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B2B Advertising Strategy for SMEs: Smarter PPC That Scales

Managing limited budgets, tight schedules, and the constant pressure to generate high-quality leads, B2B marketing is a tricky business! If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by PPC campaigns that drain resources without delivering results, you’re not alone. This guide explores building a robust B2B advertising strategy for SMEs.

Louis Halton Davies

Transcript

Maelie: 

Welcome back to the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast. 

If you’re new here — this is where we help underresourced B2B marketing teams get better results from their ads – with transparent advice and insights. 

I’m Maelien Halton 

Louis: 

And I’m Louis Halton Davies

If you joined us for part 2A, you’ll know we’re walking through the exact process we use to build winning ad strategies here at Web Marketer. 

In today’s episode—part 2B—we’re going to cover three big areas: 1. Audience & targeting research 

2. Measurement 

3. Packaging up the strategy 

Let’s get into it. 

Maelie: 

In Episode 9 – our introduction to B2B ads strategy, we ran through this rule of thumb: 

● If there’s existing demand, use search. 

● If there’s no demand yet, use social. 

● If you’ve got more money than time, go paid. 

● If you’ve got more time than money, go organic. 

We’ll always go search ads first where we can. Just because typically if people are searching in volume – that’s the highest intent traffic you can capture. 

We often say you can’t search for something if you’re not actively looking for it. 

And to that point – lots of low cost, high intent monthly searches – is an absolute goldmine. 

Industries that have those are pretty rare but they still exist. We nerd out and get all excited when we see a cost per click under £1 these days. 

So our recommendation is – if you can start with Google Search ads, start there. 

And avoid just spinning up a performance max campaign – the difference in lead quality between search and performance max can be huge. 

Hold off until you’ve scaled your search ads to the point where the cost per lead is at your target cost. 

And as a side note – that’s why it’s really important to work to a target cost per lead vs going for the lowest cost per lead possible.

If you go for the lowest cost per lead possible you put yourself in scaling jail. 

Because when you need more leads and you start to scale your budget up, it’s inevitable that your cost per lead will increase – since you are competing against the bigger fish in your industry. 

Louis: 

Yeah it’s such a good point – and exactly why we covered working out your target cost per lead in the last episode. 

So you’ve got your list of keywords that your competitors are targeting. 

And if you completed the ‘breakthrough blueprint’ we linked for you in episode 10, you’ll also have a list of services, sales objections, and challenges that your customers are facing. 

Take all of those, along with the top converting keywords in your ad account, and start using the Google Ads Keyword Planner to generate keyword ideas. 

Save all the unique ones in a spreadsheet along with the expected monthly searches and cost per click or CPCs. 

It’s really important with keyword research that you think outside the box. A really common, and stupidly easy win is to go one step deeper than your competition. 

You’ll find that most competitors are bidding for the head terms. You know, like industry plus service. But an easy win can often be to focus on the questions or challenges that you gathered in the blueprint. 

So, for example – we had a client who ran an Oracle Primavera – project management software – consultancy, and they targeted all of the error messages that people ran into when they needed help. So there was a huge amount of competition for primavera and project management consultancy type keywords, but the error messages were extremely low competition and also really high intent. 

So rather than thinking about the obvious terms – think about all the different ways that your customers could be looking for help. 

Maelie: 

So now you’ve got a big old spreadsheet full of potential keywords along with expected monthly searches and cost per click.

The next job is to remove any keywords that have less than 100 searches per month. If your list is short, you can go a bit lower. 

Next you want to categorise each keyword by intent. So whether they’re informational keywords or whether they’re commercial keywords. 

If you’re not sure, a great trick here is to copy and paste the keyword into google and take a look at what kind of content is being linked to. 

Are the results information based for example blog posts or how to articles or are they commercial – are the results full of businesses and services? 

Once you’ve done that, you have a nice categorised list of all the potential keywords you could target. 

Louis: 

The next step is audience research – which is a bit more straightforward, but still needs the same level of consideration. 

