The Salt Sessions

Season 1 | Episode 06

Paid Ads that convert | Pro Tips

Welcome back to The Salt Sessions! In this episode, I’m joined by Charlotte Sheridan, founder of The Small Biz Expert, to dive into the world of paid advertising for B2B businesses.

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While organic reach can only take you so far, paid ads can unlock new opportunities by targeting the right demographic or geographic areas. If you're curious about how paid ads can boost your B2B business, this episode is packed with top tips to help you get started. Tune in for expert advice and actionable strategies.

Transcript

0:10
Welcome back to the Salt Sessions.

0:12
My name is Bev Salt.

0:13
I'm a marketing consultant.

0:15
Head over to my website, addsaltco.uk for more information.

0:20
Today I am joined by Charlotte Sheridan.

0:24
She is the founder of Small Biz Expert and we're here today to talk about paid advertising for B2B businesses.

0:33
I think Charlotte, the challenge that B2B companies have is that buying cycles are a lot longer compared to B2C and your customers might buy, buy from you next week or it could be next month, next year.

0:47
And the decision making unit is also more complex as well because there are several people involved in the buying decision.

0:54
I think with content, there comes a point where you can only get so far with organic reach and without paid ads, your content or your website, it's not going to reach its full potential.

1:07
And I think that's where paid ads come in because it allows you to be very targeted at a certain demographic or geographic location.

1:16
It's good to get your insights on paid ads today.

1:19
The first question I have is, is it possible to run ad campaigns when you have a limited budget?

1:27
It definitely is.

1:29
It completely depends, but you have to be a bit clever about it.

1:32
So first of all, choose your platform wisely and be realistic about what your ads might achieve.

1:39
If your budget is limited when it comes to paid digital ads, to some degree, you've got two options.

1:44
It's either the pushing stuff out in front of people, which is often the B2B.

1:50
You talk about social media, most likely LinkedIn, possibly Meta, so Facebook, Instagram, if your clients are using that a lot.

1:59
And on the other side of that you've got Google ads where you'll actually be when somebody's searching for what you offer, you'll be showing up.

2:07
So as an example, if your budget is limited, you're probably not going to be able to run a super expensive Google ad campaign with keywords that cost £10 per click.

2:19
But what you might do is run something a little bit more, what we call top of the funnel.

2:24
So maybe using slightly less expensive keyword to drive traffic, maybe for a download or lead magnet or something along those lines.

2:32
So you might do something a bit softer with a limited budget or on LinkedIn, for example, you might, rather than trying to go for, let's say, looking at demo, never do that.

2:42
That's like getting married on the first date.

2:45
You may look at things like driving people to a webinar or something like that.

2:49
So you can definitely use a smaller budget, but you've got to expect the results that a smaller budget will bring, and you might have to put more legwork in somewhere else, Right?

2:59
OK.

2:59
And you've mentioned Google and you've also just mentioned LinkedIn there.

3:04
Can you just go through the different types of ads that people should be aware of?

3:09
I would say when it comes to different types of ads, it's really thinking about the different campaign types on these platforms.

3:17
And it's really kind of starting with what your objectives are in terms of ad formats.

3:22
Obviously you have things like images, videos, carousels on Google, you have search ads, you now have things called lead generation ads, play a video.

3:32
There's lots of different ads, like ways that ads look.

3:37
But when you're looking at your campaign, you'd always start with what your objectives are because there's different types of campaign within those platforms.

3:46
So things like awareness campaigns when you sort of just want to generate awareness of your brand coming through to really what we call bottom of funnel campaigns that are designed to turn someone from a prospect into a lead.

4:02
So with B2B businesses, it's obviously not feasible to invest in every platform because there are so many out there.

4:10
Now.

4:11
What key platforms would you recommend for a B2B business looking to advertise?

4:16
So, so for any B2B business who's looking to advertise what, I'd say before you even consider putting money in, you know, putting your hard money into Google or LinkedIn or TikTok’s pocket, look at what's working for you now.

