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by Mike Vestil 

Facebook Ads For B2B – Sales Increase Guide 

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Think Facebook ads only work for B2C brands?

Think again.

Facebook ads are also a superb marketing tool for attracting new customers for B2B businesses. It’s a profitable online advertising platform in many ways. Among other things, the low cost per click (CPC) allows brands to gain leads without breaking the bank. With Facebook users spending almost 20 hours a month on the platform, you will find engaged business decision makers among them. 

To make Facebook advertising work for your brand and maximize earnings from your marketing efforts, you must use a smart strategy. 

This guide will introduce you to the best practices for Facebook ads for B2B, from creating an advertising funnel to creating effective advertising creatives.

Why Facebook Ads For B2B Brands Work (And Don’t Work)

Facebook is an excellent lead generation channel for B2B companies.

Facebook Advertising For B2B: Why Bother?

Why advertise on Facebook?

The main reason to advertise on Facebook is that this platform has the greatest reach. With close to 3 billion active users, Facebook is by far the most popular social network.

Facebook Advertising For B2B

Source: Statista

You can reach all these billions of people around the world and find the right audience for your brand through highly targeted Facebook ads.

While the Facebook user base dipped for the first time in the last quarter of 2021, a closer look at the trends shows Facebook and Instagram are still on a path of steady growth in monthly active users. Facebook has become the most popular social media platform for b2b marketing. The network has now overtaken LinkedIn, which for a long time was the leading lead generation channel for most B2B brands.

Besides a wide global reach, advertising on Facebook has other advantages that can benefit your brand’s marketing efforts. The platform has some of the best advertising algorithms in the industry. You can use Facebook’s hyper-accurate engine to target people by job titles, industry, demographics, location, and more. 

If you're a lawyer using Facebook ads to target corporate clients, you can use Facebook's targeting options to show your ads to people who work in large companies in your city who have an interest in business law. 

The targeting is more advanced than the one offered by Google Ads. We will dig deeper into targeting shortly. But the point is through Facebook news feed ads you can attract the exact audience you are after. Plus, Facebook ads are pretty cheap, so you can start immediately.

Finally, Facebook offers many ad formats to suit every niche and every stage of the marketing funnel. Despite all these benefits, there are also unsuccessful cases of B2B advertising on Facebook. That’s what we will talk about next.

5 Common Mistakes B2B Brands Make With Facebook Advertising

5 Common Mistakes

Source: Unsplash

To drive quick business growth from Facebook, many brands slip up and fall flat. Here are a few popular mistakes when using Facebook ads:

Having A Fuzzy Target Audience

Most B2B brands fail on Facebook because they don’t have a clear target audience. Clarity about your targeted audience is crucial to succeeding with FB ads. It informs your entire advertising campaign from messaging to the visuals you use. 

So if your target is unclear, you won’t hit it—simple.

Ignoring The Sales Funnel

Ad campaigns don’t take place in a vacuum. They happen in the context of a specific business with unique goals. So if you don’t align your advertising strategy based on your sales funnel, your ads will be spectacular duds.

It is vital to first understand your sales funnel, then set up FB ads.

Using Generic Ads

One size fits all may be good when shopping for happy socks. But it’s a bad idea when doing FB ad campaigns. If you show the same ad creative to everyone, you will fail. Your click-through rates will be dismal. And most people who click on your ads won’t become paying clients because they are not a good fit.

Personalization is the name of the game in marketing these days. Without it, you’ll your ads won’t resonate with your audience and you will waste your ad budget.

Forgetting Remarketing Campaigns

Did you know that a staggering 97% of people who visit a website for the first time buy nothing then? You lose a tremendous opportunity for sales if you don’t follow them to lure them back to your site so they buy or take the desired action like filling a lead gen form. That’s what remarketing is all about. Following your site visitors after they leave so they come back.

 Remarketing Campaigns

Source: WordStream

If you don’t set up a Facebook pixel for remarketing campaigns, you lose an enormous opportunity of turning visitors who left into leads and sales.

