# B2B PPC: The 8-Step Strategy for Leads and Pipeline Source: https://piperocket.digital/blogs/b2b-ppc-guide/ Author: Praveen Ravi, Co-Founder, PipeRocket Digital Published: 2026-04-08 Last updated: 2026-11-05 B2B PPC covers the paid search and paid social ads a company runs to reach the people who buy for a business, and it’s judged on the qualified leads and pipeline those ads bring in. In B2B, the cheapest lead you buy is often the most expensive one. A $40 form fill from someone who’ll never sign a contract costs you the $40, then your sales team’s time, and then the budget you could have spent reaching a real buyer. That’s why B2B PPC is really about a small group of people at the companies you sell to, and every campaign lives or dies on whether their clicks turn into deals. I’ve written this for marketing and demand gen leads at companies that sell to businesses, whether that’s services, manufacturing or software, who own a paid budget and need it to show up as pipeline. ## The 8-Step B2B PPC Strategy at a Glance 1. **Define your ICP and what counts as a qualified lead:** Agree with sales who you sell to, who’s on the buying committee and which leads are worth a call, before you open an ad account. 2. **Give each channel a job:** Use Google and Microsoft search to capture demand, and LinkedIn, Meta or Reddit to build awareness with the accounts you want. 3. **Research keywords and build your negative list:** Start with brand, competitor and category searches, and block job seekers, students and consumers before your first click. 4. **Forecast leads and budget from search demand:** Work from search volume, CPC, impression share, CTR and conversion rate, so your goals are ones the market can actually deliver. 5. **Structure campaigns by intent and account:** Split brand, competitor and category searches into their own campaigns, and run LinkedIn against a list of target accounts. 6. **Write ads and landing pages for each campaign:** Match every ad to one buyer and one offer, and send it to a page that says exactly what the ad promised. 7. **Connect your CRM and import offline conversions:** Send SQLs, opportunities and closed deals back to Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn, so bidding learns which clicks become revenue. 8. **Measure pipeline and scale what works:** Report cost per opportunity by channel, fix rising CPCs fast, and move budget to awareness once search runs out of room. ## What Is B2B PPC? B2B pay-per-click (PPC) advertising generates leads and sales from other businesses through search and paid social ads, by reaching professionals and decision-makers while they search or scroll at work. You still pay for each click, like any PPC, but with B2B PPC advertising you’re paying to reach a very particular set of people. On Google and Microsoft, it’s people searching for a supplier, like “managed it services for law firms”. On LinkedIn, it’s the office manager, the managing partner and the compliance lead at the firms on your target list, who aren’t searching for anything yet. Both matter, but they do different jobs, and most of what goes wrong in B2B pay per click comes from mixing those jobs up. ### How Is B2B PPC Different From B2C PPC? | | B2C PPC | B2B PPC | |---------------------|------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Who you’re reaching | One shopper buying for themselves | Several stakeholders at a company: end users, a budget owner, procurement, a technical or compliance reviewer and an executive who signs off | | Sales cycle | Minutes to days | Weeks to months, with calls, proposals or demos in between | | How you target | Interests, demographics and shopping behaviour | Job titles, industries, company size and named accounts | | What you count | Purchases and return on ad spend | Qualified leads, opportunities, pipeline and closed deals in your CRM | | Clicks | Plenty of them, and fairly cheap | Fewer and pricier, on searches like “managed it services for law firms” | That last row is why a B2B account can’t run on autopilot. With fewer, pricier clicks, every bad one hurts, so your targeting, your negative keywords and your tracking all have to be tighter than they would be in B2C. ## How to Build a B2B PPC Strategy in 8 Steps To build a B2B PPC strategy, define your ICP and qualified lead, give each channel a job, research keywords and negatives, forecast from search demand, structure campaigns by intent, write ads and landing pages, connect your CRM and measure pipeline. Most of the real work is in the first four steps, before you spend a dollar. This is what each one involves, and the tools you’ll need: | Step | What you do | Tools you’ll need | |----------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 1\. Define your ICP and qualified lead | Agree with sales who you sell to and which leads are worth a call | Your CRM, sales call recordings | | 2\. Give each channel a job | Decide which channels capture demand and which build awareness | Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, LinkedIn Campaign Manager | | 3\. Research keywords and negatives | Build brand, competitor and category keyword lists, plus a negative list | Google Keyword