Ad formats

This guide provides an overview of various digital marketing types for B2B businesses. We also explain how businesses can benefit from these types of digital marketing strategies and how to create a B2B plan.

Select a topic to explore further:

What are digital

marketing types?

Why do B2B marketers

need to know digital

marketing types?

What are the different

types of digital

marketing?

Using digital marketing

types with LinkedIn

What are digital marketing types?

Digital or internet marketing types are the different media channel options, strategies, and tactics B2B marketers can use to reach target customers online. So, what does digital marketing include? Some examples are search engine marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email marketing, video and audio marketing, and social media marketing.

Illustration of several digital marketing types displayed on a laptop.

Why do B2B marketers need to know digital marketing types?

The B2B buying cycle is longer and more complex than ever.

Sales organizations don’t often work with individuals, but must make their case to buying committees. B2B marketers and agencies have to stay informed of where target customers spend their time online and how they use each digital marketing channel to research products and services before contacting a sales rep to finalize their purchase decision.

Illustration of two individuals, one sitting and one standing, looking at data visualizations on a projector screen.

What are the different types of digital marketing?

Let’s look at where online media planners invest their B2B digital advertising and marketing dollars to maximize customer impact and return on investment (ROI).

What is mobile-first marketing?

Mobile-first marketing is a strategy that prioritizes designing campaigns and content with mobile devices in mind first, rather than desktop platforms. This approach reflects the growing predominance of smartphones as the primary device for accessing the internet and engaging with digital content.

B2B brands need to develop a mobile-first digital marketing strategy that involves tracking a B2B audience’s mobile viewing and buyer habits to create experiences suited to their needs.

Mobile-first marketing benefits

B2B mobile-first marketing helps brands build awareness and attract and convert new marketing-qualified sales leads where, when, and how they prefer to research and consider their buying options online.

B2B buyers frequently check their email and conduct web searches from their phones. Likewise, over half of LinkedIn users view their social media feeds via mobile devices, meaning all internet marketing types should be created with these behaviors in mind.

To learn how B2B marketers are shifting priorities to put mobile audiences first, read: “B2B Brands Need A Mobile-First Strategy.”

Mobile-first marketing implementation tips

To gain a strong understanding of B2B mobile target audiences and segments use methods like buyer personas, customer journey maps, and market research. Insights from these may include their demographics, mobile behaviors, preferences, and business challenges. B2B brands can then select the best channels that align with their target audience’s interests and challenges.

Remember that a brand’s website or landing page is often the first B2B touchpoint for sales prospects. Ensure it is optimized for mobile devices with a responsive design adaptable to different screen sizes and orientations.

The website or landing page should also have a fast loading speed on mobile screens, be easy to navigate, include strong calls to action (CTAs), while having solid security measures, and relevant content for mobile readers.

Mobile content helps B2B marketers attract, educate, and nurture sales prospects. Choose formats that are easy to scan, share, and interact with on smaller screens. Options include short videos, podcasts, infographics, webinars, and quizzes.

Try to make the reading experience intuitive and easy with clear and concise language in the copy— including short, snappy headlines—bullet points, and visuals to keep the audience's attention. These tactics ensure mobile-optimized ad formats and messaging help businesses communicate with target audiences in a timely, personalized, and convenient way.

Brands can also use different types of mobile messaging such as SMS, MMS, push notifications, email, and chatbots. These formats deliver relevant and valuable information to offers including offers, reminders, and feedback with support for highly targeted sales prospects. However, be careful not to spam or annoy B2B audiences with irrelevant messages. Respect a customer’s privacy by allowing them to opt in and out of mobile messaging campaigns.

What is pay-per-click (PPC) marketing?

PPC marketing is a widely used form of digital advertising, where businesses pay only when a user clicks on an online ad. It is measured financially on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, and PPC advertisers can set a “max CPC” bid when setting up an online ad campaign to indicate their limit on how much they’re willing to pay per click.

PPC marketing is available on many digital media platforms including search engines, social media networks, traditional media websites, blogs, and advertising networks.

Illustration of pay-per-click marketing.