You’ll want to go into the platforms that you’re planning on using, so typically: Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads and go through the motion of setting up a new campaign. 

When it comes to the point that your adding audiences in, have a really thorough look through all of the audiences that are available to you along with their audience sizes. 

In Google Ads, try a number of different searches. The audience search is pretty intuitive and will recommend a number of additional relevant audiences for each search. Look for a good mix of affinity audiences (which are people interested in XYZ) and in-market audiences (which are people looking to buy XYZ). 

In Meta, add a few relevant audiences and then switch to the suggestion tab where it will show you more audiences relevant to what you’ve already added. Keep switching between tabs until you’ve got an exhaustive list. 

In Linkedin, click through each audience category and carry out as many searches as you can think of. 

Document all audiences, before removing them and then adding them one-by-one to add the audience sizes to your notes.

At Web Marketer, our preferred approach is to run with audiences that are as big as possible. We don’t usually like to combine audience as the size often gets too small – especially when you’re targeting the UK (and you can hike up the CPMs doing that too). 

This doesn’t apply to LinkedIn where we typically go for audiences with 50,000 people or below to get more bang for your buck. 

So we like to test lots of different audiences – one per ad group or ad set 

and then when we feed the platforms algorithm with good quality conversion data – it will reach the best quality audience members and give us good insights as to what’s working. 

Maelie: 

Before we move on to packaging up your strategy – let’s quickly talk about measurement. 

It’s really important to get your measurement right. Because as Louis just mentioned – good tracking makes sure that: 

a) the advertising platform algorithms get you more of the right results and b) you can see what’s working, and which ads & targeting are driving performance for you. 

You want to make sure that whatever your key objectives are for your ads is what’s being measured – with no distractions. 

For example, 

● every time someone sees a contact form is not a conversion, ● every time someone clicks a telephone number or an email link is not a conversion, 

● every unique visitor is not a conversion, 

● everyone who stays for more than a minute is not a conversion. We’ve seen all of these being used before. 

While they can provide some interesting insights – you want your conversions to only contain valuable interactions. 

So I don’t want to count how many people saw the form as a conversion – I want to count how many people submitted it.

I don’t want to count how many clicked a telephone number, I want to know how many people called through and spoke to someone for a minute or more – you get the picture. 

And for every conversion I set up in my ads, I also want to see that same conversion in Google Analytics. 

And if I set it up in Google Tag Manager, I want to use the same trigger to fire it – so that it’s measured in the same way – and doesn’t cause any discrepancies. 

Based on this – it’s really important to audit your current tracking. 

Conversion tracking is consistently the thing we see businesses get wrong most often. 

And it’s what causes the most problems if its not set up right. 

– so it’s really important to get it how you need it. 

Louis: 

So finally, on to how to package up your strategy – so that it can act as a central document, where everyone is literally on the same page. 

First off, create a new blank presentation. You want it nice and visual and easy to read. 

In section one – you’ll want to list the key findings from your breakthrough blueprint. The idea is to build a profile of the business and make sure everyone who reads it has a really clear context for what’s to come later in the doc. 

Section two will be all about the competitors. Start by listing out the competitors in a table along with their estimated monthly spend. 

Personally, I also like to put a link to their Google Transparency Center, Meta Ads Library and LinkedIn Ads Library. This way their ads can be quickly accessed by any one new to see all competitor ads, or later to get a refresh. 

Next, section by section, run through their budgets, keywords, ads and then landing pages and document observations and recommendations for each. 

Section three is for the strategy. Have a good look through all of your research, observations and recommendations. 

Are there things that everyone is doing or saying that you should too?

Are there gaps or opportunities that no-one is doing that you can test? 

How are different competitors positioning themselves? 

Are they leveraging speed, cost, authority, scarcity, location – anything else? Are there any positioning gaps that you can test? 

Are there any opportunities or clear categories in the keywords and targeting that you’ve researched? 

Put all of your recommendations in Section 3. 

Start with a slide on overall findings. Next provide recommendations – so a slide for each of the following: 

● Budget 

● Structure (or campaign breakout – like what services to promote) ● Ads 

● Landing pages 

● Keywords & targeting 

Make sure you document the what, why and how for each. 