Planner, Search Console | | 4\. Forecast from search demand | Work out leads and budget from volume, CPC and conversion rates | Keyword Planner, a spreadsheet | | 5\. Structure campaigns | Separate campaigns by intent, and build target account lists | Google Ads, LinkedIn Campaign Manager | | 6\. Write ads and landing pages | One ad and one page for each buyer and offer | Your landing page builder | | 7\. Connect your CRM | Import SQLs, opportunities and closed deals as offline conversions | HubSpot or Salesforce, each platform’s conversion settings | | 8\. Measure and scale | Report cost per opportunity by channel and move budget to what works | Your CRM, GA4 | ![The 8 steps to build a B2B PPC strategy: define your ICP and qualified lead, give each channel a job, research keywords and negatives, forecast from search demand, structure campaigns by intent, write ads and landing pages, connect your CRM, and measure pipeline and scale](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-infographics/b2b-ppc-8-steps.webp) ### Step 1: Define Your ICP and What Counts as a Qualified Lead Start with your sales team before you open an ad account, and ask them two things: who do we actually sell to, and which leads are worth a call? Let’s use an IT managed services provider as the example, one that looks after law firms and medical practices. If you sat with its sales team and went through the last 20 or so contracts it signed, you’d probably see something like this: | Who | What they care about | What they search for | What they need to see | |------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | Office or practice manager (usually finds you first) | IT that keeps breaking, and someone who answers the phone | “it support for law firms”, “healthcare it support” | Response times, what’s included, who you already look after | | Compliance lead | Patient or client data staying safe | “hipaa compliant it services” | Certifications, security practices, how you handle a breach | | Managing partner (signs) | Cost, risk and not having to think about IT | “\[company name] pricing”, “\[company name] reviews” | Pricing, contract terms, case studies from similar firms | Then agree on what a qualified lead is, in writing. For this provider it might be a law firm or medical practice with 20 to 200 staff, inside its service area, looking for ongoing support instead of a one-off fix. Sales knows this already, and the ad account needs to know it too. While you’re in the CRM, pull up how many of your leads become MQLs, then SQLs, then customers. You’ll need those numbers for the forecast later, and they’ll also show you where leads are falling out before you’ve spent anything. If you skip this step, you end up deciding whether a keyword is good before you know who’s supposed to be searching it, and that’s how accounts get very efficient at reaching the wrong people. ### Step 2: Give Each Channel a Job The way I’d think about channels in B2B PPC is that Google is where you capture demand and LinkedIn is where you create it. Someone searching “it support for law firms” already has the problem, so search catches them at exactly that moment. Nobody on LinkedIn is shopping for IT support, but the managing partner who scrolls past your post about a ransomware attack on a law firm might remember you when it’s their turn. #### Match Each Channel to Its Job Give every channel one job, and judge it on that job: | Channel | Its job | How you target | Judge it on | |-----------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------| | Google Ads | Capture bottom-of-funnel demand from people searching for what you sell | Keywords | Qualified leads, opportunities, cost per opportunity | | Microsoft Advertising | The same job, with extra reach among people searching at work on Bing and Edge | Keywords, plus LinkedIn profile targeting by company, industry and job function | The same as Google | | LinkedIn Ads | Build awareness with the accounts you want | Job titles, company lists, industries, company size | Reach and frequency on target accounts, then lift | | Meta | Cheap reach and retargeting | Custom audiences and lookalikes | Reach, frequency and retargeting | | Reddit | Reach niche professional communities | Communities and interests | Reach and engagement | On the B2B paid search side, I’d start with Google and add [Microsoft Advertising](https://piperocket.digital/blogs/microsoft-ads-for-saas/) once Google’s working. It’s the same job, there’s less competition for the clicks, and you can import most of your Google campaigns straight across. Google’s Display network and YouTube are mostly worth it for remarketing in B2B, once you’ve got visitors to bring back. #### Judge LinkedIn by Lift The mistake I see most with LinkedIn is judging it on last-click leads. It plants the idea, and then weeks later the managing partner searches your name on Google and converts there, so LinkedIn gets no credit. Look at lift instead. After a heavy LinkedIn push, check whether brand searches, direct visits and total leads went up, even if LinkedIn isn’t the one being credited. If you were getting around 10 leads a month from Google on its own and you’re now