“Facebook ads? But our business operates in the B2B space!” During my time on the marketing services team at nexus-security, this was the typical reaction from B2B clients whenever I proposed expanding our marketing efforts beyond search engine marketing. I’d recount stories of past successes and persuade them to dip their toes in with a small-scale trial. Invariably, after a few weeks of witnessing the positive results firsthand, they were completely convinced. However, this was back in the early days, when features like lead ads and pixels were merely a distant dream for Mr. Zuckerberg. Fast forward to today, Facebook has evolved into a marketing powerhouse capable of doing the convincing all on its own. At least, it possesses the potential to do so. For B2C advertisers, the value proposition is self-evident, isn’t it? Facebook provides an unparalleled platform for cultivating brand awareness, nurturing prospect engagement, and expanding customer bases. It’s a dynamic space to connect with potential customers, offer enticing promotions, and deliver highly effective remarketing campaigns, all while driving conversions at an affordable cost. However, when it comes to the realm of multi-touch B2B marketing—industries characterized by lengthy sales cycles and highly specialized customer segments—skepticism persists.

To those B2B companies still laboring under the misconception that the world’s largest social media platform is nothing more than a breeding ground for misinformation and cat videos: you are letting a golden opportunity for substantial business growth slip through your fingers. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through the essential elements of B2B Facebook advertising, equipping you with the knowledge and tools to identify and connect with the right prospects, ultimately outmaneuvering your competition. (Don’t worry; we’ll delve into the intricacies of ad creation in a separate discussion). This guide will cover:

• Effective campaign-level marketing objectives tailored for B2B Facebook advertising
• Crafting highly targeted audiences specifically for B2B marketing
• Strategies for building and managing ad sets for optimal performance Once you’ve absorbed this information, you can further enhance your expertise by exploring these eight complimentary Facebook advertising courses suitable for all skill levels!

Integrating the Facebook Pixel

Before we proceed any further… Consider this my earnest plea. I implore you, PLEASE implement the Facebook Pixel on your website before taking another step. (Update for 2021: It’s crucial to also utilize the Facebook Conversions API, as the pixel’s effectiveness is waning!) The Facebook Pixel empowers you to optimize your campaigns for virtually any type of on-site user action, provided you put the damn thing on your website. The various segments within the pixel can be customized to align with your specific campaign objectives, enabling you to track conversions as sales on certain pages and form submissions on others. Having the ability to differentiate between these conversion types is paramount for your bottom line: accumulating a collection of email addresses won’t magically manifest a luxury yacht. Once the code is seamlessly integrated, verifying its proper functionality is a breeze. Simply download the Facebook Pixel Helper, a handy Chrome extension that illuminates in a vibrant shade of green to signal everything is operating as it should, making your life a whole lot easier.

Should the plugin detect any issues, refer to Facebook’s pixel troubleshooting suggestions for guidance. Whatever course of action you take, ensure that the pixel is firing correctly before you start allocating any advertising budget to the platform. It’s particularly crucial for B2B Facebook advertisers to have some form of conversion tracking in place. In addition to providing your business with invaluable attribution data, a functional pixel is essential for maximizing the effectiveness of custom audiences (more on those later). Now that your Facebook pixel is successfully installed and actively collecting data (it may require up to 24 hours to start registering, so don’t hesitate to take a well-deserved break), it’s time to strategically position your products or services in front of the most receptive audience. Don’t miss out on our free guide » 7 Essential Facebook Advertising Tips that every advertiser should have in their arsenal.

In the Realm of B2B Facebook Campaigns, Not All Marketing Objectives Are Created Equal

B2B advertising is inherently a multifaceted, multi-touch endeavor (and that’s only after you’ve successfully identified the appropriate target audiences and ad formats). This is where a comprehensive understanding of the various campaign types available to you becomes paramount. Facebook provides a highly structured campaign creation process. To put it simply: Facebook categorizes campaign objectives into three distinct categories: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion. While each category holds relevance for B2B advertisers, not all individual objectives warrant consistent deployment.