And finally, we like to finish the strategy with three slides: 

Immediate – what we’re going to do straight away 

Future – what we’re going to park for now 

Urgent needs – what needs to happen to enable the strategy 

Before showing the strategy to clients or stakeholders, we’ll draft up some ad previews and filter down the keyword list we want to target – we recommend choosing a list that allows 100 clicks per keyword based on your budget and your CPCs. 

Maelie: 

Alright so we’ve covered some good stuff here and we’ll definitely be going deeper into each topic in future episodes. For now, let’s wrap up with the key takeaways. 

1. If search demand exists, start there—it’s the highest intent traffic you’ll get. 

2. Use customer insights and competitor data to build smarter keyword and audience lists. 

3. Only track interactions that actually matter—and make sure your platforms are speaking the same language.

4. Package your work into a clear and client-ready strategy doc with findings, recommendations and next steps. 

If you found this useful, please leave us a review. Our goal is to remove the smoke and mirrors from the B2B advertising world, and reviews really help towards this. 

And if you’ve got a burning question or are facing a challenge that you’d like us to explore, just let us know. 

You can head to webmarketeruk.com/topic and fill in the form. 

We really wanna make every episode as useful as possible, and we read every single message. 

Thanks for listening and catch you next time. 

Managing limited budgets, tight schedules, and the constant pressure to generate high-quality leads, B2B marketing is a tricky business!

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by PPC campaigns that drain resources without delivering results, you’re not alone.

This guide explores building a robust B2B advertising strategy for SMEs, focusing on smarter keywords, tighter audiences, and sharper tracking in Google Ads.

We’ll cover how to turn fragmented research into a cohesive plan that aligns your team and drives scalable growth.

Whether you’re new to PPC or refining existing efforts, you’ll learn practical steps for an SME B2B marketing plan using Google Ads, including effective B2B ad targeting for small businesses.

Covering insights from episode 011 of the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast, we’ll cover keyword research that goes beyond the obvious, audience selection across major platforms, precise conversion tracking to eliminate waste, and how to package it all into a strategy document that secures stakeholder buy-in.

We’ll also explore additional considerations like budgeting, creative optimisation, and long-term scaling to ensure your campaigns thrive.

By the end, you’ll have the tools to create a Google Ads strategy for B2B companies that prioritises high-intent traffic and measurable outcomes.

The importance of strategic prioritisation in B2B advertising

A strong B2B PPC strategy hinges on prioritisation.

Too many SMEs scatter their efforts across broad keywords and vague audiences, leading to inflated costs and poor ROI.

The key insight from this episode? Start with search ads if demand exists, as it’s the highest-intent channel available.

If search volume is low, pivot to social platforms like Meta or LinkedIn to build awareness.

Measurement and team alignment are often overlooked but essential for long-term success.

Without tight tracking, your campaigns can’t optimise effectively, and without a clear plan, stakeholders won’t commit.

The goal is to transform raw insights from competitor analysis and customer pain points, into a unified, actionable B2B advertising strategy for SMEs.

This approach not only saves budget but also positions your small business for sustainable scaling.

The B2B Performance Marketing Podcast

Subscribe to the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast for practical insights, zero fluff, and real results.

Find out more

Key Takeaways and Frameworks

1. Start With Intent: Smarter Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of any effective Google Ads strategy for B2B companies.

Many SMEs stick to “head terms”, generic phrases like “project management software”, which are highly competitive and costly.

Instead, dig deeper using tools like Google Keyword Planner combined with insights from your Breakthrough Blueprint, a framework for mapping customer challenges, objections, and services.

Begin by compiling a list of keywords from competitor ads, top performers in your account, and customer queries.

For instance, don’t just bid on broad terms if you offer consultancy services. Look for high-intent, low-competition opportunities, such as specific error codes or problem-solving questions.

For example, Primavera consultancy targeted Oracle error messages instead of head terms. This uncovered untapped traffic with CPCs under £1, leading to high-quality leads at a lower cost.

