very high frequencies, so you may see signs of ad fatigue if you don’t refresh your creatives consistently.
Tip #7: Use Text and Spotlight Ads
Text and spotlight ads are an amazing and affordable way to stay top of mind with your retargeting audiences.
They’re very small and usually appear on the right side of the feed, and they get a ton of impressions but very few clicks.
I recommend setting these ads up with the website visits objective, so that you only pay when someone actually clicks.
Also, I recommend setting the lowest bid you can possibly set, along with a bid cap to avoid overpaying for clicks.
Another format to consider are follower ads, which are very similar to spotlight ads, but intended to drive more company page followers. This format is great for your colder audiences, and can help funnel your ICP into your organic audience for a longer term nurture.
You can use this template to draft the ad copy with ad specifications. You can also use dynamic macros in follower ads.
Tip #8: Leverage your SMEs for thought leader ads
If you have a founder or subject matter expert that’s active on LinkedIn, consider running their posts as thought leader ads.
Thought leader ads are great because:
1. They have high CTRs and very low CPCs compared to other formats
2. They allow you to get high-performing organic content in front of your ICP
Customer stories and educational content related to the problem you solve typically perform well as thought leader ads.
I’d avoid overly promotional and generic, AI-generated content – you want to distribute content that’s memorable and valuable to your ICP.
For more thought leader ad ideas, check out 14 Powerful LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad Strategies Worth Testing.
Tip #9: Set up the right tracking combination
There is no perfect tracking combination, but you do have to make sure that you’re collecting enough data to understand what’s happening inside your account.
First of all, you can track online conversions, like form submissions on your website. Then, you can also set up conversion API to have a deeper understanding of which campaigns are turning into pipeline and revenue.
Also, make sure you’re using UTM parameters — it’s much easier now because LinkedIn has dynamic UTM parameters — and pushing them into your CRM for full visibility.
And add “How did you hear about us” into your high-intent forms to capture additional insights about the sources that indirectly influence the prospects.
Just by having these basics in place, you should already have a solid understanding of what’s happening inside your account.
If you want even more insights on which campaigns and ads are influencing pipeline, you could use a tool like Fibbler to look at multi-touch attribution.
Tip #10: Make a commitment of at least 6 months
If you’re going to get started with LinkedIn Ads, make sure you make a commitment of at least 6 months.
Once you have your audience, targeting, messaging, and content ready to go, you need to decide what your game plan will be and how much budget you need.
How much money will you need to generate awareness within your cold layer?
How will your retargeting audiences expand over time?
What metrics will you look at to determine initial success? Maybe reach and engagement as leading indicators, and conversions as a lagging indicator?
Present a clear plan to your stakeholders so that they know what to expect and are on the same page. Also, emphasize that success won’t happen overnight, and that it takes time and patience to start seeing results.
Hope you found this article helpful!
Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn with any ad-related questions.
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- Ads: Mastering The 9 Ad Formats
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People Also Ask
What budget allocation strategies should I use for LinkedIn Ads to maximize ROI?
Consider allocating budgets based on campaign objectives, such as lead generation, brand awareness, or engagement. Use test campaigns to identify high-performing audiences and scale your investment in those areas.
How do I create LinkedIn Ads that effectively nurture leads through the sales funnel?
Use a multi-step approach by running awareness campaigns to introduce your brand, followed by engagement ads that highlight pain points, and finally conversion-focused ads with clear CTAs for demos or trials.
What are the best LinkedIn ad formats for driving B2B SaaS conversions?
Explore formats like Lead Gen Forms for collecting information, Carousel Ads for showcasing multiple features, and Sponsored InMail for direct and personalized messaging to high-value prospects.
How can I use LinkedIn retargeting to improve campaign performance?
Set up retargeting audiences based on website visits, video views, or previous ad interactions. Tailor your messaging to re-engage these prospects with personalized offers or content.
What are some common pitfalls to avoid when running LinkedIn Ads for B2B SaaS?
Avoid overly broad targeting, neglecting to optimize ad creatives, underutilizing LinkedIn’s advanced audience features, and failing to test different campaign approaches for continual improvement.
10 B2B SaaS Copywriting Tips for Better Ad Performance
I don’t need to be the one to tell you this, but B2B tech companies have it hard when it comes to getting their advertising to perform.
They’ve got complicated products. And sophisticated audiences (who are all but totally allergic to buzzwords and fluff). And together, they make communicating your company or product’s value super hard.
Having helped countless B2B companies over the past 9 years I’ve learned more than a thing or two about writing copy for these companies.
And today I’m sharing with you my top 10 copywriting tips – tips you can use right away (literally, try them out after you finish reading this) to evaluate your existing ad campaigns and improve their performance, stat.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tip #1: Sell The Click, Not The Product
- Tip #2: Take Something Out Of Your Ad Instead Of Putting More In
- Tip #3: Write First, Edit Later
- Tip #4: Remember How People Interact With Ads
- Tip #5: Use The Slippery Slope
- Tip #6: Don’t Be Afraid to Try Long Copy
- Tip #7: Try to Use Your Voice of Customer As Much As Possible
- Tip #8: Clear Before Clever
- Tip #9: Tie Benefits Back to Something Realistic
- Tip #10: Make Sure Your Copy Passes the “So What” Test
Tip #1: Sell The Click, Not The Product
The first tip is more of a mindset shift: remind yourself that your ad is selling the click, not the product (as a whole).
Prospects don’t see your ad in isolation. They see it in the context of everything else that happens throughout their day, AND in the context of everything else they see on LinkedIn, Google, Facebook or whichever platform your ad is served to them. So unlike an ecom ad, the goal of your ad here is to build excitement and anticipation. You want your prospect to be inspired enough to click on the ad and go where they can learn more about what you have to offer.
This still applies even if you’re providing a free trial, or something else that is free.
Because if you have an average contract value of $50,000-$100,000/year your prospect is NOT going to click on your ad and buy right away.
Instead focus on giving the prospect something – a tip, an idea, an emotional twinge – that will motivate them to click.
This could be through:
- The messaging you use (make sure you’re talking about how you solve business problems, not just “hey our product is really cool”)
- The type of call-to-action (CTA) (making sure it’s not too pushy for people who didn’t know you existed until now)
- The visual in your ad creative (making sure it hits an emotional soft spot)
Remember: You can always go into more depth on the landing page. But that won’t happen if your prospect doesn’t click through in the first place.
Tip #2: Take Something Out Of Your Ad Instead Of Putting More In
Focus on getting one really memorable takeaway across in your ad copy.
Writing copy by committee is never a great strategy and it’s easy to end up with ads that are saying so many different things that the prospect won’t take away any one thing in particular.
Let’s say your product’s main value propositions are: it’s fast, it’s easy to use, and it saves money.
Instead of stuffing all of that information into the same ad, I would write 3 variations:
- Ad Variation 1: Fast
- Ad Variation 2: Easy
- Ad Variation 3: Saves Money
Test each message separately so you can see which performs better AND so the prospect can remember your core value proposition.
Pro tip: you can say the same message 1,000 different times or more by repurposing the way you communicate that message to the market through different creatives, ad types, and copy.
Tip #3: Write First, Edit Later
There are so many times when we sit down to try to write an ad and it’s really hard.
First get all your thoughts, ideas, and concepts out in a document, then let it sit for a couple of hours, and finally go back to it with fresh eyes.
If you just try to write it in one session it’s going to be messy and you’ll spend forever tweaking it.
The idea is that you get to write a really stupid first draft. But you KNOW that it’s going to be bad. So that gives you the chance to get the bad ideas out to make way for the good stuff. Your goal is to come back later to edit and make it better.
I’ve lost count of how many times my first line in the body copy becomes my headline or other parts of my copy shift places with each other because they’re better suited for a different part of the ad. But I’m only able to make these connections with fresh eyes.
Pro tip: you can use ChatGPT for brainstorming but even still you need to let the copy sit. Give yourself time to process it so you can edit it and not just run with it at face value.
Tip #4: Remember How People Interact With Ads
Each element of your ad is a part of the puzzle.
People will stop the scroll because the creative caught them. Then they'll look at the headline. Then they go up and read the body copy. And finally they go back down to the headline before clicking.
The prospect's eyes are going all over the place which means you can’t afford to have copy that’s disjointed.
The headline leads into the body copy and should support the creative. And the body copy should support the headline. All the elements have to work together.
As Eugene Schwartz once said “copy is not written, it’s assembled".
Treat each element of your ad with equal importance and make sure it makes sense when you look at it from the eyes of your prospect.
Pro tip: you can’t create ads in isolation, you need your designer and copywriter working together to ensure each variable in your ad works together (headline, body copy, creative).
Tip #5: Use The Slippery Slope
Your first line of copy should get the reader excited to read the second line. The second line should motivate the reader to read the third line. And so on. Direct marketer Joseph Sugarman calls this the “slippery slope”. It makes sure your ad is interesting to read and that the ideas inside it are easy to digest.
The best way to check and test your messaging for clarity and word choice is to read it out loud.
If you’re in the middle of a sentence and you paused for breath, you should place a period. That will help your sentences flow more naturally one into the other.
Tip #6: Don’t Be Afraid to Try Long Copy
I have a bone to pick with people who say “nobody reads online!” Because of course they don’t – if they don’t have something interesting to read.
People binge on Netflix series, video games, novel trilogies, and more for hours in one go.
When you have people's attention you can keep sharing with them new details. But you have to earn their attention, first. (Which won’t happen with clickbait.)
What can you give them in your ad that will make them feel they got value from this interaction, no matter how fleeting it was?
- Did they learn something new?
- Did you make them feel something?
- Did you make them think for a second?
If you can do at least one of those three things you’ll earn their attention.
It’s hard to do this in 150 characters which is why long form copy is so powerful.
Don’t be afraid to push up until that 600 character limit if needed.
Long copy will also lead to a greater dwell time and provide so much more context and opportunity for you to build motivation so they have a reason to click through.
The takeaway here is that people will read your long form ads if it’s interesting to them. But they won’t read even short copy if it’s terrible.
Side note: When writing ad copy I create 2-3 variations for the headline and the body, usually testing out different lengths (short vs long).
Here’s my simple but effective copywriting template I use in Google Docs:
LinkedIn ads template | Eden Bidani
Pro tip: it’s easy for ads to get stuck in the same creative loops, don’t forget to brainstorm new creative concepts to test.
Tip #7: Try to Use Your Voice of Customer As Much As Possible
If no one in the product marketing or CS team is interviewing your customers do this ASAP.
Get on a call with them and ask them questions such as:
- How do you use the product?
- What is the impact of your product?
The goal here isn’t to get testimonials, it’s to understand how your customers talk.
You’ll walk away knowing the benefits that matter to them and challenges.
I’d also recommend talking with sales and asking them what are the top customer objections that prospects say and exactly how they describe it.
Using the same words and language your customers use allows you to communicate in their voice.
These insights are so powerful that not even ChatGPT can brainstorm this for you.
For example I used to work with a company that created $700 work bags and I interviewed a customer that mentioned she used to carry around a “mom bag”.