Imagine those little cannons as symbolic representations of objectives being strategically deployed from your Business Manager user interface. Objectives such as Product catalog sales and Store visits are generally irrelevant for B2B advertisers. While Reach campaigns can be effective in exposing top-tier content to unfamiliar prospects, without a well-developed content strategy and robust remarketing framework in place, attributing these campaigns directly to revenue generation can be challenging. Additionally, although you might find some niche applications for the three eliminated objectives in the Consideration column, they primarily offer mid-funnel value for your business only if you possess the necessary supporting materials. In reality, most small B2B advertisers don’t have dedicated apps and often find that images are a more cost-effective creative asset compared to videos. The four remaining objectives—Brand awareness, Traffic, Lead generation, and Conversions—represent the core areas where you should concentrate your efforts to effectively promote your products or services to other businesses on Facebook. These objectives align seamlessly with what we in the marketing realm refer to as a “funnel,” progressing from left to right. Let’s break down how this funnel operates:

Brand awareness

Campaigns centered around brand awareness act as a magnet, drawing potential customers into the uppermost layer of your marketing funnel. The primary goal here is to spark their interest and leave a memorable impression.

While brand awareness campaigns might not directly translate into immediate sales (though there’s always a chance that someone might be so captivated by your message that they’re ready to sign on the dotted line right then and there), they lay the foundation for future engagement. The audiences you target within these campaigns should be expansive, encompassing a range of characteristics your ideal prospects might possess. Brand awareness campaigns are also a prime opportunity to leverage 8%-10% lookalike audiences modeled after your past converters or existing customers. This strategic approach helps you avoid showcasing your cutting-edge SaaS solution to demographics that might not be receptive to it, such as technophobic grandparents.

Traffic

As the name aptly suggests, Traffic campaigns are designed to drive….Traffic! You have two primary options here: you can direct prospects to your Facebook page (not recommended, as it’s generally an inefficient use of resources) or your website (now we’re talking!).

These campaigns are a personal favorite when it comes to building highly targeted remarketing lists (which, in turn, can be used to create even more powerful lookalike audiences). The strategy is relatively straightforward. While Brand awareness campaigns often cast a wide net, Traffic campaigns provide an opportunity to start narrowing down your focus, aligning your products and services with specific demographic, psychographic, and industry profiles.

Lead generation

When it comes to maximizing return on investment, Facebook lead generation ads are arguably the most effective tool in a B2B advertiser’s arsenal. These ads empower you to capture prospect information directly within the Facebook platform, eliminating a potential barrier to conversion: having to navigate away to your website.

This isn’t to imply that your website is anything less than stellar. The true advantage of lead ads lies in their ability to auto-populate forms using information pulled directly from a prospect’s Facebook profile. If all it takes to sign up for your enticing offer is a couple of clicks, a prospect who might not be intimately familiar with your brand is more likely to convert through this streamlined process compared to manually inputting the same information. Facebook lead ads provide a seamless mechanism for collecting valuable contact details from your prospects. This data can then be used to cultivate email lists, nurture prospects through targeted email campaigns, or simply hand over warm leads to your sales team for personalized follow-up.

Conversion Campaigns

Consider these campaigns your heavy hitters, the aces up your sleeve. However, it’s worth noting that they also tend to be more expensive. For this reason, I strongly advise against using Conversion campaigns to send prospects to general pages on your main website. Instead, to squeeze the most value out of every click (remember, you’re paying for each one), direct traffic to strategically crafted landing pages. If your business revolves around software, Conversion campaigns should be used to guide prospects towards product trials or demo sign-ups. *** By grasping which campaign types best align with your unique B2B sales and marketing goals, you’ll be well-equipped to construct a solid foundation for success in the realm of B2B Facebook advertising. However, it’s crucial to remember that even the most brilliantly conceived B2B Facebook campaign will fall short of its potential if it’s not populated with the right ad sets.

Ad Sets: Where the Magic Happens

While campaigns serve as overarching containers defined by specific objectives, the ad set level is where the true magic of customization unfolds. Here, you wield control over crucial aspects such as budget allocation, scheduling, audience targeting, and ad creative development—the essential levers and pulleys that transform Facebook into a genuinely viable channel for your B2B marketing endeavors.

