B2B PPC agency: what it does differently, how it charges, and what to ask before you sign

A B2B PPC agency runs paid search and paid social for companies that sell to other businesses, where one sale is worth a lot, the buyer is a committee, and the deal closes weeks or months after the click. The right one does not judge itself on cost per lead. It connects your ad accounts to your CRM, sends qualified pipeline and closed revenue back into Google Ads and LinkedIn, and spends your budget on the few searches and accounts that turn into sales. If an agency cannot explain how it will do that in the first month, it is a consumer PPC shop with a B2B page on its website.

Why B2B paid search is a different job

Most PPC advice is written for shops and local services. A click comes in, a sale or a call happens the same day, and the ad platform sees the result. B2B breaks almost every part of that.

• Small search volume. The terms your buyers type, such as a software category, a compliance need or an industrial part number, are searched a few hundred times a month, not tens of thousands. Every wasted click matters more.
• A long gap between the click and the money. The form fill is the start of a sales process, not the end. A lead that looks good can be a student, a competitor or a company far too small to buy.
• Several people decide. The person who searches is often not the person who signs. You need to reach the user, the manager and the budget holder, usually on more than one platform.
• Lead quality beats lead count. Ten demo requests from the right companies are worth more than a hundred ebook downloads. A campaign optimised for the cheapest form fill will find the cheapest people, which is the opposite of what you want.

An agency that understands this will talk about pipeline, sales accepted leads and revenue from the first call. One that leads with click through rate and cost per lead is reporting the numbers that are easiest to move, not the ones that pay its fee.

What a B2B PPC agency should actually do

Connect the ads to the CRM

This is the work that separates a B2B specialist from everyone else. Google Ads supports offline conversion imports, where the click ID captured on your form travels into your CRM and is sent back to Google when the lead becomes an opportunity or a customer. Google also offers enhanced conversions for leads, which matches leads using hashed first party data such as the email address on the form. Google's help pages say that from 15 June 2026 these uploads move to the Data Manager API and are blocked in the Google Ads API, so any agency still running an old script or connector should have a plan for that change. Once the platform sees which clicks became pipeline, smart bidding can chase those people instead of the cheapest form fills.

Choose a small set of channels and run them well

For most B2B companies the core is Google search for people actively looking, LinkedIn for reaching named accounts and job roles, and Microsoft Advertising, which describes LinkedIn profile targeting, by company, industry or job function, as unique to its platform. Retargeting and review sites can follow. An agency that wants to run seven channels on a modest budget is spreading your money too thin to learn anything.

Build the keyword list from sales calls, not tools

Keyword tools show very little volume for niche B2B terms, so a good agency starts from your sales team: the problems prospects describe, the competitors they compare you with, the integrations they ask about. It adds strong negative keyword lists early to block jobs, free, salary, course and definition searches, which eat B2B budgets quietly.

Target accounts on LinkedIn without starving the campaign

LinkedIn lets you upload a list of target companies and filter by job function and seniority. Its help pages set a minimum audience of 300 member accounts for an ad set to run. A tightly filtered list can fall close to that floor, and a very small audience gets expensive fast, so a sensible agency checks audience size before launch and widens the filter one step at a time.

Fix the landing page and the form

A B2B landing page has to answer the committee: what it does, who it is for, proof from similar companies, security or compliance details, and a clear next step. The form should ask for a work email and enough detail to route the lead. Adding a field for company size or role costs a few leads and saves your sales team many wasted calls.

Paid channels compared for B2B

Channel	Best at	Main targeting	Watch out for
Google Ads search	People already searching for the problem or category	Keywords, match types, audiences	Low volume terms and junk queries on broad match
LinkedIn Ads	Reaching named companies and job roles	Company lists, job function, seniority, industry	High cost per click and small audiences
Microsoft Advertising	Search with professional targeting layered on	Keywords plus LinkedIn profile company, industry and job function	Smaller volume, so results take longer to read
Retargeting on display or social	Staying in front of visitors during a long cycle	Site visitors, CRM lists	Frequency that annoys people who already said no

How B2B PPC agencies charge

The fee models are the same ones used across PPC: a share of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, a fixed project fee for a build or audit, and occasionally a performance element. Each has a bias. A percentage of spend rewards the agency for spending more. A flat fee can drift towards doing less. For B2B, a flat retainer with a clear scope is common, because budgets are often modest and the work is weighted towards tracking, CRM integration and reporting rather than managing huge volumes of keywords. Our guide to choosing a PPC agency and comparing fee models sets out each model and a scorecard for comparing quotes side by side.

Whatever the model, settle these in writing: you own the ad accounts and the conversion data, the agency gets access as a user, and you can leave without losing history. Ask how long the notice period is and what happens to any scripts or connectors they build.

What to ask a B2B PPC agency before you sign

• Which CRM have you connected to Google Ads and LinkedIn before, and which conversion stages did you send back?
• What will you report every month, and which number would you call a failure?
• How do you decide between search, LinkedIn and Microsoft Advertising for a budget our size?
• Show us a negative keyword list from a past B2B account, with names removed.
• Who works on our account day to day, and how many other accounts do they handle?
• When will you judge a campaign on pipeline, given our sales cycle?

A strong agency answers these with examples from real accounts. Vague answers about "full funnel strategy" are a sign to keep looking.

Questions about B2B PPC agencies

What does a B2B PPC agency do differently from a normal PPC agency?

It optimises for qualified pipeline and revenue instead of raw leads. In practice that means CRM integration, offline conversion imports, account based targeting on LinkedIn, and keyword lists built from sales conversations rather than volume tools.

Is LinkedIn or Google better for B2B PPC?

They do different jobs. Google search captures people already looking for a solution. LinkedIn reaches the companies and roles you choose, including people who are not searching yet. Most B2B programmes start with search and add LinkedIn once tracking is in place.

When can B2B PPC be judged?

Leads are counted in the ad account and the CRM from launch, and pipeline follows your sales cycle. If deals take three months to close, read the first full results after one cycle and use sales accepted leads as the early signal; the outcome depends on competition, your offer and your budget.

Should a B2B company bid on competitor names?

Often yes, because people comparing tools are close to a decision. Keep the ad copy factual, respect trademark rules on ad text, and send the click to a fair comparison page.

What should we measure in B2B PPC?

Cost per sales accepted lead, cost per opportunity, pipeline created and closed revenue by campaign. Cost per click and cost per lead are useful for diagnosis, not for deciding budgets.

Where the B2B shortlist gets written before anyone clicks an ad

Before a buying committee searches, someone on it often asks ChatGPT or Gemini to list the main vendors in the category. That answer decides who gets compared, and no keyword bid buys a place in it. Ask those assistants the questions your buyers ask, by category and by use case, and note whether your company is named and which pages the answer draws on. AI Knows Us belongs to a newer category built around exactly that question, whether AI assistants name a business when buyers ask, and what to change when they do not. It sits beside paid search rather than replacing it, because the vendors named in that answer are the ones whose ads a committee is ready to click.