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B2B

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Meta Announces New Lead Generation Features

By Jennifer Esty  |  November 17, 2023
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Meta has announced several new lead generation features which are potentially useful for B2B campaigns.

These new features aim to drive more leads through ad products that facilitate form submissions, initiate chats, and enable calls from businesses.

Click to WhatsApp:

Expanding on an existing feature in Messenger and Instagram Direct, Meta is allowing Facebook and Instagram ads that click to start a WhatsApp chat. This should help marketers nurture more quality leads with instant messaging.

Instant Form Ad Format:

This feature lets users explore and connect with multiple businesses at once. It’s highly customisable and can provide additional company and product information for potential leads. It also enables advertisers to add a lot of business information to the form.

Calling Leads on Facebook:

Meta is also currently testing this new feature that enables businesses to call people through Facebook. This new feature will enable businesses to display their business information including logo and name.

Advantage+ for Lead Gen:

Additionally, the tech firm is experimenting with campaign automation for lead generation within Meta Advantage, which is the company’s suite of ad products focused on AI. Advertisers will gain the ability to apply AI across various campaign elements, encompassing targeting, placements, creative aspects, and budgeting simultaneously.

Hubspot:

To simplify lead capture and follow-up workflow, Meta has introduced HubSpot as a new CRM integration partner. The partnership will offer advertisers a straightforward click-through setup.

It’s interesting and encouraging to see that Meta is investing in lead generation. Sharp Ahead finds mixed success with Meta as an advertising platform for B2B lead generation: some industries can get great results while others struggle. It can’t do any harm to have more options when it comes to planning optimising Meta campaigns and we’ll be experimenting with these new features for appropriate client projects. We’ll report back on our successes and learning.

For more details on the new Meta lead gen features, Search Engine Land has a good write-up.

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Why Microsoft Clarity belongs in your B2B digital marketing tech stack

By John Woods  | 
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The power of session recording for optimising B2B campaigns

We love Microsoft Clarity. Chances are, it belongs in your B2B digital marketing tech stack.

It delivers useful insights that can drive meaningful performance improvements. And it’s free to use, and easy to set up. So it’s a quick win for B2B digital marketing teams.

Microsoft what-ity?

Not heard of Microsoft Clarity before? It’s a web analytics tool that uses session recording techniques. That is, it records the details of what actually happens within the user’s browser – scrolling, typing, clicks and so on. And then reports those back in aggregate form so that one can understand how a web page is being used by your actual web visitors.

There are many similar tools in the market: Hotjar, Inspectlet and Crazy Egg are some of the better-known ones. Those are all good tools and are worth considering if you have advanced requirements. But Clarity is a great entry-level session recording tool for these reasons:

  • It’s free forever, so there’s no subscription cost to worry about;
  • It is built and supported by Microsoft, which provides comfort around the compliance and privacy aspects;
  • It is very easy to set up and use, so you can get value very quickly without a huge amount of technical knowledge.
Why we love Clarity and session recording

“Conventional” web analytics tools like Google Analytics can tell you things like the “engagement rate” and “average time on page” for a web page. But those measures don’t really tell you whether the page is doing its job or WHY a badly-performing page might be failing. And they don’t tell you how to improve the page. (I went into some detail about the limitations of Google Analytics for niche B2B campaigns in my recent GA4ward webinar .)

Session recording gives a much more direct, actionable view of page performance and can point you towards specific improvements.

Here’s an example of a Clarity report for the mobile version of one of our own landing pages:

The colours and numbers on this “scroll heat map” show the percentage of visitors reaching each vertical position on the page. So for example only 25% of our visitors scrolled down far enough to see the “Marketing Automation” heading.

Take a moment to look at the image. Can you see any issues?

For me, this Clarity report has highlighted a design problem with this page. Only 41% of mobile visitors are seeing the text (in the yellow/green area of the colour coding) which says “We’re a full service digital marketing agency…”. That’s important text! Without it, the offer of a free B2B digital marketing consultation makes a lot less sense. A person might view the page without scrolling and decide not to bother taking any action, whereas if they’d seen that extra copy, they might have been persuaded to go ahead and book a consultation.

Frustratingly this import text is only JUST below the fold. You can see from the heatmap that if it were only a line or two higher up, 75% of visitors would see it – almost twice as many!

This Clarity report not only diagnoses the problem, but it allows us to come up with some potential solutions. In this case, we’re going to trim down the opening section so that it uses a bit less vertical space, allowing the “We’re a full service…” text to show above the fold for all users. That’s an easy change that will only take us a few minutes to implement. We’ll test that change and expect to see an improvement in conversion rates as a result.