Following What Everyone Else Is Doing

Many brands misfire on Facebook because they follow best practices blindly. Following what everyone is doing won’t lead to success. Your company is unique. It has distinct goals, audiences, and positioning. Yes, learn from what others are doing, but experiment and do what works for your unique brand. 

What works for one B2B company may not work for another.

Now that you know which banana skins to avoid, let’s look at how to build a funnel for FB ads.

How To Create A B2B Marketing Funnel For Facebook Ads

To kill it with FB ads, you must create a funnel and target each stage.

In case you are wondering, a marketing funnel is a predetermined pathway for prospects to follow from being total strangers to a company to becoming loyal customers. 

It's shaped liked a funnel, wide on top and narrow at the bottom as leads move closer to making a purchasing decision.

How To Create A B2B Marketing Funnel For Facebook Ads

Source: Skyword

People become fewer as you go down and move closers to the purchase stage.

Let’s summarize each stage of the marketing funnel as it relates to FB ads.

Marketing Funnel Awareness Stages

Here’s a quick overview of the marketing funnel. You can build your Facebook advertising around the framework. It starts when prospects know nothing about your company and move through the stages until they become paying customers.

  • Awareness

At this stage, prospects don’t have a clue about your business and what you do. The goal of ads here is to make potential customers aware that your brand exists.

  • Interest

In the interest stage, prospects know about your brand. At this point, your promotions must engage them and show them how your goods or services can serve them.

  • Consideration

You’ve piqued the leads’ interest. Now they are considering buying from you. Ads at this stage should showcase the benefits of your product and how it can make people’s lives better.

  • Intention

At the intention stage, your promos should focus on your unique positioning in the market. Show how your product is better than your competitors’.

  • Purchase

The goal of ads at this stage is to clinch the sale. No pussyfooting. Just ask for the sale. That’s it.

Quick Notes About The Marketing Funnel Stages

  • When creating an advertising strategy, it is important to think over the advertising messages and target audiences for each stage.
  • It is important to come up with an advertising message that will move a potential customer from one stage of the funnel to the next.
  • Have a focused message for each stage with clear CTAs that’ll take your leads to the next step.
  • Think about the steps a person needs to take to become a paying customer. The best way to do that is to reverse engineer the steps your best customers took to become buying customers.
  • Realize that in B2B marketing, it takes longer for prospects to become customers. So be patient. That said a good funnel shortens the buyer’s journey so you get the sale faster.

Let’s now go into detail about the tactics you can use to design promotions that engage Facebook users and drive action at each stage of the funnel.

Marketing Funnel Stage 1: Awareness

Remember, people at this stage of the funnel know absolutely nothing about your brand and what it offers.

So you must introduce it to them. 

How?

Showcase the brilliance of your product to build brand awareness. Tell prospects your product exists, appealingly so you draw them towards it. The easiest way to talk about a product is to run an ad that reveals what it is.

The advertising creative should emphasize the benefits of the product.

A few recommendations about ads in the awareness stage:

  • Underline product benefits: to woo prospects, emphasize your product’s benefits, not features. Features are dry facts about your product’s abilities. Benefits show people how specific features make their lives better. Sell the sizzle, not the steak as they say.
  • Use a high-quality ad image: visual content is a powerful way of drawing people’s attention on fast-moving social media streams. Throw in irresistible crystal clear high-resolution images so people see your product in all its glory.
  • Keep things simple: with all the tech toys and countless FB marketing tips and tricks available today, it’s easy to go overboard. Resist the urge to complicate your ad. Just do the basics right. Tell people what your product is. Show how it helps them. Spotlight its uniqueness. That’s it. 
  • Point out the product’s difference: to stand out from the countless competitors out there, you need to emphasize what makes your product unique. Reveal to people what they can get from your product and nowhere else. Describe its advantages over others.

Asana’s advert leads by touting their biggest benefit—simplicity.

Point out the product’s difference

Source: Adexpresso

Not only is the software easy to use, but they also draw prospects in by telling them the tool is free for teams up to 15.

First impressions are crucial in advertising.

