Sahil Parikh

I am Sahil Parikh, founder of DeskAway and author of The SaaS Edge. This is where I share my work-life adventures.

     

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• Are LinkedIn Ads good for B2B Sales #SaaS #SEM #Marketing

  Thursday, December 8, 2011   

  

  B2B SaaS businesses work along the conversion funnel. The more topped up they are the better chance of converting more people to paid conversions. If traffic decreases, so do conversions. So, the game is in keeping the traffic coming and being topped up. Always.

  Besides Organic Search, Social Media and our Affiliate Program, we also try out paid SEM from time to time to see what CTR and signups they give us. It is exciting to see Adwords compete against Blog traffic and get amazed at how Blog traffic has such a lower bounce rate and conversions. Then at the end of the month I analyze everything for every traffic source - Renewals, Churn, Conversions, CAC, Customer Aquisition Costs etc.

  We had tried out LinkedIn Ads in July without much success. I tried to give it another shot last October.

  I like LinkedIn Ads targeting options. We know who buys a DeskAway account (CEO, IT Managers, Marketing Managers, Project Managers, Founders) so running a lazer-sharp LinkedIn campaign to zero-in these people might, just might work.

  Here are the campaigns I ran:

  CPC Campaign #1
  CTR - 0.008% (eeek!)
  Average CPC - $11.82 (ouch!)

  I then did an awareness campaign just for brand building. I read somewhere that the CPC costs are much higher for a CPM campaign in the B2B space.

  CPM Campaign #2
  CTR - 0.025% (eek!)
  Average CPC - $8.63 (ouch!)

  I then switched back to a CPC campaign and broadened my target audience, removed groups, added more countries and revised the ads a bit.

  CPC Campaign #3
  CTR - 0.017%(eek!)
  Average CPC - $3.11 (better but still ouch!)

  The last CPC campaign I ran was with one more ad and tweaked the older ads. I also lowered the max CPC to $2.5. Earlier, I think it was around $3.5. 

  CPC Campaign #4
  CTR - 0.015% (eek!)
  Average CPC - $2.31 (better but still a little ouch!)

  Somehow, this last campaign gave the most clicks and hence a lower CPC. I believe that as the audience got broader, more impressions were made and more people saw and clicked on the ad. But, then that is not focussed marketing.

  *Confused*

  Google analytics displayed a few Goal conversions (people who signed up to any of the DeskAway plans) from the LinkedIn campaign but none of them have converted to a paid plan yet. 

  I am not completely giving up hope on LinkedIn Ads. I will read up more, talk to a few more people and try out a few more campaigns (before that I’ll probably buy some LNKD stock). LinkedIn Ads (or any other SEM strategy) will vary depending on your industry, price of product, time to close a sale, CAC etc. A good approach for SEM is to try out with small budgets, document the changes, learn and move along. 

  Though, one thing that I keep thinking about is - how do people measure ROI running a CPM campaign that builds awareness? What if people saw the ad, remembered DeskAway and then signed up later when they really needed a project collaboration tool?

  Have you tried LinkedIn Ads? What is your take on it for B2B sales?

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