Key Takeaways
- B2B buyers now complete roughly 70-80% of their journey before talking to sales, so paid advertising has to warm accounts long before SDRs ever call or email.
- LinkedIn should be your default B2B advertising platform, but it works best when paired with search, retargeting, and SDR follow-up as one coordinated motion.
- Around 67% of B2B companies already use paid channels to promote content and 85% run social ads, so the bar for standing out with paid is higher than ever.
- Map each platform to a specific job in your funnel (e.g., Google for high-intent, LinkedIn for account-based air cover) instead of blasting the same creative everywhere.
- Judge campaigns on pipeline and revenue, not just CTR or MQL volume-track cost per opportunity, cost per account influenced, and payback period.
- Tight targeting, sales-aligned messaging, and fast SDR follow-up on paid leads will usually beat clever creatives or big budgets.
- If you don't have in-house capacity to test, optimize, and follow up on paid campaigns, pairing a specialist outbound partner like SalesHive with your paid media is often the fastest path to 'paid wins'.
B2B buyers now do most of their research alone, with studies showing roughly 70-80% of the buying journey happens before they ever talk to sales. That makes smart B2B advertising-especially on platforms like LinkedIn and Google-a critical way to warm accounts, shape shortlists, and feed your SDR team with higher-intent conversations. This guide breaks down which platforms matter, how to use them, and how to connect paid media directly to pipeline.
Introduction
If you’re still thinking about B2B advertising like it’s 2015—"let’s run some banner ads and hope for leads"-you’re going to get smoked.
Modern B2B buyers do the bulk of their homework without ever talking to your team. Analyses of Gartner and TrustRadius research suggest roughly 80% of the buying journey now happens without direct vendor contact, which means most of the decision is shaped by what buyers find on their own.
Your outbound SDRs and AEs are fighting over the last 20%. Paid advertising is how you show up in the first 80%.
In this guide, we’ll walk through where B2B paid ads actually win today-from LinkedIn and Google to programmatic and social retargeting-and how to connect those platforms directly to your sales development motion. We’ll keep it practical: what each channel is good for, realistic benchmarks, and how to make sure your SDR team actually turns spend into pipeline.
The New B2B Buying Reality (And Why Paid Matters More Than Ever)
Buyers Don’t Want to Talk to You-Until They Really Do
Gartner’s 2024-2025 research shows two things that should shape every B2B ad strategy:
- 61% of B2B buyers now say they prefer a largely "rep-free" buying experience-they want digital self-service first, sales conversations later.
- Buyers spend only a small fraction of their total buying time actually engaging with vendors; the rest is internal discussions and independent research.
Other studies echo this. Analyses of Gartner and TrustRadius data suggest around 80% of the buying journey now happens without direct contact from sales, and 87% of B2B buyers prefer to research product information on their own before they speak to a rep.
Bottom line: by the time an SDR gets a meeting, the buying group has read content, asked peers, compared vendors, and probably formed a favorite.
Why Advertising Is the New "First Meeting"
There’s a brutal stat from a 2023 buyer study: 84% of buyers said the first vendor they contacted ultimately won the business. If you’re not top-of-mind when they’re shortlisting, your odds plummet.
Paid media is how you:
- Get on the initial shortlist. When a buying group finally raises their hand, you want them to already know your name and point of view.
- Frame the problem. Ads and content let you define the pain and evaluation criteria in language that favors your strengths.
- Warm the room for SDRs. When outbound touches a prospect who’s seen your LinkedIn ads and read your report, conversations start two steps ahead.
That’s why B2B companies are leaning into paid channels. Recent industry stats show:
- Global B2B marketing spend is projected to reach about $138B in 2024, up roughly 12% year over year.
- Around 67% of B2B companies already use paid channels for content promotion, and 85% rely on social media ads.
- LinkedIn is expected to drive about 58% of B2B promotions, with nearly 80% of B2B marketers using it as their primary platform for sharing content.
The question isn’t "should we do paid?" anymore. It’s "which platforms actually move pipeline for our sales motion, and how do we run them without lighting money on fire?"
The Core B2B Advertising Platforms (And What They’re Actually Good For)
Let’s break down the major platforms through a sales development lens, not a media buyer’s deck.