at a steady 13 to 15, LinkedIn is doing its job. ### Step 3: Research Keywords and Build Your Negative List There are really two lists to build here: the searches you want to pay for, and the ones you’ll block before you spend a cent. #### Start With Brand, Competitor and Category Searches For B2B PPC on search, I’d build the keyword list in this order: your own brand, your competitors, then your category. Across the 10+ accounts we’ve looked at closely, brand and competitor campaigns bring in the most leads, because nobody searching your name or a rival’s name is just browsing. For our IT provider, the list starts like this: | Bucket | Example searches | Why it’s worth bidding on | |---------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Brand | “\[company name]”, “\[company name] pricing”, “\[company name] reviews” | The cheapest, highest-intent clicks you’ll ever buy | | Competitor | “\[competitor] alternative”, “\[competitor] reviews” | People already shopping for an IT provider, looking at someone else | | Service by industry | “it support for law firms”, “managed it services for law firms”, “healthcare it support” | Long-tail searches for the exact job you do, from the exact buyers you want | | Pricing | “managed it services pricing”, “managed it services cost” | People close to a decision, working out a budget | Here’s what Keyword Planner shows for some of them in the US. The top four are the searches you want, and the bottom two are searches you’d pay for by accident if you bid on “it support” loosely: ![Google Keyword Planner results for the United States: “it support for law firms” (390 searches, US$149.50 top-of-page bid), “managed it services for law firms” (260, US$32.36), “healthcare it support” (590, US$20.51) and “managed it services pricing” (390, US$31.00) boxed together in red, and “it support jobs” (9,900 searches) and “free it support” (140) boxed separately](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-screenshots/b2b-ppc-keyword-planner.webp) Look at that top bid, too. Advertisers are paying up to $149.50 for a click on “it support for law firms”, which tells you how valuable a law firm client is to the people already bidding on it. #### Build Your Negative List Before the First Click Go back to that screenshot for a second. “It support jobs” gets 9,900 searches a month, which is 25 times the volume of “it support for law firms”, and every one of those clicks would come from someone looking for work. These are the negatives I’d start a B2B account with: - **Jobs and careers:** jobs, careers, hiring, salary, internship, resume. - **Free and DIY:** free, template, DIY, how to, tutorial. - **Students and training:** course, certification, training, degree. - **Consumer searches:** home, personal, laptop repair, phone repair. - **Customers you don’t serve:** company sizes, industries or locations outside your ICP. And use ad scheduling to run your ads during business hours in your buyers’ time zones. Someone searching “it support for law firms” at 11pm on a Saturday is far less likely to be the office manager with a budget. On a new account, I’d also stick to phrase and exact match. Broad match lets Google show your ad for anything loosely related, so “it support for law firms” can end up matching “law firm jobs” or “free legal advice”, and you pay for every one of those clicks. You can test broad match later, once your CRM is sending qualified leads back and your negative list is long. ### Step 4: Forecast Leads and Budget From Search Demand Before you spend anything, work out what these keywords can actually give you. I build every [PPC budget forecast](https://piperocket.digital/blogs/how-to-forecast-saas-ppc-budget/) the same way: start from search volume and work down to leads, because the market sets the cost per click, and a goal you set from what you’d like to pay won’t survive contact with the auction. Here’s that worked through for the four target keywords from the screenshot: | What you work out | How | For our IT provider | |-------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------| | Search volume | Keyword Planner, for the keywords you’ll bid on | 390 + 260 + 590 + 390 = 1,630 searches a month | | Impressions | Volume × the impression share you can realistically win | 1,630 × 60% = 978 | | Clicks | Impressions × CTR | 978 × 4% = 39 | | Cost | Clicks × average CPC | 39 × $56 = $2,184 a month | | Leads | Clicks × landing page conversion rate | 39 × 4% = about 2 | | Cost per lead | Cost ÷ leads | about $1,100 | That $56 is on the high side, because it’s the top-of-page bids weighted by search volume. And every percentage in there will move with your industry and your landing pages. That forecast is the honest answer to “how much should we spend?”