Become a B2B SaaS Ads Expert

Sometimes, LinkedIn Ads fail due to poor creatives, messaging, or offers. 

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But many times — and in my experience, most of the time — the problem is actually the audience. 

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If you aren’t reaching your ICP, it’s almost impossible to drive conversions. 

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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. 

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I’ll be breaking down my entire process below 👇

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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

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If you’re taking over a new account and don’t have any audiences yet, here’s where I recommend starting: 

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1. Explore the website to get some initial ideas on the target job functions and industries of your personas. 

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2. Talk to your clients. Are there certain industries, company sizes, job titles, or job functions that have historically driven more revenue? 

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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

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Once you have a strong understanding of your ICP, it’s time to look at the targeting options available within LinkedIn Ads. 

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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.  

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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. 

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Based on these results, you can determine exactly what job titles (or job function + seniority) you want to target. 

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Also, by looking through the industries tab, you can define the industries you want to reach in your campaigns. 

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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

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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. 

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Here’s how you do it: 

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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. 

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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)

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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. 

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2. Tier 1 & Tier 2 Accounts

Tier 1 & Tier 2 Account Lists

AND

Target Job Titles

AND 

Target Company Size

AND 

Target Locations

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3. Open opportunities

Companies in the open opportunity phase

AND

Target Job Titles

AND 

Target Locations‍

Step 4: Refine your audiences

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Now that you’ve drafted your audience, you’re almost ready to launch, but not quite. 

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Before going live, it’s important to refine your audiences by making exclusions. 

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Otherwise, you’ll end up wasting money on irrelevant people. 

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Here’s how you do it: 

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1. Access the saved audience you already created

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2. Refine the Audience

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Look at  the “Member” and “Company” sections of your audience for exclusion ideas. 

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In the member tab, you can see what job titles, job functions, and seniorities you’re targeting. 

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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. 

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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. 

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Once you’re happy with the exclusions you’ve made, you can add this audience to your campaigns. 

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Here are the top exclusions that I typically make to avoid wasted spend (feel free to use as inspiration)

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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

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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. 

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To do this, make sure you look at your demographics report on a weekly basis. 

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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? 

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Are there certain job titles, functions, companies, industries, etc. that you want to exclude? 

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Doing this exercise may seem tedious or insignificant, but these small details are often the difference between success and failure. ‍

Conclusion

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To summarize, if you want to generate conversions on LinkedIn Ads: 

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1. Make sure you get extremely clear on who you want to target. 

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2. Consider testing proven targeting combinations, such as retargeting, tier 1 and tier 2 accounts, and open opportunities.

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3. Audit your audiences in LinkedIn Campaign Manager and make all the necessary exclusions to avoid wasted spend. 

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4. After launch, consistently check your demographics report and adjust your audiences as needed. 

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P.S. If you have any questions and would like to get in touch, feel free to send me a message on LinkedIn 

‍Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

Here's 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

• Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.

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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 👇

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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

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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.

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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! 🔥

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Build a retargeting audience using utm_source = linkedin for YouTube 

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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

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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.

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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. 

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Some of those tools include:

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Hubspot <> Google Ads Integration

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If you’re a Hubspot user you’re in luck! 

HubSpot makes it really easy to upload dynamic audiences to Google Ads via integration.

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Salesforce <> Google Ads Integration

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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. 

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Zapier

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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. 

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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

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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. 

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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. 

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Here’s 3 ways to use custom audiences for B2B targeting:

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1. Brand keywords of your target accounts 

2. Company page & LinkedIn page URLs of your target accounts

3. 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! 

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

‍

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! 

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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

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[process] Tip #1: Be clear on your communication needs and expectations 

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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

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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. 

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My preferred meeting cadence:

Weekly for the first six weeks to build trust and create momentum then move towards bi-weekly. 

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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

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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

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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

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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. 

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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 

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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. 

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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? 

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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

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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

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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 

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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. 

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🟢 An early and specific goal is better than no goal at all.

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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

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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. 

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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. 

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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! ♥️

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Connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s keep the conversation going. 

You can also visit my website here for more valuable content.

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Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

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! 

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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

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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). 

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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. 

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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]

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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.

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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 —) 

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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: 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

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!

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

‍

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. 

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

‍

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

• Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)

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

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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.

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Understanding the Impact by Network:

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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 

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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.

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The Importance of Behavioral Analytics:

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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.

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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

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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.

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

‍

Resources for mastering B2B advertising

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion. 

‍Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:

✅  100% free access.

✅  Taught by vetted industry experts.

✅  Have workbooks, resources, and templates.

✅  Less than 10 minutes per lesson.

We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:

•  Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact

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 😂)