1. LinkedIn Ads: The B2B Workhorse
LinkedIn is the default B2B advertising network for a reason:
- It reaches over a billion professionals and tens of millions of companies.
- Targeting is built around job titles, seniority, industry, company size, and skills-the same attributes you use for your ICP.
- It’s where your champions, influencers, and decision-makers are already scrolling between calls.
Recent benchmarks show LinkedIn has 66% adoption among B2B go-to-market teams, and in 2025 it delivers the best cost per company influenced-around $200–$250—while being the only major platform with positive ROAS (about 113%) compared with Google Search (78%) and Meta (29%).
What LinkedIn is best for:
- Account-based air cover. Surrounding target accounts with consistent messaging before and during outbound pushes.
- Thought leadership and category education. Promoting reports, benchmarks, and frameworks that shape how prospects think about their problem.
- Higher-intent lead gen. Using lead gen forms and retargeting for mid-funnel offers (events, assessments, ROI tools) with solid qualification.
Caveat: It’s expensive.
Average CPCs on LinkedIn often range from $5–$15+, and in competitive U.S. B2B segments it’s common to see $8–$10 a click or more. That’s several times higher than Meta or Google Display.
So you can’t treat LinkedIn like a cheap volume play. You need tight audiences, aligned offers, and a clear path from click to meeting.
2. Google Ads: Capturing High-Intent Demand
While LinkedIn is about where people are, Google is about what they want right now.
For B2B teams, Google Search is often the highest-intent paid channel:
- A 2023 benchmark analysis put average B2B Google Ads conversion rates around 2.23%, with the top 10% of advertisers converting north of 11.7%.
- For B2B SaaS specifically, recent performance data shows median Google Ads cost per conversion in the $50–$60 range, with wide variance by channel and keyword quality.
What Google is best for:
- Bottom-of-funnel capture. Terms like "[category] pricing", "[tool] alternative", or "[problem] software" are gold if your sales team can close them.
- Branded defense. Making sure competitors don’t poach your name searches.
- Late-stage acceleration. Remarketing lists and customer match audiences can help re-engage accounts already in active cycles.
Typical pitfalls:
- Spreading budget across 200+ keywords instead of owning the 10-20 that matter.
- Pushing search leads into generic nurture instead of hot routing to SDRs.
- Driving clicks to weak, generic landing pages that don’t match buyer intent.
If you’re going to pay for high-intent demand, you need:
- Clear keyword strategy tied to your ICP and deal economics.
- Dedicated landing pages with strong offers (trial, demo, assessment, calculator).
- SLAs for SDR follow-up measured in minutes, not days.
3. Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and Other Social Platforms
Meta isn’t built for B2B the way LinkedIn is, but its reach and low CPCs make it powerful in the right role.
Recent cross-platform benchmarks show:
- Facebook/Instagram CPCs are often a fraction of LinkedIn’s-think well under $2 in many placements versus $5–$15+ on LinkedIn.
- Meanwhile, about 60% of B2B buyers report discovering new software tools via social media, which includes LinkedIn and other networks.
What Meta is best for:
- Cheap retargeting. Serving content, case studies, and light offers to people who’ve already visited your site or engaged elsewhere.
- Content amplification. Promoting webinars, reports, or videos to a broad but relevant audience, especially in SMB/SME segments.
- Recruiting and employer brand. Making your sales org and leadership visible in the talent market.
Treat Meta as a supporting channel in most complex B2B motions-especially for retargeting and staying top-of-mind between sales touches.
4. Programmatic & Account-Based Advertising Platforms
Beyond the big walled gardens, you’ve got ABM and programmatic platforms (Terminus, Demandbase, RollWorks, etc.) that specialize in account-level targeting.
These tools are best when you want to:
- Target specific companies across the open web (display, native, sometimes CTV) using IP and cookie data.
- Combine intent signals (research activity, technographics, firmographics) to decide which accounts to show ads to.
- Measure engagement at the account level instead of just the individual lead level.
Given that almost 60% of B2B companies plan to increase their account-based marketing spend, it’s clear teams are moving this way. But ABM software is overkill if you haven’t nailed the basics:
- A real ICP built from your best customers (not a dream list).
- A target account list sales actually agrees with.
