{"id":5962,"date":"2022-09-16T11:27:40","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T11:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/"},"modified":"2022-09-16T11:27:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T11:27:40","slug":"how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/","title":{"rendered":"How to approach B2B advertising during a challenging Q4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>B2B companies planning for the rest of 2022 have a unique set of circumstances to consider:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Funding has dried up.<\/li>\n<li>Mid-term election season is driving up engagement costs.<\/li>\n<li>Benchmarks from the last couple of years are less than reliable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We\u2019re in a very tricky time for B2B advertising. In this post, I\u2019ll lay out some recommendations on how to approach channel mix, budgeting, KPIs and more this Q4 2022, given a strange and thorny landscape.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_81 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Channel_considerations\" >Channel considerations\u00a0<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Pull_back_on_Facebook_spending\" >Pull back on Facebook spending<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Incorporate_more_lead_time_for_ad_approvals\" >Incorporate more lead time for ad approvals<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Budget_planning\" >Budget planning<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Double_down_on_lead_quality\" >Double down on lead quality<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Cost-mitigating_recommendations\" >Cost-mitigating recommendations<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Control_your_campaigns\" >Control your campaigns<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Align_your_goals_to_the_user_journey\" >Align your goals to the user journey<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/16\/how-to-approach-b2b-advertising-during-a-challenging-q4\/#Be_ready_for_Q1\" >Be ready for Q1<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Channel_considerations\"><\/span>Channel considerations\u00a0<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>I\u2019ve seen Facebook advertising prove more promising for B2B campaigns in recent months as advertisers implement offline conversion data to keep a close eye on lead quality. <\/p>\n<p>Leads are still cheap, and for the most part, I would support B2B Facebook ad testing if you\u2019re prepared to aggressively cross-reference CRM data to ensure the overall ROI is decent.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Pull_back_on_Facebook_spending\"><\/span>Pull back on Facebook spending<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The biggest channel adjustment I\u2019m recommending for B2B companies is to pull way back on Facebook spending for Q4. <\/p>\n<p>Facebook real estate is and will be clogged through early November with political ads and well into December with B2C companies ramping up holiday ad spend, which means engagement costs will be prohibitively high. <\/p>\n<p>Outside of this Q4, I tell B2B companies that Facebook advertising is worth at least testing. But for the rest of 2022, you won\u2019t get the most accurate view of Facebook advertising return and what the platform can do for your mix.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Incorporate_more_lead_time_for_ad_approvals\"><\/span>Incorporate more lead time for ad approvals<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The main B2B paid media channels, Google and LinkedIn, won\u2019t see a similar cost increase due to political spending. <\/p>\n<p>For Google, election and retail campaigns will be in high gear simultaneously (at least through early November). Incorporate a little more lead time for ad approvals to ensure you\u2019re keeping your campaigns on track.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Budget_planning\"><\/span>Budget planning<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Nothing beats Q1 for revenue in the world of B2B, but last year\u2019s Q4 provided a surprising windfall for some of my B2B clients. <\/p>\n<p>We saw CPC, CPM, and CPL get more expensive in Q4 (CPC, CPM, CPL), but there was a lot of capital, confidence, growth, and momentum in the marketplace that was making those leads more valuable. <\/p>\n<p>That has certainly not been the case over the last two quarters as the economy has pulled back.<\/p>\n<p>Trying to predict anything over the last two years has been a challenge (to say the least). I\u2019m working with clients to help them stay as flexible as possible over the coming months. We want to be prepared to ramp up, but we certainly don\u2019t want to bet on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Staying flexible means we\u2019re doing regular checks in shorter intervals on what\u2019s working to drive qualified leads and, importantly, how those leads behave once they enter the funnel. We\u2019re ensuring to stay in sync with our clients\u2019 CRM data and compare things like speed to purchase with the usual ad-centric KPIs.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Double_down_on_lead_quality\"><\/span>Double down on lead quality<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Budget retraction is a natural inclination for teams with uncertain funds, especially if the last couple of quarters have seen suppressed revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>My recommendation is to double down on quality: ramp up spending where you have strong lead quality and be aggressive about pulling back where quality is poor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And make sure to keep an eye on overall costs where you are able to spend. If your competitors pull back, you could have the market share to grab heading into the high season of Q1.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color\">\n<p><!-- START INLINE FORM --><\/p>\n<div class=\"nl-inline-form border py-2 px-1 my-2\">\n<div class=\"row align-items-center\">\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-3 col-xl-4 pe-md-0 pb-2 pb-lg-0\">\n<p class=\"inline-form-text text-center mb-0\">Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-7 col-xl-6  pe-lg-0\">\n<div class=\"form-nl-inline\">\n<div class=\"row g-0\">\n<div class=\"form-group col-12 col-lg-8 mb-0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-4 col-xl-4 mb-0\">\n<div class=\"d-none\">\n<p>Processing\u2026Please wait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<button class=\"btn btn-dark inlineButton w-100 rounded-0 font-weight-bold\" type=\"submit\" name=\"submit_button\">SUBSCRIBE<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-2 col-xl-2 ps-1\">\n<p class=\"text-center mb-0\"><a class=\"nl-terms\" href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/termsofuse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">See terms.