What did she mean by that? “A shapeless, old ugly bag.”
That word “mom bag” is so unique and reflective of the voice of our customers that using that in our landing page copy instantly resonated and resulted in tremendous lifts in conversion rates.
Five customer interviews can be all it takes.
Tip #8: Clear Before Clever
Jay Abraham once said sometimes the easiest way to sell a horse is to say “horse for sale”.
You have a fleeting moment with your prospects engaging with your ads.
So even if you have to use specific, complicated terms (for your sophisticated audience) you need to focus on making your copy as clear as possible.
For example, try to simplify your language as much as possible. Yes, this might result in you using less voice of customer, or using a different brand tone of voice, and other elements of your messaging. But clear will always convert best.
Consider the words you are using and find synonyms that imply the same meaning with less cognitive load.
John Carlton refers to these as “power words” for example:
Sometimes you want to say fast but you should be saying swift.
Swift implies a very different connotation than fast.
It’s a whole different level of sophistication above “fast” but it’s still a simple word.
How would you say this same thing to a friend? Is a great frame to have.
Remember to avoid complicated and overdone words like omnichannel 🤮
Tip #9: Tie Benefits Back to Something Realistic
Everyone LOVES to talk about benefits – think: “Grow your business!”, “Transform your workplace!", “Win more customers!”, or “Optimize your life…!” 🙄
It’s not that it’s not true. They are. But they’re just so high-level and vague people struggle to grasp them. You need to tie them back to something tangible – something realistic that your prospects identify with. Otherwise, they just come off as fluff.
So make sure the claims you make in your ads are specific. And even better, back up your claims by connecting them to a feature or capability of your product.
Take the step to connect your benefits back to something realistic.
Pro tip: even better than talking about how your benefits connect to something realistic, SHOW PROSPECTS HOW this happens with supporting images or videos.
Tip #10: Make Sure Your Copy Passes the “So What” Test
You should be totally skeptical about your copy (just like prospects will be).
People aren’t stupid — even if they fall victim to clickbait they will bounce from your landing pages.
Every time you look at your copy ask yourself so what? And pick it apart to see where it’s fluff.
Sit back and look through to see where you’re missing proof points or what can be removed.
You’ll be able to find all those tiny things that will throw people off reading your ads.
At the end of the day your audience will look at the total sum of your ad (headline, body copy, creative) and if there are elements out of place such as:
- Run on sentences
- Improper formatting
- Typos and obvious errors
All of these details will affect whether the audience feels they can trust you with their click.
So what allows you a third person frame to find what looks off, and what can be stronger.
Pro tip: search for free ad mockup software on Google to find tools you can use to see what your copy will look like to your audience within the platform you’re advertising.
Hope you found this article helpful! 👏
Connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s keep the conversation going.
And if you’re in need of copywriting assistance check us out at CAPE Agency.
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People Also Ask
How can I effectively measure the success of my B2B SaaS copywriting efforts?
Utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates, click-through rates (CTR), and engagement metrics to assess the effectiveness of your copy. A/B testing different versions of your copy can also provide insights into what resonates best with your audience.
What are the best practices for aligning copywriting with the buyer’s journey in B2B SaaS marketing?
Tailor your copy to address the specific needs and pain points of your audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey—awareness, consideration, and decision. This ensures that your messaging is relevant and persuasive throughout the customer lifecycle.
How can I incorporate SEO strategies into my B2B SaaS copywriting to improve search visibility?
Conduct thorough keyword research to identify terms your target audience is searching for. Integrate these keywords naturally into your copy, including headings, meta descriptions, and body text, to enhance search engine optimization (SEO) without compromising readability.
What role does storytelling play in B2B SaaS copywriting, and how can I implement it effectively?
Storytelling helps humanize your brand and makes complex concepts more relatable. Incorporate customer success stories, use cases, or hypothetical scenarios that demonstrate the value and impact of your solution in real-world applications.
How can I ensure my B2B SaaS copywriting maintains a consistent brand voice across different platforms and materials?
Develop a comprehensive style guide that outlines your brand’s tone, language preferences, and messaging guidelines. Ensure all team members and stakeholders adhere to this guide to maintain consistency across all marketing channels and content.
How to Create LinkedIn Audiences that Convert
Sometimes, LinkedIn Ads fail due to poor creatives, messaging, or offers.
But many times — and in my experience, most of the time — the problem is actually the audience.
If you aren’t reaching your ICP, it’s almost impossible to drive conversions.
After running LinkedIn Ads for many hypergrowth startups, I’ve developed a methodology to ensure that I’m getting in front of the right people and minimizing wasted spend for my clients.
I’ll be breaking down my entire process below 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Step 1: Define your ICP
- Step 2: Brainstorm your targeting
- Step 3: Draft your audiences in LinkedIn Campaign Manager
- Step 4: Refine your audiences
- Step 5: Adjust based on insights
- Conclusion
Step 1: Define your ICP
If you’re taking over a new account and don’t have any audiences yet, here’s where I recommend starting:
1. Explore the website to get some initial ideas on the target job functions and industries of your personas.
2. Talk to your clients. Are there certain industries, company sizes, job titles, or job functions that have historically driven more revenue?
3. Listen to demo calls to gain a deeper understanding of a) what pain points their product solves and b) who resonates most with these pain points
Step 2: Brainstorm your targeting
Once you have a strong understanding of your ICP, it’s time to look at the targeting options available within LinkedIn Ads.
To do this, you can make a copy of this LinkedIn persona database sheet, which contains all the job titles and industries available within LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
If you want to target IT professionals, for example, you can add the filter Text contains “Information Technology”, and you’ll find all 389 IT-related job titles that are available.
Based on these results, you can determine exactly what job titles (or job function + seniority) you want to target.
Also, by looking through the industries tab, you can define the industries you want to reach in your campaigns.
Pro Tip: LinkedIn’s industry categorization can be a bit confusing. If you aren’t sure what industries you should be targeting, look up your best-fit customers on LinkedIn. What industries are they in? These are likely the ones you should be targeting.
Step 3: Draft your audiences in LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Once you have a solid understanding of your ICP and the job titles and industries you want to go after, you’re ready to go into LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create your audiences.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Navigate to the audiences tab, on the left hand side of LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
2. Go to “Saved”, and then click on “Create Audience”
3. Click on “Edit” and input your targeting criteria.
4. Apply your targeting criteria (in the bottom right corner of your screen)
5. Save your audience so you can come back to it later. You can do this in the top right corner of your screen.
Here are the top 3 audiences that I’ve seen the most success with for capturing demand (feel free to steal or adapt to your company’s needs)
1. Remarketing
90-day Website Visits + 90-day Video Views + 90-day Single Image Ad Interactions + 90-day Company Page Visitors + 90-day Content Lead Gen Form Submissions
AND
Target Locations
AND
Target Job Titles (Substitute for Job Function and Skills if audience is too small)
***Typically I like to go with a 90-day window, but you could go with a longer 180-day window if you have a longer sales cycle.
2. Tier 1 & Tier 2 Accounts
Tier 1 & Tier 2 Account Lists
AND
Target Job Titles
AND
Target Company Size
AND
Target Locations
3. Open opportunities
Companies in the open opportunity phase
AND
Target Job Titles
AND
Target Locations
Step 4: Refine your audiences
Now that you’ve drafted your audience, you’re almost ready to launch, but not quite.
Before going live, it’s important to refine your audiences by making exclusions.
Otherwise, you’ll end up wasting money on irrelevant people.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Access the saved audience you already created
2. Refine the Audience
Look at the “Member” and “Company” sections of your audience for exclusion ideas.
In the member tab, you can see what job titles, job functions, and seniorities you’re targeting.
For example, if you’re aiming to target the IT job function and 21% of your audience consists of Engineering or Military, you might exclude these irrelevant functions.
In the company tab, you can review what industries, company sizes, and companies you’re targeting.
For example, if you’re aiming to target FinServ and realize that 13% of your audience is in Hospitals and Healthcare, you may want to exclude it from your targeting.
Go through all available options in your saved audience and refine as much as possible.
Once you’re happy with the exclusions you’ve made, you can add this audience to your campaigns.
Here are the top exclusions that I typically make to avoid wasted spend (feel free to use as inspiration)
1. Irrelevant Industries
2. Irrelevant job functions
3. Irrelevant seniorities
4. Up-to-date list of customers and competitors
5. Current employees
6. People who have visited the login or support pages
7. Poor fit titles (ie students, teachers, retired, interns, analysts)
8. Company sizes outside of ICP
9. People who have recently filled out demo forms
Step 5: Adjust based on insights
After making exclusions and launching your campaigns, your work isn’t finished. In order to be successful with LinkedIn Ads, you need to continually check and adjust your targeting.
To do this, make sure you look at your demographics report on a weekly basis.
This can be found in the top right corner of LinkedIn Campaign Manager. To access it, simply select your campaign and click on “Demographics.”
Now, you’ll be able to see the job functions, job titles, companies, industries, seniorities, etc. that your campaigns are reaching.
Look through all of these insights – are the people you’re reaching closely aligned with your intended targeting?
Are there certain job titles, functions, companies, industries, etc. that you want to exclude?
Doing this exercise may seem tedious or insignificant, but these small details are often the difference between success and failure.
Conclusion
To summarize, if you want to generate conversions on LinkedIn Ads:
1. Make sure you get extremely clear on who you want to target.
2. Consider testing proven targeting combinations, such as retargeting, tier 1 and tier 2 accounts, and open opportunities.
3. Audit your audiences in LinkedIn Campaign Manager and make all the necessary exclusions to avoid wasted spend.
4. After launch, consistently check your demographics report and adjust your audiences as needed.
P.S. If you have any questions and would like to get in touch, feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn
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People Also Ask
How can I effectively measure the success of my LinkedIn ad campaigns in terms of audience engagement and conversion rates?
Utilize LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and cost per conversion. Implement LinkedIn’s conversion tracking to assess how many ad interactions lead to desired actions, providing insights into campaign effectiveness.
What are the best practices for refining audience targeting to minimize wasted ad spend on LinkedIn?
Leverage LinkedIn’s advanced targeting options, including job titles, industries, company sizes, and seniority levels, to align your ads with your ideal customer profile (ICP). Regularly analyze campaign data to identify underperforming segments and adjust targeting parameters accordingly to optimize ad spend.
How can I utilize LinkedIn’s audience insights to enhance my ad creatives and messaging?
Analyze demographic data and engagement metrics to understand which audience segments interact most with your ads. Tailor your ad creatives and messaging to resonate with these segments, addressing their specific pain points and interests to increase relevance and engagement.
What strategies can I employ to test and optimize different audience segments on LinkedIn?
Implement A/B testing by creating multiple ad variations targeting different audience segments. Compare performance metrics to determine which segments yield the highest engagement and conversions, and allocate more resources to the top-performing audiences.
How can I integrate LinkedIn audience targeting with other marketing channels for a cohesive strategy?
