How do you consider B2B advertising in a problematic fourth quarter
Here are some suggestions to manage channel mix, budgeting, and KPIs for this quarter, given an ambiguous and confusing environment.
B2B businesses looking to plan for the rest of 2022 are in a unique set of situations to be considered:
The funding has stopped.
The midterm election season is increasing the cost of engagement.
Benchmarks from the past few years aren’t more than accurate.
It’s a difficult period for B2B advertising. In this blog, I’ll offer guidelines for tackling budgeting, channel mix KPIs, and other issues in Q4 2022in an ambiguous and confusing terrain.
Channel aspects
I’ve observed Facebook advertising show more promise in B2B ads in recent weeks as marketers utilize offline conversion information to keep a watch on the quality of leads.
Leads are still relatively inexpensive, generally speaking, I’d suggest B2B Facebook advertising If you’re willing to cross-reference CRM data so that your ROI is good.
Reduce spending on Facebook
The most significant channel change I’d recommend to B2B businesses is to reduce Facebook spending in the fourth quarter of the year.
Facebook property is overloaded by early November political ads and will continue into December, with B2C businesses spending more on holiday ads, and the cost of engagement will be exorbitantly high.
Outside of this quarter, I advise B2B firms they should know that Facebook ads are worthy of, at the very least, trying. However, until 2022, you will not have the most precise picture of Facebook advertising’s return on investment and what it can offer to your business mix.
Include more time to lead for approval of ads
The two leading B2B digital media platforms, Google and LinkedIn, will not see the same rise due to increased political spending.
Google elections and retail campaigns are expected to be on the move simultaneously (at least until the beginning of November). Add a bit of time between ad approvals to ensure that you’re making sure your campaigns are on the right track.
Budget plan
There is nothing better than Q1 in terms of sales in B2B wholesale market. But last year’s fourth quarter was unexpected cash flow for a few members of my clients in B2B.
We observed CPC, CPM, and CPL increase in price in the fourth quarter (CPC, CPM, CPL); however, there was plenty of confidence, capital expansion, and momentum in the market that made these leads more useful.
This has not been the case in the past two quarters when the economy has slowed down.
Predicting anything in the past two years has been difficult (not to mention the worst). I’m working with clients to assist them in remaining as flexible as they can in the next few months. We want to be ready to increase our capacity but do not want to bet on it.
Flexibility means we’re conducting regular checks at shorter intervals on the factors generating qualified leads and, more importantly, how pointers behave once they’re in the funnel. We’re ensuring we’re on top of the CRM data of our clients and comparing things like the time to purchase with typical ad-centric KPIs.