Once you have your list, categorise keywords by intent:

  • Commercial intent: Phrases indicating readiness to buy, such as “buy B2B CRM software” or “hire PPC agency for SMEs”. These should be your priority for immediate campaigns.
  • Informational intent: Queries seeking knowledge, like “how to optimise Google Ads for B2B”. Use these for top-of-funnel content or remarketing.

Filter out low-volume keywords, anything under 100 monthly searches, unless they’re highly niche and align with your audience.

Check CPC estimates to ensure viability within your budget. This process ensures your SME B2B marketing plan using Google Ads focuses on terms that deliver ROI, avoiding the trap of bidding wars on overused phrases.

Pro tip: Paste keywords into Google Search to gauge intent. If results show service pages, it’s commercial; if blogs dominate, it’s informational. Aim for a balanced list that allows at least 100 clicks per keyword based on your budget, preventing “scaling jail” where costs rise sharply as you expand.

2. Build Tighter, Testable Audiences

Audience targeting can make or break your campaigns.

In a B2B context, where decision-makers are specific and sales cycles are long, broad audiences waste budget on irrelevant clicks.

The podcast emphasises using platform-native tools to map and size audiences before launching.

For Google Ads, explore affinity (interest-based) and in-market (purchase-intent) segments.

Search for variations and let the tool suggest related options.

On Meta, add initial audiences and review suggestions to build a comprehensive list.

LinkedIn excels for B2B with job titles, industries, and company sizes, but keep audiences under 50,000 for better performance and lower CPMs.

Document everything: List audiences by platform, note sizes, and avoid over-layering, which shrinks reach and increases costs, particularly in regions like the UK.

The strategy?

Test one audience per ad set or group.

This feeds algorithms with clean data, revealing what works. For small businesses, this means starting broad on Google/Meta to gather insights, then refining to tighter segments on LinkedIn for precision targeting.

Tie audience-building back to your Breakthrough Blueprint, targeting pain points like “overcoming sales objections in SaaS” to attract decision-makers.

This creates a small business B2B advertising guide that’s data-driven and scalable, ensuring your ads reach prospects ready to engage.

3. Sharpen Your Tracking (or Risk Wasted Spend)

Poor tracking undermines B2B PPC.

Many SMEs track vanity metrics like page views or clicks, inflating “success” while hiding inefficiencies.

The episode stresses tracking only true conversions: form submissions, qualified calls, or purchases, not impressions or partial actions.

Align tracking across tools, Google Ads, GA4, and Google Tag Manager (GTM), using shared triggers to avoid discrepancies.

For example, don’t count a form view; track submissions. For calls, measure those lasting over a minute. Audit your setup regularly, as mismatches lead to misguided optimisations and wasted budgets.

Why does this matter for your B2B advertising strategy for SMEs?

Accurate tracking powers platform algorithms to find more high-quality traffic and provides insights into what’s driving results.

In B2B, where leads take time to nurture, sharp tracking ensures you’re measuring pipeline impact, not just top-line activity.

4. Package the Strategy to Align Everyone

Research alone isn’t enough; you need a document that unites your team. Create a visual presentation divided into three sections:

  • Section 1: Business Context: Summarise Breakthrough Blueprint findings, customer profiles, challenges, and goals, to set the stage.
  • Section 2: Competitor Analysis: Table competitors with estimated spends, links to ad libraries (Google Transparency Center, Meta/LinkedIn Ads Libraries), and observations on budgets, keywords, creatives, and landing pages.
  • Section 3: Campaign Plan: Detail recommendations for budget allocation, campaign structure (e.g., by service), ads, landing pages, and targeting. Include “what, why, how” for each.

End with action-oriented slides:

  • Immediate: Quick wins to implement now.
  • Future: Ideas to park for later.
  • Urgent Needs: Dependencies like tracking fixes or budget approvals.

This deck turns your how to build a B2B advertising strategy for SMEs into a stakeholder-approved roadmap.