PPC marketing benefits

Many digital marketing platforms operate on an ad-bidding system or auction. That means the higher a marketer bids on a CPC basis, the better the ad will perform and outrank other ads on a social network like LinkedIn or a search engine results page. It is particularly beneficial for B2B marketers who want to maximize their limited ad spend while driving targeted customer traffic to a website or landing page.

A high bid doesn’t mean the advertiser will always pay the highest price for each click. When an ad performs well—meaning its content is also deeply relevant to target customers (giving it a high quality score)— the advertiser has a better chance of paying a lower cost per click and cost per acquisition through the ad auction. Advertisers will also benefit from gaining more ad impressions – increasing the ad’s reach and exposure to its target audience.

If a brand is more focused on reaching a broad audience through ad impressions, they may instead choose to purchase and measure branding campaigns on a CPM or cost-per-thousand basis. Digital marketers can buy these ads through both advertising auctions and on a fixed price basis, depending on the digital media platform’s capabilities and preferences.

PPC marketing implementation tips

PPC campaigns perform well when an ad has a high relevance or quality score and a high enough bid to outperform competitors on the same digital marketing platform. Otherwise, advertisers might not achieve their ad impression targets or ad spend goals per click as desired for the campaign’s duration.

To improve a B2B ad’s quality score, consider optimizing landing page designs and copy through A/B testing to reduce bounce rates. Marketers can also streamline ad targeting options to zero in on ideal customers and run test campaigns to try out different ad formats and creatives to identify which ones resonate most with the target audience.

Brands can also experiment with setting different daily budgets or bidding strategies to see what works best for their goals. Review LinkedIn’s CPC Guide to learn how to create and optimize PPC campaigns using a cost-per-click advertising metric.

What is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a paid text-based ad strategy that helps brands attract customers searching for keywords related to products or services on a search engine like Bing.

SEM ads are typically bought on a PPC basis. Brands bid on how much they will pay for each ad to appear on the first search engine results page (SERP) for a keyword search. The more relevant the message in the ad is to a keyword search, the higher it will rank on the first SERP.

Illustration of search engine marketing.

SEM marketing benefits

A primary benefit of SEM is how it complements an organic search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, which we’ll discuss shortly. SEM ads can boost a website’s ranking on a search engine’s first page for a specific keyword search.

SEM is a cost-efficient, trackable, and optimizable way to drive traffic to a branded website and turn prospective B2B customers into buyers. However, an SEM campaign is only as good as its relevance to a specific keyword or phrase and its landing page usability, which we’ll discuss next.

SEM marketing implementation tips

To succeed at SEM, brands must first discover the top keywords their target B2B customers frequently search for related to a product or service. Brands can use tools like AHRefs and Moz to research and identify keywords with a high enough search volume to justify bidding on a specific list of words or phrases.

They must also analyze competitive keywords in their list to outrank other businesses bidding on that exact keyword. If a keyword or phrase has a high difficulty level, brands need to bid higher to appear on the first SERP page. It may not be worth bidding on it if budgets are limited.

Try focusing on middle-tier or long-tail keywords like those with lower competition or search volume but high relevancy or value to the end-user. The sweet spot is to find keywords with a high search volume and medium to low difficulty level or keyword competition.

Next, create text ads with relevant keywords to ensure they achieve a high enough quality score. Ensure the landing page or web page to which B2B marketers drive campaigns via a clickable link includes those keywords. Those destination pages should also have a low bounce rate— meaning customers do not immediately leave the page after landing on it. B2B marketers can track this metric using a tool like Google Analytics, which we’ll explain later in this guide.

A high bounce rate means the landing page needs to be more relevant to the keyword search to keep prospects on it long enough. Otherwise, they leave immediately or “bounce.” It can also mean the web page has loading speed or technical issues, giving the end user a poor experience.

Businesses can also look at analytics tools to identify popular keyword searches that drive organic traffic to their website from search engines. Bidding on those keywords and creating relevant ads helps to drive more traffic to a branded website or landing page. This information is also helpful for developing search engine optimization strategies, which we’ll cover next.

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing type where B2B brands create web content to boost their website’s ranking on organic SERPs for specific product or service-related keywords.