Align your LinkedIn audience targeting with other platforms by creating consistent buyer personas across channels. Use LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences feature to retarget website visitors or upload contact lists, ensuring a unified approach that reinforces your marketing messages across different touchpoints.
How to get LinkedIn-like Targeting with YouTube Ads for B2B
LinkedIn has hands down the BEST targeting options available for B2B marketers.
Which leads most brands to only advertising on LinkedIn and not much else for social.
If you’re looking for a new channel to scale ABM and/or reach your ideal customer.
In this article you’ll learn 3 YouTube Ads targeting methods worth testing 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Targeting option 1: Steal from LinkedIn
- Targeting option 2: Leverage tech
- Targeting option 3: Build custom audiences
Targeting option 1: Steal from LinkedIn
Let’s face it LinkedIn is the BEST for account-based targeting.
The first-party company data they have is unmatched and updated regularly.
This is why 99% of B2B marketers are forced to advertise on LinkedIn.
If you’re pushing a ton of site traffic from LinkedIn Ads and confident in your audience targeting.
Steal that LinkedIn Ads traffic by remarketing to them on YouTube! 🔥
Build a retargeting audience using utm_source = linkedin for YouTube
Or whatever your utm_source is for your LinkedIn Ad campaigns.
You can also further filter by utm_campaign if the size is large enough.
This way you’re getting in front of the same users on YouTube for a fraction of the cost.
Targeting option 2: Leverage tech
Google allows you to upload contact lists for audience targeting.
These lists can include; existing customers, sales qualified leads, leads in nurture and so much more.
As long as your matched lists exceed 100 in size you can use it for targeting or exclusion on YouTube.
Depending on your CRM (ex: Salesforce, HubSpot) there are different technologies you can use to automatically import contact lists into Google Ads for targeting.
Some of those tools include:
Hubspot <> Google Ads Integration
If you’re a Hubspot user you’re in luck!
HubSpot makes it really easy to upload dynamic audiences to Google Ads via integration.
Salesforce <> Google Ads Integration
If you’re using Salesforce this also can be done via direct integration with Google Ads.
Simply link the two tools together via the Data Manager in your account.
Zapier
Using a CRM that doesn’t have a direct integration with Google Ads?
If you’re in this bucket, I highly recommend exploring Zapier to automate your contact list uploads.
Zapier will act as the bridge between your CRM and Google Ads, here’s an example of how we automated contact lists imports from ActiveCampaign:
Targeting option 3: Build custom audiences
Fun fact! Google owns YouTube, arguably the second largest search engine in the world.
The amount of behavioural data Google has is incomprehensible 🤯
Lucky for us we can take advantage of it with custom audiences.
Custom audiences allow you target based on:
- What they searched on Google: reach the same Google searchers on YouTube for a fraction of the cost.
- Interests or purchase intention: reach people based on relevant keyword interests or in-market behaviour.
- Websites browsed: add URLs to reach people who visit similar sites.
- Apps used: target users who use certain Google Play Store apps.
Here’s 3 ways to use custom audiences for B2B targeting:
- Brand keywords of your target accounts
- Company page & LinkedIn page URLs of your target accounts
- Google Play Apps of your target accounts (if applicable)
You can also target high-intent solution keywords, and competitor names.
The opportunities are truly endless in terms of the types of keywords you can target.
Start as specific as you can and expand based on your reach.
Hope you found this article helpful!
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 measure the success of my YouTube Ads campaigns in reaching B2B audiences?
Utilize YouTube’s analytics to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as view rates, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates. Implement tracking pixels and UTM parameters to assess the impact on lead generation and sales.
What are the best practices for creating engaging video content that resonates with B2B audiences on YouTube?
Develop content that addresses specific pain points and interests of your target audience. Incorporate clear messaging, professional visuals, and strong calls-to-action to encourage engagement.
How can I integrate YouTube Ads into my existing B2B marketing strategy?
Align your YouTube Ads with broader marketing campaigns to ensure consistent messaging across channels. Use insights from other platforms, like LinkedIn, to inform your YouTube targeting and content strategies.
What are the cost considerations when using YouTube Ads for B2B marketing?
YouTube Ads operate on a pay-per-view or pay-per-click basis, allowing for flexible budgeting. It’s essential to monitor spending closely and adjust bids and targeting to optimize return on investment.
How can I ensure compliance with data privacy regulations when uploading contact lists for targeting on YouTube?
Ensure that all contact data is collected and used in accordance with relevant data privacy laws, such as GDPR or CCPA. Obtain explicit consent from individuals before using their information for targeted advertising.
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10 Tips You Need to Know Before Hiring Your Next Ad Agency or Consultant
Working with an advertising agency, freelancer, or consultant?
After the past 12 years working in-house I know what good and bad looks like.
In this article I’m going to share with you my hard lessons learned on working with these partners.
And if you’re an agency owner, freelancer, or consultant reading this (take notes!) 📝
These tips are bucketed into four parts: people, product, process, and results.
Let’s dive in!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Tip #1: Be clear on your communication needs and expectations
- Tip #2: Decide your meeting cadence
- Tip #3: Get clear on who and what for your tools
- Tip #4: Review your brand foundations
- Tip #5: Make sure your extended team knows the audience targeting
- Tip #6: Define your operational plumbing
- Tip #7: Share your historical benchmarks
- Tip #8: Be clear on your naming conventions
- Tip #9: Have clear trackable goals
- Tip #10: Set clear timelines and deliverables
[process] Tip #1: Be clear on your communication needs and expectations
You have to be upfront about this from the beginning.
Where and how often are the two key questions here:
- Where will we be communicating? (ex: Slack)
- How soon should you expect a response? (ex: within 24 hours)
- How fast can I expect a certain task to be completed? (ex: 72 hours)
You need to tell your partners what you expect from them in terms of communication.
Steal this template:
“Hey {Name}, I want to be really clear that with the agencies I work with I expect a response from my slack or emails within {timeframe, ex: 12 business hours}”.
This is equally as important for those of us managing clients as it allows you to more effectively prioritize your communications with clients and triage your day.
[process] Tip #2: Decide your meeting cadence
This tip connects with the previous around framing expectations.
You have to get clear on how often you’re going to be meeting, is it weekly, bi-Weekly, monthly?
Communicate your expectations on how often you’ll meet and the options available.
By getting clear on your needs and how fast you want to get things done will allow you to answer this.
The best part about defined meeting cadences is that it allows you to hold people accountable.
It’s a forcing function that makes sure you’re getting what you need fast enough.
My preferred meeting cadence:
Weekly for the first six weeks to build trust and create momentum then move towards bi-weekly.
Within the first 6-weeks of working with a new agency or consultant you’ll want to ensure they are set up with:
- Systems access
- Clearly defined goals
- Clarity on your ICP and audience
From here everything is addressed and you can move to a bi-weekly cadence.
Again this is my personal preference align according to your needs!
If you want some tips on how to run an effective meeting check out my LinkedIn post 🎉
[process] Tip #3: Get clear on who and what for your tools
The last thing you want is for it to take four weeks for your agency to get plugged into your system.
Get your new partners access to your systems as fast as possible so they can begin adding value.
Build a document with a clear list of all the primary tools they’ll need access for and who to contact.
If the agency, consultant, or freelancer you’re onboarding already has clear documentation already on how you can provide them access to their primary tools this is a green flag! 🟢
If you can take the initiative to build an internal version of this document even better.
You know your marketing operations person's name, make sure they know as well.
The more people working together across teams the more important this becomes.
[product] Tip #4: Review your brand foundations
Make sure your agency, freelancer, or consultant understands your brand.
Your brand foundations consists of:
- What does your solution do?
- What’s your unique value prop?
- What’s your origin story?
- Who are your competitors?
- What’s your tone of voice?
Even better if your partners can sit in on a live demo (or at the minimum watch a recording).
If your partners don’t get sold on the unique value you provide they will never be able to make an impact with the campaigns they create for you (and red flag if they don’t want to know! 🔴).
[product] Tip #5: Make sure your extended team knows the audience targeting
We touched on this on tip #4 but this is so important it deserves its own tip.
Audience targeting is the foundation of everything you’re going to be doing.
You need to be absolutely clear on:
- Job titles
- Job functions
- Company size
- Industries
Really, really, really hone in on this! 🙏
Make sure your extended teams knows this as well.
This is where your buyer persona comes into play, if you need help on how to craft one check out Module 2 of my B2B Advertising Foundations course where I show you how to piece it together.
Give them as much customer information as possible because they have to know this.
They need to know what good vs bad leads look like.
Pro tip:
Keep all this customer information in a shared document so your partners can refer back to it in the future when needed and setup a shared channel to monitor lead quality 🔥
[process] Tip #6: Define your operational plumbing
You need to be specific on how things should be tracked.
The goal isn’t to just drive leads, it’s to scale legit qualified pipeline and revenue.
Work with your extended teams to map out your customer lifecycle operations.
For example, they should be clear on:
- Once someone fills out a form, now what?
- How are leads being handed off to sales?
- How is the team being notified on new leads?
- How are they being followed up with?
From here it’s piecing together the right UTM conventions for measurement, connecting forms in our marketing automation tools so be able to route appropriately.
Walk through all of these steps and the points in-between so things are tracked.
Take my word for it, defining this will save you a lot of headaches at the end of the quarter! 😅
[results] Tip #7: Share your historical benchmarks
You need to first understand your historical benchmarks so you can share them.
Reverse engineer your funnel to understand your performance between steps.
This will look different for every company but here’s an example for sales led:
- Meetings Booked
- Meetings Completed
- Opportunities
- Pipeline
- Revenue
Knowing the difference between steps is crucial to improve efficiency.
If your agency or consultant isn’t trying to reverse engineer your funnel that’s a red flag! 🔴
Share these historical benchmarks and hold them accountable.
[Process] Tip #8: Be clear on your naming conventions
Your partners need to be able to jump inside your ad accounts and understand what’s happening.
The first step is making sure they are informed on your naming conventions.
Align on naming conventions for:
- Forms
- Campaigns
- Creatives
And if you’re reading this and don’t have existing naming conventions, ask yourself:
What are the questions I’d like to answer from my campaigns?
For example, I want to know:
- What’s my performance by region?
- What’s my performance by campaign objective?
- What’s my performance by ad?
Then use these answers to include them in your naming convention.
This is a really small in the weeds tactical step but worth sharing.
[results] Tip #9: Have clear trackable goals
Determine the metrics that matter that your advertising partners should track and the frequency in which they should be reporting on these goals to you.
I personally like to report on these weekly to make sure everything is pacing appropriately.
This also allows you to pivot quickly when things start to go off track.
When determining the metrics that matter, also brainstorm your leading indicators.
Leading indicators are clear metrics that help you determine early signs of success.
For example, depending on your campaigns objective it might look a bit different:
- Lead gen = qualified leads created
- Awareness = engagement rate by ad type
Just choose something that can happen quickly within the first 7 days of a campaign going live and is a relevant milestone that will ultimately lead to your end goal.
🟢 An early and specific goal is better than no goal at all.
Without this clarity you or your partners won’t be able to prioritize what needs to be done.
