For many B2B businesses, deals aren't trackable online. Inquiries come in via the website form, by email, or by phone. So how do you correctly trace which inquiries were generated by Google Ads? As a B2B digital agency, we've faced this problem a thousand times — and found a method to establish reliable numbers anyway and optimize against them. And if the ad works but the landing page doesn't convert, we take care of the website's conversion optimization right along with it.
Campaign management, reporting, and quick check-ins all run digitally on our end — nobody needs to get in a car for ongoing SEA management. For the strategy kickoff, or when we bring sales and marketing to one table to sharpen the lead definition, an on-site meeting is worth its weight in gold. Our Munich office is ready for that.
The cost of SEA management depends on account size, number of campaigns, and reporting depth. Setup projects for Google Ads usually start in the four-figure range; ongoing management runs on hourly quotas. On top of that comes the media budget for Google Ads itself — which goes directly to Google, not to us.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the umbrella term for all marketing activities in search engines — it covers SEA (paid ads) and SEO (organic optimization). SEA refers exclusively to paid ads via Google Ads or Microsoft Ads. We cover both — more on our SEO page.
The first data comes in within a few days of campaign launch. Reliable optimization takes 4–8 weeks for enough data to accumulate. In B2B with longer sales cycles, it additionally takes time before leads translate into actual orders.
In principle, yes — classic search ads in particular are effective in B2B because they reach people with a concrete need. The decisive factor is whether the target audience formulates its needs in Google at all, and whether matching search terms with sufficient volume exist. For very niche or novel offers, this can get difficult — a short round of keyword research up front quickly shows whether the investment is worthwhile.
Freelancers are often cheaper and a good fit for small accounts with a manageable budget. For more complex B2B setups with tracking integration, landing pages, and multiple campaign types, that model quickly hits its limits. An agency covers the disciplines that make SEA successful in B2B: tracking, landing pages, reporting, and SEO.
Clicks and CTR are always relevant as early indicators — but what matters in the end is what's countable. For B2B e-commerce, measuring success is particularly easy: SaaS products or other online sales generate conversions directly on the website. For many other B2B businesses, however, deals aren't trackable online. Inquiries come in via website form, email, and phone, followed by individual quotes. In that case, we combine the measurable conversions from Google Ads with the qualified inquiries from your sales team and project a probable CPL across all channels. Not a perfect figure, but reliable enough to optimize the campaigns meaningfully.
In most cases, yes. Sending ads to the homepage or generic service pages costs conversions. A focused landing page per campaign topic significantly increases the conversion rate and lowers the CPC at the same time through better quality scores.
Yes, and in most cases it makes a lot of sense. SEA delivers immediate visibility for competitive keywords, while SEO builds organic traffic over the long term. The data from SEA in turn helps sharpen the SEO strategy.
Many people first think of classic search ads when it comes to Google Ads — text ads at the top of Google's search results. But Google Ads covers far more: display ads (banners on millions of partner websites), YouTube ads (video advertising before, during, or after YouTube videos), Demand Gen campaigns (also called native ads, which blend visually into the content — for example in the Google Discover feed or on YouTube Shorts), Shopping ads (for products with image and price), and Performance Max (a cross-channel campaign type). Which formats make sense depends on offer, target audience, and funnel stage. In B2B, search ads are usually the strongest lever because they capture active search queries — other formats come in additionally for awareness or retargeting.
Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) works similarly to Google Ads, with a somewhat leaner format portfolio. The most important ad types are search ads in Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo, Audience Ads (display and native ads in the Microsoft network, including MSN, Outlook.com, and Microsoft Edge), and Shopping ads. An interesting specialty is Connected TV: via Microsoft Ads, video ads can be placed on streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and many more — inventory that Google Ads can't reach in this form. Overall search reach is smaller than Google's, but CPCs are often cheaper and competition lower.