B2B marketers may develop SEO strategies to create links back to their website (also known as backlinks) via other online sources such as PR or online media coverage, social media posts, guest blogging on partner websites, and adding links to other posts within their blog. High SEO rankings rely on backlinks to a website and keyword relevancy to be successful.

SEO marketing benefits

Strong organic SEO rankings help B2B marketers drive targeted user traffic to a branded website, helping businesses attract high-quality leads into their sales funnel. Organic search traffic is still one of the leading drivers of B2B website traffic, which is why many brands invest in SEO marketing.

For SEO to be successful for a brand, B2B marketers need to consider budgeting their time and money into creating valuable web content. If a business doesn’t have many resources, they should prioritize creating high-quality content over quantity when starting. Think less is more when it comes to providing valuable content to the end-user or target customer.

SEO marketing implementation tips

High-quality web content is the cornerstone of good SEO. We’ll dive into content marketing benefits and implementation tips shortly.

B2B marketers should follow the SEM keyword research guidelines mentioned earlier to identify top keywords for creating informative and engaging content that includes blog posts, web videos, downloadable ebooks or whitepapers, and on-demand webinars.

Additionally, B2B marketers should incorporate targeted SEO keywords into product and service pages through title tags and meta descriptions. Marketers should include them in the HTML code for each web page because they help search engines identify what those pages are about when they crawl them.

SEO-targeted product and content pages intended to convert browsers into paying customers should always include a strong call-to-action or CTA. These pages help to get customers’ information through a "Contact Us” form or a content download form meant to capture personal information for the marketing sales funnel nurturing process.

In the following two sections, we’ll discuss lead nurturing tactics through content and email marketing.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing consists of creating high-quality blog posts, case studies, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, videos, podcasts, live-streaming events, and webinars.

These digital marketing types help branded websites or landing pages rank higher on SERPs, position a brand as an industry thought leader, and engage prospects in meaningful dialogue around topics related to a product or service.

Content marketing benefits

Premium B2B marketing content helps brands create multiple touchpoints or channels for sales prospects to find their website, learn about the benefits of their products and services, and connect with a sales rep to learn more.

Since most B2B customers prefer to do their own research online before speaking with a salesperson, branded content more often than not provides detailed insights and information about how a product or service helps buyers solve business problems and how it stands out from competitive solutions.

For example, LinkedIn’s Content Marketing Tactical Plan ebook helps B2B brands develop a content strategy. It also teaches advertisers how to use LinkedIn Ads to promote their products and services to targeted B2B customers on social media.

Content marketing implementation tips

Research target customers to identify content creation opportunities to address buyers’ most significant business challenges. Suppose a target persona is new to online advertising and needs to understand their options to reach B2B customers. Marketers can create a detailed blog post or guide explaining all the key digital marketing types.

Brainstorm content or story ideas with a content marketing creator or specialist. Refer to LinkedIn’s Content Marketing Types Guide for inspiration. In addition to creating content that lives on a branded website or blog, consider developing a third-party promotional content strategy. These posts or videos can be guest blogs, expert interviews on podcasts or in videos, sponsored content or native ads on traditional media websites or social media, affiliate marketing content, and user-generated content or social media influencer content, which we’ll explain shortly.

An editorial calendar is important to help specify what types of content (e.g., blogs, ebooks, and webinars) will be created, when, and how they will be posted and promoted. Many B2B marketers use tools like Airtable and Trello to create shared calendars that all stakeholders can access and use for content development and collaboration.

Work with a public relations or social media team to develop promotional strategies and conduct influencer outreach to send traffic back to owned content pieces while extending the reach and readership on the branded website.

Email marketing automation can also help B2B brands send the right content to targeted prospects at each sales funnel stage. Let’s look at that next.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is still a highly effective way to help B2B marketers engage with their existing customer base with regular cadence.

Email marketing campaigns consist of segmenting branded email subscribers into different buyer personas and allowing marketers to send highly automated and targeted messages to prospects or customers at the ideal time in their buying cycle.

