Paid Search for B2B and SaaS, Judged on Pipeline
B2B paid search fails in a predictable way: the platform optimises toward whatever converts fastest, the fastest conversion is the least qualified thing on the site, and six months later the pipeline is full of ebook downloads with no budget behind them. The fix is unglamorous plumbing. Get closed-won revenue flowing back into the ad platforms, weight conversions by what they are actually worth, and let the bidding learn from deals instead of form fills.
What changes at this scale
Offline conversion import is the whole game
Import closed and qualified outcomes from the CRM back into Google Ads and the bidding stops chasing cheap downloads. It takes CRM discipline and a quarter of patience while the model learns, and it is the single change that most reliably turns a B2B account around.
Small keyword universes need different discipline
Your buyers might type two hundred genuinely commercial searches a month. That makes match type control, negative mining and search term review matter far more than in consumer accounts, because one broad match keyword can quietly absorb the whole budget.
LinkedIn earns its cost only in the right shape
The targeting is real and the clicks cost several times search. It works for defined title-and-company universes at high contract values, and it burns money as a volume channel. We will tell you which side of that line you are on before spending.
The lead is not the unit of success
Reports here are built on opportunities and pipeline value by campaign, reconciled against the CRM. A cost per lead that sales does not recognise is not a metric, it is a fiction with a chart.
Everything you get
- Offline conversion import wired from your CRM to the ad platforms
- Conversion hierarchy with values that reflect real qualification
- High-intent search campaigns: category, competitor and use case terms
- LinkedIn campaigns where the account math supports them
- Landing pages per segment, not one demo page for everyone
- Search term and negative keyword review on a weekly cadence
- Brand protected and reported separately from acquisition
- Pipeline reporting by campaign, reconciled with the CRM
Common questions
Should we bid on competitor names?
Often yes, with honest expectations. Competitor terms convert below your brand terms and above most category terms, and the landing page matters enormously: a straight comparison page outperforms your homepage several times over. Watch the economics per competitor, because some rivals' users are actively shopping and some are locked in and just checking.
Our sales cycle is six months. How do you optimise inside that?
With staged signals. Closed-won is the truth but arrives too late to steer bidding alone, so we import intermediate stages, qualified opportunity, demo held, with values scaled to how often each becomes revenue. The platform gets a signal in days that correlates with deals in months. It is imperfect and it beats optimising on form fills by a wide margin.
Is paid search even worth it at low search volume?
Usually, because the volume that exists is dense with intent. Two hundred searches a month at a forty thousand dollar contract value is a real channel, it just needs an account built for precision rather than scale. What is rarely worth it at low volume is broad awareness spend on search, and we will say so rather than run it.
Want a straight read on where you actually stand?
Book a free assessment. We will have looked before the call, and you keep the findings either way.