. These four keywords can bring in about two leads a month for around $2,200. If you need ten, you need more keywords, more industries or more locations, and the forecast tells you that before you’ve spent a dollar finding out the hard way. Whether $1,100 a lead is worth it comes down to what a client is worth to you, and that’s the only place I’d bring unit economics in, as a sanity check on the number the forecast gives you. ![A worked B2B PPC forecast for four IT support keywords: 1,630 US searches a month at 60% impression share gives 978 impressions, at 4% CTR gives 39 clicks, at a $56 CPC costs $2,184 a month, and at a 4% conversion rate gives about 2 leads at about $1,100 each](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-infographics/b2b-ppc-forecast.webp) ### Step 5: Structure Campaigns by Intent and Account You’ll set up search and LinkedIn almost the opposite way round. On search, you’re bidding on what people type, and on LinkedIn, you’re paying to be seen by the right companies. #### Split Search Campaigns by Intent On search, give each bucket from your keyword research its own campaign, so each one gets its own budget, ads and landing page: | Campaign | What it bids on | Where the click lands | How I’d fund it | |---------------------|------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Brand | Your company name, pricing and reviews | Homepage or pricing page | From day one, on a small budget, because competitors will bid on your name | | Competitor | “\[competitor] alternative”, “\[competitor] reviews” | A comparison page | Early, since it’s high intent | | Service by industry | “it support for law firms”, “healthcare it support” | An industry page for that buyer | The main budget, split by industry | | Pricing | “managed it services pricing” | A pricing page | Early, it’s close to a decision | Splitting by industry matters more in B2B than people expect. A law firm and a medical practice need different proof, different compliance language and a different page, and if they share a campaign, whichever one is cheaper to win takes the budget. #### Run LinkedIn Against Target Accounts (ABM) On LinkedIn, you pay for impressions, so every impression should land on a company that could actually buy from you. That’s why I’d always run LinkedIn as [account-based marketing (ABM)](https://piperocket.digital/blogs/linkedin-account-based-marketing/), against a list of target accounts, in three tiers: | Tier | Who’s on it | How you run it | |--------|-------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 1:1 | A handful of must-win accounts | Ads made for that one firm, shown only to its decision-makers | | 1:Few | 10 to 20 similar firms, like mid-size law firms in one city | Ads for that group’s shared problems | | 1:Many | Your full target list, often 1,000 to 5,000 companies | Broader awareness ads, filtered by job title and company size | This is roughly what a 1:Many audience looks like for our IT provider. It’s a mockup, but it’s built the way we’d set one up: an uploaded list of target law firms, then job titles and company size on top, with in-house IT teams and current customers left out: ![Example LinkedIn Campaign Manager audience for an IT provider: a company list of 2,140 law firms with 1,862 matched, job titles Office Manager, Practice Manager, Managing Partner, Operations Director and Compliance Officer, company sizes 11 to 50 and 51 to 200, and exclusions for in-house IT and current customers, with an estimated audience of 18,400 on a brand awareness objective with a frequency cap; labelled as an example mockup](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-screenshots/b2b-ppc-linkedin-targeting-mockup.webp) ### Step 6: Write Ads and Landing Pages for Each Campaign Every campaign needs three pieces before it’s ready. You need an ad that speaks to the search, a page that keeps the ad’s promise, and a way to bring back anyone who leaves without converting. #### Write a Responsive Search Ad for Each Campaign Every ad should speak to one buyer about one thing, and that’s easiest when you start from the search itself. For “it support for law firms”, the office manager wants to know you understand law firms, that you answer fast and what it costs. This is how I’d fill a [responsive search ad](https://piperocket.digital/blogs/responsive-search-ads/) for that campaign. Every headline is 30 characters or fewer: | Headline slot | Example headlines | |-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Pinned to position 1: the search itself | IT Support for Law Firms, Managed IT for Law Firms, Law Firm IT Support | | The offer and next step | Book a Free IT Assessment, Get a Fixed Monthly Quote | | Proof and specifics | Built for Firms of 20 to 200, Secure Client Files and Email, Works With Clio and NetDocs, Fixed Monthly Pricing | #### Build a Dedicated Landing Page for Each Campaign Give every campaign a dedicated landing page that picks up exactly where the ad left off. If the ad says “IT support for law firms”, the page should open with that value proposition, show the firms you already look after, explain how you handle client confidentiality, and make the next step a short form or a calendar to book a call. Sending that click to your homepage means the office manager has to go looking for the bit that’s about them, and most won’t. Frontline Managed Services’ law firm page is a good example. The headline is the search itself, the services are listed right next to it, there’s one clear next step, and the copy underneath talks about client data and billable time, which is what a law firm actually