Define your audience

Understanding your target audience is essential for crafting successful PPC advertising for SAAS brands.
To ensure that you are marketing to the right people, consider their needs, not what you think they are. What are their motivations? What is the information they are looking for to help them decide? Unlike B2C marketing, it’s less about interests and demographics than their pain points. By understanding these factors, you can create a custom-made campaign for them!

Use the right keywords

Unlock the key to success by uncovering relevant search terms used by customers seeking out products similar to yours through comprehensive keyword research. A detailed audit of the buyer journey will help you uncover thousands of keywords that match their users needs at different stages of the buyer journey.

Optimize your Ad Copy

The SAAS space can be incredibly competitive. Understand what your competitors are selling and what they advertise; this will give you valuable insights so that your ad copy can stand out. Make sure your ads have an engaging edge! Utilize persuasive language and a strong call to action to maximize clicks.

Utilize Ad Extensions

Enhance your ads and drive more engagement with ad extensions; they are a great way to boost the visibility of your campaigns – giving you a competitive edge. They offer more ad space and can direct the user to specific content tailored to your customer.

Use Remarketing

Remarketing does not have to be done via Google Ads but rather through a DSP of your choice. At our global programmatic agency, we use DV360, which allows us to leverage first-party client data. Google ads is an effective traffic driver, whilst remarketing brings users back. The more touch points and site visits, the more likely the buyer will buy from you.

A/B Test

Test the effectiveness of your message by running an A/B comparison on Google Ads. See which version resonates with customers to maximize reach and ROI.

Monitor Metrics

Metrics are a powerful tool to measure your success – use tracking services such as Google Analytics to monitor important KPIs like CTR, conversion rate and CPA. Gain insight into the performance of campaigns so you can improve results over time!

Negative Keywords

An essential part of your Google Ads campaigns will be not buying ads based on searches which are not relevant. Monitor your negative keywords on an ongoing basis and add them to the list weekly. This will improve efficiency and reduce paid media wastage.

In programmatic advertising, viewability is a key metric that determines whether or not an ad was actually seen by a user. If you’re investing in digital ads—whether on Pinterest, Google, or other programmatic platforms—you want to ensure your ads are visible to the audience. In fact, viewability is often directly tied to campaign performance metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and return on ad spend (ROAS).

In this guide, we’ll explain how to calculate viewability and offer insights into how it affects the success of programmatic display and video ads.

What is Viewability in Programmatic Advertising?

Viewability measures the percentage of served impressions that were in a visible area of the user’s screen. In programmatic advertising, viewability is especially important because many ads are automatically served across multiple publishers and placements. To optimize your campaigns, you need to ensure that these ads are actually being viewed—not just served.

Let’s look at an example, if a programmatic video ad loads at the bottom of a webpage but isn’t visible to the user, it counts as an impression but not a viewable impression.

Why is Ad Viewability Important?

• Campaign Performance: High viewability ensures that your ads are seen by your target audience, leading to higher engagement, more clicks, and conversions.
• Ad Budget Optimisation: Low viewability leads to wasted impressions, where you pay for ads that users never see. Optimising for viewability reduces ad spend waste.
• Brand Safety and Trust: Advertisers who focus on viewability build trust with publishers and platforms by ensuring that their ads meet quality standards.

How to Calculate Viewability for Programmatic Ads

To calculate viewability for programmatic display ads, you need to access the data provided by the platform you are using (Demand Side Platform, Ad Exchanges, Supply Side Platform, etc).
The process can vary depending on the specific platform you are using, but generally, you would need to log in to the platform and navigate to the campaign or ad group level.

Once you have accessed the data, you can calculate the viewability using the following formula:

(Viewable Impressions / Total Impressions) x 100 = Viewability Percentage

• Viewable Impressions: The number of times an ad was served and met the industry standard for viewability.
• Total Impressions: The total number of times the ad was served, regardless of whether it was seen or not.

For display ads, the Media Rating Council (MRC) standard requires at least 50% of the ad’s pixels to be in view for at least one second. For video ads, at least 50% of the video player must be in view for at least two seconds.

Example Calculation:

If you have:

• 50,000 total impressions
• 35,000 viewable impressions

Then, your viewability rate would be:

Viewability = (35,000 / 50,000) x 100 = 70%

This means that users actually saw 70% of your ads, while 30% of impressions went unseen.