Before we dive into the exciting realm of ad types and audience targeting, let’s first establish a solid understanding of budgeting and scheduling.

Budget & Scheduling

Within the Facebook advertising ecosystem, you have the flexibility to assign either a daily or lifetime budget to each individual ad set. If you’ve honed your skills managing a Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) account, daily budgets will likely feel more familiar. This approach involves setting a maximum daily spend limit, a start date, and an end date. I often favor small, controlled daily budgets for B2B clients in their early stages of Facebook advertising, as they provide greater predictability. They are ideal for experimentation, allowing you to identify what resonates with your target audience without the risk of depleting your entire budget prematurely. However, it’s crucial to bear in mind that Facebook is programmed to exhaust your allocated budget each day, regardless of performance.

For more seasoned Facebook marketers, I recommend exploring the possibilities of lifetime budgets. To ease into this approach, consider starting with shorter intervals (3-5 days) for your start and end dates until you’re fully comfortable with the shift away from the predictability of daily budgets. Facebook will strategically distribute your budget throughout the designated period in a manner that aligns with your overarching campaign goal. Savvy advertisers can even leverage this system to extract additional value from lifetime budgets by implementing ad scheduling. Think of this as akin to applying negative placements within the Google Display Network.

Essentially, you’re instructing Facebook to dynamically determine the optimal timing for serving your ads within a given timeframe, while explicitly excluding specific time slots when your target audience is unlikely to convert. This ensures that your precious lifetime budget isn’t squandered during the late-night hours or weekends when your potential customers are preoccupied with more pressing matters (like perfecting their fantasy football lineups) than engaging with your brand or scheduling product demos. While budget management should always be guided by performance data, it’s essential to keep those campaign goals we previously discussed at the forefront of your decision-making process. For instance, you can leverage ad scheduling in Conversion campaigns to strategically target prospects with product demo offers while they’re at their desks during business hours. Conversely, you might consider expanding your ad scheduling parameters (or revert to a more modest daily budget) for lower-value campaigns promoting offers that can be consumed at any time (such as downloadable content).

Ad Placement

While determining ad spend and scheduling are crucial steps toward harnessing Facebook’s potential as a robust marketing platform for your business, all your hard work can be undone by poorly chosen ad placements. It’s important to remember that “Facebook Ads” doesn’t automatically equate to “News Feed ads.” Unless you explicitly specify otherwise, your meticulously crafted Facebook ads are eligible to appear in the digital equivalent of dark alleys—obscure corners of the internet you might not want your brand associated with.

Within the Facebook platform itself, ads can potentially be served across various placements, including:

• The coveted News Feed
• Relevant Facebook Groups
• The Right Column
• Instant Articles
• In-stream Videos While some of these Facebook ad placements hold value for B2B advertisers (we’re looking at you, News Feed and Right Column), others offer limited visibility and diminish conversion opportunities. Your goal is to generate revenue and captivate your audience, not blend into the background. You crave engagement. Therefore, it’s paramount to ensure that your ads are prominently displayed in the most impactful locations by opting out of automatic placements.

Facebook acknowledges that opting for custom placements might “reduce the overall reach of your ads” compared to the default automatic option. However, if that reduction translates into a significant increase in quality and engagement, is it truly a compromise? Facebook offers a range of other placement options, but beyond bolstering brand awareness, they generally hold less relevance for B2B advertisers. For example, you have the option to segment your advertising efforts by device type. Unless you have specific mobile-centric campaign ideas in mind, I’d generally recommend sticking with the default setting of “all devices” to maximize your reach.

Facebook ads also extend their reach to Instagram. That’s right, the visually-driven social media platform doesn’t have its own dedicated advertising interface. Instead, advertisers can choose to showcase their creative assets in either the main Instagram feed or the more ephemeral Stories format. Lastly, Facebook ads can also infiltrate the far-reaching Facebook Audience Network (those obscure corners of the internet we mentioned earlier). In my experience, both Instagram and the Audience Network generally only prove valuable for B2B advertisers when incorporated into remarketing campaigns. If you’re opting for a more tailored approach with custom placements, it’s often advisable to exclude these options. POTENTIAL GAME-CHANGER ALERT As I was diligently crafting this guide, Facebook unveiled a significant update that allows advertisers to “exercise granular control over ad placement within the Audience Network by selecting specific websites.” This changes the game entirely…

Empowered with the ability to laser-target specific sites within the Audience Network, you can now strategically position your creative assets in online environments frequented by your ideal customers. If you’re already leveraging Managed Placements within Google Ads, consider replicating your list of high-performing websites within Facebook to see if any of them align with the Audience Network. It’s an experiment worth conducting!

