How to Scale Effective B2B Ad Campaigns

Ad Message & Concept Development

Let's start with delving into the nitty-gritty of ad messaging and concept development. So grab your favorite beverage, and let's get started!

Starting with the Basics

We kick off our ad campaign journey by honing in on messaging and concept development. The idea is to lay a solid foundation for our advertising strategy. We begin with some overarching concepts, focusing on our vision, the market landscape, and our target audience. These concepts find their home in a document within our wiki, where we outline what we believe to be true.

For example, we're strong proponents of efficient growth over the "growth at all costs" mentality. We firmly believe in better targeting to enhance efficiency. Our goal is to reach decision-makers with our ad message in various ways, among other things.

This lays the groundwork for why our product exists and who our ideal customers are. We pinpoint the perfect moment to win them over, and all of this culminates in our general positioning statement.

Our positioning revolves around the idea that our users seek efficient acquisition. Their problem? They need to focus their efforts and stop "spraying and praying" with their targeting. Primer empowers them to reach a precise audience across multiple channels.

Staging Ad Messages Right

To map out our ad and marketing strategy effectively, we've adopted a staged approach. We've adapted a model first devised by Robert Kaminski @ Fletch that encompasses different stages: drawing attention, enticing sign-ups, and reaching that "aha" moment. Each stage corresponds to various aspects of our product and messaging.

Awareness

For instance, our first stage is all about creating awareness. We want our audience to recognize a specific problem: the struggle to drive sign-ups and conversions for their most valuable processes. We delve into the contributing factors, such as ineffective targeting and operationalizing ABM, to highlight the issues in the ad message.

Once we have a clear picture of the problem, we craft messages that aim to bring this pain into focus and offer a fresh perspective. We might use content types like pain diagnosis, which calls out the problem, or share tips and data to reframe the way our audience thinks about their challenges.

Consideration

Moving on to the consideration stage, we focus on the ad message explaining how Primer solves the identified problem. We highlight the benefits of using Primer to target the right audience more accurately and efficiently. Our content for this stage may include showcasing features, educating about use cases, and presenting proof of Primer's effectiveness.

Acquisition

When it's time for acquisition, we want to make it a no-brainer for users to sign up or purchase Primer. Our messaging emphasizes the simplicity and speed of using Primer, as well as the ability to evaluate its impact for a high return on investment. We frame this core ad message with offers, reasons to believe, and a spotlight on the product's ease of use.

Crafting the Messages

The beauty of our approach lies in its flexibility. We have three messaging themes for each stage of the funnel and multiple approaches to conveying each ad message theme. This versatility opens the door to a multitude of content possibilities, all rooted in our core positioning.

To actually create this content, we leverage the power of AI. With AI, we can rapidly iterate and generate ideas for assets, images, and text that align with our messaging themes. Using prompts, we ask the AI to help us create different message copy ideas and image concepts. This speeds up the content creation process and ensures we always have fresh, engaging ads to work with.

In conclusion, our approach involves aligning messages by the stage of the funnel, using message themes that resonate, and employing various content types to effectively convey our core message. AI plays a pivotal role in generating content ideas and ensuring that we always have a pool of fresh creative assets to draw from.

Scaling Ad Campaign Creative Assets

The Importance of Ad Creative Variety

Before we delve into the How let's address the Why. In B2B, your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and addressable market are often relatively small. And especially in today's economic conditions, we all want to focus on the best-fit prospects. However, this means you’re fighting against other B2B advertisers as well as B2C advertisers for a limited pool of prospects.

With a small, targeted audience, one challenge is avoiding audience fatigue. Showing the same ad creatives repeatedly or targeting the same people too frequently can lead to diminishing returns. So, how do we keep our audience engaged and prevent ad fatigue? The answer lies in regularly rotating creative assets and messaging.