Email marketing automation benefits

Email marketing automation processes help the productivity of B2B marketers as they nurture new leads coming into the sales funnel via digital advertising, social media, blog content, website landing pages, email subscriptions, and contact forms. Automation workflows streamline the process for building relationships and loyalty with existing customers while up-selling or cross-selling new products and services.

Email newsletters or sales promos can drive traffic back to branded B2B websites and content to boost sales and customer lifetime values. Or nurture new prospects into marketing qualified sales leads.

Email marketing automation implementation tips

Marketers capture B2B customer profiles using lead-generation ad campaigns that ask prospects to fill out a Lead Gen Form in exchange for downloading free content or signing up for e-newsletters, live events, or webinars. From there, B2B marketers may auto-segment new email addresses based on prospects' demographic information on a contact form or email subscription signup page (e.g., by industry, job title, location, budget, and company size).

Next, B2B marketers can auto-generate email campaign messaging for each audience segment using the form information with data collected about their online behaviors (e.g., when they visit a website pricing page, what B2B marketing content they frequently engage with, or whether they signed up for a free trial or product demo). Marketers incorporate them into drip campaigns that use email marketing automation to nurture prospects via personalized, pre-written messages sent throughout every customer journey stage.

The more a business learns about its customers through their online behaviors and interactions with ads, social media, content, and emails, the better it can personalize email communications to make them feel understood and valued. For example, a salesperson might save a client’s date of birth in their CRM tool, such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365, and that can be integrated with email automation software to automatically send them a happy birthday email, building a deeper customer relationship.

Other email automation software integrations include web analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) software to create templated copy and graphics. Marketers can also use A/B testing software to analyze which email copy or creative resonates most with target customer segments in an effort to maximize results.

Deep relationship intelligence tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator help marketers learn about the social media behaviors of LinkedIn users that match their ideal buyer personas. This tool allows marketers and sales teams to automate and personalize unlimited InMail messages via their LinkedIn profile.

InMail marketing options on LinkedIn

B2B marketers can finally benefit from automated conversational email campaigns targeted to users with LinkedIn Conversation Ads. This choose-your-own-path InMail messaging experience allows B2B marketers to initiate conversations with ideal members who fit their buyer persona profiles at the right time when they’re ready to engage.

Advertisers can use multiple call-to-action buttons via a LinkedIn InMail message. These buttons allow prospects to access their preferred content and offers, such as whitepapers or event pages, all in one ad.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing consists of both a content creation and distribution for sharing B2B thought leadership or branding messages with target audiences online. This is achieved through organic posts or digital advertising opportunities. Most social media ads are bought on a PPC or CPM basis, depending on the campaign goals.

There are over 850 million professional users on LinkedIn alone. The opportunity to reach and engage with ideal buyer personas are limitless, provided B2B marketing messages and promoted content are helpful, engaging, and entertaining to keep prospects interested in following a business and learning more about their products or services.

Social media marketing benefits

Social media marketing can amplify and grow the reach of B2B blog posts, ebooks, research reports, webinars, sponsored or promoted content ads, webinars, and live-streaming events.

Social media posts or Sponsored Content Ads drive engagement (e.g., shares, likes, and comments) for branded content assets to boost product or service awareness and visibility among target customers on networks like LinkedIn.

Many B2B sales organizations develop separate social media content strategies while promoting website or blog content to spark and own online conversations around a specific brand or industry topic. It’s important to remember brand goals and narrative while fostering an online community.

A social media manager or specialist can create unique and engaging messages to grow the brand's online word-of-mouth marketing, social following, and favorability. They’ll monitor and respond to brand-related conversations to ensure customers are happy with their product or service experience.

Social media marketing implementation tips

B2B marketers can use social media monitoring and automation tools to write, schedule, and track non-paid posts, comments, and targeted social media network ads. Marketers can schedule posts on platforms like LinkedIn and automatically send them via free or paid tools like HootSuite, HubSpot, and Buffer. The same goes for automatically generated and scheduled replies to customers’ social media comments on those posts.

Brands can also use AI tools that auto-generate social media posts, ad copy, and creative based on relevant templates and prompts.