Imagine instead all I’d told you was that this page had a high bounce rate or a low engagement rate. You would know there was an issue, but you’d have no idea what aspect of the page’s design was to blame, and so nowhere to start for choosing potential solutions. Most likely, the page would have stayed unchanged.

Not just scroll heat maps

We find these scroll heat maps incredibly useful for B2B landing pages, where the user journey is often just a single page and where we have difficult tradeoffs to consider in information architecture – which content to prioritize above the fold, in particular.

There are many other useful features in Clarity, including:

  • Recording and replay of a whole user session (across multiple pages) to look at navigation issues
  • Reports on where clicks and taps occur on the page
  • Automatic detection of “rage clicks” that suggest when a person has become frustrated with a page
  • Filters to segment traffic to look at specific pages and visits from specific campaigns

These features are all enabled as standard, so you access to them all as soon as you have put the basic Clarity setup in place – there are no complicated setup decisions to make.

Getting started with Clarity

If I’ve convinced you that Clarity has a place in your tech stack, please give it a go! The setup could hardly be easier:

  1. Sign up for a free account at https://clarity.microsoft.com/
  2. Step through a tiny number of simple set-up questions
  3. Install a single JavaScript tag on your site, ideally via Google Tag Manager
  4. Wait a while for some useful data to turn up – this might need a few days or even weeks if you are running niche, low volume campaigns
  5. Check out the heatmaps and session recordings in the Clarity interface and start looking for insights!

Microsoft have given careful thought to the GDPR / privacy / compliance aspects of the system, so while you shouldn’t take these for granted, the use of Clarity shouldn’t cause too many concerns for your company lawyers. And the technology has negligible impact on page speed for the end user. So it’s hard to think of any material downside to the use of Clarity. And the upsides can be huge – if you discover and fix a page design issue that improves conversion rates by even a few percent, that’s extra ROI on every digital campaign.

We’ll return to some other ways to use Clarity for B2B campaign optimisation in the future. For now, if you’d like any help with Clarity or any other aspect of B2B marketing, we’d love to hear from you! 

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A/B Testing B2B Marketers
A/B Testing B2B Marketers

A/B Testing for B2B Marketers

By Jennifer Esty  |  October 27, 2023
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In this article we explore A/B testing for B2B marketers and why you might be wasting your time, or worse, believing the wrong outcomes.

What is A/B Testing? 

A/B testing, also sometimes referred to as split testing or bucket testing, is a research methodology used to determine which of two variants is more likely to produce the optimal outcome. 

In most cases the A version is the control (or often the live) variant and the B version is the test or “new” variant. 

Traditionally A/B testing is a very effective way for marketers to test and optimise all sorts of outcomes, including copy, conversion and usability features or changes. 

Quite simply, you put both variants live, split the traffic between them, and the version that performs best wins.

Why it doesn’t add up

The methodology is very compelling for marketers and we love the idea as much as anyone, but the hard truth is that more often than not, it’s simply not workable for B2B marketers. 

The reason lies in the maths around statistical significance.  

We’ll dig into the details of the mathematics behind this challenge in a future blog article (sign up for our newsletter here if you don’t want to miss it). 

But here is a simple illustration of the problem:  

If you had a campaign where the A variant resulted in 1200 conversions and the B variant resulted in 800 conversions, you would choose A the version as the winner. You could also implement that version with a high level of confidence that you are doing the right thing for the success of your marketing activity. 

But let’s consider another scenario. 

If your A version had three conversions and your B version had two conversions, you would have very low confidence in the outcome of the test. 

Mathematically speaking, the ratio of the two scenarios is the same! A has performed 50% better than B in both tests. But I think we’d all agree that a 3 vs 2 “victory” doesn’t prove anything.  

For your A/B testing to be effective, you need a reasonable large number of conversions to get a meaningful result—otherwise you may as well just toss a coin. 

You can calculate the exact numbers with a bit of statistical knowledge, but a good rule of thumb is a minimum of 100 conversions for a meaningful outcome. 

How much longer?

So, for high value low volume B2B organisations the reality is that it could take three to four months or even longer to achieve that meaningful threshold of conversions. 

And during that time that particular marketing activity is locked down, because otherwise it would invalidate the test. So you sacrifice your agility while the test slowly grinds on. 

Worse, if the world changes around you during this months-long testing period, including anything from competitor price changes, feature rollouts, new opportunities or significant economic changes could invalidate the whole test. Maybe the A version was the winner BEFORE your competitor rolled out that new feature last month, but now the B version is stronger. Your test is wrecked. 

Sadly, the numbers are working against you as high value, low volume B2B marketer. 

