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Comments
SEO Dan February 14th, 2011
Very good tips Neil.
I have tried everthing you mentioned in the article, the Display Network is a big no, no when it comes to marketing B2B services.
It blew a lot of money, with no conversions what so ever, so stopped immediately after two weeks.
Also i totally agree with the CPA budget for a certain campaign, it sure gives you some control over what you pay but the main problem for a campaign in order to go CPA is to get those monthly 15 conversions in order to qualify.
And in highly competitive B2B software niches it’s difficult for a new comer to get that amount of conversion. For instance i am running campaigns for my company in the US for “live chat software” and “live customer support software” kw, my budget is medium and i have a good quality score around 6-7. But my ads still get displayed on the 6th or 7th position, on related queries and i get very few clicks. Also Google is telling me that the main problem is my Ad Quality Score, which is to low.
So i am guessing that my competitors have around 8-10 quality score, if this is the case. Plus i am sure they have a larger budget than me.
My point is, that for a newcomer in a B2B software niche, with a limited budget it’s better to try something else than Adwords because you blow some serious money which could be spent more wisely.
Thumbs up for the post. 🙂
Neil Stoneman February 14th, 2011
Hi Dan,
Nice one.
It’s true about CPA. It’s a real test to get conversions right: make them too easy and it’s not worth much to the business, make them too hard and you can’t reach your threshold.
Getting the conversion balance is an issue on AdWords and beyond for every B2B marketer.
It’s always hard to tell whether you’re being outbid or outperformed. The suggestion is usually the latter but with a decent score it’s quite possibly the former.
And you’re right – AdWords is not for everyone. Have you tried LinkedIn? We did an experiment that you might be interested in – http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/6953-b2b-test-linkedin-directads
The targeting element may suit…
SEO Dan February 14th, 2011
Thanks for the tip.
Found some nice insights in the article and in the comments will try them out, if i manage somehow to convince my HIPPO.
Proposed this method several months ago, when i started with the company but it didn’t get approved. Now that i have some
reliable data will try again.
The cost per conversion is certainly atractive, i knew it would pay off to follow your blog. 🙂