4:32
So if you're a company that mainly generates leads through, let's say organic search on Google, the next obvious step would be will we get more results if we put paid spend on onto Google?

4:47
If, however, let's say the majority of your leads a word of mouth, it may be that actually, you know who that target audience is.

4:56
It's working well when you get in front of them.

5:00
So is it worth putting paid spending to get in front in front of them on social media with the same message?

5:05
So there's no one-size-fits-all.

5:08
It's looking at the best thing to look at is what generates leads to you now and then putting paid spending to amplifying it.

5:17
Let's use some examples here.

5:19
If I was a software company and I, had a chatbot builder and I want to generate leads every month, which platform would you recommend for me?

5:31
I'm smiling because we've literally just done a campaign on a very, very similar, actually literally for a client who does pretty much that.

5:40
Actually the I hate that the answer is with them.

5:43
We, we did both.

5:44
However, the key to it is actually what your budget is, what your return on investment will be.

5:50
So for the client that I'm thinking of, we mainly focused on LinkedIn ads because actually on the in the Google space, the cost per click is very high for those types of search terms.

6:02
So we look at building out a funnel, which actually started with a bit of a how to type, how to type campaign with a webinar and then sort of followed that up.

6:14
The other thing being none of this stuff for B2B works in isolation.

6:17
It's not like a consumer where OK, I see a £10 T-shirt on Facebook, click, click, I purchased it.

6:24
Like you said at the beginning, there is a long sales cycle.

6:29
More than one person is involved.

6:30
So actually your ad is just the start.

6:33
It is just the introduction.

6:34
It's just getting people in front of your business.

6:37
So actually the best way to do that will completely depend on how your audience purchases.

6:41
So even with let's just say a chat bot building tool, it could you might split your budget 50 50 across let's say Google and LinkedIn. In your experience, what makes an ad campaign effective?

6:56
At the end of the day, for a campaign to be effective, it has to drive sales.

7:01
There is no one answer to this because it absolutely depends on your business.

7:06
If your business is built on being elite, that will have a very different, you'll have very different types of ads, types of campaigns than someone who maybe stack them high, sell it, sell it cheap, you know, a lower price point.

7:20
So there's no one thing that makes it an advert in itself effective.

7:26
But what does make an advertising paid ad campaigns effective is that it speaks to your audience.

7:35
So what might suit me as a business owner probably isn't the same as, you know, the CEO of Coca-Cola.

7:41
So let's go back to the chatbot company.

7:44
What kind of things would you make sure are in the ads?

7:48
Would there be a promotion, discount code, or a clear call to action?

7:53
So in terms of what should be in an ad, the actually the biggest thing is having a really clear customer journey post ad.

8:02
That is the thing that most adverts fall down on.

8:04
As I say, if you're on social media, you're looking at an ad to stop someone scrolling past it.

8:09
Now what might stop me is not the same thing that will stop you.

8:13
So The thing is you don't just put out one ad when you put out adverts, you're putting out lots of them.

8:18
So the big key is testing what's actually resonating.

8:22
A good tip if you're looking at social campaign is look at what works for you organically.

8:27
So if you post stuff on LinkedIn and actually you start to know what type of media gets traction, what words you use that tend to trigger action and stuff like that.

8:38
So use what's worked in the past in your ads and then build on build on that.

8:44
With something like Google, it's very different because you're in a structured framework.

8:49
So that is actually all about what somebody is searching rather than the ad copy itself.

8:53
Yes, the call to action will help, but there's a tonne of other factors that go into setting up that kind of campaign.

9:00
Charlotte, what type of conversion rate should we expect from the ads?

9:07
It absolutely depends.

9:09
There's no clear answer.

9:10
However, where again, where I start is benchmarking against yourself.

9:14
So you can go and Google benchmarks within your industry and you'll find it.

