Google AdWords: Outsourcing for B2B ROI

Introduction

If you’re running B2B sales in 2025, you’re living in a world where buyers do most of the work before you ever get a meeting.

Up to 90% of B2B customers start their journey with an online search, and 80% rely on search engines to evaluate vendors. At the same time, Gartner data says buyers now spend only 17% of their total buying time with potential vendors, and roughly 80% of the journey happens without direct sales contact.

That’s why Google AdWords (yes, we all still say it, even though it’s technically Google Ads) is such a big deal for B2B: it’s often your only shot to show up while those buyers are actively researching problems you solve.

The catch? B2B Google Ads is expensive and unforgiving. Average CPC for B2B & business services is around $5.37, with an average cost per lead of $105.64. One sloppy campaign can burn through a quarter’s budget with very little to show for it.

That’s exactly why more teams are asking: Should we outsource Google Ads management to specialists? Will that actually improve B2B ROI-or just add another vendor to babysit?

In this guide, we’ll break down:

• Why Google Ads is still a core pipeline driver for B2B
• The real economics of B2B PPC (and why in-house teams struggle)
• What outsourcing Google AdWords actually looks like in practice
• How to evaluate partners and build pipeline-focused KPIs
• How to plug outsourced Google Ads directly into your SDR engine

By the end, you’ll know whether outsourcing Google Ads is the right move for your team-and how to do it in a way that actually produces SQLs and revenue, not just pretty dashboards.

Why Google Ads Still Matters for B2B Pipeline

Buyers Start With Search-Long Before They Talk to Sales

Multiple studies line up on the same point: the modern B2B buyer is doing their own homework online.

• Around 90% of B2B customers initiate their journey with an online search, and 80% rely on search engines to find information.
• Other research shows 71% of B2B researchers start with a generic search, not branded terms-think “best contract lifecycle management software” instead of your company name.
• Buyers also consume multiple pieces of content and visit several vendor sites before they even think about filling out a form or talking to sales.

That means if you’re not visible on the SERP-both organically and via paid-you’re essentially invisible for a big chunk of your potential market’s research process.

Paid Search Is a High-Intent Channel (If You Use It Right)

Let’s look at the numbers for B2B & business services across Google and Microsoft search:

• Average CTR: 5.62%
• Average CPC: $5.37
• Average conversion rate: 5.78%
• Average cost per lead (CPL): $105.64

Those are actually solid numbers in B2B land. Yes, $100+ CPL looks scary, but in a world of five- and six-figure ACVs, that’s often a great trade-as long as those leads turn into qualified opportunities and revenue.

On the ROI side, analysis of Google Ads performance indicates that, on average, businesses generate around $8 in revenue for every $1 spent, with B2B advertisers commonly seeing $3–$4 back per $1 when campaigns are well-structured.

So the channel works. The problem is execution.

Why B2B Teams Struggle With Google Ads

If you’ve tried running Google Ads in-house, you’ve probably felt at least a few of these pains:

• CPCs are rising year over year.
• Competitors crank up budgets during big quarters.
• “Smart” bidding strategies behave unpredictably if the account isn’t set up correctly.
• Landing pages don’t match the ad promise, so conversion rates stay low.
• Your SDR team says leads are low quality, but no one has time to dissect why.

And that’s before we talk about attribution and proving ROI to finance.

This is where outsourcing can shine-if you choose the right partner and set it up correctly.

The Economics of B2B Google Ads (and Why In-House Often Struggles)

Before you talk about outsourcing, you need to understand the underlying economics: what you’re paying for and what you’re likely to get back.

B2B Google Ads Benchmarks You Should Know

Pulling together recent benchmark data, here’s the rough playing field for B2B:

• Overall Google search ads average $2.69 CPC, but B2B search CPC sits closer to $3.33.
• B2B & business services specifically are seeing 5.78% conversion rates and $105.64 CPL across Google and Microsoft search.
• For B2B tech, CPC often lands between $3–$6, with average conversion rates around 2.5-5% and CPLs between $50–$200, depending on deal size and offer.

For display and remarketing, performance is lower-intent but still relevant:

• Average Google display conversion rate across industries is about 0.57%; for B2B specifically, it’s around 0.80%, with average CPA of roughly $130.

The big takeaway: B2B clicks and leads are expensive, and small improvements in targeting or conversion rate have an outsized impact on ROI.

The True Cost of Managing Google Ads In-House

When you keep everything in-house, you’re not just paying for media spend. You’re also paying for:

• A dedicated PPC specialist or marketing manager (often $80K–$140K fully loaded in the U.S.).
• Tools: call tracking, landing page builders, CRO tools, competitive intelligence.
• Training time as Google changes rules, bidding strategies, and interfaces.
• Opportunity cost-time your team isn’t spending on strategy, content, or sales enablement.

