Facebook Ads in B2B: 3 methods to generate (really) qualified leads

Facebook Ads is a powerful acquisition and retention channel, even in B2B. In this article, we will show you how you can use Facebook Ads in B2B successfully, thanks to these 3 simple methods to set up.

“Facebook Ads is an exclusively B2C acquisition channel”, “Facebook ads in B2B do not work”, “Advertising on Facebook in B2C is a waste of time and money”.

Surely you have heard these statements. Of course they are all fake!

Advertising Facebook in B2B is entirely possible. And this channel can also be one of your best allies.

Example with Teach Up, one of our customers at Growth Room. We launched several campaigns that performed well.

But how do you generate (really) qualified leads?

That's the whole difficulty with Facebook in B2B. Fishing for bad fish is quite frequent (and therefore a loss of cash).

In this article we are going to give you 3 ways to create effective B2B Facebook Ads campaigns

Note: if you have never touched the management system, we invite you to first read our article: How to create a Facebook Ads campaign 😉

Facebook Ads in B2B: 3 ways to create effective campaigns

Method 1: Create Lead Form Ads

Form ads are, as their name suggests, ads with an integrated contact form, called an “instant form.” When a person clicks on the ad, they will see a pre-filled form with this contact information that they agreed to share with Facebook (first name, last name, email address). It does not leave the Facebook interface.

Here is an example.

First of all, we see an advertisement.

Then, when we click on “Download”, a form opens and is filled in by itself with our information.

Simple and effective.

How do I create a form ad on Facebook?

The operation is quite simple. The creation of the campaign is quite similar to creating a “classic” one.

Step 1: create your campaign

In your Business Manager, click on the green “Create” button, then select the “Lead Generation” objective.

Don't forget to give your campaign a name, in order to have a clearer vision in your Business Manager.

Step 2: set up your campaign

Once the fields are filled in, a new window will appear.

There is not much to do here. Check all the info.

At the bottom of the page, however, Facebook will offer you the option “Optimizing the campaign budget”, also called CBO for “Campaign Budget Optimization”.

This allows to optimize your overall budget and distribute it across your best-performing ad sets. In other words, you let Facebook manage your budget by itself. It will automatically look for performance.

The opposite of ABO (Adset Budget Optimization). Here, you distribute your budget as you want, by hand, and by set of advertisements.

So CBO or ABO?

As part of lead generation via form, we advise you to deactivate the CBO. You can do CBO, but since the audiences are quite small, it may be too much.

For the more initiated, you can do a mix: ABO + CBO. It's called half-CBO. You're kind of taking control of the CBO. This mix can be done once your campaigns are launched.

• For all ads, click on 'edit' the ad set that gives you the best performance.
• In the budget and calendar section, click “show more options.”
• Finally, click on “Ad Set Spending Limits” and enter the minimum daily amount you would like to see spent on this ad set (typically 1/4 of your daily budget).

Julian, our B2C expert, shows you all this In pictures.

Step 3. Set up the ad set

By clicking “Next”, you will be taken to the “Ad Set” section.

Facebook will offer you several options:

• Instant form
• Automated chat
• Calls

Here, we are going to select “Instant Form.”

You will then need to define your budget and audiences.

💸 What budget should you define?

Same advice as for a “classic” campaign: depending on your spending potential, it will be preferable to put between 20 and 40 €/day to start getting results. If these become interesting, you can adjust up later.

🤓 What audience should I use?

You must rigorously define your target. Targeting is THE key to a successful campaign. And even more so in B2B!

We advise you to bet on two types of audience. However, keep in mind that you are talking to people and not to legal entities (companies).

You can do:

• An audience of interest (saved)

By interest, we mean “training”, “copywriting”, “digital marketing”, “digital marketing”, “lead generation”, etc. This is quite broad and affects people who may be interested in your business. These people correspond to your target audience, one of your personas. One set of ads = one persona.

In interest, you can also target tools potentially used by your targets such as “Hubspot”, “Zapier”, etc.

You can go quite far in defining this audience. Facebook can also give you suggestions that are sometimes relevant!

• Similar or “Lookalike” audience

The Facebook algorithm finds new people who share the same characteristics as your source audience. To use it, you must therefore have a customer database (customers detected by the Facebook Pixel, Fans Page). If yes, simply import a CSV file from all your customers.

Do you have a list of prospects? You can also use it to create targeting audiences.

For your “Lead Form” campaigns, don't hesitate to test both types of audiences!

