Pay Per Click usage in B2B environment is growing rapidly. Spending on networks such as AdWords is becoming a significant part of the B2B marketer’s Budget. Pay Per Click, or any online form of paid advertising, has a single goal – Capture the lead information and begin the b2b lead qualification process. As a marketer, when you pay for an ad, clicks or conversions, you are essentially purchasing a highly targeted lead list, one lead at a time.
When you engage in any form of online paid marketing activity, you need to follow some basic steps and answer some key questions before you begin placing ads and paying for ad-space in online properties.
• Have a clear Call To Action – every ad you place must have a clear call to action. This should be well defined in the Ad and it should be clearly and concisely communicated to anyone clicking on the Ad.
• Have a quality lead capture form or landing page (tips for landing page/lead capture form is included in the next section)
• Have a well defined lead follow up plan. Are you going to email fulfill the offer from the Ad? Are you going to call all leads? Send them confirmation emails? If you will be triggering emails, how is that process handled? If you’re offering a high-value asset (which you should) such as a white paper/research paper/case study, then you should ensure you capture valid email addresses from the leads and fulfill the asset as a follow up email. This will ensure you get better email data from responders.
Implementing Trigger Email Campaigns
Trigger emails are simple auto-responder emails that are tied to and execute from the submission of a lead capture form. Lead capture forms that are tied to an enterprise marketing automation solution, such as SalesFUSION360, provide for a high-degree of flexibility and automation in responding to online Advertising leads. A trigger email is defined by the content specificity and one-one nature of the email.
Triggers can be as simple as an A/B follow up email path – assuming there are two possible content paths. Content paths can be broken out to the nth degree, depending on the variables in the form’s questions. Most content-driven email triggered from multiple choice responses to questions.
By pre-planning simple trigger-based follow up email campaigns such as the one above, you will greatly improve your ability to convert leads from online advertising to active leads to be worked by your sales team. Statistically, open rates for content-specific trigger emails are more the 3 times higher than email blasts. We commonly see open rates as high as 50-60% in content-relevant triggers. This assumes the triggers are sent within 3-5 business days from the initial inquiry.
Trigger based emails, as a response channel for PPC and online advertising is a powerful solution for your business. It allows you to cover more ground, automate the follow up process to ensure EVERY lead is touched and maximize the pre-qualification touch-points prior to sending a lead over to sales.
Tips for better trigger emails….
• Personalize the subject line – include the recipients First Name in the subject line and make the subject line informal. For Example: Subject “Hi Kevin, please check out some follow up materials from your recent inquiry”.
• Reference the original asset download in the subject line or early in the email.
• Send both text and html versions
• Ensure you don’t ask for the same information twice – when sending a link to another download page, leverage advanced dialogs to auto-fill known information on the form.
The B2B Pay Per Click marketer’s mantra
When creating a PPC campaign – remember these key points and you will perform better:
• Sending clicks to home page is a complete waste of time and budget
• The only objective of a PPC advertisement in B2B is lead capture
• Tracking ROI with no landing pages is not possible
• In B2B the lead capture is the beginning of the campaign…not the end
• Preserve the Lead Source at all costs! Ensure you can track lead source in CRM
• Think of your PPC Campaigns as the purchase of a highly targeted lead list – one lead at a time
Before creating your ads and ad groups and planning great campaigns in AdWords, you should start with an optimized landing page. An optimized landing page or lead capture page is the destination for the “Click” in your PPC advertisement. Clicks that are sent to the company home page are, for lack of a better term, a complete waste of budget dollars. If you DO NOT have a landing page for your ad, turn your ad off and create one. To create a landing page that optimizes click through, follow these simple steps.
1. Keyword Matching – the header and URL should have an exact keyword match to the keyword(s) you have assigned to an ad group. This will ensure better positioning. Whatever your keyword is, repeat the keyword exactly in the header of your landing page.
2. Keep the Landing page simple – remove or greatly understate external links in the landing page. People are often tempted to have links to the home page and other assets in the landing page. Resist putting any external links in a landing page as it reduces conversion.
3. Keep surveys and forms simple – only ask the questions you need to know to begin a digital conversation
4. Keep the form/survey on the same page – don’t require the lead to click a link to get to the survey/form as it negatively impacts conversion rates.
5. Keep the form/survey above the fold
6. Provide a brief “privacy policy” on the form
7. Explain exactly what the lead will get in exchange for filling out the form
8. Provide value to the lead in exchange for filling out the form – white paper, research…etc.
9. Direct to a thank you page upon form submission
10. Reinforce that they are getting what they asked for in the thank you page
11. Use the thank you page as a cross-promotional page – offer complimentary assets, link to the home page…etc. It’s OK to have lots of information and links in the thank-you page because you’ve already captured what you need.