worries about: ![Frontline Managed Services’ “Managed IT Services for Law Firms” page with four areas boxed in red: the headline, a list of legal IT services including cybersecurity and compliance and 24/7 helpdesk support, a “Book a Discovery Call” button, and copy about protecting sensitive client data for law firms](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-screenshots/b2b-ppc-landing-page-example.webp) #### Connect Search and LinkedIn With Remarketing People who clicked a search ad and didn’t convert are the warmest audience you have, so tag those visits with UTM parameters and use remarketing to reach them on LinkedIn with case studies from firms like theirs. Add people who engaged with your LinkedIn ads, like those who watched half a video, and you’ve got a sequence that walks them toward a call instead of one ad they saw once. ### Step 7: Connect Your CRM and Import Offline Conversions Out of the box, every ad platform thinks a form fill is a win. It has no idea that the office manager’s form turned into a three-year contract and the student’s turned into nothing, so it keeps chasing whoever fills in forms cheapest. The fix is to tell each platform what happened after the form. You send every lead’s later stages, like SQL, opportunity and closed deal, back as offline conversions, and bidding starts learning which clicks turn into revenue. Each platform does it a little differently: | Platform | How you send CRM stages back | What to watch | |-----------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Google Ads | Offline conversion import using the click ID (GCLID) saved on each lead, plus enhanced conversions for leads | Google only accepts conversions within 90 days of the click | | Microsoft Advertising | Offline conversion import using Microsoft’s click ID (MSCLKID) | Same idea as Google, and the same 90-day window | | LinkedIn | The Conversions API, with direct integrations for HubSpot and Salesforce | Lets LinkedIn see which accounts it reached went on to become opportunities | Pairing first-party data like email addresses with the click ID helps too. Google’s own data shows advertisers who do that see a median 10% increase in conversions compared with standard offline imports ([Google Ads Help](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2998031?hl=en)). Here’s what that looks like once it’s set up. These two conversion goals come from HubSpot lifecycle stages in one of the accounts we manage, one for MQLs and one for SQLs and customers: ![Google Ads conversion goals summary showing two custom goals built from HubSpot lifecycle stages, “Hubspot - lifecycle events - MQL” and “HubSpot SQLs & Customers”, boxed in red; account name blurred](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-screenshots/saas-ppc-crm-conversion-goals.webp) On a long sales cycle, you need full-funnel tracking, and you need to give it time. A lead from this month might not become an opportunity for weeks, so judge campaigns on a window that matches how long your deals actually take. #### Choose a Bid Strategy Once the Data Is There Once the CRM is sending stages back, you can let the platform bid for you, but only as fast as the data allows. This is the order I’d move through on Google and Microsoft: | Stage | Bid strategy | When to move on | |----------|-----------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | Launch | Maximize Clicks, with a cap on what you’ll pay per click | Once conversions are coming in steadily | | Learning | Maximize Conversions | Once your CRM is sending qualified leads back | | Scaling | Target CPA, or Maximize Conversion Value with deal values | When you know what a qualified lead is worth to you | Every change sends the campaign back into a learning phase, so change one thing at a time and give it a few weeks. And Performance Max is worth testing only after all this is working. It finds conversions across Search, YouTube, Display and Gmail, but it mixes in softer ones, so judge it on qualified leads and opportunities, and keep your brand terms out of it. ### Step 8: Measure Pipeline and Scale What Works #### Report Cost per Opportunity by Channel Once the CRM is connected, you can stop reporting B2B PPC on clicks and form fills and report on what each channel actually brings in: | Metric | Why it matters in B2B | Where it comes from | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------| | Cost per qualified lead | Shows whether you’re paying for the right people | CRM plus ad spend | | Cost per opportunity | The number that tells you which campaigns start real deals | CRM plus ad spend | | Pipeline by channel and campaign | Where the money in your sales pipeline came from | CRM | | Closed-won revenue by channel | What paid search actually earned | CRM | | Reach and frequency on target accounts | Whether LinkedIn is reaching the companies on your list | LinkedIn Campaign Manager | | Search impression share | How much of the demand you’re already winning, and how much room is left | Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising | | [Customer acquisition cost](https://piperocket.digital/blogs/saas-cac/) (CAC) against contract value | Whether paid