Audiences: The Cornerstone of Facebook Ads Success

Facebook’s comprehensive suite of targeting options makes crafting effective B2C campaigns relatively straightforward. For instance, if your restaurant boasts a projector for game days, features a rare and sought-after hefeweizen on tap, and serves up the most unique and flavorful chicken wings in town, Facebook makes it remarkably easy to target football-loving beer aficionados with a penchant for kung fu movies who happen to be within a 5-mile radius of your establishment.

However, when it comes to the B2B world, identifying and reaching the key decision-makers within a business can be a more intricate endeavor. While Google Ads empowers you to segment your offerings based on user-entered keywords (and thus, their intent), Facebook’s approach revolves around audience-based targeting. Instead of relying on direct user input (such as a search query), you can intricately layer dozens of distinguishing characteristics to construct a highly refined model of your ideal customer. In more marketing-centric terms, we might refer to this as a buyer persona. By consistently aligning the right audience with the right offer, you pave the path toward B2B marketing mastery. Facebook offers three primary audience creation methods, each holding unique value for B2B advertisers: Core, Custom, and Lookalike audiences. Let’s explore each in detail:

Core Audience Creation

Aside from Custom and Lookalike audiences (which reside within their own dedicated interface), the majority of your audience-building efforts will take place at the ad set level. Navigate to any ad set within your account, and you’ll be greeted by a screen resembling this:

While it might appear overwhelming at first glance, rest assured, it’s all remarkably intuitive. The options for location, age, gender, and language act as your initial filters, allowing you to eliminate subsets of your audience who, despite expressing an affinity for your product or service, might not align with your target market. Think of this section as the audience-targeting equivalent of ad scheduling—a way to refine your focus. It wouldn’t be prudent to allocate your budget toward Latvian-speaking prospects if your product is exclusively available to businesses within a 100-mile radius of Boston. Conserve your resources for those who have the potential to convert into paying customers. The “Detailed Targeting” section, located at the lower end of the Audience interface, grants you the power to both include and exclude prospects exhibiting specific characteristics. This is an invaluable feature for guaranteeing that your ads grace the screens of the most receptive audience, maximizing the impact of every advertising dollar spent. In addition to location, age, gender, and language, you can leverage a combination of the following demographic categories to pinpoint your ideal prospects:

• Education Level
• Financial Status
• Relationship Status
• Household Income
• Employment Details (employer, job title, industry)
• Home Ownership Status
• Ethnicity
• Generation
• Parental Status
• Life Events
• Political Affiliation Armed with this robust suite of audience options and the equally extensive interest and behavioral categories, zeroing in on your desired prospects is a breeze. Speaking of which, don’t overlook the dedicated B2B category nestled within “Behaviors” targeting. This valuable tool allows you to filter by company size, industry, and seniority level, ensuring that your ads land in front of the right decision-makers—those with the authority to greenlight purchases—while preserving your budget by filtering out less qualified leads.

While the CMO of a company like NounVerb might not have been actively searching for your product (and therefore, wouldn’t have stumbled upon your company through traditional search engine results), Facebook ads empower you to proactively present a solution precisely when they’re most receptive to it. If you’re eager to delve deeper into the intricacies of audience creation, our comprehensive infographic provides a detailed breakdown of Facebook’s extensive targeting options.

Custom Audiences

If the concept of Core audiences hasn’t fully convinced you of Facebook’s targeting prowess, Custom Audiences might be the perfect entry point for your B2B advertising journey. Custom audiences can be constructed using five distinct methods, but the three that deserve your primary attention as a B2B marketer are those based on: a customer file (a list of email addresses you upload), website traffic (leveraging the power of the Facebook pixel), and selective Engagement.

