Updated July 2023.
B2B PPC advertising remains one of the most potent online visibility strategies for businesses seeking to capture the attention of other businesses.
Whether it’s through Google Ads (formerly AdWords) or LinkedIn Ads, B2B PPC is an outstanding tactic to draw attention to your enterprise, stimulate conversions, generate qualified leads, and foster brand growth.
However, the challenge for most companies doesn’t lie in deciding whether to invest in B2B PPC, but rather in understanding how to effectively harness this powerful tool. Constructing the ideal paid media campaign requires substantial time and skill.
That’s where a B2B PPC agency comes into play – such agencies specialize in these exact tasks.
To help you in your search, we’ve curated this list of the top 5 B2B PPC agencies for 2023.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
What Is a B2B PPC Agency?
A B2B PPC agency is a specialized marketing firm that designs and manages pay-per-click advertising campaigns targeted specifically at business-to-business markets to increase their online visibility and generate qualified leads.
These agencies leverage their expertise in various PPC platforms (like Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads) and combine it with a deep understanding of the unique dynamics of B2B interactions to create effective, result-oriented ad campaigns.
Some pay-per-click agencies focus exclusively on running paid media ads across search engines, marketplaces and social media platforms. Other companies offer a full-service approach, combining PPC management with inbound marketing strategies like SEO and content marketing.
They can also offer advice on other PPC services, from geo-targeting to local marketing tactics to landing page optimization.
Whichever option you choose, you should expect to get a customized service built exclusively for your promotional needs, which can include:
- PPC Strategy Development: Design and build comprehensive PPC strategies that align with the overall business goals and target the right B2B audiences. Offer suggestions on where you should be running your search ads, what your ad spend should be for these efforts, and what kind of ads you need to use.
- Keyword Research and Analysis: Conduct a thorough analysis of your industry and identify the most relevant and profitable keywords for the B2B market, taking into consideration the competition and search volume.
- Competitor Analysis: Monitor competitors’ PPC activities to identify opportunities and threats in the B2B market. Extensive research ensures that you build a PPC strategy more likely to generate a positive ROI for minimal initial cost.
- Ad Creation and Optimization: Create compelling ad copy and designs that resonate with B2B buyers, and optimize these ads to ensure the best possible performance. Most PPC agencies can also create graphics for channels like Facebook and LinkedIn, and may even be able to assist with choosing keyword search terms and aligning SEO and PPC campaigns.
- Campaign Setup and Management: Set up and manage PPC campaigns on platforms that are most likely to reach B2B audiences, such as Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads).
- Landing Page Design and Optimization: Design landing pages that are tailored to the B2B audience and optimized for conversions. This includes creating clear and compelling calls-to-action, making sure the page is responsive and quick to load, and ensuring that the message effectively aligns with the ad’s message.
- Conversion Rate Optimization: Analyze user behavior to identify barriers to conversion and implement strategies to increase the conversion rate. Gather information from your campaign results to run A/B tests and improve the outcomes of your marketing efforts.
- Performance Tracking and Reporting: Track key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide detailed reports on campaign performance, providing insights that help improve future campaigns.
- Remarketing/Retargeting: Set up and manage remarketing or retargeting campaigns to re-engage users who have previously interacted with the business but did not convert.
- Account Audits: Perform audits of existing PPC accounts to identify areas of improvement and optimize overall performance.
- Opportunity Discovery: Many agencies offering PPC support will also provide insights into other ways you can expand your brand reach and connect with a wider number of businesses through different channels. You may be able to combine your PPC campaigns with organic content marketing, social media and direct response advertising.
Dive Deeper: Top 6 Tips for Executing a Successful B2B PPC Strategy in 2023
The Benefits of Hiring a B2B PPC Agency
The biggest benefit of hiring any marketing agency is access to expertise.
Few business leaders know how to run an incredible company and simultaneously create fantastic content for their paid ad campaigns.
With a B2B PPC advertising agency, you don’t have to learn how to create the perfect marketing strategy from scratch. Instead, you can hand the hard work over to a specialist with a deep existing knowledge of your industry and all the best PPC channels
Qualified PPC professionals reduce the amount of work you need to do to get an edge over your competition in the search engines and enhance your ROI. Some of the most significant benefits of working with a B2B PPC agency include:
- Expert Consultation: As experts in their field, PPC agencies can offer incredible advice and guidance on how to make the most of your marketing efforts. They can guide you to the PPC channels most likely to generate a return for your company based on your industry and target audience. They’ll also be able to advise you on which marketing media to use, how to assign your budget to different campaigns, and where to find keywords.