A Framework for Ad Asset Iteration

In part one, we introduced a framework for generating different message concepts and developing the associated ad copy. Now, in part two, we're going to take these concepts and turn them into visually engaging designs. Here's how we do it:

1. Refining Concepts: While AI can provide a general idea, we often refine the concepts to finalize creative assets and ensure they align with our brand and messaging. This is where clear inspiration links come in handy.
2. ‍Inspiration for Design: To ensure the design process doesn't stall, we share links to existing images or assets that can inspire the designers. It's crucial to provide clear direction, especially if you're working with an outsourced designer who might not be intimately familiar with your product.
3. ‍Concepts Ready for Design: Once we have two or three message concepts ready for design, including the ad copy, description, text, and a rough image idea, we share these with our outsourced design team.
   

Outsourced Design Talent: Outsourced designers can be incredibly talented and cost-effective.

Our brand team sets the guidelines and has the final say on brand alignment, but we ask for forgiveness, not permission. We know we need lots of creative assets to mitigate audience fatigue.

Collaboration and Iteration

Once we've shared the concepts with our designers via Slack, we link them to the Notion page containing different variants we want them to work on. For each messaging concept, we usually have around five different variants of ad creative, so there could be a lot in development at once.

Designers will often ask for feedback and add comments in Figma, and we go back and forth, iterating until we're satisfied with the final design.

Diverse Ad Variants

Our goal is to create a variety of ad variants suitable for different platforms. We typically produce creative assets for newsfeeds on Instagram, Facebook, Instagram Stories, and LinkedIn News Feeds. This diversity ensures our ads can reach our target audience effectively across multiple channels.

Speaking of scaling up marketing efforts multi-channel, our list of 5 ABM best practices will help you do it purposefully and cost-consciously.

Rapid Scaling of Design

In conclusion, our ability to rapidly scale our design process hinges on several factors:

• Having multiple concepts of creative assets ready for design.
• Using AI for image idea suggestions.
• Providing clear guidance and inspiration through asset links.
• Utilizing collaborative tools like Slack, Notion, and Figma for feedback and rapid iteration.

This approach ensures we never have to worry about audience or ad fatigue. We can quickly rotate our creative content and maintain the interest of our target audience. Stay tuned for more insights and strategies to supercharge your ad campaigns!

Try Primer for Advanced Audience Segmentation and Testing Ad Creative Variations

Primer helps digital marketers to go super specific on their target audience. Use it to split ICP-relevant audience into smaller segments and run  A/B tests to define which type of ad creative impacts a particular group of prospects most. It’s a great option for B2B companies aiming to cover diverse customer needs with a broad range of services and products.

Watch our video tutorials explaining how to set hyper-targeted audiences for campaigns with case-specific ad creative.

Sprint-Based Marketing Campaign Plan

Sprint Planning Campaigns for Success

Our sprints typically last two to three weeks, and we keep things lightweight on the planning front. With the amount of work that goes into audience strategy and content production, the campaign plan simplicity is key. Each sprint comprises several essential components:

1. Goal: Every sprint has a clear, quantifiable goal. We set our sights on reaching from X to Y by a specified timeframe.
2. Hypothesis: We test a hypothesis to guide our experiments, helping us discover what works and what doesn't.
3. Channels: We choose the platforms and channels where we'll run our experiments.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): These KPIs help us measure our progress and determine whether we've hit our goals.

We're well aware that most of our experiments will fail, but that's all part of the game. We expect one out of every three sprints to result in an evergreen strategy that we can use continuously, fine-tuning it along the way.

Sprint-based marketing can truly revitalize your growth strategy as it helps you read and respond to ever-changing customer behavior. Unlike quarterly planning, such an approach lets you identify and activate growth levers immediately, resulting in a more agile and customer-centric strategy.

A Real-Life Example

Let's take a closer look at a sprint currently in progress, Sprint Two. Our goal is to increase signups from 20 to 30 week over week by November 17th. The hypothesis driving this sprint is that optimizing all paid social campaigns for signups might reduce our reach within our target audiences, but it will ultimately yield better ROI. We're banking on ad platform algorithms to optimize content delivery.