- Working LinkedIn and search campaigns into those accounts.
Get those working first, then use ABM tools to scale and unify your efforts.
5. Niche B2B Platforms: Review Sites, Quora, and YouTube
Review sites (G2, TrustRadius, Capterra).
These are incredibly high-intent environments. Buyers come here when they know the category, are familiar with several vendors, and want peer validation. Sponsored placements and promoted profiles can:
- Capture in-market buyers late in the journey.
- Provide social proof your SDRs can reference in outreach.
Quora and other Q&A platforms.
Quora positions itself as a research hub for tech buyers and business leaders, noting that 63% of B2B shortlists include only 2-3 products and 78% of buyers choose products they’ve heard of before they start deep research. Ads here can work well for:
- Category education and problem-based queries.
- Capturing long-tail questions where search and social are weaker.
YouTube.
Great for demos, explainers, and thought-leadership content. Combined with remarketing and custom audiences, it can:
- Warm up buying groups via video before SDRs reach out.
- Re-engage stalled opportunities with new perspectives and use cases.
In all three cases, the key is relevance and intent-don’t just "be everywhere," be where your actual buying journey happens.
Mapping Platforms to Your Sales Motion
Now let’s make this concrete for B2B sales development teams.
Outbound-Led Teams: Ads as Air Cover for SDRs
If pipeline is primarily SDR-sourced (cold outbound), paid media should be your air cover, not your primary lead engine.
Here’s a simple play:
- Build a target account list with sales. Use your closed-won data to define an ICP, then pick 200-500 tier-1 accounts.
- Run LinkedIn account-based campaigns to those accounts:
- Creative that frames the problem and introduces your POV.
- Offers like a benchmark report, ROI calculator, or on-demand webinar.
- Retarget visitors from those accounts on LinkedIn, Google Display/YouTube, and Meta with social proof and stronger CTAs.
- Assign an SDR pod (or a partner like SalesHive) to work those same accounts with phone and email:
- SDRs reference the content and ads prospects have likely seen.
- SDRs get notified when key contacts engage (form fills, visits, long video views).
The result: when an SDR finally reaches the VP of Sales at a target account, it’s not "Who are you again?"-it’s "Oh yeah, I saw your benchmark on outbound reply rates."
Inbound-Led Teams: Ads as Demand Amplifiers
If you have strong content and organic channels already, paid can accelerate what’s working.
- Use search ads to capture late-stage buyers who are already looking for solutions.
- Promote hero content and events (reports, webinars, live workshops) on LinkedIn and social to build your own audience of subscribers and repeat visitors.
- Feed those leads to SDRs with context:
- "Downloaded outbound playbook, AE/SDR alignment" might route to a sales development specialist.
- "Requested pricing" gets an immediate phone call.
Your SDRs don’t care whether a conversation started from SEO or PPC; they care that the person has a problem you solve and enough intent to take a meeting. Paid just gives you more of those.
Building High-Performance B2B Ad Campaigns
Let’s talk mechanics-what actually moves the needle when you’re setting up campaigns.
1. Start With ICP and Buying Committees, Not Just Personas
A lot of B2B ad failures start here. The targeting looks like:
> "Mid-market companies, North America, job titles contains ‘Director’ or ‘VP’."
That’s not an ICP; that’s wishful thinking.
Instead, build targeting around:
- Firmographics: sub-industry, revenue band, employee count that match your best deals.
- Technographics: CRM, MAP, core tools that indicate fit or pain.
- Maturity signals: size of sales org, presence of RevOps, number of locations.
- Buying committee roles: economic buyer, technical buyer, power user, procurement.
When you know the true buying committee, you can:
- Create persona-specific ads (CFO sees ROI, VP Sales sees quota coverage, RevOps sees data cleanliness).
- Map SDR outreach sequences to the same roles.
2. Match Offers to Intent and Channel
Every platform + audience combo should have a clear intent profile. Roughly:
- Google Search (high-intent keywords): demos, trials, pricing, assessments.
- LinkedIn cold account-based: problem framing content, benchmarks, ungated or lightly gated reports.
- Retargeting (all channels): case studies, ROI proof, mid-funnel CTAs (assessment calls, workshops).