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END INLINE FORM --><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color\">\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Cost-mitigating_recommendations\"><\/span>Cost-mitigating recommendations<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>B2B brands looking to curb spend should focus on two areas:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Control.<\/li>\n<li>Alignment of goals to the user journey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Control_your_campaigns\"><\/span>Control your campaigns<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>By control, I mean double-checking to make sure you&#8217;re not letting even your favorite platforms spend your budget where it doesn&#8217;t make sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For instance, by all means, advertise on LinkedIn, but check your settings to make sure the Audience Expansion setting is disabled. <\/p>\n<p>When enabled, this allows LinkedIn to expand targeting to those similar to the settings you&#8217;ve selected. For retargeting campaigns, this can mean you&#8217;re hitting users that haven&#8217;t actually visited your site.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2022\/09\/LinkedIn-audience-expansion-800x506.png\" alt=\"LinkedIn audience expansion\" class=\"wp-image-387996\" title=\"| Craig Hordlow\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Likewise with Google&#8217;s Search Partners: if it is driving quality leads, great, but in my history of testing Search Partners, leads have been poor quality. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also seen campaigns wasting a lot of ad spend on retargeting from Google&#8217;s Targeting Expansion setting at the ad group level so make sure that&#8217;s turned off.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Align_your_goals_to_the_user_journey\"><\/span>Align your goals to the user journey<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Q4 is not the time to skip nurturing steps. If you run ads on LinkedIn, boost awareness and support your sales pipeline efforts by warming up cold audiences rather than skipping right to \u201cRequest a demo\u201d goals. <\/p>\n<p>Give your target audience useful, ebook-type content to establish your expertise, then get them into your retargeting funnel.<\/p>\n<p>To drive traffic to the top of the funnel and keep costs low, consider testing LinkedIn and promoting ungated content. You can get cheap views by driving people to popular blog posts and either warm up cold leads or get new leads into your retargeting funnel (even if they don&#8217;t hit your CRM).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Take advantage of opportunities to prioritize spend on Google as well. If you&#8217;re going to pay soaring CPCs for late-funnel keywords, consider restricting your spending to campaigns with audiences overlaid (retargeting or Google&#8217;s built-in audiences) who will be more likely to take action after the click.<\/p>\n<p>In short, restrict your most expensive actions to the people most likely to take them.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Be_ready_for_Q1\"><\/span>Be ready for Q1<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Perhaps the most high-impact actions you can take in the coming months are steps to prepare for the rising tide of Q1. To me, the most important areas to prepare are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/first-party-data-core-questions-383035\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">First-party data<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Tracking<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-analytics-4-migration-guide-386201\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Analytics 4<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Creative<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I always lean on tracking, but right now, it&#8217;s imperative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>LinkedIn currently uses <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/help\/lms\/answer\/a416960\/add-the-linkedin-site-wide-insight-tag-to-google-tag-manager?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Insight Tag 2.0<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-global-site-tag-386869\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new Google Tag<\/a> to get your head around.<\/li>\n<li>The Facebook Conversions API is more important than ever to implement in the post-iOS 14 world.<\/li>\n<li>Offline conversion tracking is vital as <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/b2b-search-marketing-privacy-changes-385313\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">third-party cookies deprecate<\/a>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Similarly, if you haven&#8217;t already <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/google-analytics-4-guide-for-ppc-385457\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up your GA4 instance<\/a> and migrated your reporting cadence and insights from Universal Analytics, now&#8217;s the time. <\/p>\n<p>If you wait much longer to implement GA4, you won&#8217;t have good Q1 data from 2023 for year-over-year comparisons, which would be a huge miss.<\/p>\n<p>On the creative side, test different creative and messaging themes (not just minor elements like color and CTA) to see what&#8217;s hitting so you can prepare to roll out a wave of fresh creative in Q1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Overall, if there are big shifts you haven&#8217;t yet dug into (like <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/tips-on-testing-responsive-search-ads-311549\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">testing responsive search ads<\/a> in Google as <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/expanded-text-ads-are-disappearing-dont-disappear-with-them-375799\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">expanded text ads<\/a> disappear), do it in Q4 so you can set a firm strategy for Q1.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/b2b-advertising-challenging-q4-387994\" target=\"_blank\">How to approach B2B advertising during a challenging Q4<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Search Engine Land<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>B2B companies planning for the rest of 2022 have a unique set of circumstances to consider:\u00a0 Funding has dried up. Mid-term election season is driving up engagement costs. Benchmarks from the last couple of years are less than reliable. We\u2019re in a very tricky time for B2B advertising. In this post, I\u2019ll lay out some recommendations on how to approach channel mix, budgeting, KPIs and more this Q4 2022, given a strange and thorny landscape. Channel considerations\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen Facebook advertising prove more promising for B2B [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-seo-blogs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/author\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}