Here are the key campaign plan KPIs for this sprint:

- Weekly signup trends

- First visit to signup elapsed time

- Cost per acquisition

Reviewing a Completed Sprint

After we've completed a sprint, it's time to reflect. Here's what we consider:

1. Campaign Plan vs Results: We share the outcomes of our sprint. The previous sprint may not have been a resounding success, but it had a medium level of efficiency measured by Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Key metrics revealed that the cost per influenced website visit was $551, the cost per lead was $1.6K, and the cost per opportunity was also $1.6K. This high cost indicated that the leads we generated were highly qualified and demonstrated high intent.

2. Learnings and Observations: We highlight our observations. For example, we noted high-quality conversions of leads to opportunities and identified channels and campaigns that performed well. Additionally, we examined engagement levels and explored potential ad optimizations.

This iterative approach allows us to refine and optimize our growth loops continually. We aim to turn paid social into a growth engine for B2B, meaning that for every dollar spent on advertising, we generate more than one dollar in revenue.

In Part 5, we'll delve into the world of campaign measurement and attribution, while Part 4 will guide you through the step-by-step process of launching campaigns in different channels. Stay tuned for more insights on mastering B2B ad campaigns! 🚀

Use Primer to Unify Customer Data Across Channels

Primer can advance your sprint-based testing of disparate paid ad channels. It allows you to build as tight targeted audiences as you want and enrich them with missing data points to meet higher match rates across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google Ads. Just upload the existing ABM lists, and Primer will append missing contact and company-level data from a variety of trusted B2B data sources.

Setting Up Campaigns in Top-Tier Ad Platforms

Do you ever get the feeling that our ads are following you around the internet? You're not alone. Many of our customers tell us they see our ads everywhere they go. But here's the secret: you don't have to spend a fortune to make that happen.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is a powerful ad platform for reaching professionals. Primer allows you to be more targeted and efficient within it. To help you harness its potential, we've put together this step-by-step guide on setting up campaigns effectively. Whether you're aiming for website visits, conversions, or lead generation, we've got you covered.

Step 1: Create a Campaign Group

When you embark on a new sprint in LinkedIn, the first crucial step is to set up a new campaign group. This is essential for organizing your campaigns based on different objectives.

• Different Objectives: Depending on your goals, such as driving website visits, conversions, or lead generation, you'll need distinct campaign groups.
• Example: Let's say your campaign group for the fourth quarter of 2023 will be named "Q4 2023."

Step 2: Set Up Campaigns within the Group

Once you've established your campaign group, it's time to dive into creating individual campaigns within it. This is where you'll tailor your ad formats and audience segments.

• Multiple Campaigns: Each campaign can cater to specific ad formats or different audience segments.

• Single Image Format: As an example, let's create a campaign with a single image format.
• Audience Selection: Choose your audience wisely. Consider using Primer's custom audiences for precision. Also, get additional insights on how to balance B2B marketing campaigns to align ad spending with your budgets.
• Choose Your Ad Format: Not all ad formats are equally efficient on different ad platforms. Select the ad format that best suits your campaign. Once chosen, it can't be changed.
• Conversion Tracking: Ensure you set up conversion tracking to measure the success of your campaign.

Step 3: Configure Your Ads

Now it's time to set up your ads. You can either reuse content created for other ad platforms or create fresh ad material based on your latest designs. Let's walk through the process of creating a new ad. In this example, we'll focus on the "Black Box Audience."

• Name Your Ad: Give your ad a distinctive name, like "Black Box Audience," so you can distinguish performance
• Add in Your Compelling Copy: Write persuasive ad copy to grab your audience's attention.
• Add UTM Parameters: Use an automatic UTM generation spreadsheet like this for streamlined tracking.
• Upload Images and Finalize: Complete your ad setup by uploading images, adding headlines, and ensuring all elements align with your campaign's objectives.