If you’re struggling with deciding on your goals go back to tip #7 and understand your benchmarks.
[results] Tip #10: Set clear timelines and deliverables
Defining the success metrics that matter and the roadmap to get there is CRUCIAL.
You have to be clear upfront timelines for both parties or it’s going to get squirrely 🐿😅
If it’s not defined upfront as you go things will go sideways.
Communicate to your agency, consultant, or freelancer:
Here’s what we expect from month 1, 2, and so on…
You’re hiring these experts to come in and solve a specific problem.
The goal is to hold your partner accountable to the outcome and not tasks.
This keeps you focused on the things that matter (ex: funnel optimization, benchmarks, goals).
I hope you found these 10 tips helpful and the best of luck in your future partnerships! ♥️
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
What should I look for when evaluating a digital marketing agency’s or freelancer’s portfolio?
Look for case studies or examples of work relevant to your industry or goals. Examine metrics like ROI, lead generation, or brand awareness improvements. Ensure their style and results align with your business objectives.
How can I assess the expertise of a digital marketing agency or freelancer before hiring?
Ask about their certifications (e.g., Google Ads, HubSpot), years of experience, and client testimonials. Request examples of campaigns they’ve worked on and inquire about their understanding of your niche.
What key questions should I ask during the discovery call with a potential agency or freelancer?
• Questions might include:
• What industries have you worked with?
• How do you approach campaign strategy?
• What KPIs do you typically focus on?
• How often will we receive updates or reports?
How can I ensure smooth communication and collaboration with a marketing agency or freelancer?
Establish clear communication channels (e.g., Slack, email) and agree on response times. Schedule regular check-ins or status meetings to align on progress and adjust strategies as needed.
What are red flags to watch out for when hiring an agency or freelancer?
Be cautious if they guarantee immediate results, avoid sharing clear metrics, or lack transparency about pricing or deliverables. A reputable partner will provide realistic expectations and detailed proposals.
Should I choose an agency or freelancer for my marketing needs?
Agencies offer a team with diverse expertise, while freelancers may provide more personalized attention. Choose based on your budget, the complexity of your campaigns, and the need for specific skills.
How can I track the ROI of hiring a digital marketing agency or freelancer?
Set clear goals and KPIs upfront, such as lead volume, cost per lead, or revenue growth. Use analytics tools to monitor campaign performance and schedule regular reviews with your partner to evaluate progress.
Google Ads Quality Score: Everything You Need To Know (2024)
Mastering quality score is essential if you want to pay less per click and outrank competitors.
In this article you’ll learn the 80/20 of what you need to know about quality score.
Let’s dive into it!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Quality Score Simplified
- How is Quality Score Calculated?
- How to audit your Quality Score?
- How to improve your Quality Score?
- Quality Score FAQ
Quality Score Simplified
Back in 2005, Google released Quality Score.
This is a number from 1-10 that Google created to determine how relevant your ads are to what people are searching for (1 being the lowest relevance, and 10 being the highest).
Google want’s people who search to find what they are looking for.
This way they come back to Google and search again in the future.
Quality Score is how they gamified the system to achieve this objective.
It’s the perfect trinity between advertiser, searcher, and Google:
- Advertisers are rewarded with lower costs when having higher quality scores
- People searching for answers on Google will now find more relevant information
- Because people find relevant information they use Google again in the future
Before Quality Score was introduced Google was filled with tons of irrelevant ads leading to a poor experience for searchers and ultimately less people using Google in the future.
(In my opinion) Quality Score was one of the most important features released that transformed Google into the most dominant search engine in the world.
The secret to improving Quality Score is relevance.
How is Quality Score Calculated?
Ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected CTR are the three variables that go into calculating your Quality Score. Depending on how relevant each is to your keywords you’ll have a final score between 1-10 (1 being the lowest relevance, and 10 being the highest).
Ad Relevance
A metric that determines how relevant your keywords are to your ad copy.
Above average signifies great relevance, below average signifies room for improvement, below average signifies poor keyword and ad copy relevance.
Ad relevance is 100% in your control and below average ad relevance is usually the result of poor ad group structure resulting from too many keywords and/or few variations of ad copy.
Landing Page Experience
A metric that determines how relevant your keywords, ads, and post click experience matches the search intent of the user.
It’s not just about having your keywords on the page, it also takes into consideration page load speeds, page structure (ex: H1, H2s, H3s), and mobile optimization.
Above average signifies a great landing page experience, average signifies room for improvement, and below average signifies poor post click experience.
Expected CTR
A metric that determines the likelihood of someone clicking on your ads once seen in the Google search results.
In my experience auditing Google Ads accounts this is the #1 most common variable that drags down quality score for most accounts since it’s the least in your control.
This is Google’s perception based on historical and predicted performance on how well you believe your ad will be engaged with.
Above average signifies a highly engaging ad, average signifies room for improvement, and below average signifies poor ad engagement.
How to audit your Quality Score?
Once you understand the basics of quality score that it is a factor of relevance and three components that determine whether you’re a 1-10 the next logical question becomes:
What’s impacting my quality score performance?
Here’s how to run a Google Ads quality score to find what’s impacting your performance.
[EMBED YOUTUBE VIDEO]
Step 1 - Download a keyword report
Within your Google Ads manager navigate to the keywords section within your account:
Campaigns > Keywords (press G + K for a keyboard shortcut)
Modify your keyword columns to include:
- Quality Score
- Ad Relevance
- Landing Page Experience
- Expected CTR
Once completed download your keywords into a CSV.
Step 2 - Summarize your keywords into a pivot table
Pivot tables are great for summarizing large amounts of data.
Within Excel navigate to Insert > PivotTable to summarize your keyword report.
Once complete format your table as follows:
- Rows = Quality Score
- Values = Count of Keywords
- Filter = Quality score 1-10 (exclude —)
Step 3 - Drill down to understand Quality Score performance
With your table setup now you can easily see overall quality score performance and drill down into specific elements such as ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected CTR.
Switch your rows to drill down into each element of quality score to diagnose performance:
- Ad Relevance; rows = Ad Relevance, values = count of keywords
- Landing Page Experience; rows = Landing Page Experience, values = count of keywords
- Expected CTR; rows = Expected CTR, values = count of keywords
How to improve your Quality Score?
After completing your Google Ads Quality Score audit it should be pretty clear which factor of QS is hurting your performance? (ex: ad relevance, landing page experience, expected CTR).
Here’s some recommendations on how to improve each QS factor:
Improving Ad Relevance
Below average ad relevance is a symptom of poor ad group structure.
If you have below average ad relevance, fear not! Because this is 100% in your control.
Here’s some tips to improve your ad relevance:
- Add more headline variations to your responsive search ads to include the keywords within your ad groups.
- Keep your ad groups tightly grouped with thematic keywords, for the keywords that can’t fit the theme consider putting it into its own group with relevant copy.
- Consolidate your active keywords and remove below average ad relevance variations that are not receiving any worthwhile impressions or clicks.
Improving Landing Page Experience
Below average landing page experience is a symptom of poor post click experience.
If you’ve been neglecting your landing pages this is where it’s going to bite you.
Here’s some tips to improve landing page experience:
- Include your primary keyword in your headline 1 to match search intent and your ad copy.
- Run your landing page through PageSpeed Insights to find how you can improve the mobile and desktop experience.
- Follow on page SEO best practices and have proper headline, and content formatting. Remember Google will crawl your landing pages so make sure it’s technically sound.
- Install a session recording tool to see how users behave on your landing page, the insights here are invaluable at understanding gaps.
Improving Expected CTR
This is Google’s perception on how likely your ads will be clicked.
Unfortunately this aspect of Quality Score is the least in your control but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything you can do to improve it.
Here’s some tips to improve your expected clickthrough rate:
- Use as many ad extensions as possible (ex: sitelink, image, structured snippet, etc). Ad extensions provide more info to the searcher and make your ads larger.
- Test new RSA ad copy on a monthly basis to consistently try and improve your ad clickthrough rate performance on an ongoing basis.
- Monitor your account clickthrough rate trends month over month to combat negative trends. You can set up an automated rule within Google Ads to be notified automatically via email.
- Audit your search terms report and build your negative keyword lists. Block irrelevant impressions of your ads so that you can actually drive clicks.
- Experiment with dynamic keyword insertion to see if it positively affects your ad CTR.
Quality Score FAQ
How long does it take to improve your quality score?
Technically every time your keyword enters an auction quality score is recalculated to determine placement of your ad in relation to your competitors.
However in my experience it usually takes a month to see significant changes in your overall score.
Should you worry about low quality scores?
Yes, low quality scores should cause concerns but it shouldn’t be your initial priority. The first goal should be to drive relevant traffic and convert users.
If you’re not currently accomplishing this then stressing about quality score is pointless as it’s really only a factor of reducing your costs and improving visibility.
If you’re not already converting the visibility you do have, getting more of it won’t help.
What is a good quality score?
A good quality score will fluctuate depending on your keyword strategy but overall I’d recommend having 70% of enabled keywords in your account with a score > 7.
Just know this is highly circumstantial and if you’re running a competitive keyword strategy you will have lower quality scores by default given the difficulty of including your competitors in your ads.
Hope you found this article helpful! 🔥
Check out our video tutorial linked if you want a visual walkthrough.
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 😂)
How To Use The Google Ads Editor In 2024: Bulk Upload Campaigns, Ads & Keywords
There’s nothing worse than making bulk changes natively in Google Ads.
If you’re ready to save hours bulk uploading campaigns, ads, and keywords.
Mastering the Google Ads Editor is essential.
Let’s cover everything you need to know 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- What is the Google Ads Editor?
- How to get started with the Google Ads Editor?
- How to bulk upload campaigns, keywords, and ads with the Google Ads Editor
60-second crash course on the Google Ads Editor
What is the Google Ads Editor?
It’s a free tool that you can install to update your campaigns offline including altering campaign settings, adjusting keyword bids, and creating new campaigns, ads, and ad groups.
Any serious Google advertiser uses the editor to save hours performing tedious tasks.
Make sure you download the latest version of the editor to follow along in this article.
How to get started with the Google Ads Editor?
After installation add your Google Ads account within the Account Manager and download all campaigns so you have the most recent version of your account.
The Google Ads Editor follows the same account structure:
Account > Campaign > Ad Group > Keyword > Ads
Highly recommend using the Hide Empty Types filter to reduce irrelevant options visible.
How to bulk upload campaigns, keywords, and ads with the Google Ads Editor
The easiest way to bulk upload campaigns into the editor is using a google sheet template.
This template should have the following fields fields available (at minimum):
- Campaign
- Ad Group
- Keyword
Get a copy the example template below here <<
Once you have your template copy you’re ready to get started.
Step 1: configure your campaign import template
Fill in your import template with all the relevant campaign names, ad group, keywords, and ads.
Do not modify the column headers as these are meant to match the editors default fields.
Feel free to fill in whichever fields you find most relevant.
Step 2: Upload your campaign import template
Once you’ve completed setting up your campaign import template with all your relevant details it’s time to import your campaigns into the editor.