- Improved ROI: The main focus of any good marketing agency is to generate the highest number of leads and conversions for your business for the lowest investment possible. A PPC marketing agency will consistently monitor, analyze and optimize your ads to ensure that you’re getting the best possible ROI. They’ll even be able to save you money by seeing that you don’t waste your budget on the wrong campaigns.
- Higher Quality Leads: PPC agencies know how to improve the targeting of your campaigns, so you’re generating not just a higher quantity of leads, but a better quality, too. They’ll use things like negative keywords and precise targeting factors across a range of PPC channels so that the people who end up on your website are primed to convert.
- Cutting-Edge Insights: An agency committed to nothing but pay-per-click marketing for companies can keep their finger on the pulse of the search engine marketing landscape. This makes it easier to stay ahead of algorithm trends and new features as they emerge. The expertise of your agency will ensure that you adapt to any changes that happen in the market.
- Excellent Ad Creation: Designing the perfect ad is easier said than done, particularly in an environment where a lot of your customers are blocking ads. Fortunately, your agency will be skilled in creating custom ads built to attract, convert and engage your target audience, and you won’t need to hire specialist content creators or graphic designers to support them.
- Time Efficiency: By outsourcing to a B2B PPC agency, your team can focus on their core responsibilities without getting distracted by the day-to-day tasks of managing PPC campaigns. The agency will handle all aspects of the campaign, including setup, management, optimization, and reporting.
- Access to Advanced Tools: B2B PPC agencies typically have access to cutting-edge software and tools that may not be financially viable for individual businesses to acquire. They can leverage these tools to conduct detailed analysis, automate tasks, and make data-driven decisions.
- B2B Market Expertise: These agencies possess a deep understanding of the B2B market, with its longer sales cycles and multiple decision-makers. Their strategies are tailored to meet these unique B2B needs, increasing the likelihood of campaign success.
- Scalability: As your business grows, a PPC firm can easily scale up your advertising efforts to align with your growth. They can manage multiple campaigns across different channels and markets, making them a valuable partner for growth.
- Continuous Optimization: An agency doesn’t just set up campaigns and let them run — they continually test, tweak, and optimize for performance. This ensures that your campaigns remain effective and that your marketing budget is always used optimally.
- Strategic Partnerships: Some agencies have special relationships or partnerships with major advertising platforms like Google or LinkedIn. This can sometimes result in early access to new features, additional support or even discounts, benefiting your campaigns.
Dive Deeper: Top B2B Marketing Mistakes You’re Making (And How to Fix Them!)
The Top 5 B2B PPC Agencies
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to choosing the perfect agency for your needs. Your ideal company will vary depending on the goals of your advertising campaigns, what kind of bonus services you want to access and even what sort of budget you’re working with.
For instance, some agencies may offer search engine optimization and SEM marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, CRO, etc. in addition to PPC services.
However, to help you narrow your options down a little, we’ve put together a list of some of the top PPC agencies with the best reviews and services.
1) Single Grain
- Specializes In: Paid advertising, B2B and B2C campaigns, content marketing
- Top Clients: Salesforce, Amazon, Uber
- Pricing: Custom based on your requirements
Single Grain is an agency that specializes in PPC ads and offers a complete end-to-end solution for research, marketing and optimization.
With a knack for high-ROI PPC campaigns, their marketing specialist deliver measurable results for some of the biggest companies in the world, mastering everything from Microsoft/Bing, Facebook and Google Ads to other complementary marketing solutions like social media marketing.
With this company, every client gets a customized PPC marketing strategy based on in-depth knowledge of the client’s brand, industry and goals. Single Grain’s innovative and cutting-edge marketing strategies ensure data-driven results and can even be paired with a host of other marketing solutions, such as content marketing, conversion rate optimization and SEO.