Understanding Platform-Specific Viewability Tools

It’s important to remember that different platforms and vendors may have other methods for measuring viewable video advertising, so you must check with the specific platform’s documentation or support team if you have any doubts. Additionally, some platforms may have their proprietary viewability measurement tools, and they may provide you with a viewability score rather than a percentage.

Conclusion: Why Viewability is Key for Programmatic Success

In programmatic advertising, viewability is not just a performance metric—it’s a measure of the effectiveness of your ad spend. Higher viewability rates lead to better campaign results, as more of your ads are actually seen by the intended audience. By continuously monitoring and optimising for viewability, you ensure that your programmatic display and video ads deliver meaningful impact and higher engagement.

If you’re ready to take your programmatic advertising to the next level, speak to our team who would love to help!

Calculating Click-Through Rates for Programmatic Advertising

To calculate the click-through rate (CTR) for programmatic display ads using a demand-side platform (DSP), you would need to access the data provided by the DSP.

The process can vary depending on the specific DSP you are using, but generally, you would need to log in to the platform and navigate to the campaign or ad group level.

Once you have accessed the data, you can calculate the CTR using the formula:

(Clicks / Impressions) x 100 = CTR.

The DSP should provide you with the necessary data, such as the number of impressions, clicks, and conversions for your campaign.
You can also use the DSP’s built-in reporting or analytics tool to view the data; often, it’s represented in charts, tables, and graphs.

It’s important to remember that the DSP‘s data may differ from the data provided by the ad exchanges or SSPs (Supply side platforms) that the DSP is buying inventory from, as DSPs use algorithms to optimise campaigns and adjust bids for audience segments. Additionally, some DSPs have different ways of counting and calculating metrics, so it’s essential to check with the specific DSP’s documentation or support team if you have any doubts.

The global standard CTR for programmatic advertising will vary by industry.

Improving conversion rates for B2B landing pages can be challenging, but with the right strategy and approach, it is possible to achieve significant results.

As a programmatic agency that has spent millions of dollars on paid media, we have deep knowledge of what works. Whilst we are not a CRO agency, we do help advise our clients on what works. By producing landing pages that are highly optimized, you will have a better chance of converting users. B2B audiences are especially time-poor. They want information quickly and have high standards in finding quality information that will help them in their journey to buying products and services.

Here are some tips to help you improve conversion rates for B2B landing pages.

Target Audience

Before diving deep into the details of on-page CRO, ensure you understand your audience. In-depth audience research will help you identify what your b2b audience is looking for. You should conduct stakeholder interviews, this will help you position your product/service area to drive more leads and conversions from your site.

Put yourself in potential customers’ shoes- it’s key to realizing conversion rate goals! Craft content for the user first. Think about your USPs and make sure they shine through.

Use Clear, Compelling Headlines

You only have a few seconds to capture your user’s attention – make them count! Crafting an eye-catching yet informative headline is key in drawing users to your landing page. Be sure it clearly conveys the benefit of what you’re offering and leaves viewers wanting more.

Persuasive copy

Persuasive copy will guide the user in the right direction. It sounds simple but make sure spelling is spot on and there are no grammatical errors. For some people, this is unforgivable and looks unprofessional.

Ensure Lead Gen Forms are Simple

There is a balancing act between asking for too much information and putting off users with too many fields. Keep it easy and straightforward. Clear labels, relevant sample text, and an easily located submit button will help visitors quickly make their way through, increasing your conversion rates.

Social Proof

Just like in B2C marketing, B2B buyers want to see social proof. Positive endorsements from customers, so make sure you’re showcasing those glowing customer testimonies for maximum impact. The difference between B2B and B2C is that you’ll want more detailed case studies proving you have already succeeded with others. This is your opportunity to incorporate all your USPs through a real-world situation.

Leverage Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are an excellent way for you to get something back by giving something away. Making your lead magnet more specific to the audience you’re targeting can be one of the best ways to increase conversion rates. By taking a precise and tailored approach, it’s possible for businesses to dramatically improve their results when reaching out for leads. Example lead magnets can be tools, calculators, whitepapers, videos and even ebooks.

The basics

In addition to the above, you’ll also want to ensure the look and feel of your site is clean and uncluttered. Make sure your site speed is fast; no one likes to wait for pages to load for a lifetime.
Sounds simple, but once a customer has filled out a form, ensure your sales team is following those leads appropriately. Just because someone fills out a form does not mean they are ready to buy, you need to nurture the lead, moving them through a sales funnel from MQL (marketing qualified lead) to SQL (sales qualified lead).

