How To Run A Successful Facebook B2B Advertising Campaign
By Tri | Aug 17, 2021 (6 min read)
Facebook makes it easier for businesses who sell to consumers to run successful ad campaigns. Yet, many B2B companies are at a disadvantage. They are not sure how to (or who to) target when selling their services to other businesses.
Even with Facebook’s omnipotent hold on the social media landscapes, many B2B businesses and brands still struggle to come up with an effective strategy.
The Difference Between B2B Vs. B2C Advertising
A B2B buyer’s journey is longer and more complex than a regular consumer. The purchase prices are also a lot higher.
In most cases, it’s going to take a lot more basic Facebook ads to turn a prospective B2B buyer into a paying customer. For this reason, many B2B business owners are skeptical about the value of social media advertising and focus their efforts and money on more conventional lead generation strategies.
But Facebook B2B marketing can have huge benefits for B2B brand or B2B company. When you use B2B Facebook ads as part of your lead generation, it allows you tap into a custom audience that you specifically choose. When targeting the right buyer persona and having an effective landing page, you can run cost effective Facebook B2B marketing.
B2B prospects are still people. However, they are often buying with a different mindset. They are spending money that is not their own, and their buying choices also have consequences for their career. A poor B2B buying decision can affect the company more than a bad personal purchase.
Facebook may not always be the most obvious choice for B2B businesses; however, the platform can be a powerful channel for generating qualified leads.
With the right strategy and approach, you can leverage the platform as a useful tool for your sales and marketing efforts.
In this article, we will look at some methods for creating a successful Facebook ad strategy that grows more interest and leads to your B2B business.
Facebook Advertising for B2B Businesses
In 2021, the total number of Facebook users has reached 2.89 billion.
With this high volume of users, there’s a high chance your potential B2B audience is already using the social media network. In fact, you can even leverage the power of a lookalike audience for Facebook B2B ads.
To expand your brand reach and target your B2B target audience in a more meaningful way, Facebook offers a lot of useful options to help you succeed.
Here’s how you can leverage the power of Facebook Advertising for your B2B business.
1) Start With a Funnel
Before you can start creating advertisements, you should consider your target customer and their position in your marketing funnel.
All effective advertising comes down to targeting the right person. You can have a relevant message, but if it’s not reaching the right person, then it won’t convert.
You must know who you are targeting and where they are in your business’ marketing funnel.
Thinking about your B2B customer audience in terms of where they are in their buying journey:
- Top of the funnel – do they know they have a problem?
- Middle of the funnel – are they actively look for solutions?
- Bottom of the funnel – are they comparing options?
The simple rubric will help you see what kinds of customers you should be targeting.
A clear marketing funnel will help you form the foundation of a highly-targeted Facebook B2B Advertising strategy and deliver the best message to the correct audience.
Remember that when it comes to B2B, don’t create ads just for brand awareness’ sake. Create advertisements that generate lead conversions.
2) Focus on Relevancy Score
Facebook always prioritizes Advertising content based on a relevancy score. The scoring system is designed to provide Facebook users with ad experiences they are likely to be interested in.
To measure the relevance of an ad, Facebook assigns a score between 1-10 to your ads.
This score is determined by the number of positive or negative interactions that the Facebook algorithm expects your ad will receive.
For example, video views and clicks are considered to be positive interactions. On the other hand, if people report or hide your ad, it will be rated negatively.
The reason Facebook operates this way is to encourage all advertisers to deliver better ad experiences. After your ad campaign launches, you can monitor your relevance score to gauge whether or not you need to make changes to achieve better results.
For this reason, it’s vital to tailor Facebook ad content to your audience and provide some immediate value. If your ad is just a way to build brand awareness, it’s not likely to succeed.
One of the simplest ways to increase the value of your advertisements is through a lead magnet. Lead magnets are an offer incentivizing prospective B2B buyers to provide their contact information by offering something valuable in return. This can be a piece of content such as an ebook, downloadable report, a video, or a webinar.