Creating audiences based on a customer file allows you to tap into the goldmine of your existing database to reconnect with prospects while they’re browsing their Facebook feeds. It utilizes your existing list of email addresses to locate your leads on the platform, presenting an opportunity to complement your existing nurture programs with tailored offers. My personal favorite way to leverage Custom Audiences built from a customer file is to segment an existing email nurture list, isolating “Did Not Opens” or other inactive subscribers, and re-engaging those lukewarm (or even ice-cold) leads with irresistible ad creative they can’t ignore. Website traffic audiences differ in that they’re composed of individuals who have previously visited your website. While you might not possess their direct contact information, that doesn’t preclude you from leveraging their on-site behavior, driven by organic discovery or paid advertising, to serve them highly relevant ad creative on Facebook.

Metrics such as time spent on site, total site visits, and specific event completions can be used to construct custom audiences populated with prospects already familiar with your brand. However, the true treasure trove for B2B marketers lies in the “People who visited specific web pages” option. Let’s imagine your company offers both products and services. You can harness the power of Custom Audiences to build a highly targeted audience of individuals interested in your product offerings but not your services, like this (and vice versa):

This strategic segmentation prevents you from bombarding prospects with offers that simply aren’t relevant to their needs, significantly increasing your chances of converting them into loyal customers. Finally, don’t underestimate the value of Custom Audiences built around lead ad engagement. Prior to the introduction of this innovative feature, I would have advised against allocating your budget toward engagement audiences for B2B advertising (with the exception of lead form-specific audiences, which remain a worthwhile exception). However, if you’re utilizing lead ads to generate fresh prospects or distribute valuable content, Engagement audiences have become indispensable.

As you can see, these Custom Audiences provide a mechanism for building new audiences based on specific actions taken within your lead ad forms. For instance, if a prospect opened your lead ad form but didn’t proceed to submit it, you can present them with a different, yet equally compelling, offer. Perhaps they’d feel more comfortable navigating to your website to learn more instead of parting with their valuable contact information directly through Facebook. Conversely, you can leverage audiences composed of prospects who did complete your lead ad form to serve them lower-funnel offers, such as product demos or free trial invitations. While a combination of Core and Custom Audiences would be more than sufficient for most B2B marketers to pinpoint qualified prospects, Facebook has one final trick up its sleeve: the formidable Lookalike Audiences.

Lookalike Audiences

I’ve saved the most powerful tool for last. While newly acquired prospects might not perfectly mirror the exact characteristics and Facebook behavioral patterns of your existing customer base, it’s a safe bet that a group resembling your current paying customers is an excellent starting point for lead acquisition. Lookalike Audiences enable you to generate entirely new audiences composed of prospects whose demographic and psychographic makeup closely aligns with your designated source audience. The “source audience” can be any existing Facebook audience you’ve previously created. However, to maximize the effectiveness of Lookalike Audiences, it’s generally recommended to utilize high-value audiences, such as those composed of converters (identified through the Facebook Pixel) or individuals from your customer email list. Once you’ve selected your source audience and specified a target location (typically a country), Facebook will instantly generate an estimated audience size for your Lookalike:

This newly created audience comprises the top 1% of Facebook users within your chosen location who exhibit the closest resemblance to your source audience. Combined with the interest, behavioral, and demographic targeting options we covered earlier, you’re now primed to captivate a fresh pool of prospects with compelling and highly relevant creative assets. Now go forth and start closing those deals! *** For many B2B marketers, Facebook represents the next uncharted territory in the ever-evolving landscape of online advertising. To further enhance your knowledge and mastery of Facebook advertising, be sure to explore some of our other invaluable resources, including:

• The 10 Best Facebook Advertising Features You Should Be Leveraging Right Now
• The Ultimate Facebook Ad Types Cheat Sheet: Your Guide to Choosing the Right Format
• The Ultimate Guide to Tracking, Targeting, and Driving Conversions on Facebook: A Comprehensive Resource
• The Ridiculously Awesome Guide to Facebook Remarketing: Turn One-Time Visitors into Loyal Customers