And that's it! You're now ready to launch your LinkedIn campaign. With this step-by-step guide, you can make the most of this ad network and reach your desired audience effectively and efficiently. Happy campaigning!

NOTE: You can use Primer to get LinkedIn match rate assessments. Check our short video tutorial explaining how it works.

Facebook & Instagram

Are you ready to dive into the world of Meta ad platforms? Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, our step-by-step guide will help you navigate the Facebook Ads platform with ease. Let's get started on the path to ad success!

Understand the hierarchy. Just like LinkedIn, Facebook has its own campaign hierarchy. Here's a quick look at it:

• LinkedIn Hierarchy: Campaign Group → Campaign → Ads
• Facebook Hierarchy: Campaign → Ad Set → Ad

Both hierarchies serve similar functions, making it easy to transition between platforms.

Step 1: Create a New Campaign

When launching a new sprint on Facebook, the first step is to create a new campaign aligned with your objective, which typically corresponds to your funnel goals.

• Select your campaign objective. For example, if you're aiming for sales or leads, make the appropriate choice to align with your goal.
• You have the option to manually set up your campaign, which is better when using custom audiences.
• Set your daily budget and decide whether to let Facebook's algorithm distribute your budget or manually allocate it. Consider how much you plan to spend on other ad platforms and prioritize your costs correspondingly.

Step 2: Ad Set Creation

Now, it's time to create your ad set. Use a consistent naming format for your ad sets.

• Select the conversion location (typically your website) and optimize for the number of conversions.
• Choose your target audience wisely. We clearly recommend Primer’s custom audiences. Moreover, Primer allows you to enrich audience data and push highly targeted audiences to multiple ad platforms in a couple of clicks. We recommend steering clear of "Advantage Plus" audience targeting for now, which seems like a rebranding of their current demographic and interest-based targeting.
• Ensure dynamic creative is turned off to maintain your ad's format.

Step 3: Ad Creation

While LinkedIn offers multiple image variants, Facebook lets you create an ad with one image and multiple text variants.

• Add multiple text variants to optimize for the best-performing option. Facebook's algorithm can help identify the winning text.
• Specify your destination URL and set up UTM parameters. Facebook provides UTM parameter formulas, making tracking a breeze and differentiating visits from Facebook from the traffic generated from the rest of the ad platforms.

Before you go live, review your ads and ensure everything is in order. Publish your ads to reach your audience effectively.

With these steps, you're well on your way to mastering Facebook Ads. Feel free to experiment with different campaigns to find what works best for your objectives. Good luck with your sprint, and may your Facebook Ads drive the results you desire! 🚀

Google Search

Google Search Ads can be a powerful tool to drive leads, but it's essential to optimize your campaigns for efficiency. Unlike other ad platforms, Google Ads offers specificity to campaign goals. In this step-by-step guide, we'll show you how to set up an effective Google Search campaign using Primer.

Step 1: Create a New Campaign

• Open Google Ads and click on "New Campaign."
• Select your campaign objective. For this guide, we'll choose "Leads."
• Choose the campaign type as "Search."
• Specify your goal as "Lead Form Submissions" or "Website Visits."
• Name Your Campaign: Give your campaign a distinctive name, e.g., "Q4 2023 Primer Audience SEM." Differentiate between branded and non-branded SEM campaigns if applicable.
• Determine your target cost per conversion: Ensure you are willing to invest to acquire pre-qualified leads within your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Check our tried-and-true practices for continuous refinement on ICP.

Step 2: Define Your Targeting

• Select the "Search Network" to focus on search campaigns. There’s no need to expand to Display if you’ve set up separate display campaigns.
• Opt to use Primer's custom audiences for precision targeting. Sync your SAM audience and other relevant segments for more accurate targeting.
• To maximize efficiency, narrow your reach to selected segments. Bid higher on these narrowed segments. If you're aiming for volume over efficiency, you can expand to "Observation."