B2B marketers can automate and personalize social media ad campaigns at scale using Dynamic Ads. These display ad formats pull in individually populated LinkedIn user profile photos, company names, and job titles. It allows marketers to customize their ads, build brand awareness, drive website traffic, and convert more prospects.

B2B marketers can then use account-based marketing (ABM) on platforms like LinkedIn to target and Retarget Ads automatically to a contact or company list of decision-makers at highly-valued accounts. These ads can be auto-delivered to matched audiences based on users’ online brand interactions and behaviors (e.g., visits to branded websites or landing pages).

Retargeting uses data, too, about a target buyer’s previous interactions with ads, which helps B2B marketers build customer relationships through specific and relevant social media ad messaging and creative.

What is affiliate and influencer marketing?

Affiliate and influencer digital marketing campaigns involve negotiating with social media experts or media platforms to promote products and services on a B2B brand’s behalf. These social media experts, thought leaders, and affiliate or business partner platforms tend to have an extensive reach of ideal target customers that a B2B business can engage with via a credible and trusted source.

For example, LinkedIn might approach an expert marketing blogger or video influencer to test and write about their experience with a newly launched digital advertising product.

Illustration of affiliate and influencer marketing.

Affiliate and influencer marketing benefits

Many buyers see social media influencers or industry experts as authentic, relatable, and knowledgeable sources of information and inspiration. They help brands build awareness, attract new sales leads, and drive purchase decisions among target customers.

Influencers and affiliates can help B2B marketers boost their SEO rankings, social media presence, and word-of-mouth referrals, too. However, influencers are often selective about which products or services fit their brand. Yet, getting them to recommend a product or service can significantly impact a sales organization’s revenue.

Brands typically pay affiliates for each click-through or purchase on their website. Payment is on a revenue-share or per-purchase basis. B2B marketers often pay influencers a flat fee, or give them access to free products and services to create content about a brand, endorse a special product offer, or co-create a video or podcast with someone in their sales organization. The goal is to leverage the influencer’s credibility and reach to achieve marketing objectives.

Affiliate and influencer marketing implementation tips

Brands must first develop an influencer and affiliate marketing strategy, set a budget, and reach out to the right contacts to negotiate the terms of the agreement. B2B marketers can start by identifying the best influencers for the brand. Tools like BuzzSumo and Upfluence allow B2B marketers to search for influencers by keywords, topics, or categories.

It also helps to look at a competitor’s existing social media followers to see who might be a good partnership fit. After making a list, evaluate each influencer’s reach, engagement, content quality, and reputation to see who matches the brand’s personality and tone.

Be respectful, professional, and transparent when approaching influencers. Follow their social channels, like and comment on their posts, and share their content to build a relationship. Then, send them a personalized message to introduce the brand and the marketing offer. Explain why they fit the marketing team’s goals and how they’ll benefit from the partnership. Also, be clear about content expectations and promotional timelines.

Finally, collaborate with influencers or affiliates to design and execute creative content marketing campaigns that align with the B2B brand’s objectives. Strategies might include product reviews, giveaways, contests, tutorials, and testimonials. Aim to give influencers or affiliates clear guidelines, creative freedom, and relevant resources after agreeing on deliverables, compensation, and disclosure rules. Make sure to track campaigns using web marketing analytics and data from the influencer’s marketing channels.

What is video marketing?

Consumers watch over 18 hours of video online weekly (SocialPilot 2023). v Vdeo ads and content have become a vital channel for most digital marketers. Generally, this type of digital marketing refers to any video content B2B brands create to promote or sell their products online.

B2B video marketing includes live streaming events, webinars, long-form sponsored content on a traditional media platform, pre-recorded or live videos appearing in a social news feed, and short brand awareness ads that run before, during, or after related online video content.

Video marketing benefits

Video ads often have higher conversion rates and perform better for B2B brand recall and engagement than static ads. Moving imagery and sound can heighten a target customer’s emotions and communicate more information quickly than a banner or text ad.

Video content is shared 12 times more on social media than text and image-based content, helping brands attract more marketing-qualified leads (OptinMonster 2023).

