Facebook: A B2B Tech Marketing Powerhouse
Misconceptions?
We love working with technology companies. We pride ourselves on generating our B2B & SaaS clients tons of high quality leads through our digital marketing efforts. One of the first channels we recommend the client to advertise on is Facebook. “Facebook, why should we do that?” they ask, “Are our B2B customers really on Facebook?”
To that we question we say: ABSOLUTELY! This misconception needs to die in 2022.
Most B2B tech companies have the misconception that LinkedIn is really the only social channel they belong on. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Don’t think we are attacking LinkedIn either! We love LinkedIn and incorporating it into your social media campaign is still beneficial.
What we ARE saying is that it’s time for B2B companies to give Facebook a shot. We found surprising statistics that show why Facebook is the platform to advertise on for B2B tech. And we also experience it on a daily basis. As there are over 1 BILLION people currently on Facebook, there’s no denying essentially any audience, any demographic is on there.
Not only are over 1 billion people on Facebook, but it’s the third most popular website IN THE WORLD only behind Google and YouTube.
“But my tech company has a very specific and narrow audience.”
B2B businesses can certainly reach their target market on Facebook, they just haven’t unlocked the secret to doing it effectively yet.
Let’s Get Real
Did you know that B2B decision-makers are 2.2X more likely to be daily users on Facebook when compared to all Facebook users? B2B decision-makers are an engaged demographic on Facebook.
These are people who are working and have Facebook open in a separate tab. We can see this as, (according to Facebook) 74% of Facebook business decision makers spend more time on Facebook a day than average Facebook users.
When we look into the tech/IT industry we can see an even larger increase in time spent on Facebook. This is a demographic that uses Facebook more each day, month and on average spends more minutes a day on Facebook than the average person. We even have the ability to target these people where they are on Facebook.
According to Facebook, business decision-makers spend about 15% of their time browsing Facebook on a desktop, where average users spend about 10% of their time on the desktop. Compared to business decision-makers in the IT industry, that number climbs to 23%!
Mobile is the big cheese though. About 60% of users browse on their mobile phones now. Marketers are advertising more and more on Facebook as well because of this.
We can see nearly a 50% ad spend increase for Facebook, year over year in 2018. Due to, this we optimize based on device performance.
We run ads to ensure we hit people where they are online. We optimize for desktop, mobile and test different placements on each device. When one device outperforms the other, we have the ability to stop ads on that device. We then spend that money on the device that IS performing.
For example, if we were targeting B2B decision-makers we would want to optimize for desktop as the stats show they browse more than the average person as they likely have it open at work.
Custom Audiences
Facebook has some of the best targeting available to marketers in 2022. We actually have the ability to take customer lists and upload them directly into Facebook!
Have a newsletter? We can take your subscriber list and upload the entire thing into Facebook and do a highly targeted campaign hitting those people who have already engaged with your brand. These are people who are much more likely to resonate with targeted ads on Facebook as they know of you.
Customized audiences don’t stop there either! We also have the power to create lookalike audiences. These lookalike audiences can be similar to any audience you have.
Have a list of customers? We can upload that list, and create a lookalike of those people on Facebook. By doing this, we can create a whole new list of people who look, think, and act like those who have done business with you before leading to more qualified cold audiences.
Have a large Facebook following? We can create a new similar audience to those who have engaged with you on Facebook.
The possibilities are endless here.
Targeting Methods
When you pair the amount of time B2B decision-makers are spending on Facebook, with the extensive targeting options available, it’s clear Facebook is the platform to advertise on. Facebook gives advertisers the ability to target people based on things like: age, gender, job seniority, company size, INDUSTRY and so, so much more.
We can even target these people based on what they are interested in. Say you’re an automotive software company, we would be able to target repair shop owners based on their interest in things like software, automotive industry, mechanic as a job title, and much more.
The best way to reach these people on Facebook? We believe one of the most effective ways is through native advertising. This is done by creating and boosting blog posts informing people of your product. We call this “sponsored content”. While informing users of news/trends in the industry it also promotes your brand and positions your brand as a thought leader.
A growing method of targeting business professionals on Facebook is actually through direct messaging. Through the messenger app, we are able to send personalized messages tailored to specific audiences. We are seeing more and more companies use messenger as a means of communication between co-workers.
At the time being, only 31% of companies are using it so it’s much easier to reach your audience without going into a bidding war with competitors. We can also see that (according to Hootsuite) there are over 1.8 BILLION messenger users sending about 8 billion messages a day. We believe Messenger is key to social advertising in 2021.
Remarketing
With the power of the Facebook pixel (cookie), we can track internet users to create more powerful, customized content for the individual user. For example, we can place this pixel on your website and “tag” people who visited your site. We even have the ability to create various pixels for different site actions.
We can place pixels on different pages such as “login page”, your “blog” page, and even have pixels on different products on your site. By doing this we can create different audiences within Facebook who have a different intent. The pixel hitting those on the “login” page could place customers who have already purchased/subscribed to your service in their own audience. We can then exclude these people from marketing efforts as these would be wasted impressions on people who already have your product/service.
The pixels on different products/services on your website could place users into a product audience. Say a user looked at “broadband internet for business” on your site. We could then target the people who looked at that service with ads promoting broadband internet for business.
With these Facebook pixels, we can even track conversions/leads. Say we build a landing page, and a thank you page promoting your service. We can place an extra snippet of code on your thank you page that fires a lead pixel, and even email you a notification for each lead we get. Conversion tracking has never been easier!
Want to learn more about the power of the pixel? Click here to find the secret to digital marketing.
The possibilities really are endless. Endless combinations and customization leave Facebook as the ultimate marketing tool for B2B companies.