If you don't hook prospects in those first few seconds when they encounter your brand for the first time, they will ignore your ad. So a potential client needs to know that you are a reliable partner. Let prospects see you as:

  • Very qualified.
  • Professional.
  • Fast.
  • Reliable.
  • Quality-driven.

For people to deem you a reliable brand, in your advertisement copy:

  • Mention well-known brands that have used your services/product.
  • Include logos of famous clients in the advertising image.
  • Put customer reviews of happy clients appreciating your product.
  • Show the number of clients you already have if you have many customers.
  • Showcase industry awards you've recently won.

Supermetrics makes a customer testimonial the core of their ad.

Supermetrics customer testimonial

Source: Klient Boost

By using a success story from existing customers, they prove that product works in the real world.

Promote The Media Coverage About Your Company

Has your company appeared in a famous business publication?

Great.

Maximize that special moment to promote your business. Use the mention by the well-known business publication in your adverts as proof that you are the real deal. Social proof is such a powerful psychological trigger.

WeWork boasts of its mention in the prestigious Inc. Magazine.

Promote The Media Coverage About Your Company

Source: Klient Boost

On seeing this media mention, the brand's followers on their Facebook page and other Facebook audiences see them as a big kahuna in the industry. PR and B2B Facebook ads are a formidable duo that proves a brand’s popularity and authority.

To spread the word about your product even further, use the Facebook Audience Network. This feature publishes your ads in apps and sites outside Facebook. 

More eyeballs on your content mean more exposure for your brand.

Best Practices For B2B Brand Awareness Facebook Ads

B2B Facebook ads that help increase brand awareness:

  • Present your product memorably and explain its benefits simply.
  • Inspire confidence through customer testimonials and other trust signals.
  • Promote media coverage of your B2B business.
  • Include high-quality images that mesmerize users so they pay immediate attention.

Once you understand the best practices of a brand awareness campaign, move on to setting up your campaign.

How To Set Up Your Facebook Brand Awareness Campaigns

The first step is choosing a campaign goal.

The future success of advertising depends on the correct choice of a goal since Facebook uses different algorithms and advertising settings for each goal.

We recommend using these types of goals:

  • Brand awareness

Brand awareness is all about showing your ad to as many people as possible who fit your target persona. This aim is ideal if you want consumers to spread the word fast about a new product offering or you are a new startup that wants people to know it has arrived on the scene.

  • Traffic

This campaign goal is for B2B brands that want to drive a lot of traffic to their website. Traffic is the perfect goal if you are promoting gated content because it helps you grow your email list. It is also a suitable goal if you want people to visit your free trial offer page.

  • Engagement

The engagement goal aims to get more people to interact with your Facebook post or page. Engagement covers likes, shares, and comments. You can choose this goal if you want more people to engage with your posts or as social proof when promoting an event.

facebook Engagement

You can start with one campaign with one set of ads, including 3-10 creatives.

Next, set up ad campaign targeting.

Facebook allows you to customize audiences by interests, gender, age, geographic location, and more.

To target effectively, test different audience options that are most similar to the target customers. Here’s how the audience section looks.

saved audience

Source: Sprout Social

During the awareness stage, the overarching goal is to reach the largest number of potential customers and tell them about your product. Facebook lead ads are perfect for this purpose. 

Now we move on to the interest stage.

Marketing Funnel Stage 2: Interest

At the interest stage, people know about your brand a bit about your product, but they are not confident enough to buy it. 

The solution?

They need more info.

Here’s how you give it to them.

Promote Your Top Blog Articles

If you have a site that’s packed with SEO-optimized content, advertise it on Facebook.

SEO is a potent marketing channel that can produce a constant stream of organic leads for your business month after month, years. But to make SEO work and rank for keywords your target audience uses to search for your products or services, you must promote your content aggressively.

That’s where B2B Facebook ads come in.

Litmus knows how to promote its content using B2B Facebook promos.

Promote Your Top Blog Articles

Source: Klient Boost

This B2B Facebook commercial rocks because it’s non salesy. Also, the article addresses a relevant topic for brands that want to get results from their email marketing.