customers are worth what they cost to win | CRM and finance | #### Check the Search Terms Report Every Week Open the search terms report every week, and add anything irrelevant to your negative list. It’s the most honest report in any ad account, because it shows what people actually typed before they clicked. Here’s what that looks like for our IT provider’s law firm campaign. It’s example data, but the pattern is a familiar one: job seekers, free-help searches and people looking for a course have taken almost a third of the budget: ![Example Google Ads search terms report for an IT provider’s law firm campaign, with irrelevant searches such as “it support jobs law firm”, “free it support for small law office”, “it support law firm salary”, “how to set up it for a law firm” and “legal it support certification course” highlighted in red, costing $602 of $1,942 with no conversions](https://piperocket.digital/images/blog-screenshots/b2b-ppc-search-terms-mockup.webp) #### Real Client Story: When Qualified Leads Dropped 70% A client came to us after their qualified leads dropped by 70%. The team had been changing ads, landing pages and bids all at once, so nobody could tell what had broken. So we looked at only the campaigns that used to work, week by week, and the cause turned out to be cost per click. It had shot up, the daily budget was running out by around noon, and the ads were only showing for about 20% of searches. New ads or a new landing page wouldn’t have fixed that. Bid caps did, and once we capped the runaway keywords, the budget lasted the whole day again. #### Real Client Story: When Search Ran Out of Room Another client had a different problem. We’d scaled their Google spend by 25%, but pipeline had stalled and revenue was flat, because they’d hit the ceiling. They’d already won most of the searches in their category, so every extra dollar on Google was buying worse clicks. So we kept search on a lean budget to keep catching people who were ready to buy, and moved the rest to LinkedIn to build awareness with the right accounts. The rule we agreed on was that LinkedIn was for reach and lift, judged on brand searches, direct visits and total leads, and nobody would judge it on last-click leads. That’s usually the right next move when search runs out. Once you’re winning most of the impression share on your high-intent keywords, the extra growth comes from making more of the right people aware of you. ## How Much Does B2B PPC Cost? B2B PPC costs whatever your forecast says the clicks need, plus $4,000 to $5,000 a month for an agency to handle your B2B PPC management, $4,500 to $6,500 for an in-house team, or around $10,000 for a hybrid setup. The ad spend itself has no standard number, because it comes out of the forecast: how many leads you need, and the search volume and CPCs in your market. One account needs $5,000 a month, while another needs $2,000 a day. If you want a reference point, these are the averages across the 53+ B2B software accounts in [our Google Ads benchmarks](https://piperocket.digital/research/google-ads-benchmarks/). Just keep in mind they’re from software companies, and services or manufacturing clicks can cost a lot more, like that $149.50 bid on “it support for law firms”: | Google Ads, B2B software accounts | Brand search | Non-brand search | |-----------------------------------|--------------|------------------| | Average CPC | $3.12 | $13.75 | | Click-through rate | 22.2% | 3.60% | | Conversion rate | | 3.94% | | Cost per lead | $34 | $207 | LinkedIn clicks cost more, but remember it’s doing a different job. Dreamdata tracked this across the B2B accounts in its [2026 LinkedIn Ads benchmarks](https://dreamdata.io/blog/announcing-linkedin-ads-benchmarks-report-2026), and over the full customer journey, LinkedIn returned 121% ROAS, against 67% for Google Search and 51% for Meta. That’s mostly because it starts deals that close weeks later through other channels. And this is what it costs to have someone run it: | Model | What you get | What you pay for | Typical cost | |----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------|--------------------------| | In-house | A paid media manager and a specialist | Two salaries | $4,500 to $6,500 a month | | Agency | An account manager, a specialist and an analyst at a [B2B PPC agency](https://piperocket.digital/list/best-affordable-b2b-ppc-agencies/) | One monthly retainer | $4,000 to $5,000 a month | | Hybrid | Your team working with an agency | Salaries plus a retainer | Around $10,000 a month | ## Why Isn’t Your B2B PPC Working? B2B PPC usually stops working for one of four reasons: cheap leads that never buy, LinkedIn judged on the wrong number, CPCs creeping up unnoticed, or leads that sales never follows up. ### You’re Getting Cheap Leads That Never Buy You’ll see it as a cost per lead that looks great in the ad account and a sales team that says the leads are junk. It usually happens because the platform is optimizing for form fills, so it finds the people who fill in forms most cheaply, like students, job seekers and tiny businesses you don’t serve. Tighten the negative list, make the form ask for company size or role, and