Contrast that with outsourcing:

• One analysis shows outsourced PPC services commonly run $501–$3,000+ per month, depending on scope and spend.
• Studies on PPC outsourcing report 15-30% reductions in overall marketing costs when companies leverage agencies instead of trying to staff everything in-house.

If your monthly ad spend is already in the $5K–$50K range, shifting from an underpowered in-house setup to a seasoned agency can be ROI-positive pretty quickly-*if* they’re actually good at B2B.

Performance Upside From Specialized Management

Several analyses of outsourced PPC highlight consistent performance lifts when specialists take over:

• Basic optimization (tightening keywords, improving quality score, better ad copy, negative keywords) typically leads to at least ~25% performance improvement in PPC efficiency.
• Access to advanced tools and better processes can drive around a 20% increase in ad relevance, improving rankings and click-through rates.

On a B2B campaign spending $20K/month with a $120 CPL, a 25% improvement could bring CPL down to $90—saving $5K+ monthly or allowing you to buy significantly more qualified leads for the same spend.

Now layer on better sales follow-up, and your CAC picture starts to look a lot healthier.

What "Outsourcing Google AdWords" Actually Looks Like

Let’s get concrete. "Outsourcing Google Ads" can mean different things depending on your situation.

Model 1: Classic PPC Agency

This is the traditional route: you hire a performance marketing agency that:

• Audits your existing Google Ads account
• Rebuilds campaigns, ad groups, and keywords
• Writes ad copy and configures extensions
• Sets up conversion tracking
• Provides monthly reporting

Pros:

• Deep platform expertise
• Usually cheaper than a full-time senior PPC hire
• Can be spun up or down as budgets change

Cons:

• Many are B2C-focused and don’t “get” complex B2B funnels
• Often optimize to surface metrics (CPC, CTR, raw leads) vs. revenue
• Usually not accountable for SDR performance or sales outcomes

Model 2: Full-Funnel B2B Demand Gen Agency

Here, you work with a B2B specialist that sees Google Ads as one piece of a broader demand engine. They’ll typically handle:

• Paid search + paid social
• Content offers and landing pages
• Lead scoring and routing logic
• Nurture sequences and basic marketing automation

Pros:

• Strategy is more aligned with long, complex B2B journeys
• Better at measuring pipeline and revenue impact
• Closer collaboration with sales and SDRs

Cons:

• Higher retainers
• Risk of spreading too thin across channels if they’re not staffed well

Model 3: Hybrid Performance + SDR Partner (Where SalesHive Lives)

This is the model that’s become extremely powerful in B2B: pairing Google Ads management with a specialist SDR/BDR team.

In this model, a partner like SalesHive:

• Designs and manages your Google Ads strategy to generate high-intent inbound leads.
• Runs your outbound engine-cold calling, email outreach, and list building-to complement those inbound leads.
• Uses a unified AI-powered platform to track contacts, meetings, and pipeline from all channels.

Leads don’t just trickle into a marketing automation platform. They hit a live SDR team that’s already running proven sequences for your ICP.

Pros:

• Tightest alignment between media spend and meeting booked
• One team responsible for both traffic and follow-up
• Cleaner reporting from click to meeting to opportunity

Cons:

• Requires trusting an external team with brand-frontline conversations
• Needs strong collaboration between your AE team and the outsourced SDR group

The ROI Case for Outsourcing Google Ads in B2B

Let’s walk through what outsourcing can actually change in your numbers.

1. Smarter Keyword and Intent Strategy

Great B2B PPC isn’t about stuffing every relevant keyword into an ad group. It’s about mapping keywords to:

• Problem awareness ("reduce churn in SaaS contracts")
• Solution discovery ("CLM software for SaaS")
• Vendor comparison ("[category] vs [category]")

Specialist agencies use advanced tools and historical data across many accounts to:

• Identify long-tail, high-intent keywords you would have never thought of
• Add negative keywords to stop paying for bad traffic
• Segment campaigns by intent and persona, so offers and CTAs line up with where the buyer really is

That combination often means fewer clicks but more of the right ones-and that’s where CPL and CAC improve.

2. Better Use of Advanced Tools and Features

Google Ads is now a mini operating system: smart bidding, audiences, custom columns, responsive search ads, Performance Max, etc.

PPC agencies live in this environment all day. They:

• Stay on top of algorithm changes and new betas
• Use enterprise-grade tools for bid management, A/B testing, call tracking, and attribution
• Run structured experiments instead of random tweaks

Research on PPC outsourcing notes that companies leveraging agencies and advanced tools see around a 20% bump in ad relevance and improved click-through rates, which directly feed into higher quality scores and lower effective CPC.