Navigate to Account > Import > Paste Text to begin the import process:
Once complete copy all of the column headers and rows you filled in in your import template and paste them into the import from text window:
Don’t worry about the blank “Not importing” columns this is due to the formatting of the import template I provided, instead review the fields that are filled in the column headers.
Make sure everything is looking accurate according to what you want to import.
Once complete click Process to import the campaigns, keywords, and ads.
Step 3: Configure your campaign settings and publish
After reviewing your changes make sure to select Keep in order to retain them.
Now you should have all of your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and ads that you filled into your import template visible within the Google Ads Editor.
The final step is to configure your campaign and publish your changes.
Highlight each of your new campaigns at the sametime to apply the same campaign settings across of all them at once 🚀
Review all available campaign settings and uncheck the Display Network for search.
If you don’t want your campaigns to spend when published, change the status to Paused.
Once your campaigns are ready to be published into your live Google Ads account.
Select Post > Post Changes > Selected Campaigns
That’s it! 🎉you’ve just saved hours and created campaigns in bulk.
Hope you found this article helpful, see you in the next one!
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 ensure data accuracy when performing bulk uploads in Google Ads Editor?
Before uploading, validate your data by checking for formatting errors, duplicate entries, and alignment with Google Ads policies. Utilize the “Check Changes” feature in Google Ads Editor to identify and resolve any issues prior to posting.
What are the best practices for structuring CSV files for bulk uploads in Google Ads Editor?
Ensure your CSV files have clear headers corresponding to the fields in Google Ads. Maintain consistent formatting, use UTF-8 encoding, and include all required columns to prevent upload errors.
How can I manage and track changes made through Google Ads Editor?
Regularly download the latest account data to keep your offline version updated. After making changes, use the “Post Changes” feature to upload them. Keep detailed records of modifications for future reference and accountability.
What are common pitfalls to avoid when using Google Ads Editor for bulk changes?
Avoid making extensive changes without intermediate uploads, as this can complicate troubleshooting. Ensure all changes comply with Google Ads policies to prevent disapprovals. Regularly synchronize your offline and online accounts to maintain consistency.
How can I leverage Google Ads Editor to optimize campaign performance?
Utilize bulk editing features to efficiently adjust bids, update ad copy, and refine targeting across multiple campaigns. Regularly analyze performance data to inform strategic adjustments, enhancing overall campaign effectiveness.
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10 Tips for Free Competitor Research Using Ad Libraries
With so many different tools available for competitor research it can be a bit overwhelming.
I’ve lived and breathed paid ads over the past eight years, and in this article I’m going to share with you 10 tips on how to conduct competitor research for free using ad libraries.
Grab a notebook and let’s dive in!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Tip #1: Familiarise yourself with all the available ad libraries
- Tip #2: Leverage time and location filters
- Tip #3: Estimate platform demand by volume of creatives
- Tip #4: Build a swipe folder of ad inspiration
- Tip #5: Research brands in adjacent industries
- Tip #6: Build a matrix to document your competitors’ movements
- Tip #7: Build a checklist to uncover strategic insights
- Tip #8: Review the ad formats being used
- Tip #9: Clickthrough to review landing pages in use
- Tip #10: Review your competitors’ UTM string
Tip #1: Familiarise yourself with all the available ad libraries
The first step is to know what options you have available.
Here are the primary ad libraries available for the top 3 ad platforms:
LinkedIn Ad Library
Meta Ads Library
Google Ads Transparency Center
Within each library you can study creatives for your competitors and relevant brands.
Using them on a quarterly basis to spy on your competitors is a key habit to develop.
Tip #2: Leverage time and location filters
You can filter by time and location within each ad library to understand:
- Which markets are my competitors investing in?
- How many creative variations are my competitors testing?
- Are they testing localised campaigns outside of english?
You won’t know exactly how much your competitors are investing but you can use the volume of ads as a proxy to estimate the level of investment, and interest for a given market.
If you spot certain markets where you’re finding organic traction AND you see your competitors have gone through the commitment of localising these regions,these are great signals for you to consider running a pilot campaign.
Tip #3: Estimate platform demand by volume of creatives
We touched on using the volume of as a proxy to estimate the level of investment for a market.
The same logic applies to also understanding the demand for a specific ad platform.
Let’s use a hypothetical example, imagine you see the following for your competitor:
- LinkedIn Ads = 20 active ad variations in the past month
- Meta Ads = 10 active ad variations in the past month
- Google Ads = 5 active ad variations in the past month
Based on the volume of ads you can assume LinkedIn could be their primary platform followed by Meta, and finally Google. Look up your competitors and take note of their volume of ads by platform.
You’ll never know with 100% certainty but it’s a good approximation for at least the effort they are expending on each channel, if not their level of success.
Pro tip: get buy-in from leadership to test new ad platforms by showing them how active your competitors are within those channels, this creates FOMO which is quite powerful.
Tip #4: Build a swipe folder of ad inspiration
A swipe folder is a simple collection of screenshots of ads, landing pages, and offers that stand out.
As you’re going through the ad libraries take note of the ads that catch your attention from competitors, relevant brands, and from scrolling through social platforms.
Inspiration comes from all sources and by building this swipe folder you can:
- Better communicate and share guidance with your creative team
- Avoid reinventing the wheel with tested concepts
- Reduce the time to produce new creatives
This can be as simple as a folder in a Google Drive, it doesn’t need to be complicated.
If you want to be organised about it you can also group ads by concept, such as:
- Social Proof
- Thought Leadership
- Product Marketing
The most important piece to takeaway from this is you have some sort of folder to refer to.
Pro tip: create a shared slack channel for people across teams to upload examples of great ads they come across to crowdsource inspiration.
Tip #5: Research brands in adjacent industries
Oftentimes your competitors might be behind the ball when it comes to advertising.
In these instances researching them won’t be very helpful or worthwhile.
Instead what you can do is research brands in adjacent industries, for example:
- eCommerce
- E-learning
- Retail
You can take what works in other industries and adjust it to fit in yours.
Creativity is often taking what works from one sphere and applying it to another.
Tip #6: Build a matrix to document your competitors’ movements
If you want to take your competitors’ research to the next level, build a documented matrix.
This can be as simple as:
- Competitor Namesome text
- Month/Year
- Channel
- Ad Count
It will take a bit of work to put this together but the primary benefit is you can now monitor your competitors’ activity by ad platform on a quarterly basis.
Here’s a simple example of what this can look like in Google Sheets:
Pro tip: if you’re looking for a role in paid media, do a competitor research analysis on the brand you’re applying for. It's a great way to differentiate yourself against other candidates.
Tip #7: Build a checklist to uncover strategic insights
When reviewing your competitors’ ads in the library you’ll want to think deeper than just the surface level of the styles and examples of ads in front of you to uncover strategic insights.
Create a simple checklist to remind yourself to think about:
- Are the ads running to gated or ungated content?
- Is there a mixture of content that focuses on demand creation or capture?
- What stage of the funnel are their ads focused on? (ex: ToFu, BoFu)
- What mixture of offers are they testing? (ex: Conferences, Webinars)
- Are they driving to a landing page or lead form?
Compare the insights you uncover against your current approach.
If you notice 3 of your competitors are promoting events and you’re not then it’s worth testing.
Tip #8: Review the ad formats being used
This was touched on slightly before but it deserves to be in its own tip.
As you’re reviewing competitors in the library take notes of the ad formats being used.
For example, when it comes to LinkedIn are they testing:
- Image
- Video
- Spotlight
- Carousel
- Document
- Conversation
If you notice a large volume of a certain ad format it’s safe to say it must be working.
Compare the formats they are using against your own to inspire future experiments.
For videos take special note of aspect ratio, short vs long form, and other nuances like humour.
Pro tip:assign your competitor research tasks to an intern or junior person as pulling these insights is quite time-consuming and can be done by an entry level team member.
Tip #9: Clickthrough to review landing pages in use
The remarkable thing about these libraries is that you can click through on the ad and view the landing pages your competitors are using. This insight is not otherwise easily discoverable.
This all of sudden opens up a lot of homework for you to perform landing page teardowns.
- What are the calls to action on the landing page?
- How is the page structured compared to yours?
- Do they have better social proof than you?
Now suddenly your swipe folder can be filled with print screens of their entire landing pages.
Which can be shared with your team to test new page variations.
Pro tip:
If you’re using Google Chrome you can use the extension called GoFullPage to take screenshots of entire pages with the click of a button.
Tip #10: Review your competitors’ UTM string
To close out on our final tip, I wanted to share a more advanced approach.
When you’re clicking through to the landing page of your competitors’ ads take note of the UTM string in place to potentially uncover insights on how they’ve set up their campaigns.
By reviewing the URL structure I might 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
Hope you found this article helpful! 👏
Connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s keep the conversation going.
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People Also Ask
How can I ensure the insights gained from ad libraries are effectively integrated into my marketing strategy?
Establish a systematic process for documenting and analyzing the information gathered from ad libraries. Regularly share these insights with your marketing team to inform campaign planning and creative development, ensuring alignment with current industry trends and competitor strategies.
What are the ethical considerations when using ad libraries for competitor research?
While ad libraries provide publicly available information, it’s important to use this data responsibly. Avoid directly copying competitors’ ads; instead, use the insights to inspire and inform your unique strategies, maintaining originality and respecting intellectual property.
How frequently should I review competitors’ ads in ad libraries to stay updated?
Conduct reviews on a regular basis, such as quarterly, to stay informed about competitors’ advertising activities and market trends. More frequent reviews may be necessary in rapidly changing industries to ensure your strategies remain competitive.
Can ad libraries provide insights into the performance of competitors’ ads?
Ad libraries typically showcase the creatives and targeting details but do not provide direct performance metrics. However, by analyzing factors like ad longevity and variations, you can infer which ads might be performing well for your competitors.
How can I use ad libraries to identify emerging trends in my industry?
By regularly reviewing a diverse set of competitors and industry leaders in ad libraries, you can spot recurring themes, new product offerings, and innovative ad formats, helping you stay ahead of emerging trends.
LinkedIn Ad Formats: How to Choose the Best One for Your Campaign
LinkedIn has become an essential platform for B2B marketers, offering a variety of ad formats designed to reach professionals and decision-makers.
But with so many options, how do you choose the right one for your campaign?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into LinkedIn's diverse ad formats, uncovering detailed insights and actionable best practices.
Whether you're looking to increase brand visibility, generate quality leads, or drive traffic to your website, mastering LinkedIn's ad formats can give you a competitive edge in the market.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Overview of LinkedIn Ad Formats
- Single Image Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Thought Leader Ads
- Text Ads
- Conversation Ads
- Message Ads
- Spotlight Ads
- Follower Ads
- Document Ads
- Lead Gen Forms
- Connected TV Ads
- How to Choose the Right Ad Format
- How to Measure Performance of Each Ad Format
Overview of LinkedIn Ad Formats
Selecting the right ad format depends on your marketing objectives and target audience.
Let’s explore each primary LinkedIn ad format in detail, and reference this article for all ad specs:
Single Image Ads
Single Image Ads are a staple of LinkedIn advertising.