Collect Leads With Gated Content

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels. With the help of Facebook advertising, you can create a traffic flow to closed content. These are useful materials that can be accessed in exchange for the prospect’s contact details. Facebook lead ads do the trick. 

To do this, you need to set up an advertising campaign that directs people to a landing page.

Pipedrive certainly knows how to combine B2B Facebook ads with a dedicated landing page.

Here is a case of in point of one of their ads.

Collect Leads With Gated Content

It leads straight to this landing page.

photo

The entire campaign is aligned. 

From the ad that advertises a free trial to the landing page that sells the free trial, down to the CTA ‘get started for free” that clinches the deal, everything is in sync. You can do the same and use your content assets instead of a free trial to get the contact details from new leads. Dedicated landing pages boost sign ups because they don’t have distractions.

Best Practices For B2B Facebook Ads In The Interest Stage

The interest stage is not a definite step between the stages of awareness and consideration.

There’s a sense in which interest overlaps between the awareness and the consideration stages. People can’t engage with your brand if you haven’t provoked their interest. And they certainly won’t consider your brand if you don’t sustain their interest.

Campaigns you can launch at this stage include:

  • Ads promoting blog articles or other useful content.
  • Ads that promote restricted content and help collect contact information for further email marketing.

How To Set Up Your Interest Stage Facebook Page Campaign

For better structure and control, you should have only 3 campaigns at each stage of the funnel.

But first, experts recommend setting up one campaign at each stage of the funnel.

There are 2 types of remarketing audiences that work well on Facebook.

Past Website Visitors

For past website visitors, you must install a Facebook pixel on your site.

A FB pixel is a piece of code that collects data about site visitors and helps you track conversions of your FB ads.

You can add a Facebook pixel at the bottom of your website’s header section.

Past Website Visitors

Source: Facebook

It’s easy. You don’t need a developer to do it.

Once you’ve installed the pixel on your site, go to the Facebook audience and set up a custom audience for everyone who visited the site in the past 30 days.

Select "all visitors" and 30 days.

all visitors

Source: Social Media Examiner

You can create ads for people who visited specific web pages.

custom audience

Source: Social Media Examiner

Executed well, these ads can bring back people who exited your website so they complete the desired action (e.g. watch a demo video or fill a lead gen form) and continue to go down your funnel.

People Who Interacted With The Page And Ads

Many people connect with your brand through your FB ads or page, go their way, and forget about you.

To win them back and keep your brand top of mind, charm them with a series of FB ads.

To re-engage this type of target:

Create a custom audience, select "FB page" from the list of targeting options;

Select "People who interacted with any post or ad".

Set "30 days".

You can use the activity-based targeting function to reach people who:

  • Engaged with your Facebook page.
  • Engaged with your B2B Facebook ad.
  • Clicked your ad CTA.
  • Sent you a DM.
  • Like or follow your Facebook page.

Speaking of hyper-targeting, here’s how it looks in Facebook Ad Manager.

People Who Interacted With The Page And Ads

You can use this handy feature for business decision makers who have already shown interest in your brand. B2B Facebook ads targeting these engaged prospects convert better than those who haven’t connected with your company before.

ShipCalm used Facebook’s core and custom audiences feature to create high-performing ads like the ones below.

ShipCalm

Source: Klient Boost

They got remarkable results from their custom audiences themed approach:

  • 492% hike in conversions.
  • 21% decrease in CPA.
  • 12% increase in conversion rate.

The interest stage is all about staying front and center in the minds of prospects, so when the moment to buy a product related to the problems you solve, you will be the first brand that comes to mind.

Then comes consideration…

Marketing Funnel Stage 3: Consideration

The consideration stage is for nurturing leads. You must keep leads interested in your product while strengthening your positioning in their minds. People must see your product as a viable option among all the many choices out there.

How do you nurture leads at this stage?

Two proven methods work for Saas (software as a service) brands and service-based companies. 

For SaaS brands, a good option is:

  • Offering people free trials

Give people free access to your software for a limited time. Most brands have 14-day or 30-day free trials. This is enough time for people to appreciate the strengths of your product, so they ultimately upgrade to a paid subscription. Once a customer has signed up for a free trial, move them to the next stage of the marketing funnel.