Step 3: Keyword Selection & Ad Set Up

• Use broad match keywords for your entire campaign since you’re focusing it quite a bit by only using Primer audiences. Add relevant keywords that align with your campaign's objectives.
• Craft compelling ad copy that resonates with your audience. Include call-to-action phrases to encourage clicks. Upload your ad assets.

Note: Exclude Existing Users

Use Primer to automatically exclude users who are already in your customer list. This prevents your ads from being displayed to your current customers, who might not need to click on your ad.

By following these steps, you can set up an efficient Google Ads campaign using Primer. This approach not only helps you reach the right audience but also maximizes your ad budget. Happy advertising!

Google Display

Google Display campaigns can be a game-changer for your advertising strategy IF you can refine your targeting and make it B2B focused. In this step-by-step guide, we'll show you how to set up an effective Google Display campaign using Primer to reach your target audience efficiently.

Step 1: Create a New Campaign

• Access Google Ads and select "New Campaign."
• Choose your campaign objective. For this guide, we'll pick "Leads." Examine your default conversions and adjust your campaign goals accordingly. Focus on specific website actions, such as form submissions or other relevant goals you typically set on the other ad platforms.
• Select the "Display" option. Enter the URL of the page you want to direct your audience to, such as your overview page.

Step 2: Define Your Targeting

• Narrow down your campaign's geographic reach, such as "United States and Canada." Allow your campaign to automatically maximize conversions, ensuring better results.
• Next, you'll set your targeting parameters. Click "Next" and then "Edit Audience Segments." You can create custom audience segments if needed, but for this guide, select existing Primer audiences. Choose your desired segments, such as SAM audiences, to reach your target audience more effectively.
• Google Ads will provide an estimate of the impressions you'll receive based on your budget and targeting.

Step 3: Review and Create Ads

• Ensure all your settings align with your campaign objectives. Follow Google's best practices for creating compelling ads.

By following these steps, you'll be well on your way to setting up a successful Google Display campaign with Primer. This approach, along with the steps mentioned above for other popular ad platforms, allows you to narrow your audience effectively and maximize the power of Google's Display Network, making it an invaluable tool for B2B marketers. Good luck with your campaign!

YouTube

Youuuuutuuuube! It’s awesome with focused targeting and surpasses the expectations of marketers who got used to more common ad platforms like Facebook. Let’s walk through the process of setting up a YouTube campaign in Google Ads. It's a breeze, so grab a coffee, sit back, and follow these steps to get started.

Step 1: Create a New Campaign

• Select your campaign objective. For this example, we'll go with "Leads" because it aligns with our goals.
• Before proceeding, ensure that you've set up your pixel and conversion tracking. This is crucial for measuring your campaign's success.
• Choose the "Video" campaign type and hit "Continue."
• Give your campaign a catchy name. We'll go with "Q4 2023 Custom Audiences Form Submit."

Step 2: Define Your Targeting

• Select "All languages" to reach a broad audience.
• Set your campaign budget.
• Control your network preferences. You can also allow extensions of video ads within the Google Display Network.
• To narrow down your audience, add specific targeting. We'll choose the United States and Canada.
• Here's where the magic happens! You can fine-tune your audience just like in Facebook. This ensures your message reaches the right people, your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Click "New Audience" and give it a name, like "Primer Synced Audiences." Select your data source; in our case, it's "Customer Lists." You can search for specific audience segments like "SAM."

Step 3: Review and Create Ads

• Now, you can add your videos. You can select them from your YouTube channel or library.
• Review your settings, ensure everything looks good, and hit "Create Campaign."

Voila! You're all set to roll with your YouTube campaign. Remember to keep an eye on your campaign's performance and make adjustments as needed. Don’t give up tracking KPIs on the other ad platforms as well. Good luck, and happy advertising! 🚀

Use Primer to Win More Qualified Leads Across Multiple Ad Platforms at a Time

Primer supercharges multi-channel marketing efficiency by providing you with a single hub to build, enrich, and push highly-targeted audience lists to all the ad platforms mentioned above. Try it to reach unprecedented targeting precision and win astonishing match rates boost:

• Up to 35-45% match rate on Google Ads
• Up to 45-65% for Facebook paid social
• Up to 65-85% for LinkedIn advertising

Ad Performance Measurement

Yes, we know it's everyone's favorite topic, and yes, B2B attribution is notorious for being a bit, well, crappy and difficult. But fear not, we're here to shed some light on the ad performance analysis and help you navigate this challenging landscape.