These ads feature one static image and appear directly in the LinkedIn feed, making them highly visible and engaging.
- High engagement with minimal content.
- Simple to create and easy to manage.
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Pro tip: Use images and copy that resonate with your target audience. The best-performing ones often use your Ideal Customer Profile's (ICP) language or even direct words. Remember, in B2B, we are still advertising to people, not to robots! 😃
Video Ads
Video Ads are perfect for storytelling and driving engagement.
They allow you to share dynamic content that captures attention and conveys your message effectively.
- Excellent for storytelling and capturing attention.
- Engaging format that can explain complex ideas
Pro tip: Video ads excel at both brand building and showcasing testimonials. They are particularly effective for demonstrating product functionality. Make sure to add subtitles, the videos usually autoplay on mute.
Carousel Ads
Carousel Ads allow you to showcase multiple images or videos in a single ad unit, each with its link.
This format is ideal for highlighting different aspects of a product or telling a story more interactively.
- Interactive format that encourages engagement.
- Multiple visuals to showcase different products or features.
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Pro tip: Carousel ads can be used for explaining the product, showcasing use cases and features, or explaining customer success stories in the feed. Ensure you have a consistent flow across all cards.
Thought Leader Ads
Thought Leader Ads are a powerful way to build brand credibility and engage your audience by leveraging the influence of key figures within your organization.
These ads allow you to sponsor posts from your company's thought leaders, positioning them—and by extension, your company—as industry experts.
- Build Credibility: Sponsoring posts from thought leaders enhances your brand's authority and trustworthiness.
- Engagement: These ads typically receive higher engagement rates as audiences are more likely to interact with content from recognized industry experts.
- Content Variety: Showcase a variety of content, from personal insights to industry analysis, that resonates with your audience.
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3 tips for implementing thought leader ads:
- Authenticity: Ensure the content from thought leaders is authentic and reflects their genuine perspectives.
- Consistency: Regularly publish thought leadership content to maintain engagement and visibility.
- Interactive Content: Use content that encourages interaction, such as questions or calls to action, to drive higher engagement rates.
For more insights refer to 14 Powerful LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad Strategies Worth Testing.
Text Ads
Text Ads are simple yet effective.
They appear on the right-hand sidebar of LinkedIn and are great for driving traffic to your website or landing page.
- Cost-effective and easy to set up.
- Ideal for driving traffic to your website.
Pro tip: Text ads are very effective, allowing you to stay top of mind at a low cost in front of your target audience. Also, they always help to keep your logo in your ICP’s LinkedIn Feed.
Conversation Ads
Conversation Ads offer an interactive way to engage your audience by allowing recipients to choose their own path through multiple call-to-action buttons.
This format fosters engagement and ensures high visibility in LinkedIn Messaging inboxes.
- Highly engaging format that fosters engagement.
- High visibility in LinkedIn Messaging inboxes.
- Great for generating leads
Pro tip: Create engaging and relevant conversation flows tailored to your audience's needs and interests. The message subject can be a game changer for open rates! Also, try incentivized ads, sometimes they can work miraculously 🚀
Message Ads
Message Ads are direct messages sent to LinkedIn members’ inboxes, making them highly personal and effective for driving immediate action.
- High visibility in LinkedIn Messaging inboxes.
- Personalized and direct communication.
Pro tip: Craft personalized messages that speak directly to your target audience’s pain points and offer clear, actionable solutions. Keep the tone to the one that your target audience is using.
Spotlight Ads
Spotlight Ads are personalized ads that appear on the right-hand side of the LinkedIn feed.
These ads use the viewer's LinkedIn profile data, such as their photo, company name, and job title, to dynamically personalize the ad content.
- Lower CPM and High Ad Recall
- Personalized Ad Content
Check out LinkedIn Spotlight Ads In 2024: Are They Worth The Investment? to dive deeper into this ad format.
Pro tip: Spotlight ads are particularly effective for remarketing, allowing you to stay top of mind at a low cost in front of audiences that already know and trust your brand.
Follower Ads
Follower Ads help increase the number of followers for your LinkedIn page, promoting your company to a wider audience.
- Effective in promoting LinkedIn pages to acquire followers.
- Increases organic reach on LinkedIn.
Pro tip: Highlight the unique value your LinkedIn page offers to followers. Use eye-catching visuals and compelling copy that resonate with your target audience.
Document Ads
Document Ads allow you to share in-depth content directly within the LinkedIn feed.
You can share whitepapers, e-books, or case studies that members can view and download without leaving LinkedIn.
- Share in-depth content directly within the LinkedIn feed.
- Options to gate content with a Lead Gen Form to capture leads or share freely to build brand awareness.
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Pro tip: Offer valuable content that addresses your audience's challenges or interests. Use a strong call-to-action to encourage downloads and interaction with your documents. Some say they prefer Document Ads to Carousel Ads because you can build retargeting audiences for Document ads.
Lead Gen Forms
Lead Gen Forms are a versatile tool that can be used with various ad formats to capture quality leads directly on LinkedIn. These forms are pre-filled with LinkedIn profile data, making it easy for users to submit their information.
- Captures quality leads with pre-filled forms.
- Provides a seamless user experience.
- Can be used for booking demos, downloading guides and templates, event registrations
Pro tip: Minimize the number of fields in your form to reduce friction. Use pre-filled form fields to make it easier for users to submit their information quickly. Don’t use “work mobile” or “work email” because they are usually not pre-filled.
Connected TV Ads
Connected TV Ads allow you to reach professional audiences through streaming content.
These ads appear on connected TV platforms and are ideal for reaching a hard-to-reach professional audience in a large-screen environment.
- Reach professional audiences through streaming content.
- High visibility on large screens.
For detailed ad specifications and additional tips, check out 50+ Ad Specs for The Top 10 Ad Platforms.
How to Choose the Right Ad Format
Choosing the right LinkedIn ad format is crucial for achieving your marketing goals. Here’s a guide to help you align your campaign objectives with the most effective ad formats and measure their performance.
What's Your Primary Campaign Goal?
First, identify your primary campaign goal. Are you aiming to capture demand, create demand, accelerate open cases, or brand awareness?
How to Measure Performance of Each Ad Format
Effectively measuring the performance of your ad campaigns is key to optimizing and achieving your marketing goals.
Here are the KPIs and bidding recommendations for each ad format:
By aligning your ad formats with your campaign goals and following these tips for measuring performance, you can create more effective LinkedIn ad campaigns that drive results and maximize your ROI.
You can read more about Objectives and Bid strategies here.
Hope you found this article helpful! Connect with me on LinkedIn, and reach out with any questions.
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People Also Ask
What are the different ad formats available on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn offers various ad formats, including Single Image Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads, Thought Leader Ads, Text Ads, Conversation Ads, Message Ads, Spotlight Ads, Follower Ads, Document Ads, Lead Gen Forms, and Connected TV Ads. Each format serves distinct marketing objectives and engages audiences differently. 
How do Single Image Ads function on LinkedIn?
Single Image Ads feature a static image and appear directly in users’ LinkedIn feeds. They are designed for high engagement with minimal content and are simple to create and manage. 
What are the benefits of using Video Ads on LinkedIn?
Video Ads are ideal for storytelling and capturing attention. They allow you to share dynamic content that effectively conveys your message and engages your target audience. 
How can Carousel Ads enhance my LinkedIn advertising strategy?
Carousel Ads enable you to showcase multiple images or videos within a single ad unit, each with its own link. This format is perfect for highlighting different aspects of a product or telling a more interactive story. 
What are Thought Leader Ads, and how can they benefit my LinkedIn campaigns?
Thought Leader Ads allow you to sponsor posts from your company’s thought leaders, positioning them—and by extension, your company—as industry experts. This approach builds credibility and fosters trust with your target audience.
10 Expert Tips For Scaling Google Ads Demand Capture
Do you need to scale your paid search campaigns and find new ways to increase demand capture?
As the head of Marketing at Catalyst, I build and mentor teams to maximize ROI in paid ad channels including Google.
Here’s my top 10 tips & tactics to scale your Google ads efforts.
(In no particular order, they all matter)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Tip #1 - Leverage Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI)
- Tip #2 - Tap into Device & Location Bid Modifiers
- Tip #3 - Shift Towards Smart Bidding ASAP
- Tip #4 - Sync Your CRM with Google Ads
- Tip #5 - Steer Away From Broad Match As Much As Possible
- Tip #6 - Take Advantage of the Google Ads Editor
- Tip #7 - Lean on Google Ads Script & Rules
- Tip #8 - Exclude Search Partners & Display Network
- Tip #9 - Install Behavioral Analytics Tools for Landing Page Optimizations
- Tip #10 - Consider Bing as a Second Demand Capture Channel
Tip #1 - Leverage Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI)
DKI is a powerful method to improve the relevancy of your ads based on user search terms.
When managing ad groups with multiple keywords on a similar theme, this technique ensures that you are displaying ads that closely align with users' query terms.
How Dynamic Keyword Insertion Works:
DKI automatically updates the ad’s headline to include the exact keywords that triggered the ad.
This way, the ad's first impression is highly relevant to the user's search, which improves overall engagement.
Even a slight increase in click through rate (CTR) can impact the performance of a campaign by driving more traffic to the landing page.
Best Practices for Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion:
Prioritize the First Headline: Always aim to have the first headline of your ad matches as closely as possible to the user’s search query.
Group Keywords by Theme: Make DKI more effective by grouping your keywords by themes.
There are generally 6 buckets of themes for search ads:
- Brand
- Non-brand
- Competitive
- RLSA (Search Remarketing)
- Content
- Dynamic Search Ads
With this organization, DKI can create more coherent ads that display the most relevant headline for each bucket.
Tip #2 - Tap into Device & Location Bid Modifiers
A critical aspect often overlooked in Google ads is the optimization of device and location modifiers.
For most B2B SaaS campaigns, the quality of traffic can vary significantly across different devices.
Desktop vs. Mobile vs. Tablet:
Typically, desktop traffic yields the highest quality in terms of conversion rates and user intent.
Users on desktops are generally more engaged and possibly in a professional setting, compared to mobile users who might be multitasking or browsing casually.
Tablets often perform the worst in terms of conversion rates and traffic quality, which is why many advertisers choose to exclude them entirely from campaigns.
Strategic Use of Location Modifiers:
If you target several states or countries, you should modify your bids based on the areas that perform best.
This could mean adjusting bids upward in high-performing regions to capture more traffic or decreasing bids in lower-performing areas to conserve budget.
In extreme cases, you can exclude low-performing regions altogether.
Pro Tip:
Start with a conservative approach focused on proven strategies. As results come in and budget allows, gradually introduce new variables and expand your focus to optimize the overall campaign performance. Maintain detailed records of campaign performance across different devices and platforms. This data will be invaluable for making informed decisions about where to allocate resources most effectively.
Tip #3 - Shift Towards Smart Bidding ASAP
Smart bidding strategies can help improve campaigns’ performance by focusing on conversions rather than clicks.