Here’s a good example of a free trial ad from Convert Kit.

Offering people free trials

Source: Leedfeeder

They use an engaging conversational tone. Plus, they emphasize that it’s a FREE no-strings-attached test drive. Finally, they specify that it’s a 14-day free trial so people know from the get-go.

If you are a service-based business, you can:

  • Offer people free audits or consultations

When people haven’t worked with your company before, they have no idea what your company is capable of. By offering to work with you for free, you give them a chance to sample your company in a real work scenario so they get impressed and sign up for your paid service. 

Michael Hyatt, a consultant, gives brands a chance to see him in action through a live webinar.

Michael Hyatt

Source: Adespresso

This ad uses social proof to powerfully. It points out that Michael is a NYT bestselling author who runs a blog with 500,000 readers. Surely brand would be keen to listen to such a distinguished presenter.

Keep Sharing High-Quality Content

Once again, remember that at this stage, it’s critical to remain the center of attention for customers. 

You achieve this through emails and paid marketing tactics.

After publishing an article on a blog or other useful content:

  • Share it with people on your email list, so they click through and read it.

    You can also run automated email campaigns to promote your old evergreen content assets

  • Promote it on your Facebook page, targeting the promotion to a remarketing audience.

Here’s an example of Credo promoting valuable content to their target audience.

Credo

Source: Leedfeeder

Here’s an example of Credo promoting valuable content to their target audience.

  • A straightforward question-based headline.
  • A benefit-driven hook ‘9 free case studies… sites growing through SEO’.
  • A clear direct CTA ‘download’.

Show How Much Value Your B2B Product Can Bring

For people to consider your product in their buying options, they must see value in it.

The most effective way to show the value of a product is to evaluate its benefits as weighed against the problem it solves for the target consumers.

However, note that advertising copy in the consideration stage should not contain aggressive sales offers. Hard sell adverts will scare off potential buyers because they won’t be ready to take out their credit cards yet.

So you need a more subtle approach.

Instead, offer a free trial of the product or something like that. For marketing messages in the consideration stage, we recommend you set your ad to one of the following objectives:

  • Conversions.
  • Traffic.
  • Coverage.

You can configure this easily in FB ad manager:

  • Custom audiences of special landing page visitors

Site visitors browse many pages on websites: homepages, about pages, pricing pages, you name it. You can specifically target users who visited specific pages in Custom Audiences. For instance, you can focus on people who visited your sales page and bought something or those who visited a certain page in a specified period.

Custom audiences

Source: Social Media Examiner

  • Custom audiences based on customer lists

This feature allows you to target buyers in your existing customer base. You can create Facebook custom audiences and build a custom audience list. You can create Lookalike audiences based on your chosen identifiers from the many options at your disposal.

Custom audiences based on customer lists

Source: Social Media Examiner

The more identifiers you add, the more custom your audience becomes.

After picking your identifiers, the Facebook lookalike audiences algorithm kicks in and searches for people who match your customer data. Pretty smart, right?

Marketing Funnel Stage 4: Intent

At the intent stage, leads are inching closer to buying your products. A good strategy to push them further down the funnel using success stories related to your product in your ads.

To convince leads to buy your product:

At the intention stage, the advertisements should:

Show That Your Product Is The Best On The Market

Yes, the best is relative.

But you should find that one thing that makes your product better than the competition. Amplify it until people get it.

Is your product:

  • Faster?
  • Nicer?
  • More user-friendly?

Whatever that ‘best’ is for your company or service, emphasize it in your ads.

Show That Your Product Is Backed By Stellar Service

Behind every successful product is a five-star customer service team.

In your ads, show your brand has a helpful attitude towards customers. Prominently display reviews and testimonials where satisfied customers sing of your product’s virtues and the brilliance of your ever-helpful support team.

Show That Your Product Is Popular With Consumers

People are wired to do what all the other cool kids in town are doing. So do all you can to show the popularity of your product.