3. Cost Efficiencies vs. In-House Teams

We touched on this, but it’s worth spelling out the math:

• In-house: PPC lead + tools + training easily hits low- to mid-six figures annually.
• Outsourced: a few thousand a month in fees, plus your ad spend.

A study on outsourcing PPC reports 15-30% reductions in overall marketing costs when companies tap external PPC management rather than trying to build equivalent internal teams.

Even if you reinvest those savings into more ad spend, you now have more budget being deployed by specialists who can make it work harder.

4. Always-On Optimization Instead of Autopilot

With in-house teams that are juggling other duties (events, content, website, etc.), campaigns often get checked weekly at best. Bids drift, competitors change, and you react late.

Agencies, on the other hand, are paid to watch this stuff:

• Daily budget pacing and bid adjustments
• Weekly search term audits and negative keyword updates
• Ongoing A/B tests for ad copy and landing pages

One outsourcing analysis points out that inconsistent optimization is a common in-house failure mode-campaigns end up on autopilot and miss chances to improve ROI. When a specialist team is actively optimizing, you don’t just avoid waste; you surface new growth pockets faster.

5. The Big One: Better Integration With Sales

Most PPC reports stop at form fills. But revenue happens in your CRM, with your SDRs and AEs.

A good outsourced partner will:

• Integrate with your CRM (or their own platform) to track leads from first click through pipeline.
• Report on SQL and opportunity volume and cost by campaign.
• Collaborate with SDRs on messaging and qualification criteria.

A great partner-like SalesHive-goes further by actually running the SDR motion as well: cold calling, outbound email, appointment setting, and list building, all tied to the same data.

When the people responsible for generating the click are also responsible for booking the meeting, incentives finally line up.

How to Choose the Right Google Ads Outsourcing Partner

Let’s assume you’re sold on the idea of outsourcing. Now comes the harder part: picking the right team.

1. Prioritize True B2B Experience

B2C agencies are everywhere. B2B specialists are rarer.

Questions to ask:

• What percentage of your clients are B2B? Which industries?
• Can you show results for companies with similar ACVs and sales cycles?
• How do you handle long sales cycles and multi-touch attribution?

Red flag: they talk only about CTR and impressions and have no examples of improving cost per opportunity or CAC.

2. Ask How They Connect Google Ads to Sales Outcomes

You don’t need another vendor that only cares about leads.

Look for:

• CRM integration and the ability to report on SQLs and opps by campaign
• Comfort working with your SDR team (internal or outsourced)
• Clear process for implementing and validating conversion tracking

If the agency can’t articulate how they’ll measure success past the form fill, they’re not set up to support B2B revenue teams.

3. Evaluate Their Landing Page and Offer Strategy

Strong B2B results come from message match:

• Ad text matches the query intent
• Landing page continues that story
• Offer matches funnel stage (e.g., checklist vs. demo)

Ask for:

• Examples of landing pages they’ve created and improved
• How they structure A/B tests
• How they use insights from SDR conversations to refine offers

4. Understand Their Reporting Cadence and Transparency

You want a partner, not a black box.

Non-negotiables:

• Access to the Google Ads account itself (you own the data)
• Regular performance reviews (monthly at minimum)
• Clear dashboards that connect spend to pipeline, not just clicks

5. Fit on Contracts and Flexibility

The reality: you won’t know if a partner is a fit until you’ve run together for at least a quarter.

SalesHive leans into this reality with month-to-month contracts and a risk-free onboarding, avoiding the long-term lock-in that makes it painful to switch if things don’t work. When evaluating any partner, push for flexibility that lets you test, validate, and then scale.

Making Outsourced Google Ads Actually Work With Your SDR Team

This is where a lot of B2B orgs drop the ball. You can have world-class media buying, but if your lead handoff is broken, ROI still sucks.

Step 1: Define Lead Types and SLAs

Start by aligning on:

• MQL vs. SQL: What does sales-ready look like? Who qualifies this?
• Response time: How fast should an SDR call an inbound lead? (Best practice: within 5-10 minutes for high-intent demo requests.)
• Cadence: How many calls, emails, and LinkedIn touches over what time frame?

Capture this in a simple lead management SLA and share it with both the PPC partner and your SDR team.

Step 2: Route Leads Intelligently

Work with RevOps (or your agency if they’re helping) to:

• Tag leads by campaign, ad group, and keyword
• Route high-intent leads (e.g., demo requests) to SDRs immediately
• Send low-intent content downloads into nurtures, with clear triggers for SDR outreach

If you partner with a team like SalesHive that already runs SDRs, a lot of this routing is natively built into their platform and process.