- Review sites and late-stage: competitive comparisons, migration programs, "switch and save" offers.
If you offer a demo too early (say, cold LinkedIn impressions to finance leaders who don’t know you), you’ll get ignored. If you never ask for a meeting on high-intent search terms, you’re just paying to educate leads for your competitors.
3. Don’t Cheap Out on Creative and Landing Pages
In B2B, amazing creative doesn’t have to be flashy. It has to be:
- Clear. One core idea, one core benefit, no buzzword salad.
- Specific. Numbers, timeframes, or benchmarks your ICP cares about.
- Consistent. The ad’s promise matches what’s on the landing page and what SDRs say.
Good B2B landing pages usually have:
- A headline that mirrors the ad.
- A 2-3 sentence problem/solution statement.
- Proof (logos, case studies, benchmarks).
- A simple form or clear next step.
If you’re sending paid traffic to your generic homepage and hoping they "figure it out," you’re paying tax for everyone else’s laziness.
4. Calibrate Expectations With Real Benchmarks
Use benchmarks as guardrails, not gospel, but know your ballpark.
- LinkedIn Ads:
- CTRs around 0.5-1% for good sponsored content are common; video is often lower but more engaging.
- CPCs in competitive B2B segments often land in the $5–$15+ range.
- Cost per high-quality lead can easily range from $150–$400+ depending on offer and audience.
- Google Ads (search):
- Average B2B conversion rate around 2-3%; top performers over 10% on core terms.
- Cost per conversion heavily dependent on category; B2B SaaS often sees medians in the $50–$60 range.
- Meta & Display:
- Much lower CPCs, but often lower intent as well.
- Better suited to retargeting and assisting conversions than net-new enterprise lead gen.
Judge yourself primarily on cost per opportunity and cost per account influenced, not just cost per lead.
5. Make Measurement and Sales Handoffs Non-Negotiable
To connect paid to pipeline, you’ll need:
- UTM discipline. Every campaign, ad set, and creative tagged so you can track down to opportunity and revenue.
- CRM integration. Ad platform data flowing into contacts and accounts.
- Clear routing rules. Who gets what, by region/segment/intent.
- Feedback loops. SDRs report back on lead quality by campaign so you can kill losers and double down on winners.
This is where many teams fall down. Marketing optimizes for CPL; sales struggles with junk leads; both sides think the other is the problem. Tight instrumentation and candid feedback fix that.
How This Applies to Your Sales Team
Let’s zoom all the way into SDR reality. How does any of this help your reps book more meetings and hit quota?
Scenario 1: Cold Outbound Feels Ice-Cold
Your SDRs are grinding out 80-100 activities a day, but connect rates are low and conversations feel like uphill battles.
Paid can help by:
- Making your brand familiar. It’s a different conversation when a prospect says, "Yeah, I think I saw your LinkedIn post about rep-free buying" instead of "Who are you again?".
- Providing hooks. Ads that feature benchmarks or specific pains give SDRs something precise to reference: "We just ran a study showing SDR teams who do X get 2x reply rates-curious how you’re tackling that."
- Creating micro-intent. A pricing page visitor from a target account is a better call target than a random contact on a static list.
Scenario 2: Marketing Generates Leads, But SDRs Can’t Convert Them
You’ve got form fills and MQLs, but:
- SDRs complain they’re junk.
- Follow-up is slow and inconsistent.
- AEs see very little real pipeline from paid.
Fix it by:
- Aligning definitions. Agree on what constitutes an MQL/SQL by channel (e.g., search demo requests vs. top-of-funnel content downloads).
- Prioritizing by intent. SDRs should call pricing/demo requests immediately and use email/social for content-only leads.
- Giving context. Every lead record should show the campaign, content, and key pages visited so SDRs can tailor outreach.
Scenario 3: Leadership Wants to Cut Paid… or Double It
When execs ask, "Is paid working? Should we cut it or scale it?", you need a better answer than "our CTR is strong."
From a sales development perspective, the right question is:
> "How many SQLs, opportunities, and closed-won deals did each channel source or influence-and at what cost?"
Once you can show:
- LinkedIn campaigns to target accounts generated X opportunities at Y cost.
- Google search demo requests closed at Z% win rate.