Show off other companies that have used your product/service and loved it. The more the merrier. Brownie points if it’s a famous brand. Also, get active on social media platforms. When people see your company popping up all over social channels, they’ll believe you are a massive brand.

Here are the recommended campaign types at the intent stage:

  • Conversions.
  • Traffic.
  • Coverage.

Targeting at this stage should aim at leads in the middle of the sales funnel.

One more step to go… the purchase stage.

Marketing Funnel Stage 5: Purchase

Consumers who reach the purchase stage are close to the finish line of the buying process. They are ready to pull the trigger and click the buy button.

In terms of ads, the last stage is the promotion of sales and discounts to push customers to the final purchase decision.

The major goal at this stage is simple—turn leads into customers.

The best ad campaigns are those that provide an additional reason for making a purchase decision. In other words, pile value on value to impress people so they can’t help themselves but buy your product because they see its value.

Setting up a Facebook advertising campaign at the stage of purchase is straightforward:

  • Divide marketing offers into separate groups and add several advertising creatives to each for testing.
  • Use the same goals: reach, traffic, conversions.

For a B2B online product, you can set up the following FB pixel events:

  • Free trial subscription.
  • End of the free trial period.
  • Purchasing a paid subscription.

4 B2B Facebook Ad Examples To Energize Your Next Campaig

Here are a few B2B FB ad examples to inspire you.

First up is one from CoPromote.

4 B2B Facebook Ad Examples To Energize Your Next Campaig

Source: Adexpresso

The ad works because:

  • It highlights the 80% price slash 3 times.
  • It’s short, sharp, and sweet.
  • It underlines the major benefit ‘reach 500,000 new people’.

Another excellent FB ad case study is from Dropbox.

Dropbox

Source: Klient Boost

The biggest takeaway?

Flaunting their massive 90k user base to tease prospects to join the bandwagon.

Klient Boost used a testimonial type ad to good effect.

Klient Boost

Source: Klient Boost

Testimonials are a robust tactic for generating new leads at the top of the funnel. They make prospects instantly identify with the ad. Importantly, they prove the company’s expertise. Testimonials also appeal to tentative existing leads and help them take the plunge. 

Get Response is a wonderful illustration of a product-focused ad.

Get Response

Source: Facebook

The ad showcases the SaaS company’s latest additions to its suite of digital marketing tools. This shows prospective buyers they are a serious brand that keeps improving its product. So they are more likely to sign up for the free trial.

Facebook Campaign Budgeting For B2B Ads

Although it is impossible to determine the cost per click on Facebook offhand for different business areas, below are a few tips for optimizing your ad spend budget.

  • Brand awareness campaigns cost more than campaigns later in the funnel

According to Web FX, the average cost per click (CPC) on Facebook is $0.97 and $7.19 per 1000 impressions.

On average, if you target 100,000 people, then on average you can count on a budget of 1000-5000 dollars.

With positive profitability, you can increase the amount.

  • At later stages, the orientation goes to a narrower audience

You can start with a daily budget of $100-$500 for each remarketing campaign.

For best results, it’s better to use a frequency limit, about 3-8 ad views per week. See what works best daily or lifetime budget. 

If you manage your budget efficiently, you’ll discover that advertising on Facebook is cheaper than doing so on Google AdWords.

FB Ads For B2B: Grab The Great Opportunity Today!

In this article, we looked at setting up FB ads at each stage of the sales funnel.

This is an integrated approach that allows you to attract almost all types of user audiences and that you can also use individual stages of the funnel to promote your B2B business.

Done right, this can generate an endless stream of leads for your B2B business. The foundation of success is audience targeting—knowing who you are after. Once you lock in the characteristics of your existing customers, find lookalike audiences to reach Facebook.

FB ads are a golden opportunity for savvy B2B brands.

Grab it today and skyrocket your brand’s leads and sales.

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About the author 

Mike Vestil

Mike Vestil is the author of the Lazy Man's Guide To Living The Good Life. He also has a YouTube channel with over 700,000 subscribers where he talks about personal development and personal finance.

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