Will it ever work?

All that said, there can be a place for A/B testing in your marketing mix.  

For example it can prove useful at the top of your funnel where you have higher volume activity, for example content downloads, webinar sign ups, or search ad copy. 

That said, beware the B2B clickbait trap, whereby you’re making changes to your paid campaigns to flatter your click through rates—all at the expense of relevant, quality leads. 

If you want to find out more how to optimise and test your B2B digital marketing campaigns or have any questions about B2B digital best practice, we’d love to chat. Get in touch!

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Maximising Success with B2B Paid Social Media Remarketing Campaigns
Maximising Success with B2B Paid Social Media Remarketing Campaigns

Maximising Success with B2B Paid Social Media Remarketing Campaigns

By Charlotte  | 
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Effective paid media campaigns are essential for generating leads, building brand awareness, and driving conversions. But what if you could get more out of your current digital marketing strategy? That’s where remarketing campaigns on social media platforms come in. While social media platforms such as Pinterest, TikTok and Instagram are typically associated with B2C marketing, advertising on these platforms can also be an effective way for B2B businesses to re-engage potential clients and prospects. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of remarketing campaigns on social media and we’ll share tips for implementing a successful B2B social campaign to help achieve your marketing goals.

What is Remarketing? 

Remarketing (also known as retargeting) is a digital marketing strategy that involves targeting individuals who have previously engaged with a business (usually through websites and social media). When users visit a website or interact with content but don’t convert, B2B businesses can use remarketing to remind them of a product or service through targeted ads.

Benefits of B2B Remarketing Campaigns 

1. Increased Conversion Rates By targeting users who have already shown an interest in your products or services, leads are more likely to convert to clients. 

2. Nurturing Leads Remarketing allows B2B businesses to nurture leads prospects during typically long B2B consideration cycles and target users at different points in their journey. 

3. Brand Visibility Consistent exposure to a business through ads and content helps build brand awareness and stay at the forefront of the minds of prospective clients. 

4. Precise Targeting Retargeting based on specific actions such as visiting key web pages means that ad messaging can be tailored to the target audience based on previous activity. 

5. Cost-Effective Advertising and improved ROI In B2B marketing, remarketing social campaigns usually spend very little due to lower audience sizes. They often result in a higher return on ad spend due to higher conversion rates, lower ad costs and more precise targeting.

Tips for Implementing a Successful B2B Remarketing Campaign 

1. Choose the Right Social Media Platforms: While LinkedIn is often the go-to platform for B2B marketing due to targeting options such as job titles and company size, platforms such as Pinterest and TikTok can also be effective in re-engaging audiences. 

2. Install the Remarketing Pixel: On each chosen social media platform, install the remarketing pixel or tracking code on your website. This code tracks user interactions on your site and allows you to create custom audiences. It’s also important to be mindful of any impact installing a pixel will have on your cookie policy or CMP. 

3. Segment Your Audience: In order to run targeted campaigns with tailored messaging, we recommend segmenting audiences based on the specific products or services they’ve shown interest in. 

4. Set Frequency Caps: Setting frequency caps in your campaigns reduces the risk of ad fatigue and prevents overexposure to remarketing audiences. 

5. Lead with Value: Deliver valuable content to your audiences. 

6. Monitor and Optimise: Finally, it’s important to monitor the live campaigns and make any optimisations needed to improve key metrics such as CPCs and CTRs.

Retargeting Options on Social Media Platforms 

There are various retargeting options available on each social media platform, which is why it’s important to carefully consider your B2B remarketing strategy when choosing the right platforms to advertise on.

TikTok Audiences 

Creating a custom audience

Pinterest Audiences

Reconnect with users

X (formerly Twitter) Audiences

Choose an audience type

Snapchat Audiences

Select a type of audience to create

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Audiences

Choose a custom audience source

Remarketing social campaigns can be a game-changer for B2B businesses. By reconnecting with users who have previously shown interest in your products or services, you can stay top-of-mind, nurture leads, and increase conversion rates. It’s a cost-effective strategy that can significantly boost your B2B marketing success.

Have questions about remarketing paid social campaigns or any other aspect of B2B digital marketing? We’d love to hear from you—and we offer a free 30-minute consultation. Get in touch!

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Blog post illustration of a monitor, coffee cup and plant.
Blog post illustration of a monitor, coffee cup and plant.

GA4 & GTM Support in 3rd Party Martech

By John Woods  |  September 29, 2023
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Martech vendors: you’ve let your clients down, but most of all you’ve let yourselves down. I’m not angry, just disappointed. I know you can do better than this! 

I’m talking about support for Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics (GA4), of course.

