​​Tips for B2B Facebook Ads: Facebook Marketing 101

Due to the nature of Facebook’s engaging and fast-paced interface, B2C companies are given the upper hand when it comes to persuading consumers to partake in the buyer’s journey. B2C companies can easily identify their targets and quickly influence individuals to make a purchase, without too much thought.

Being that the B2B sales cycle is much longer than B2C, many B2B marketers have written off Facebook as a practical source for generating leads. Conventional social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, have proved time and time again that the ideal customer profile exists within the confines of business-related platforms. 

With the right marketing strategy and approach, Facebook advertising can be a cost-effective tool for B2B companies to hit their revenue goals. We’ve mapped out some of the best practices on how to leverage B2B marketing for SaaS companies. 

Set Your Objective 

A crucial step to a successful B2B marketing strategy is determining what your campaign objective is. Are you looking to raise brand awareness? Or are you solely running BOFU conversion campaigns as a secondary touchpoint for your clientele?

Most B2B brands will focus on 4 parts of the funnel – brand awareness, traffic, lead generation, and conversions. Understanding which objective aligns with your goals will help you build a worthwhile B2B strategy on Facebook. 

Brand Awareness 

When you want to serve ads to individuals that do not know about your business, Facebook is going to work overtime to push content to those within your target audience that is most likely to recall your ads.

With a few months of testing and optimization, these campaigns begin to create brand recognition within your niche – which will help you stand out from the competition down the line. 

Slack uses explainer videos to get its product out to its target audience without overwhelming the prospect. Notice the “Learn More” CTA – encouraging users to 

Traffic 

Implementing traffic campaigns is intended to bring prospective customers to your website. With the Facebook Pixel, you can create campaigns for custom audiences that have historically visited your website or Facebook page. 

Lead Generation 

Lead generation campaigns are a tried-and-true strategy to collect data directly from prospects;

whether through a form, phone call, or with Facebook Messenger.

Since Facebook typically auto-fills the prospect’s information, this is a great way to get high-volume leads. However, it’s not to say that these leads are always qualified. 

Conversions

Due to the high costs that come with conversion campaigns, it is best to only send prospects down the funnel once Facebook has enough data. When using the conversion objective, encourage closed deals by offering value – such as free trials, product tours, or demos. When a prospect is in the bottom of the funnel, it is likely that they are weighing their options amongst competitors, so it is important to win them in the best way possible.

Know Your Audience

Many B2B brands feel as if Facebook, unlike LinkedIn, does not have enough data on their audiences to make targeting decisions; but with around 2.9 billion active Facebook users, there is opportunity reach your target audience, with the right approach. Rather than using broad, interested-based targeting, B2B brands must create custom audiences or capture low hanging fruit to be successful. There are 2 ideal ways you can do this: 

Utilize pixel data: Facebook has captured users’ information through the pixel placed on your website. You can retarget these users with specific offers – even dependent upon which webpages they visited. 

Lookalike audiences: By using the data you already have living within your CRM, you can upload a list to Facebook and create a lookalike audience. Facebook takes the data, such as phone numbers and email addresses, and finds similar, cold prospects to push your ads to. This is a great alternative to interest based targeting, being that Facebook works harder to find individuals within your niche. 

Understanding who your target audience gives you leverage on knowing how to speak to your ideal customer. Rather than pushing out generic content that may or may not resonate with a prospect, creating custom audiences allows you to curate specific ad content, dependent upon the funnel stage and chosen audience. 

Ad Content 

There are so many elements that go into creating a good ad – the messaging, proposition value, imagery, call-to-action, the list goes on! Since Facebook offers different formatting and placement options, split testing ads will be your best friend. Should you run video ads? Carousel ads? Long-form or short-form copy? The beauty of it all is that the testing options are endless. 

Messaging: 

A message that is communicated effectively will go a long way for B2B ads. Users that are reading your ad copy should be able to understand who you are, what you have to offer, and how it can benefit them. 

Imagery: 

Images, videos, GIFs, and carousels all serve a different purpose when conveying a message. While videos tend to have better engagement and can explain concepts more effectively, be sure to choose media that suits your campaign objectives. This Microsoft Azure ad uses an image that clearly shows the user what they can expect by clicking on this ad – the Cloud Application Architecture Guide: 

All media should be eye catching and capture the attention of the audience within the first few seconds of interacting with the ad. 

Call-to-action:  

All dependent upon the elements listed above, your call-to-action (CTA) is what brings an ad together. Depending on your campaign objective, some common CTAs you will most likely use are: 

Learn More 

Download Now 

Sign Up 

Get Quote 

Picking the CTA relevant to the rest of the ad helps send a clear message about what you want your potential customer to do. Are they signing up for a webinar, or learning more on your landing page? Choosing the wrong CTA may cause confusion for the customer. 

Final Thoughts 

Long gone are the days of believing that Facebook advertising is solely for B2C retailers. With the right strategy, B2B companies can dominate the Facebook advertising space to communicate with their audience. Intentionally choosing campaign objectives, audience targeting and ad content that aligns with your business’ goals will set you up for success. 

Want to dabble in Facebook advertising, but not sure where to start? Learn how Directive can help your team create a cost-effective strategy that will drive results.