9:19
The even general benchmark will completely depend.

9:22
Like I don't know, housing will be very different to tech and stuff like that.

9:25
But the best way to start is what's your conversion rate on your website at the moment?

9:29
If you don't know that, I would actually generally say you might not be ready to run paid ads.

9:34
You almost want to do something organically before you put money into this.

9:38
But if let's say you've got maybe a 2 1/2 percent conversion rate on your website at the moment.

9:46
I would say a really sort of small goal to start off with would be maybe about 1 to 2% over what your standard conversion rate is.

9:54
Because on a website, if you think about, people might be coming in from a blog or through another promotion.

10:00
So actually, if you're really targeting those users for a promotion, you'd expect it to be higher than your standard conversion rate.

10:07
But maybe 1% is a good goal to start off with.

10:11
But nothing's ever guaranteed in life and it will be very different, let's say for a law firm to someone who's selling a really expensive piece of tech.

10:23
Do you have any advice on landing pages at all?

10:27
Yes, 100%.

10:28
So definitely always consider where your ad is going to land.

10:32
The infrastructure behind your ad is the most important thing.

10:35
However, I'm actually going to say something slightly controversial here.

10:38
You don't always need a specific one and done landing page.

10:44
I see people get this wrong.

10:45
Let's say, for example, that you are a and I'm going to use the example of a law firm because someone people really want to trust, right?

10:52
We've seen more firms to set up just single landing pages that are just let's say they're offering conveyancing.

10:59
So you just go to a landing page.

11:00
It's just one, no menu.

11:02
This is just our conveyancing.

11:04
And actually we as marketers go, Oh, what a fantastic landing page.

11:09
What a normal customer sees is this is a one page website.

11:13
They don't trust it.

11:15
So although you should always send, if you've got an advert advertising a specific product service, whatever you have offering, it should go to a page that matches your advert.

11:27
But at the same time, when people talk about landing pages, they can get a little bit too into having something that just has one thing on it, nothing else.

11:36
So yes, your ads should always go to a specific page, but don't get too caught up in having completely blank non navigational landing pages because actually some people just see a one page website and think you're not trustworthy.

11:52
That's great advice. If you're a B2B business.

11:54
When you acquire a lead, it's highly unlikely they're going to convert into a customer tomorrow.

12:00
When should company start expecting a return on advertising investment?

12:05
It'll be exactly the same as the lead from any other platforms.

12:08
So if you're buying cycle is three months, then that's when you can expect to start see an ROI on your ad again, I intend to say to clients that actually whatever you're running, month 1 is pretty much a testing period.

12:22
Expect to lose your money.

12:22
Like don't expect a return in month 1.

12:26
You are spending that money on testing your creative.

12:29
If it's Google ads, you're testing your keywords and refining them.

12:33
So actually you're going to spend a bit of money to learn before you can expect to start to see leads coming in.

12:39
Then when those leads come in, the return on investment will be exactly the same timeline wise as it is for any other inquiry.

12:48
It shouldn't be any longer.

12:49
You might need to put if you're doing something that's really top of the funnel, you might need to put a lot more effort into the at the start.

12:56
A mistake we've also seen in perhaps where people haven't actually done anything digital at all.

13:03
Like forget paid ads.

13:04
I haven't done anything digital before.

13:07
They may.

13:08
Sometimes I think that the conversion rate as in from enquiry to somebody actually converting to a paying customer will be the same as word of mouth.

13:18
And that normally isn't the case because you're an advert is going to a cold audience.

13:22
They've not been recommended by someone, they might not know your pricing point, they might not actually align with your value.

13:28
So you kind of expect higher volume, lower conversion rate than say word of mouth, but you may find it quite similar to if you're already getting leads from organic linking apps every day.

13:40
Yeah, you might expect it to be quite similar if you're running paid ads.

13:43
And interesting, you mentioned the month one should be about testing and learning.