The Maximum Conversion strategy is particularly effective, as it lets Google optimize your bids to meet a specific CPA target, ideal for campaigns with regular conversions.
Key Considerations for Smart Bidding:
Google recommends having at least 30 conversions per month to effectively utilize Target CPA.
However, for campaigns with lower conversion rates, setting a minimum threshold of 10-15 conversions can still be sufficient.
Ensure that your conversions are properly set up and that Google receives clear signals about which conversions to prioritize by setting specific values for each conversion action.
This is crucial for smart bidding algorithms to function properly, as mixed signals can dilute the focus of your campaign optimization.
Pro Tip:
For businesses, especially in B2B sectors where conversion volumes are low, it's important to track higher funnel events. These can include engaged visits, interaction with forms, and even form abandonment. Each of these steps can be set through Google Tag Manager (GTM), providing richer data for optimization. Apply a structured conversion funnel that captures various stages of user engagement. From initial website interaction to form submissions or CRM entries, each stage should be defined and tracked as separate conversion events. You can then design custom goals and bundle your conversion actions together to add them to your campaigns.
Tip #4 - Sync Your CRM with Google Ads
Performance marketers thrive on optimizing for meaningful conversions. It will take emotions out of the decision-making process.
Integrating CRM lifecycle stages into Google Ads can profoundly impact your ad optimization and overall marketing strategy.
By linking stages such as MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead), SQL (Sales Qualified Lead), opportunities, and customer status directly from a CRM platform like HubSpot, you enable a more nuanced and powerful approach to ad targeting and bid adjustments.
How to Implement Your CRM Sync:
Depending on your CRM system, various tools and plugins can facilitate this integration. Ensure that the tool you choose can sync data reliably and in real-time to maintain accuracy in your campaigns.
Define which CRM milestones are important for your campaigns and set Google Ads to track these as conversions
Use the data from your CRM to set up automation rules in Google Ads. For example, you could decrease bids or pause campaigns if the cost per SQL exceeds a certain threshold, ensuring you maintain profitability.
Regularly review the data flow and synchronization between Google Ads and your CRM to ensure accuracy. Adjust your strategies based on new insights and continually refine your approach to improve outcomes.
Tip #5 - Steer Away From Broad Match As Much As Possible
Broad match can drive a high volume of traffic due to its extensive reach. This can result in a large number of conversions, which initially might seem cost-effective.
However, the quality of these conversions often needs to be revised when scrutinized more deeply in the sales funnel.
Despite lower upfront costs, the conversions from broad match often fail to convert into valuable leads or sales.
They may also attract clicks from irrelevant queries, leading to wasted ad spend and diluted performance metrics.
Best Practices for Keyword Match Types:
Phrase match offers a balance by allowing your ad to show only when a searcher's query includes the exact phrase or close variations of the phrase, in the same order. This strikes a better balance between reach and relevance, providing more control than Broad match type.
Exact match targets queries that are much closer to the keywords.
While this reduces reach, it increases the relevance and quality of traffic, making it ideal for targeting high-intent users and optimizing conversion rates.
Regardless of the match type used, a comprehensive negative keyword list is crucial.
Finally, test different match types to see what works best for your specific campaigns. This could mean comparing the performance of Phrase match versus Exact match or testing different variations of your keywords.
Tip #6 - Take Advantage of the Google Ads Editor
Google Ads Editor is an indispensable tool for marketers aiming to streamline their campaign management processes.
This desktop application allows users to manage their Google Ads campaigns offline, offering robust functionalities for bulk editing and optimization.
Google Ads Editor is particularly advantageous for managing large accounts with numerous campaigns and extensive lists of keywords.
Best Practices for Using Google Ads Editor:
Develop a standardized template with predefined columns and settings that align with your campaign's requirements.
This setup ensures that you can quickly import data from spreadsheets directly into Google Ads Editor without compatibility issues.
Always synchronize Google Ads Editor with your online account to ensure all changes are up-to-date and to avoid discrepancies between offline edits and online status.
Before uploading changes to the live environment, use the review function to ensure accuracy and prevent potential errors from impacting your campaigns.
While Google Ads Editor is incredibly powerful, it does have a learning curve.
Invest time in learning its features and shortcuts.
Tip #7 - Lean on Google Ads Script & Rules
Automation is a key component in optimizing campaigns. Google Ads scripts and rules offer powerful tools to automate routine tasks and strategic operations.
Scripts allow for advanced, customized automation that can modify bids, pause ads, or adjust budgets based on specific conditions.
Rules can be set to trigger based on performance metrics such as CTR, conversion rates, or cost per acquisition.
For example, automatically increasing the budget for high-performing campaigns or reducing bids for underperforming keywords helps maintain efficient spending.
Utilize scripts to automatically apply a tracking template across all campaigns, incorporating dynamic elements like campaign and ad group names.
This will detach personal bias from campaign management. Scripts and rules operate based on data, not preference, enabling objective decisions that focus solely on performance metrics.
You must regularly review the outcomes of automated actions. Automation is powerful, but it requires oversight to ensure it aligns with changing campaign goals and market conditions.
Tip #8 - Exclude Search Partners & Display Network
When managing Google Ads, especially for substantial budgets, it's crucial to ensure that every dollar spent is driving quality traffic and conversions.
A common oversight is not excluding search partners and the display network from search campaigns.
While these features can increase visibility, they often compromise the quality of traffic and the overall effectiveness of your campaigns.
Understanding the Impact by Network:
Including Search Partners and Display Networks can inflate your impressions without a corresponding increase in clicks.
This dilution of CTR can harm your campaign's overall performance metrics, misleading you about its effectiveness.
Google's quality score is a critical metric in determining your ad rank and the cost per click (CPC) you pay.
A lower CTR resulting from irrelevant impressions on search partners and display networks can decrease your quality score, leading to higher costs and reduced ad placement.
Pro Tip:
Conduct regular audits of your Google Ads accounts to identify any inefficiencies or overlooked settings that could be draining your budget or diminishing your campaign’s effectiveness. While Google may provide recommendations, always assess them critically in the context of your specific campaign goals and historical data. Consider experimenting with settings on a smaller scale before applying them broadly, especially when dealing with large budgets. This cautious approach allows you to gather data and make informed decisions based on actual performance metrics.
Tip #9 - Install Behavioral Analytics Tools for Landing Page Optimizations
One of the most effective strategies for enhancing landing page effectiveness is to implement behavioral analytics tools, such as Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity.
These tools provide deep insights into how users interact with your page, allowing for data-driven improvements.
The Importance of Behavioral Analytics:
Most of these tools offer features like heatmaps, scroll tracking, and session recordings that reveal how users interact with your landing page.
You can identify which parts of the page attract the most attention and where users lose interest.
You can make informed decisions about layout adjustments, content placement, and calls to action.
For instance, if users frequently abandon a form, you might simplify it or adjust its placement on the page to increase completion rates.
Use the insights gathered to A/B test different versions of your landing page.
Pro Tip:
Before implementing any changes based on behavioral data, be clear about what you’re trying to improve. Having specific goals will guide your optimization efforts, whether it's increasing time spent on the page, reducing bounce rate, or boosting form submissions. Combine quantitative data from analytics tools with qualitative feedback from user surveys or feedback forms. Keep a detailed record of all changes made and the results they yield. This documentation will help you understand what works, what doesn’t, and how future landing pages can be designed for maximum impact.
Tip #10 - Consider Bing as a Second Demand Capture Channel
To extend the reach of your successful Google Ads campaigns without significantly increasing your budget, consider importing your best campaigns into Bing Ads.
Bing, while smaller than Google, still captures a unique audience segment that may not overlap completely with Google users. This can increase your campaign's overall reach and exposure.
Generally, competition on Bing is lower than Google Ads, leading to lower cost-per-click (CPC) rates.
Hope you found these 10 tips helpful!
For more tips or to connect, please reach out via 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 Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) enhance my Google Ads performance?
DKI automatically updates your ad’s headline to include the exact keywords that triggered the ad, increasing relevance and engagement by closely aligning with user search terms. 
What are the benefits of using device and location bid modifiers in Google Ads?
Adjusting bids based on device and location allows you to allocate budget more effectively, ensuring your ads reach the most relevant audience segments and improving overall campaign performance. 
Why should I consider implementing smart bidding strategies in my campaigns?
Smart bidding utilizes machine learning to optimize bids for each auction, enhancing conversion rates and return on investment by automatically adjusting bids based on performance data. 
How does integrating my CRM with Google Ads contribute to demand capture?
Syncing your CRM with Google Ads enables precise tracking of leads and conversions, allowing for more accurate measurement of campaign effectiveness and better-informed optimization decisions. 
What role do Google Ads scripts and rules play in campaign optimization?
Utilizing scripts and rules automates routine tasks and strategic operations, such as modifying bids or adjusting budgets based on specific conditions, leading to more efficient and effective campaign management.
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10 Proven SaaS LinkedIn Ads Tips To Drive More ROI
Want to drive qualified pipeline and revenue from your LinkedIn Ads campaigns?
I’ve worked with 50+ startups, and managed 7-figure LinkedIn ads budgets for B2B SaaS.
My goal with this article is to show you ten proven tips for improving your LinkedIn ads ROI.
Irrelevant of the order, all of these tips have equal importance.
Let’s jump into it! 🚀
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Tip #1: Use auto bidding for the first 7 days of a new campaign
- Tip #2: Never use the Audience Network
- Tip #3: Penetrate your audience with the reach objective
- Tip #4: Leverage exclusions for focus
- Tip #5: Job functions give you best visibility and reach
- Tip #6: Always start with even rotation upon launch
- Tip #7: Check your demographics report weekly
- Tip #8: Target mobile devices exclusively with 628 x 1200
- Tip #9: Review your performance by device
- Tip #10: Use LinkedIn’s bulk import and export feature
Tip #1: Use auto bidding for the first 7 days of a new campaign
When launching a new LinkedIn Ads campaign start with automated bidding for the first week.
The thought process behind this is it will give LinkedIn’s algorithm enough time to learn and give you an average bid of what it takes to win auctions for your target audience.
After the first week switch to manual bidding and set the bid amount 20% lower than your average.
This works almost 99% of the time allowing you significant cost per click reductions.
Once you make the switch keep an eye on your daily spend over the next five days, if you set your bids too low it can negatively impact your visibility.
The key is to find the optimal bid between cost and maximum visibility (ex: impressions, views).
Give it a shot and send me a DM on LinkedIn with how much money you save! 🤑
This tip applies to traffic and conversion campaigns.
Tip #2: Never use the Audience Network
This one might be a bit controversial, but no matter what you LinkedIn reps say this is a no no.
If you’re not familiar, the LinkedIn audience network is a conglomerate of website partners.
This allows you to distribute your content outside of LinkedIn and on their websites.
Sounds amazing in theory but in practice the problem with the audience network is:
🔴 90-95% of your ENTIRE LinkedIn Ads budget is spent on websites outside of LinkedIn
Which completely destroys the point of running LinkedIn ads in the first place 😂
The LinkedIn algorithm always prioritizes the audience network because it’s cheaper and it’s trying to optimise for the greatest number of impressions for the lowest cost with your budget.