Single Grain’s pay-per-click experts use industry-leading strategies to create your paid ads campaign, which include:
- Thorough analysis of your industry competitors
- Ad creation and optimization
- ROI measurements and optimization tips
- In-depth keyword discovery
- Regular campaign progress reporting
- Advanced campaign consulting (including geo-targeting & day-parting)
- Landing page and CRO recommendations
Check out Single Grain founder Eric Siu and co-host Neil Patel’s short video on paid ads vs. SEO:
2) Directive
- Specializes In: Paid advertising, SaaS marketing
- Top Clients: Cisco, Samsung, Varonis
- Pricing: Custom based on your requirements
A company well-known for offering sensational marketing campaigns to businesses in the SaaS space, Directive can take your business to the next level. They can either work with you as your exclusive source of PPC guidance or support your in-house team of marketers if you already have professionals on-board.
Sharing excellent results like 148% increases in conversions, Directive delivers measurable outcomes from each of its paid advertising campaigns. The company never relies on one-size-fits-all campaigns and has a dedicated team of experts to work with you and get to know your business before you start spending any money on ads.
The brand’s approach to excellent customer experience is particularly appealing, and many clients believe Directive goes above and beyond to deliver consistent results.
Dive Deeper: 15 Tips and Tricks to Write Better B2B SaaS Website Copy
3) Semetrical
- Specializes In: Paid advertising, SEO, social media
- Top Clients: Flex offices, JPIMedia, Fish4Jobs
- Pricing: Custom based on your requirements
An award-winning provider of B2B PPC and content marketing services, Semetrical can work with you on all levels of your advertising campaign, from research to reporting. The company takes a data-driven approach to designing campaigns, consistently optimizing and updating those campaigns based on their research results.
Semetrical has extensive experience with all the biggest advertising platforms, and they constantly provide reports and analytics to show you exactly where your money is going. The company also has an excellent approach to market analytics, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at your competitors and your opportunities for success.
With plenty of bonus services on offer, like access to SEO and content marketing, you can even extend your advertising services with Semetrical, and potentially double your results.
Dive Deeper: 5 Great PPC Tools to Crush Your Competitors
4) NP Digital
- Specializes In: Content creation, PPC, social media
- Top Clients: LinkedIn, Adobe, Facebook
- Pricing: Custom based on your requirements
NP Digital is one of the better-known companies in the PPC marketing space for a reason. Founded by Neil Patel, this award-winning advertising company has helped a huge number of well-known brands make an impact and improve their online sales. The specialists on the NP Digital team can help with virtually all aspects of your ad campaigns.
With NP Digital, you get a customized campaign built specifically for your business, complete with in-depth insights and analytics using proprietary tools. The team can help with personal development to ensure that you understand your audience before you start creating campaigns, and they deliver extensive conversion rate optimization, too.
If you’re thrilled with the results you get from NP Digital for your PPC campaigns, you can take your strategy to the next level and start implementing link building or content marketing services, too.
Dive Deeper: 13 Conversion Rate Optimization Case Studies
5) Soap Media
- Specializes In: Digital marketing services, customer personal design
- Top Clients: AA Tyres, Money Supermarket, James & Rose
- Pricing: Custom based on your requirements
Soap Media is a PPC agency that takes a full-service approach to marketing for B2B brands. The company will do a complete digital auditing process to find any problems with your existing marketing campaigns and branding before diving into your PPC efforts. They also offer customer persona design, if you need help understanding your target audience.
Soap Media takes a research-driven approach to marketing, which involves getting a comprehensive view of your target audience and competition before they begin designing marketing campaigns. After they understand everything there is to know about your organization, Soap Media will begin to work on your PPC campaigns on all the channels you choose.
The company also offers a range of complementary services, like web design and development, digital marketing services, and digital consultancy.
Dive Deeper: Top B2B Marketing Mistakes You’re Making (And How to Fix Them!)
How to Choose the Right B2B PPC Agency for Your Business
As competition in the online landscape continues to heat up, more companies are beginning to invest in agency support. These days, there are dozens of PPC agencies, all offering a variety of specialized or full-stack services specifically catering to big and small businesses.
The question is, how do you choose the agency that is best suited to your business goals and needs?
Here are some of the most important points to consider when hiring a PPC management agency.