Additionally, LinkedIn research has found that “video ads earn 30% more comments per impression than static images in the LinkedIn newsfeed,” which helps B2B marketers boost brand awareness and positive conversations online. However, many businesses find it challenging to know what types of video content marketing to create and how.

Video marketing creation and implementation tips

Start by selecting the objective of the video ad or content. Is it to create brand awareness, drive purchase consideration, or convert B2B ecommerce customers? Different digital video content types will suit each objective. For instance, brand awareness ads might be shorter and funnier, whereas case study ads or webinars might need more time to convey pertinent details to drive purchase consideration.

Below are video ad content viewership trends to consider when developing targeted campaigns.

1. The best B2B video content educates, entertains, and informs audiences. Keep them engaged for as long as possible and teach prospects something new about the brand and its product or service offerings.

2. Business user attention spans are short for ads. B2B video ads under a minute have the highest click-through, completion, and engagement rates with LinkedIn.

3. Product demo videos showcasing how a B2B product or service works perform well. Target business audiences with demos to drive the highest performance in video completion, engagement, and click-through rates.

4. Global B2B audiences respond positively to video ads with animation. Use motion graphics where it makes sense to tell the brand story and demonstrate the product or service.

5. More than half of videos are now consumed on mobile devices. Digital marketers should create B2B video ads or live-streaming content with those users in mind.

6. Roughly 80% of LinkedIn users watch desktop and mobile video ads with their sound off. Be aware of how to convey messages to B2B target audiences properly.

7. Creative and funny videos create an element of surprise and stand out. Senior executives engage with the LinkedIn feed outside of office hours. Executives are also more likely to respond to something that intrigues or makes them laugh, driving higher video content or ad engagement through shares, likes, and comments.

8. Live B2B video content or ads showcasing customer testimonials, case studies or success stories, and shared insights from a company CEO can pique a prospect’s interest. Anecdotal evidence persuades viewers to click through and learn more about a brand, product, or service.

Watch the Salesforce case study below to learn how the company used LinkedIn Live Event video streaming to engage its B2B target audience online.

9. To drive purchase consideration, use short and snappy copy above or below video ads or content, with three lines of text or shorter. Add a call to action (CTA) button like “sign up,” “register,” or “learn more” to drive traffic to a branded website or landing page.

10. Time-sensitive offers, promotions, or deals have been shown to drive 1.2 times the average B2B video completion rate (the percentage of people who watch an ad until the very end) on LinkedIn, regardless of the length. B2B video ads with an offer in the headline achieve an average 8% higher completion rate on LinkedIn.

Brands can use these insights when selecting and developing video ad or content formats before choosing the right platforms to post and promote them. Refer to LinkedIn’s Video Advertising Guide to learn how to create, launch, and track effective video advertising creative for B2B campaign objectives.

What is audio marketing?

Digital audio marketing formats such as podcasts are evolving as an important next-wave channel for B2B marketers to reach and engage target customers online. There are over 234 million digital audio listeners in the U.S. alone (eMarketer 2022), consuming everything from live-streaming radio to music, audiobooks, and podcasts.

Over 65% of listeners do so on mobile devices at work, in the car while commuting, cooking dinner, or doing chores. Digital audio marketing is an excellent way to engage with B2B audiences.

Audio marketing benefits

Podcasts allow B2B brands to start an online conversation with target customers around issues related to their products or industry that help to solve business challenges and needs.

Podcasts function similarly to a live radio broadcast, using the platform for audio storytelling, expert interviews, or roundtable discussion formats on focused topics or issues. Podcast episodes are ] pre-recorded and accessible to business listeners on-demand, which is helpful for busy professionals to access it whenever they can.

Brands may use podcasts to boost brand awareness and generate leads by advertising on targeted third-party creator platforms. Or by creating and hosting a branded podcast as part of a B2B content marketing plan to control the narrative around issues related to their business, industry, and products.

Podcast marketing implementation tips

Begin by researching B2B podcast target audiences to tailor ads and content to match their needs and expectations. After launching the podcast, use audience data to segment listeners and deliver personalized ads or content for primary user behaviors, locations, or demographics.