Offer your audience a valuable free resource is a win-win. The person who signs up gets a useful piece of content, and your business obtains a lead.
3) Test Facebook Audiences
B2B companies have to deal with competition, just like any other industry. Your audience needs to buy into you.
Directly mentioning your audience in the ad copy is one common way of getting their attention; however, it doesn’t always guarantee that the right people are going to see it.
Fortunately, Facebook makes targeting incredibly easy with its Audiences feature.
Using this targeting tool allows you to target specific audiences based on a variety of factors such as demographics, job positions, personal interests, etc.
Another great feature is that you’re able to target people who have previously expressed interest in your business. This list includes past customers or website visitors, who you have captured with a Facebook pixel.
For B2B brands, it’s an excellent idea to define a smaller, more engaged group of users narrowly. The Audiences feature ensures that your Facebook ads are delivered to interested users who are the more likely to be interested in your offerings.
4) Test Different Ad Types
Many B2B Facebook advertising campaigns tend to fail because the advertisement they choose is not a good fit for the prospects.
The good news is that Facebook offers a variety of different ad formats:
- Image
- Video
- Carousel
- Instant experience
- Collection
Each one serves a slightly different purpose. For example, a B2C business might find more value in a carousel ad to sell their products. In contrast, a B2B business might find more success with a simple image or video and to-the-point ad copy.
Don’t think that video doesn’t work for B2B Facebook advertising. In fact, Facebook video engagement rate has an average of 6.13%, compared to the average overall engagement rate of 3.6%.
This fact means there is a unique opportunity for B2B Facebook advertisers to engage with audiences using video instead of image ads.
As with anything in advertising, you must first test to see what had the best impact. And with the variety of ads available to test, you are sure to find something that works.
5) Choose The Best Placement
When it comes to where your Facebook ads are displayed, you have two options: the news feed or the right column.
Of course, there are pros and cons to each placement, depending on your audience and goals. Newsfeed ads are much more popular and will usually have the broadest reach. However, this means that they’re also the most expensive.
Keep in mind also that in the newsfeed, you’re not only competing for attention with other advertisers but also with posts from friends, family, and a whole host of different sources.
Right column Facebook ads are typically smaller and less expensive and will only appear on desktop feeds.
When you choose to use a right column ad, ask yourself whether your audience primarily views from their mobile apps so as to ensure you have a decent amount of reach.
Before you decide on which ad type to choose, it helps to identify where most of your traffic is coming from. In most cases, it’s more likely that the news feed will be your best bet. However, in some situations, the cheaper ads that appear on the right of the desktop screen can be worth testing out.
6) Optimize for Mobile Users
In 2020, Facebook is very focused on helping advertisers to reach mobile users. This is because the majority of the platform’s growth is powered by mobile ads.
Therefore, if you want to ensure that your Facebook ads have the most reach, you want to target both mobile and desktop users.
To properly optimize your Facebook ads for mobile apps, here are some tips:
- Keep it brief — you have even less space to work with than desktop
- If you use video, ensure it can be viewed without sound, use subtitles to help
- If you are sending users to a landing page, make sure it is mobile-friendly
- Test out lead form ads to gather user data directly from Facebook
Overall, the same general rules for advertising on Facebook that apply for desktop ads also apply for mobile ads.
It’s no secret that, in today’s world, people are constantly on their phones. If you want to attract more B2B clients, make sure you properly account for mobile users when designing your Facebook B2B ad campaigns.
Treat B2B Prospects Like Regular People
In 2021, Facebook advertising is no longer just optimized for B2C sales. With the right strategy in place, B2B businesses can also leverage the social media platform to grow brand awareness and generate more leads.
Keep in mind that even though your audience has a different mindset when buying for B2B purchases, they are still human beings. Don’t fall into the trap of getting too technical or overly professional. People still make emotional decisions when buying for their business. You must appeal to the individual needs as much as the business needs if you want to succeed in B2B advertising on Facebook.
The key to success is genuinely understanding your audience. By knowing what they want, the types of ads they respond to, and the devices they use, you are already ahead of the competition.