The Attribution Conundrum

Before we dive in, let's understand why B2B attribution is often labeled as "crappy and dumb." Here are some inherent challenges:

1. Low Volume of Data: B2B deals typically involve a lower volume of data, making it difficult to conduct robust statistical analyses of ad performance.
2. Complex Journeys: With multiple decision-makers in B2B purchases, the buyer's journey becomes intricate, with various touchpoints. This makes multi-touch attribution an imperfect solution.
3. Privacy Constraints: Privacy constraints, such as those imposed by iOS updates and the declining effectiveness of cookies, add layers of complexity to tracking traffic sources accurately. Analytics tools have a harder and harder time applying source labels to site visitors.

Strategies for Successful Ad Attribution

Now, let's explore practical strategies to overcome these challenges and gain insights into the effectiveness of your B2B ad campaigns.

1. In-Ad Platform Lead Form Submissions

The pinnacle of attribution success is when your audience fills out a lead form while in the ad platform (e.g., a “Lead Form Ad” on LinkedIn). This allows you to easily attribute ad performance success back to your campaign and even at the ad level. While high friction, it remains a powerful method, especially if your offer is dialed in. However, there will only be a relatively small subset of leads that are willing to take this action. Ultimately, you’re going to drive traffic to your website at some point…

2. Analytics Tools (e.g., Google Analytics)

Traditionally, tools like Google Analytics have been the go-to for marketers. They help label traffic sources and provide insights, but challenges like unassigned traffic are increasingly prevalent. Utilize UTM parameters for more accurate ad performance tracking (see a template here).

Note: Make sure you label your medium as “CPC” so it’s recognized by GA.

You’ll need to accept the fact that a certain % of your MQLs won’t have the appropriate source associated with them, which is why you’ll turn to another layer of attribution…

3. Sales Team Reporting

While not the most reliable, self-reported data from your sales team can provide valuable insights. When you have the resources, you should 1000% be passing traffic source and UTM level data from your forms into your CRM to automate lead source assignment, but you should also empower your sales team to layer on the additional insight they gather in calls.

4. Reverse IP Tools (e.g., Koala, Clearbit Reveal, etc.)

These ad performance monitoring tools allow you to identify and track visitors to your website from specific accounts within your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This helps understand if your ads are reaching the right audience and influencing their behavior.

With Primer, you know which accounts are within your audience, allowing you to gauge whether your ad campaigns are driving pre-purchase activity.

5. Weekly Ad Performance Tracking

Ultimately you should try and roll all 4 of these techniques up into one weekly report. Use an analytics tool to track traffic sources associated with form submissions. Monitor key metrics such as website visits within your ICP, demo requests, and opportunities generated. Use Primer to evaluate whether the site visitors, form submits, and opportunities were within your ad campaign targeting or not.

Check our older blog post on audience cohort tracking, explaining how Primer simplifies the attribution of leads generated from your list-based audiences.

Added together, these approaches allow for a pretty granular understanding of return on ad spend and customer LTV/CAC.

In Summary: Navigating the Attribution Maze

B2B attribution is intricate, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution, especially for early-stage companies. Marketing Mix Modeling and multi-touch attribution might be elusive due to data limitations, but leveraging a combination of off-the-shelf reporting tools and CRM-level reporting provides a robust foundation.

Attribution in B2B doesn't have to be an insurmountable challenge. With the right tools and methodologies, you can unveil meaningful insights into the ad performance. So, embrace the attribution journey and decode the success metrics behind your B2B marketing efforts! 🚀