I’ve personally tested the audience network over multiple quarters with the same exact campaign and the only difference is one is using the audience network and other isn’t.
The campaign using the audience network had a CTR of 0.03% compared to 1% without.
You also have no ideas which websites placed your ads as it’s a black box.
Save your budget and improve your ROI by turning it off.
Tip #3: Penetrate your audience with the reach objective
If you’re trying to reach a large audience (ex: target account list) and want to do so in the most cost effective way, leverage the reach campaign objective.
Obviously if you’re trying driving the most clicks then this tip wouldn’t be applicable.
Instead in that case you should focus on using the website visits objective.
The caveat here is if you truly know:
- Your ideal customer profile
- That your content resonates with them
Then you can make the case that these people will click through anyways regardless of objective.
Through testing I’ve found that if you have great content using reach you’ll actually serve towards more people and generate more net new clicks given the reduction in CPM costs.
The major benefit of reach is that it is optimised for driving more unique impressions per viewer.
Pro tip:
Contact your LinkedIn Ads rep to send you a report on audience penetration on a monthly and quarterly basis to see how many unique users you’re reaching in your target audience.
Tip #4: Leverage exclusions for focus
Most LinkedIn advertisers underestimate the power of exclusions.
It’s one of those things most leveraged but not to its fullest capability.
Everyone knows you need to exclude the obvious things like competitors, students, customers, etc…
But they haven’t built the habit of checking LinkedIn Demographics Report once per week to find irrelevant titles for exclusion.
It’s really important to be mindful of multiple current roles when excluding as you can accidentally block your ads from being visible from high value audience members.
For example, let’s say you only help businesses with more than 1,000 employees.
Conventional logic would be exclude people who work at companies with < 1,000 employees but what happens when your perfect prospect:
- Volunteers at a nonprofit organization with < 100 employees
- Started a side hustle that only has with a size of “myself only”
The answer is, they won’t see your ads.
Remember that exclusions are always prioritised over inclusions.
When excluding focus on using job titles to refine your audience and prevent accidental conflicts.
Tip #5: Job functions give you best visibility and reach
This point is a bit controversial but from my own testing I’ve found job functions give you better visibility and reach than job titles.
This doesn’t mean you should never use job title targeting, I’ve actually found for certain personas titles work better than functions but if you’re in the following scenario:
- Targeting a high value account list
- Promoting ads that speak to a general pain point/benefit
- Your ideal audience has a million variations of the same title
Then you’re better off using job functions to reach as many relevant audience members.
Here’s some great combinations of job function targeting to test:
- Job functions AND seniority
- Job functions AND seniority AND member skills OR interest
Make sure you’re checking your demographics report on a weekly basis to find all the irrelevant job titles you’re reaching and exclude them on an ongoing basis.
This process can take up to two and half months but the goal is to eventually get to the point where you only see relevant titles inside of the demographics report.
Highly recommend excluding unpaid, training, and entry seniority as a starting point.
Pro tip:
Study LinkedIn profiles of your best prospects and take note of the member skills, certifications, and schools they’ve listed to find commonalities for targeting.
Tip #6: Always start with even rotation upon launch
When launching your new campaigns you have the option to choose how to serve your ads.
The thought process behind this is you want to understand which ad will perform the best by receiving enough budget for proper testing.
Unfortunately if you start with optimising for performance LinkedIn will prematurely assign 40-50% of your budget to one variation of ad while the others only receive what’s remaining.
In order to avoid this, start with rotating ads evenly for the first 7-14 days when launching a new campaign to serve budget equally and then switch to optimise for performance.
Tip #7: Check your demographics report weekly
I’ve hinted at this multiple times across all these tips but it’s so important to driving a return on investment with LinkedIn Ads that it deserves to be its own tip.
You need to know what’s happening across your account.
Review your demographics report for:
- Ad performance
- Campaign performance
- Campaign group performance
This will ensure your budget is going towards reaching the right people and companies.
Pro tip:
LinkedIn has reporting minimums when using the demographics report in platform, get around this by using a third party data connector to push the data into G-Sheet or Looker.
Tip #8: Target mobile devices exclusively with 628 x 1200
LinkedIn has a 628x1200 image ad spec that allows you to only appear on mobile devices.
If you know that your audience performs well for you on mobile devices you can set up a campaign leveraging this specific image ad dimension to serve exclusively on LinkedIn mobile.
The same is true for targeting desktop devices with text or spotlight ads.
Learn more about your audiences device behaviour with Google Analytics 4:
Tip #9: Review your performance by device
You can review your performance in LinkedIn by clicking on Breakdown > Impression by Device Type
The AdConversion team analysed 10,000,000+ impressions and found:
- 85.1% of impressions serve on Mobile App
- 9.6% of impressions serve on Desktop Web
- 5.3% of impressions serve on Mobile Web
That’s 90.4% of total impressions serving on mobile devices! 🤯
Pro tip:
Use the LinkedIn Ads preview to see what your ad will look like when displayed on mobile and optimise your copy to best fit this device over desktop.
Tip #10: Use LinkedIn’s bulk import and export feature
This tip is one that even my most savvy marketing friends aren’t aware of.
Changing bids, and creating campaigns on LinkedIn is a REAL pain.
You don’t need to suffer this pain and instead can use LinkedIn’s bulk import and export feature.
You can simply just export your ads, campaigns, or groups to make bulk changes.
Voila, a task that would take hours has been cut down into minutes.
Learn more about bulk actions in this article by LinkedIn.
Hope you found these 10 tips valuable! 👏
Implement the ones that resonate most with you to improve your ROI from LinkedIn Ads.
Connect with me on LinkedIn, if you have any questions or want to connect!
Master B2B LinkedIn Ads with these 3 Free Courses:
If you want to become a LinkedIn Ads pro, check out my 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 effectively research my customers to improve LinkedIn Ads targeting?
To gain a deeper understanding of your customers, watch 3-5 sales calls recommended by your Head of Sales. Analyze how the sales team presents the product and ensure your messaging aligns. Additionally, use tools like ChatGPT to develop content matrices and empathy maps from call transcripts, summarizing top pain points of your prospects. 
What strategies can I use to distribute and repurpose content for LinkedIn Ads?
Distribute valuable content that addresses your audience’s pain points and showcases your expertise. Repurpose high-performing content into different formats, such as turning a blog post into a video or infographic, to reach a broader audience and maintain engagement. 
How can I leverage Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in my LinkedIn Ads?
Utilize your SMEs for thought leader ads by having them post insightful content on their personal profiles. Promote these posts through your company’s LinkedIn Ads to build credibility and trust with your target audience, positioning your brand as an industry leader. 
What tracking setup is recommended for LinkedIn Ads?
Implement a comprehensive tracking system that combines LinkedIn’s Insight Tag with your CRM and marketing automation platforms. This setup enables accurate tracking of leads and conversions, providing valuable data to optimize your campaigns effectively. 
Why is a long-term commitment important for LinkedIn Ads success?
Committing to at least six months allows sufficient time to test, learn, and optimize your LinkedIn Ads campaigns. This duration helps in understanding what resonates with your audience and enables continuous improvement, leading to better results over time.
4 Unique LinkedIn Ad Strategies To Drive More Webinar Registrations
Webinars can be amazing generators of pipeline and revenue.
They allow you to demo different use cases of your product, highlight success stories, and start actual conversations with your ICP.
But it’s hard to get prospects interested when you’re competing against a million different ads popping up in their feed.
Below are 4 unique LinkedIn ad strategies that I like to use to stand out and generate more registrations👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Strategy #1: Leverage your thought leaders
- Strategy #2: Boost high-performing social media content
- Strategy #3: Create a LinkedIn event
- Strategy #4: Use incentives
Strategy #1: Leverage your thought leaders
Ask your thought leaders who are participating in the webinar (from your company & other companies) if they’d feel comfortable posting about it.
If the answer is yes, draft a sample post for each of your thought leaders so that they don’t have to start with a blank page.
Ideally, they should post a couple weeks prior to the webinar date. After 4 or 5 days (once the organic reach has died down), you can boost the post to your ICP.
Example from DoWhatWorks
Strategy #2: Boost high-performing social media content
If your social media team posts about the webinar and it performs well organically, consider boosting this content and running it as an ad (instead of creating an ad from scratch). The benefit of boosting already high-performing content is the added social proof – prospects will take a closer look if a promoted post has tons of engagement.
Example from Uberflip
Strategy #3: Create a LinkedIn event
Most webinar ads take prospects to an external landing page, where they have to fill out a form to register. Although this can work well, a great alternative is to create a LinkedIn event (where people can sign up directly on the LinkedIn platform) and promote this event as an ad.
The main advantages of this approach are:
a) simplified registration (only takes a few clicks)
b) added social proof (event ads show how many people have already registered)
Example from Make
Strategy #4: Use incentives
A lot of companies use incentives for demo request offers, but few are using incentives to promote their webinars.
Give prospects an extra reason to register. Maybe by joining they’ll enter a raffle, get a free coffee, or gain access to certain templates.
Example from ZoomInfo
Final Recommendations
In addition to testing out the strategies above, here are a few final tips to maximize the ROI of your webinar program:
- If you’re having trouble getting webinar registrations on your landing page, consider switching to native lead gen forms to minimize friction.
- Don’t just promote your webinar to a cold audience. Think about other groups of people that might be interested in the content (i.e. retargeting audiences, open opportunities, churned customers, closed lost companies, previous webinar attendees, etc.)
- If you’re getting started, try different types of webinars to see what resonates most with your audience (and double down on whatever works)
If you want more tips around event promotion check out this article by Kirk Deis.
Hope you found this article insightful!
Connect with me on LinkedIn, and reach out with any questions.
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 leveraging thought leaders enhance my LinkedIn Ads for webinars?
Encourage thought leaders participating in your webinar to post about it on their personal profiles. Provide them with sample posts to simplify the process. After the organic reach declines, boost these posts to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to increase visibility and credibility. 
What is the benefit of boosting high-performing social media content for webinar promotion?
If your social media team shares a webinar post that performs well organically, consider boosting it as an ad. This approach leverages existing engagement and social proof, making the promoted post more appealing to prospects. 
How can creating a LinkedIn event aid in webinar registrations?
Instead of directing prospects to an external landing page, create a LinkedIn event where users can register directly on the platform. This method simplifies the registration process and displays the number of attendees, adding social proof. 
What are the best practices for targeting the right audience for webinar promotions on LinkedIn?
Leverage LinkedIn’s advanced targeting options to focus on specific industries, job titles, company sizes, and geographic locations that align with your ideal webinar attendees. Utilizing these parameters ensures your ads reach professionals who are most likely to be interested in your content.
How can I integrate LinkedIn ads with other marketing channels to maximize webinar attendance?
Coordinate your LinkedIn ad campaigns with email marketing, social media promotions, and content marketing efforts to create a cohesive promotional strategy. Consistent messaging across channels reinforces your webinar’s value and broadens its reach.