Step 3: Use SDR Feedback to Refine Campaigns

Your SDRs (or outsourced SDRs) are on the front lines. They know which leads:

• Have budget and authority
• Have a clear, urgent problem
• Mention competitors

Set up a recurring call-biweekly works well-where SDRs share feedback:

• Which campaigns are producing “talkable” leads
• What pain points they’re hearing
• Which competitors prospects mention

Your PPC partner should translate that into:

• New negative keywords (to block junk)
• New ad copy and landing page angles (to align with real pains)
• New audience segments (industries/titles that prove promising)

Step 4: Build Unified Reporting From Click to Close

Finally, get everyone looking at the same scoreboard.

• Create CRM or BI dashboards that show: spend → clicks → leads → SQLs → opps → revenue by campaign.
• Review this in one joint meeting with marketing, SDRs, sales leadership, and the outsourced partner.
• Make joint decisions about scaling winners and killing losers.

This is where an integrated platform like SalesHive’s shines-outreach, meetings, and pipeline are tracked in the same environment that’s fed by Google Ads performance data.

How This Applies to Your Sales Team

Let’s bring this down to brass tacks. You’re a VP of Sales, Head of Revenue, or Sales Leader. Here’s how all this Google Ads outsourcing talk actually affects you.

1. More Predictable Meeting Flow

When Google Ads is dialed in and tied into a capable SDR engine, you get:

• A steadier stream of high-intent inbound demos to supplement outbound
• Cleaner expectations around meetings per month from paid channels
• Less pressure on SDRs to source all meetings via cold outbound

SalesHive, for example, has booked 100,000+ meetings for B2B clients by combining AI-powered targeting with specialized SDR teams. Add high-intent Google Ads on top of that, and your reps simply spend more time talking to prospects who are already problem-aware and actively evaluating solutions.

2. Better Use of AE Time

Your AEs shouldn’t be doing triage on every inbound lead. With a good outsourced structure:

• PPC → SDRs for qualification
• SDRs → AEs only when the prospect meets clear criteria

That keeps AEs in their zone: discovery, solution design, and closing deals-rather than chasing down every ebook downloader that slipped through.

3. Clearer CAC and Payback Period Numbers

Because outsourced PPC partners live in data, they’ll help you:

• Track cost per SQL and cost per opportunity from Google Ads
• Compare CAC from paid search against other channels
• Understand payback periods by campaign and messaging

Armed with that, you can:

• Justify bigger ad budgets (because you can prove payback)
• Reallocate spend from underperforming tactics to high-performing campaigns
• Negotiate better budgets and quotas with leadership based on real funnel performance

4. Less Firefighting, More Strategy

When you’re not constantly firefighting bad leads or unpredictable volume, you can:

• Spend more time on deal coaching and pipeline reviews
• Collaborate with marketing and your outsourced partner on new segments or offers
• Focus on enablement, training AEs to handle the types of deals PPC is producing

In other words, outsourcing Google Ads-done right-should make your sales team’s life simpler, not more complicated.

Conclusion + Next Steps

Google AdWords (Google Ads) is still one of the most powerful levers you have to generate B2B pipeline-especially in a world where most buyers start with search and complete the majority of their journey before they ever talk to sales.

But the bar for running profitable B2B Google Ads keeps rising. CPCs are up, competition is fierce, and the platform itself changes constantly. Trying to wing it in-house, on top of everything else your marketing team has to do, is how you end up with $150 leads that never turn into revenue.

Outsourcing Google Ads management to the right partner can:

• Cut overall marketing costs by 15-30%
• Improve ad relevance and conversion rates
• Tighten your connection between media spend and booked meetings
• Give your SDR and sales teams a more predictable flow of high-intent conversations

If you’ve already proven that Google Ads can drive some results but it’s nowhere near where it should be-or if you’ve never had the cycles to test it properly-this is the time to explore outsourcing.

Next steps:

1. Audit your current performance vs. B2B benchmarks (CPC, CVR, CPL, SQL rate).
2. Decide what success looks like in hard numbers: SQLs, opps, pipeline, CAC.
3. Shortlist B2B-focused Google Ads partners that can talk in those terms-not just clicks.
4. Consider a hybrid partner like SalesHive that can manage both the ads and the SDR motion so you’re buying meetings, not just traffic.
5. Launch a 90-day pilot with clear SLAs and shared dashboards from click to close.

If you want Google Ads to stop being a line item and start being a predictable source of qualified meetings and deals, outsourcing to the right B2B partner is one of the fastest ways to get there.