- Retargeting cut sales cycle length by N days for certain segments.
…you can make rational decisions about where to invest, not emotional ones.
Conclusion + Next Steps
B2B advertising isn’t about racking up impressions or making your logo famous. It’s about winning the moments your buyers spend researching alone-before they ever fill out a form or answer an SDR’s call.
The playbook that’s working in 2025 looks like this:
- Accept the buying reality. Most of the journey is self-directed, and the first vendor buyers contact wins the deal most of the time.
- Make LinkedIn your B2B home base. Use it for account-based air cover and thought leadership while watching your cost per account influenced and cost per opportunity.
- Use Google search where intent is highest. Own the 10-20 terms that matter and back them with fast SDR response.
- Layer in retargeting and ABM where it makes sense. Keep your brand in front of active accounts with helpful content and timely CTAs.
- Wire everything into your SDR motion. Ad engagement flows into CRM, SDRs get context, messaging is aligned, and you optimize on pipeline-not vanity metrics.
If your team has the appetite but not the bandwidth to execute all of this, this is exactly where a partner like SalesHive shines-combining cold calling, email outreach, list building, and now paid ads into a single system that’s measured on meetings and revenue, not just clicks.
Either way, the mandate is the same: stop treating paid media as a side project. In a world where your buyers would rather not talk to you until they’re almost done buying, B2B advertising is the first meeting. Make it count.
📊 Key Statistics
Expert Insights
Treat LinkedIn as Always-On Air Cover, Not Just a Lead Form Machine
LinkedIn is expensive, but it's also where most of your buying committees spend their professional time. Use it for always-on account-based campaigns that saturate target accounts with your brand and problem framing, then let SDRs reference specific ads or content in their outreach. You'll see warmer conversations and higher connect-to-meeting rates.
Use Google Search Only Where You Deserve to Win High-Intent Terms
Search clicks in B2B are scarce but incredibly valuable. Don't spread budget across 200 keywords; own the 10-20 that map tightly to your ICP's 'buying language' and that your sales team can actually close. Pair those campaigns with fast routing and SLA-backed SDR follow-up so leads get a call within minutes, not days.
Design Creative Around Sales Conversations, Not Just Marketing Themes
Every winning B2B ad answers the question your SDR hears on the phone: 'Why should I care right now?'. Build ads around specific pains, benchmarks, and outcomes that your sales team can echo verbatim on calls and in emails. That continuity makes prospects feel like they're in one coherent buying journey instead of being pitched from scratch every time.
Measure Cost Per Opportunity and Cost Per Account Influenced, Not Just CPL
A $300 LinkedIn lead that reliably becomes a $40K opportunity is far better than a $60 display form-fill that never picks up the phone. Track how many opportunities, meetings, and revenue dollars each channel actually generates-and shut off anything that looks good on paper but never turns into pipeline.
Let SDRs See and Use Ad Engagement Signals
If SDRs don't know who clicked ads, downloaded reports, or watched your videos, you're wasting paid budget. Pipe engagement data into your CRM, flag those contacts or accounts, and give SDRs simple plays like 'hot-ad-click follow-up' with tight messaging. Those touches often convert 2-3x better than true cold outreach.
Action Items
Map each paid platform to a specific funnel stage and objective
Decide what LinkedIn, Google Search, Google Display, and social retargeting each own-whether that's awareness, high-intent capture, or late-stage acceleration-and document how you'll measure success for each.
Build an account list and audience strategy that mirrors your SDR ICP
Take your best-fit accounts and personas from sales (not just marketing personas) and use those to build LinkedIn Matched Audiences, custom intent segments, and exclusion lists so you're paying to reach the same people your SDRs are targeting.
Stand up at least one 'air cover + outbound' campaign for a priority segment
Pick a strategic vertical or region, run always-on LinkedIn and retargeting ads to that segment, then give an SDR pod responsibility for coordinated phone and email outreach using the same angles and assets.
Wire ad engagement signals directly into your CRM for SDR follow-up
Work with RevOps to push form fills, key page visits, and high-value clicks into contact and account timelines and create simple workflows that notify SDRs and assign follow-up tasks within defined SLAs.