import SQLs from your CRM so bidding learns what a good lead looks like. ### LinkedIn Is Being Judged on Last-Click Leads The campaign gets paused because it “didn’t bring in any leads”, and a few weeks later brand searches and direct leads start to drop. LinkedIn starts the conversation and Google usually finishes it, so last-click reporting gives it no credit. Judge it on reach and frequency across your target accounts and on lift in brand searches and total leads. ### CPCs Have Crept Up Without Anyone Noticing Leads fall, and the team starts changing ads and landing pages. Often the real cause is that CPCs rose, the daily budget runs out by midday, and you’re missing most of the searches. Check impression share lost to budget, cap the runaway keywords, and change one thing at a time so you can see what fixed it. ### Sales Isn’t Following Up on Paid Leads The leads are good, but nothing turns into pipeline. In B2B, a lead that waits two days for a reply may well have booked a call with someone else by then. Agree a response time with sales, route paid leads straight to a person, and track lead to SQL rate by campaign so you can see where they stall. ## How PipeRocket Runs B2B PPC We run [B2B PPC for SaaS companies](https://piperocket.digital/saas-ppc/) the way this guide lays out: we start with your ICP and sales team, forecast from real search demand, give every channel a job, connect your CRM and report on cost per opportunity. It’s how we traced one client’s 70% drop in qualified leads to runaway CPCs and fixed it with bid caps, without new ads or landing pages. If your paid spend isn’t showing up as pipeline, [we’ll audit your paid accounts and show you what to fix first](https://piperocket.digital/contact-us/). ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is B2B PPC? B2B PPC, or B2B pay per click, is paid search and paid social advertising aimed at the people who buy for a business, judged on the qualified leads and pipeline it brings in. You still pay per click, but you’re reaching a small buying committee at the companies you sell to, so targeting, negatives and CRM tracking all matter a lot more. ### How do you run B2B PPC campaigns? To run B2B PPC campaigns, define your ICP and qualified lead, give each channel a job, research keywords and negatives, forecast from search demand, structure campaigns by intent, write matching ads and landing pages, connect your CRM and measure pipeline. If you’re starting from nothing, start with brand and one or two high-intent service searches on Google, with a solid negative list, and get your CRM tracking right before you spend more. ### Is Google Ads or LinkedIn better for B2B? Google Ads is better for capturing B2B buyers who are already searching, and LinkedIn is better for building awareness with specific accounts and job titles before they search. Most B2B programs need both, with Google as the base. Add LinkedIn once search is working, and judge it on reach and lift. ### How much should a B2B company spend on PPC? A B2B company should spend what its forecast says it needs to hit its lead target, worked out from the search volume and CPCs of the keywords it wants. That’s why one account needs $5,000 a month and another needs $2,000 a day. Run your keywords through the forecast in this guide before you set a number. ### What’s a good cost per lead for B2B PPC? Across the 53+ B2B software accounts in our benchmarks, Google Ads non-brand leads average about $207 and brand leads about $34. Services and manufacturing can run much higher or lower, so judge cost per lead against your own forecast and what a client is worth to you. ### How do you track B2B PPC to revenue? You track B2B PPC to revenue by saving each lead’s click ID in your CRM and sending its later stages, like SQL, opportunity and closed deal, back to Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn as offline conversions. That lets you report cost per opportunity and revenue by campaign, and it lets each platform’s bidding learn which clicks turn into deals. ### How long does B2B PPC take to work? B2B PPC can bring in leads within the first month, because search ads show up as soon as they’re approved, but it usually takes a full sales cycle to see whether those leads turn into pipeline. So judge the early weeks on lead quality and cost per qualified lead, and judge revenue over a window as long as your deals take to close. ### How do you generate B2B leads with PPC? You generate B2B leads with PPC by bidding on high-intent brand, competitor and service searches, sending each one to a matching landing page, blocking irrelevant searches with negatives, and importing qualified leads from your CRM so bidding learns who’s worth a click. LinkedIn adds to that by keeping you in front of the right accounts, so more of them search for you when they’re ready. ### Is B2B PPC worth it? B2B PPC is worth it when there’s search demand for what you sell and a client is worth more than it costs to win one, which the forecast will tell you before you start. PPC for B2B is also one of the fastest ways to get in front of buyers, since search ads can bring in leads in the first month while SEO takes longer to build.