Martech vendors could, and should, do a better job of supporting GTM and GA4 integration in their products. And there’s less excuse than ever, because the vendors have all had to rework their integrations in the last year or so to support the migration from Universal Analytics to GA4. 

I work with a lot of different marketing technology products and I’m often helping clients integrate them with their analytics and tracking systems. I’m increasingly frustrated at how few of these products offer proper support for GA4 and GTM. Or rather – at how often they almost do the right thing, but let themselves down in some way. 

If the martech vendors got their act together, it would be easier and cheaper to integrate the analytics stack with their tools, and clients and agencies could spend more time extracting value from their martech stack and less time building and maintaining integrations. And honestly, it’s not that hard to do it right! Let me explain. 

I’m talking about the sort of martech that provides a component of digital user experience that we might reasonably want to track with digital analytics. So for instance an e-commerce shopping platform like Shopify or Magento; an online booking engine like Bookeo or Arlo; a specialist content management system like Unbounce; or a live chat system like Zoho. In all these cases the martech platform looks after some interesting user interactions, and we want to record these user interactions in a suitable way in the analytics platform.

Because the martech platform is usually a bit of a black box, we need it to provide some way to communicate its internal view of user actions to the analytics system. For example in a live chat system, the chat technology should send events like “user requested a chat” and “user contact details were captured”. In my view there are two different use cases here:

1. Suppose I’m a small organization with a limited budget and no in-house capacity for integration work. I want a simple, push-button integration with GA4 that “just works” and that allows me to sensibly report on and analyse the use of the martech component. It should look like this:

GA4 Tracking Simple Demonstration

There might be one or two choices to make about some of the detail, but basically the tool just needs to know my GA4 tracking ID. Then behind the scenes it can send appropriate events to GA4 using the API.

2. Alternatively, suppose I have the resources and expertise to take a more sophisticated approach to tracking and analytics. In that case I want to use Google Tag Manager, so I can control things for myself. (This might be for some very important reasons – for example perhaps I am handling consent management via GTM.) So then I want this sort of option in my martech tools:

GA4 Tracking Simple Demonstration

And behind the scenes the tool should send appropriate events to GTM using the API. I then add my own triggers and tags in GTM to pass those events on to GA4 and to any other tracking tools.

Now you might think these two use cases look quite similar. And indeed, they are! They require almost identical implementation work within the martech tool. 

So: MARTECH VENDORS SHOULD BE ABLE TO SUPPORT BOTH OF THESE USE CASES. That is: they should provide an option to send events directly to GA4, and a separate option to send events to GTM. (Some people may even want to use both, though that’s a bit of a weird combo.) 

With both options, all users are happy. The small resource-strapped team can get a decent GA4 setup in place with just a few button pushes. The team that can handle more complexity can use GTM to get things exactly the way they want them – including for example GTM-based consent management, data integration via the data layer, or even server-side tagging. And all the complexity about the martech tool itself sits within the vendor’s black box, with no need for complex reverse engineering or “screen scraping”. 

Unfortunately this isn’t happening yet. Martech vendors are picking and choosing their approach to GA4 and GTM. Here are a couple of examples I’ve worked with recently:

Arlo: Arlo is a specialist booking platform. They used to have a built-in Universal Analytics implementation with no GTM support. With the move to GA4 they have released an excellent GTM integration. But they now have no built-in GA4 integration at all! So to use Arlo with GA4 requires use of GTM – great if you already have it, but bad news if you just want a simple GA4 setup.

Shopify: this one is particularly disappointing. Shopify support both GA4 and GTM. But here’s what they say in their GTM documentation:

To use Google Tag Manager with your Shopify Plus online store, you need to do the following:

Use Shopify’s integration for Google Analytics and Meta Pixel instead of using them with Google Tag Manager.  

So you can use GTM with Shopify, but if you do, you must not deploy your GA4 tag via GTM. That’s against the whole philosophy of GTM! And makes it impossible, for example, to use GTM to manage consent.

Unbounce: we work with Unbounce a lot for standalone landing pages, and it’s a great tool. But again it fumbles GA4/GTM support. There’s good built-in GA4 support that sends sensible conversion events. But if you want to use GTM, you have to reverse engineer the triggers to figure out all the user actions. 

I’m sure that there are vendors who’ve done the right thing and provide both GA4 and GTM options. But I’m yet to find one! If you know of any, please chip in on the comments and I’ll gladly give credit where it’s due. 

Let’s put some pressure on our vendors to get this right. If you’re working with martech tools that don’t have proper GA4 and GTM support, get in touch with the vendor and send them a feature request. (You’re welcome to include a link to this blog!)

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