Proven Experience with B2B Clients
When choosing a B2B PPC agency, it’s vital to select one with a proven track record in the B2B sector. B2C and B2B marketing are not the same thing:
B2B agencies will be familiar with the unique characteristics of B2B marketing, such as:
- longer sales cycles
- multiple decision-makers
- complex purchasing processes
A B2B PPC agency with this background will understand how to craft impactful messages targeting business decision-makers, select the ideal platforms and ad formats, and optimize campaigns for maximum return on your ad spend.
Furthermore, an agency’s experience with B2B clients will be evident through their case studies and examples of successful campaigns. They should be able to demonstrate successful outcomes across various PPC strategies, including search ads, programmatic advertising, and lead generation.
Deep Understanding of the B2B Market
Apart from experience with B2B clients, a suitable PPC agency should also demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the broader B2B market. They need to grasp the nuances of the B2B purchasing lifecycle and be aware of the various marketing channels frequented by your target audience.
They should be able to leverage their understanding of the B2B market dynamics to optimize your PPC campaigns, whether the goal is brand awareness, lead generation, or performance marketing.
Moreover, the agency’s understanding of the B2B market should extend to your specific industry. While it isn’t necessary for the agency to specialize exclusively in your industry, they should exhibit knowledge of your target audience, marketplace, and the type of PPC campaigns that will work best for your business.
They should be versatile enough to help you strategize and execute effective PPC campaigns across various platforms, including Microsoft, LinkedIn and Google Ads, based on your unique needs and goals.
Familiar with Suitable PPC Platforms for B2B
While Google is often the go-to platform for PPC campaigns, it’s not the only game in town. Many potential B2B customers engage on other platforms such as Microsoft/Bing and LinkedIn, the latter of which has become a key destination for business professionals seeking industry insights and collaboration.
An exceptional B2B PPC agency possesses comprehensive knowledge of various PPC platforms that can be effective for B2B businesses, including Google Ads, Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads, and Twitter Ads. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, they can guide you in choosing the most relevant channels for your campaigns, taking into account your business goals, target audience, and industry.
Additionally, these agencies have the requisite tools and capabilities to extract and interpret valuable insights from each platform. They can deliver detailed reports and analytics that provide a clear picture of your campaign performance, guiding further optimization and enhancing the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.
Transparency and Reporting
Depending on the size of your company, and the goals you have for your campaigns, your PPC efforts can end up costing you a decent amount of money. It’s important to ensure that you’re generating the best return on your investment. A good agency will be able to clearly show you where your money is going and how they’re generating growth.
Look for an agency capable of providing you with consistent, easy-to-read reports and insights into your marketing campaigns. It’s also worth looking for a company that sets realistic goals for your company. Don’t trust any PPC agency that promises you a certain result, as it’s never possible to accurately predict the exact outcomes of any campaign.
B2B Case Studies
While a good PPC agency might not be able to promise you a specific result from your campaigns, they should be able to give you a decent insight into what to expect by providing you with an overview of the work they’ve done for other clients.
Case studies are an excellent way to see how your chosen agency has already helped companies like yours achieve results. The firm you work with should be able to provide testimonials and reviews from happy customers at the very least, but full case studies are even more valuable.
Range of B2B Services
As mentioned in the What Is a B2B PPC Agency? section above, the exact services offered by your PPC agency will depend on a number of factors. It’s common for a lot of brands to offer more holistic marketing services alongside their PPC solutions, such as inbound marketing or content marketing.
If you’re looking to take a broad omnichannel approach to your marketing efforts, it’s worth looking for a PPC company capable of offering the extra services you need. Having support for all your promotional needs from the same company is usually a lot easier than trying to manage relationships with multiple teams.
Dive Deeper:
* LinkedIn Ads for Enterprise B2B SaaS: The Only Guide You’ll Need
* How a Ecommerce Store Doubled Revenue Using Our Facebook Ads Advice
* Ecommerce Advertising Strategy: How We Doubled PPC Sales for ThinSlim Foods (with a 3X+ ROAS)
Hiring the Right PPC Agency
An effective PPC agency can be an excellent way to take your business marketing results to the next level. Capable of analyzing your environment, creating powerful campaigns, and optimizing your advertising efforts over time, a PPC agency ensures that you’re getting the most out of every marketing dollar.
The key to success is making sure you choose an agency you can trust to deliver comprehensive results every step of the way.
If you’re ready to grow your B2B business with PPC Ads, Single Grain’s B2B PPC experts can help!👇