Redefine reporting around pipeline impact instead of vanity metrics
Add cost per opportunity, cost per account influenced, and opportunity win rate by channel to your core dashboard and review them in your weekly revenue meetings alongside CTR and CPC.
Decide what to keep in-house vs. outsource to a specialist partner
If your team is already stretched running outbound, consider outsourcing SDR execution, list building, or even paid media management to a partner like SalesHive so your internal team can focus on strategy and closing.
Partner with SalesHive
On the outbound side, SalesHive provides dedicated SDR pods (US-based and Philippines-based) that run multichannel campaigns-phone, email, and LinkedIn-against tightly defined ICPs. Their proprietary platform and AI-powered tools like eMod handle personalization, sequencing, and deliverability behind the scenes, so your reps focus on real conversations instead of admin.
More recently, SalesHive has expanded into inbound channels with SEO and paid ads services, giving clients a single partner that can align advertising with sales development. That means the same team that runs your LinkedIn or Google campaigns can also build the lists, write the messaging, and make the calls to convert paid interest into qualified meetings. If you want your B2B advertising to translate into booked demos instead of just MQL reports, SalesHive is built to close that gap.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Which B2B advertising platform should I prioritize if I can only pick one?
If you sell to mid-market or enterprise and your deal sizes justify it, prioritize LinkedIn. It's where your buying committees already spend time, and data shows it has the strongest B2B impact in terms of cost per company influenced and ROAS compared with Google and Meta. Use it to run account-based campaigns at your top ICP accounts and then direct SDRs to those same accounts for outbound sequences.
How much budget do I need to test a new B2B advertising platform?
For complex B2B, you generally want enough budget to generate at least 500-1,000 clicks and a dozen or more opportunities before you call a verdict on the channel. On LinkedIn, that often means a starting test budget in the $8K–$20K range over 6-8 weeks, depending on your CPCs and targeting. On Google Search, you might get away with less if you focus on a small set of high-intent keywords.
How do I connect paid advertising to my SDR team's daily work?
Start by sharing your target account list and campaign plan across marketing and sales so everyone is aiming at the same accounts. Then, sync ad engagement (form fills, pricing page visits, long video views) into your CRM, build alerts and task queues for SDRs, and give them scripts and email templates that reference the exact offers and content prospects saw in ads. Finally, review results together weekly so you continually tighten the loop.
What KPIs should a B2B sales leader watch for paid advertising?
Beyond clicks and impressions, track cost per MQL, cost per SQL/opportunity, cost per meeting, opportunity win rate by first-touch channel, and total pipeline and revenue influenced by each platform. For account-based motions, also watch cost per account reached and engaged within your ICP list. These are the numbers that actually tell you whether paid is making your pipeline healthier.
Is Google Ads still worth it for B2B if our buyers have long sales cycles?
Yes-if you're disciplined. Use Google Search for the 10-20 highest-intent terms that signal a real project in motion, then pair those leads with fast SDR follow-up and strong qualification. For longer cycles, you can supplement with display and YouTube retargeting to keep your brand present between early research and a formal RFP, but search should generally take priority over display in B2B.
How should we think about Meta (Facebook/Instagram) for B2B?
Meta's targeting is less precise than LinkedIn for job-based campaigns, but its CPCs are often dramatically cheaper, which makes it great for retargeting site visitors, content consumers, or uploaded CRM lists. Use it to stay in front of known accounts with thought-leadership, case studies, and soft offers, rather than trying to acquire cold enterprise leads from scratch.
What's the role of account-based advertising tools versus just using native platforms?
Native tools like LinkedIn Campaign Manager are usually enough in the early stages. As your program matures, ABM platforms (Demandbase, Terminus, RollWorks, etc.) can help you unify targeting across channels, use intent data to prioritize accounts, and measure account-level engagement more accurately. For most teams, it's smarter to prove you can generate pipeline with basic tools before layering on ABM software.
How long does it take to see real pipeline impact from B2B ads?
In higher-velocity motions, you can see meetings and early pipeline within weeks, especially from Google Search and retargeting. But for larger ACVs and 6-12 month sales cycles, think in quarters, not weeks-your first 90 days are often about building awareness, collecting early leads, and giving SDRs warmer doors to knock on. Keep measuring all the way to opportunity and revenue so you can see the true payback over time.