Draft ad previews and finalise keyword lists before sharing, ensuring buy-in and clear execution.

The B2B Performance Marketing Podcast

Subscribe to the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast for practical insights, zero fluff, and real results.

Find out more

Budgeting for B2B PPC Success

Budgeting often trips up SMEs, as it’s tempting to spread funds thinly across platforms or chase low-cost leads at the expense of quality.

The podcast highlights the importance of setting a target cost per lead (CPL) rather than aiming for the lowest possible CPL.

Why?

Low-cost leads often come from broad, low-intent keywords, limiting scalability. As you increase spend, competition from larger players drives up costs, so plan for a sustainable CPL that aligns with your sales funnel.

Start by allocating budget based on platform strengths. If search demand exists, prioritise Google Ads for high-intent traffic.

Use LinkedIn for precise targeting when lead quality matters more than volume. Meta can complement efforts for awareness or remarketing.

A practical approach: Test small budgets (£500-£1000/month) per platform, focusing on one audience and keyword set per campaign. Monitor CPL and conversion rates weekly, then scale what works. For SMEs, this ensures you’re not overcommitting funds before proving ROI.

Optimising Ad Creatives for B2B

Ad creatives are your first impression, yet many B2B campaigns rely on generic copy that fails to resonate. Tailor your ads to address specific pain points from your Breakthrough Blueprint.

For example, instead of “Best CRM Software”, try “Solve SaaS Sales Objections with Our CRM”. Highlight benefits like speed, cost, or authority to stand out. On LinkedIn, use professional tone and visuals; on Meta, test more emotive imagery to capture attention.

Test multiple ad variations (3-5 per ad set) and analyse performance biweekly. Pause underperforming ads and iterate based on click-through rates (CTR) and conversions.

For landing pages, ensure alignment with ad copy, focusing on clear calls-to-action (CTAs) and minimal friction (e.g., short forms).

This approach maximises your effective B2B ad targeting for small businesses, driving engagement and conversions.

Scaling Your Campaigns Long-Term

Once your campaigns are running smoothly, scaling becomes the next challenge.

Avoid the temptation to simply increase budgets across the board, as this often inflates CPL without proportional results.

Instead, use insights from your tracking to identify top-performing keywords and audiences.

Double down on these while testing new segments incrementally.

Consider remarketing to warm audiences who’ve engaged but haven’t converted, using tailored ads to address objections.

Gradually introduce Performance Max campaigns only after optimising search ads, as the podcast warns that premature use can dilute lead quality.

For long-term growth, revisit your Breakthrough Blueprint quarterly to refresh customer insights and stay ahead of market shifts.

This ensures your Google Ads strategy for B2B companies evolves with your business and industry.

FAQs

What is a B2B advertising strategy for SMEs?

It’s a focused ad approach tailored for small and medium B2B companies, using smart keyword targeting, audience segmentation, and conversion tracking.

How do I build a B2B advertising strategy for SMEs?

Start with intent-based keywords, test platform-specific audiences, set up accurate tracking, and package everything into a clear strategy deck.

What makes a good SME B2B marketing plan using Google Ads?

Prioritise search ads where demand exists, avoid generic keywords, test one audience per ad set, and ensure proper conversion tracking.

Why is conversion tracking important in B2B PPC?

Good tracking improves platform optimisation, reveals what’s working, and prevents wasted spend by filtering out low-quality actions.

What’s a cost-effective Google Ads strategy for B2B companies?

Focus on long-tail, high-intent keywords, use smaller LinkedIn audiences, and avoid Performance Max until search is fully optimised.

Louis Halton Davies

Louis (aka “Looey”) grew up in a tiny rural village called Login (fitting, right?) and spent the early years of his career in graphic design, before discovering a love for data. He’s now a performance marketing strategist – specialising in GA4, Google Tag Manager, and turning complex insights into clear strategies. Away from the screen, he lives near the beach on the West Wales coast; juggling business and family life with three energetic, rugby-mad boys, and rearranging ancient Celtic melodies into acoustic guitar pieces in his spare time.

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