Tracking

Use Google Analytics and other analytics tools like Omniture, which will help you identify where users are entering the site, where they leave and what they do.
Hotjar is also an excellent tool which provides heat maps, so you can see where users are clicking, use this data to inform the design, look and feel of your landing pages to drive more efficient leads.

Start With High Traffic Pages

Focus on the pages with the most traffic first and work your way down; getting high-traffic pages optimized for conversions will ensure your work is more effective.

Targets

Conversion rates will vary depending on your industry, how complex the solution you are selling and how long the sales cycle is. Generally, you want to aim for around 1-3% for the B2B industry. Set targets and monitor this over time, taking note of the changes you have made and how they affect conversion rates over time.

Optimize for Mobile

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, optimizing your landing pages for mobile is essential. This includes using a responsive design, ensuring that the text is easy to read, and using images and videos that are optimized for mobile.

A/B Testing

Use A/B testing to optimize your landing pages: A/B testing is a powerful tool for conversion rate optimization. You can determine which changes are most effective for improving conversions by testing different versions of your landing page.

Optimize for the Funnel

Use landing pages tailored to specific sales funnel stages: By creating landing pages tailored to particular stages of the sales funnel, you can increase the likelihood of conversions. For example, a landing page tailored to the sales funnel‘s awareness stage should provide a general overview of your product or service. In contrast, a landing page tailored to the decision stage of the sales funnel should give detailed information about your product or service.

Use Images & Video

Images and videos can be powerful tools for conversion rate optimization. They can be used to showcase your product or service, providing a visual representation of what you’re offering. They also help break up the page allowing users to absorb more information and improve time spent, all helping to drive a lower cost per lead/sale.

Conclusion

In conclusion, improving conversion rates for B2B landing pages requires a strategic approach, but it will undoubtedly make your paid media efforts across Linkedin, Google Ads and Programmatic advertising more effective. Simple math, doubling your conversion rate will make your paid media twice as efficient.

If you want an honest opinion on your landing pages speak to our programmatic experts, we’d love to help your business drive more sales!

PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, such as Google ads, can be a valuable tool for informing your link-building strategy.

By analyzing the performance of your PPC campaigns, you can gain valuable insights into which keywords and pages are driving the most traffic and conversions.

Tapping into valuable insights from your paid media efforts is a great way to improve your SEO.

Guest Posting

PPC data can help you identify websites that are relevant to your industry and have a large audience. By guest posting on these websites, you can build links back to your website, which can help to improve your search engine rankings and improve your overall domain authority, which is a valuable metric that Google uses to define whether or not your site is worthy of appearing on the first page of the SERPs. Also, guest posting can help you build relationships with other website owners and influencers in your industry.

Digital PR

To maximize the bang for your marketing buck, make sure that PPC and PR work together in harmony. Analyzing data from your campaigns helps you identify which pages of your website are driving conversions – use this intelligence to craft outreach plans targeting media influencers such as journalists who will promote your content through digital channels!

The power of PPC keywords and phrases

Leveraging the power of PPC and link-building together can help you get a clear view on which keywords are driving the highest traffic levels and conversions. Analyzing your existing PPC data provides valuable insights in terms of what words have proved to be effective: use those same key phrases when building links for an even stronger SEO performance!

Identify your strongest pages

Unlock the power of PPC data to supercharge your link-building efforts! Identify which landing pages are delivering you the most conversions, and use that knowledge as a starting point for building links. Increase rankings on key pages to drive further traffic – and ultimately more conversion success – back to your website.

Low performing pages

Ok, what about the other way around now?

With PPC data, it’s possible to identify pages with underperforming metrics that still contain substantial promise. Whether the page requires more attention or further optimization, these insights can be invaluable in taking your site’s performance to new heights!

Ride the buzz wave

Leverage your pay per click data to uncover potential content ideas and capitalize on trending topics. Dive into campaigns that are performing above average and explore the associated keywords further—this could inspire timely, relevant pieces of content tailored towards capturing audience attention.

Our London-based PPC agency is here to help you take your link-building strategy to the next level. Whether it’s an existing campaign in need of a boost or preparations for something brand new – our team of local experts is just one call away! Let us guide the way and ensure your projects meet their full potential.