Step 4. Create effective advertising

Now it's time to create ads. These are the ones you need to focus on, regardless of your defined audience.

You have two formats proposed:

• Single image/video
• Carousel

Prefer the first option. The objective is for your prospects to click on the CTA. Not that they're looking at 10 images.

Select your image, write the description, title, and select your CTA.

When it comes to texts, be convincing. Ask yourself this question: If I were this prospect, what could make me leave my email on this form?

Pay attention to the visual used: it must be attractive and above all meaningful. On the network, you only have 2 seconds to captivate and arouse the interest of Internet users! The ideal will be to use your own visuals and not photos available on image banks (Shutterstock, Pixabay, Unspash, etc.).

💡 Choose images with text. These show better performances. Also consider making an image in square and story format.

Also, be careful with your content. Facebook has advertising rules quite strict.

Next comes the creation of the form.

Complete all fields in the form.

💡 You can add multiple questions, but to maximize the answers, we recommend that you minimize the amount of information requested.

Be very specific and fairly explicit about what you offer. If you are fuzzy, you will be collecting bad leads!

Points of vigilance

Attention in the “End” field : For example, if you offer a white paper to download, do not include a direct link to the document in question (Google Doc for example). The document must be hosted on your site otherwise Facebook will not broadcast your advertising.

Once your form is created, don't click “Publish.” You won't be able to go back to it and make changes.

Finally, don't forget to connect your CRM. By integrating your CRM software or other customer system with Facebook, you ensure that the leads you generate through your form-based advertising campaigns will be contacted again quickly.

Check your ads one last time.

If all is well, you can finally press “Publish” and again “Publish” to publish the campaign. Yes, that's a lot to post 😅

Facebook Ads in B2B — Method 2: Create a professional audience on Facebook using LinkedIn

Facebook Ads does not have business data. You can try ultra-precise targeting, but the audiences will not always be optimal.

The solution: combine the precise targeting of LinkedIn with Facebook.

Yes, it is possible!

How to do it? It's pretty simple.

Prerequisites.

You need to have:

• A company page
• An account Campaign Manager, LinkedIn's ad management tool.
• The Facebook Pixel installed on your landing page

Step 1. LinkedIn Ads

Start by campaigning on LinkedIn.

If you have never used LinkedIn Ads, feel free to read our article: How to create a successful LinkedIn Ads campaign We explain to you how to install your LinkedIn Insight Tag (an essential pixel for tracking and data collection) and how to launch a successful campaign.

Here, you are not going to do a conversion ad, but an ad with a traffic objective. CPC is much cheaper.

Redirect users to a landing page on which you will have installed your Facebook Pixel (on a form for example).

The goal: you send qualified traffic to your page via your ad on LinkedIn, and at the same time, you “build” a Facebook audience. You are in a way feeding” to your Facebook Pixel.

Step 2. Facebook Ads

Let your LinkedIn campaign run, then switch to Facebook.

The objective will be to retarget people who visited your landing page from Linkedin.

To do this, create a personalized audience and launch your campaign.

And wow, that makes Chocapic.

Note that you can also create a similar audience 😉

Facebook Ads in B2B — Method 3: Facebook Ads + Retargeting on LinkedIn Ads

Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads work both ways.

You can use the first option (LinkedIn then Facebook) or start with Facebook and do some retargeting on Linkedin. The principle is the same: you just switch the networks.

Step 1. Facebook Ads

First, create a “classic” Facebook Ads campaign. Here, you won't be doing a form advertising campaign.

For a campaign aimed at a B2B audience, you can define:

• A custom audience (similar or Lookalike)

The Facebook algorithm finds new people who share the same characteristics as your source audience. So here you must have one: customer database (file that you import), customers detected by the Facebook Pixel, your Facebook page.

• An audience of interest

We saw it a bit above on form ads 😉

Redirect users to a landing page on which you will have installed your Linkedin Insight Tag. Consider installing tracking when completing a form on the site. Otherwise, you will risk having “trash” traffic

Step 2. Linkedin Ads

Let your Facebook campaign run for a few days, then go to LinkedIn.

Create a retargeting audience (with data collected by the LinkedIn Insight Tag), and launch your campaign.

So here are three ways to generate (really) qualified leads using Facebook Ads. All of them have proven themselves at Growth Room!

It's up to you to play now!

At Growth Room, Facebook Ads is our business. Our experts are there to help you send effective Facebook Ads campaigns. Do not hesitate to make an appointment with Bastien, our Head of Growth

‍