13:48
So let's go back to our chatbot building company.

13:51
Is there a minimum time frame that you would advise companies to spend on ads before they decide whether to continue or pull the plug?

14:00
That will absolutely depend.

14:03
Three things.

14:03
1 is how much money they have, right?

14:05
Know what?

14:05
Like I would never sit there and say just carry on spending while no cash flow is coming in if that's going to cause serious issues.

14:11
But actually if you're going to be in that position again, maybe don't run ads just yet.

14:16
However, I would tend to recommend that at the end of the month 1, you should have a picture of what should work.

14:24
Generally it completely depends on the platform.

14:26
On LinkedIn, for example, quite often people will run campaigns that only run for four to six weeks to maybe hit a top of funnel goal, be that download or something along those lines.

14:38
And in that case, often that campaign is the test within itself.

14:43
So you take the learnings for that campaign for your next campaign.

14:47
Google Ads is a bit different to be honest with you.

14:49
Google Ads, generally speaking, should be always on.

14:52
These are all machine learning platforms.

14:54
You need to give that machine time to learn.

14:57
And also there's seasonal fluctuations.

14:59
This thing, if you started a B2B campaign on the 24th of December and then when, well, our results for the 24th of January aren't what we expected, you probably wouldn't be having a true reflection of what the market is.

15:15
So like Google, generally speaking, I would say month one to three is your learning curve.

15:20
What month 1 is really, really testing.

15:22
Month one to three is learning usually.

15:24
And then after that, you really start to see normally it's month three that we see real return, like big bigger return if it's going to work.

15:33
But you will know by then if actually this just isn't going to work and we need to go back and refine something.

15:40
And it's usually refining something in the process behind it.

15:44
If it's keyword, for example, are there any tools that you recommend people use to find suitable keywords for their own business?

15:52
So yeah, 100%.

15:53
So if you are looking at doing Google Ads and you want to start your keyword reset again, first thing is your own data.

16:02
I know I keep saying it, your own data, your own data, your own data, but your own data is key.

16:06
And the place you would look there is your Google Search Console.

16:10
So have a look at what is driving Click to your website at the moment and perhaps what isn't driving click.

16:16
But because you're not showing up high enough and you want to plug that gap by adding bend against that particular term, free tools that you can use.

16:24
Obviously Google Ads has its own Google Ads Planner and you can pop your sort of what we call seed keywords.

16:30
So again, you start with common sense.

16:33
You sit there, you speak to your sales team.

16:35
What are people most often asking when they come to us?

16:39
Have a look at your competitors as well.

16:42
What are they actually showing up for in on Google?

16:46
You can also use, there's a few free ones like Ubersuggest I think is free.

16:52
We use Semrush, which it is paid for and I don't suggest that everybody needs to use something like that.

17:00
The other thing is actually going on to Google putting in your keywords, looking at things like people also are.

17:06
However, if you're going to run a Google ad campaign, you want your term to be really what we call high intent SEO.

17:16
It's all good to rank for things that are maybe a little bit broader, but taking our chat bot people, for example, some IT keywords are up in the £40-50 per click, right?

17:29
So therefore, you don't want to accidentally be getting a click because somebody's just looking for the login to Microsoft.

17:38
So high intent is really important.

17:40
So don't just go, oh, we do IT, so we're going to bid on the category IT you want to bid on company that builds chatbot.

17:47
All right, that's probably not quite the keyword, but you want high intent when you're paying per click.

17:51
Great advice.

17:52
Well, thank you, Charlotte.

17:53
And if people had questions, what's the best way for them to contact you?

17:57
I'm always on LinkedIn.

17:58
So just search Charlotte Sheridan LinkedIn and the website is www.thesmallbizexpert.co.uk

18:07
Brilliant.

18:08
Well, thank you very much for your time today, Charlotte.

18:10
You're welcome.

18:11
Thank you.

18:11
Bye.

18:13
Bye.