Choose from different podcast ad formats or content solutions. Podcast ad types might include pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, live-read, scripted, dynamic, and native. Content formats can include expert interviews or Q&A sessions, insights on new proprietary research report findings, and discussions about industry trends or business challenges.

The ideal solution depends on B2B content marketing and advertising goals, budgets, and the creative vision. Connect and work with podcast hosts to find the best solution. They are the voice and personality of the podcast and know what works best for their listeners.

Hosts can also provide feedback and suggestions to improve future B2B podcast ad content and performance. Similarly with social media influencers, respect their expertise, creative freedom, and audience loyalty.

Podcast marketing is still fairly new, so there may be some challenges when measuring its impact. Still, marketers can track and analyze podcast ad effectiveness through product sign ups, downloads, ad impressions, reach, frequency, audio completion rates, and sales conversions. Customer surveys or interviews, podcast reviews,and related social media conversations also help B2B marketers gather qualitative feedback from new listeners and customers.

What is chatbot marketing?

Chatbot marketing is a rapidly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tool using automated software programs to simulate human conversations and connect with online visitors on a website or mobile app.

The chatbot market is projected to reach $15.5 billion USD by 2028, up from $5.4 billion USD— indicating more businesses are integrating this conversational format into their marketing tech stack.

Chatbot marketing benefits

Chatbots help marketers streamline lead generation and sales growth processes by providing personalized and engaging customer service, qualifying prospects who fit criteria like job titles or regions, and nurturing customers through the sales funnel.

Additionally, many B2B marketers use chatbots to boost their social media communications to grow their business. For example, brands can save time and money by using chatbots to automate repetitive tasks, such as providing instant 24/7 support on social media channels or websites, collecting valuable customer feedback and product or service recommendations, creating a positive customer experience on platforms like LinkedIn, and tracking user behavior and preferences.

As a result, chatbots can help B2B marketers increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and resolve product or service issues to enhance a brand’s image over time.

Chatbot marketing implementation tips

Select the type of chatbot that best fits a sales organization’s B2B marketing strategy goals, frequent customer questions, and budget. For instance, rule-based chatbots are easier to set up and manage. However, their functionality is limited, and these chatbots cannot handle complex queries.

On the other hand, AI-based chatbots use artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) to understand user intent and context to better facilitate personalized conversations.

Hybrid chatbots combine the best of both rule-based and AI-based chatbot features. Still, marketers must carefully design and integrate chatbots with other tools to provide a seamless customer experience across all channels and platforms.

Set goals for the chatbot campaign and identify ways to track and measure performance. Research and specify B2B target audience needs and preferences. Customize the chatbot's content, tone, and personality to fit the brand’s voice and values.

Program a consistent language and style for all chatbot conversations, including specifications for what emojis, images, or videos to use to personalize chats. Test the chatbot often and monitor performance and customer feedback to ensure content accuracy.

What is digital marketing analytics?

Digital marketing analytics is the process of mining a B2B branded website or landing page’s backend analytics data. Marketers use these tools to optimize content on key pages and discover how customers found a branded site or landing page via search engines, traditional media, and other website referrals.

B2B marketers frequently use digital marketing tools like Google Analytics to track this information and identify popular keywords that initially drove prospective customers to the site to inform future SEM, SEO, and content marketing strategies.

Illustration of digital marketing analytics.

Web analytics marketing benefits

B2B marketers can use web analytics data to track user marketing funnel behaviors, such as abandoned or completed ecommerce checkout forms, to optimize the checkout funnel and maximize website conversions. This process is called conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Brands can also track how sales leads enter the funnel through the website and—with the help of integrated customer relationship management (CRM) systems—identify opportunities to nurture prospects into buying customers through content and email marketing strategies.

Marketers can install an Insight Tag on their websites to track sponsored content, LinkedIn Message Ads, and other digital ad leads and conversions. They can use demographic reporting to track their audience segments at the account, campaign group, campaign, and ad level in LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

Marketers are able to optimize digital marketing campaigns based on analytics insights about critical audiences that resonated with lead generation or conversion-based ads.

Web analytics marketing implementation tips

Start by selecting and signing up for a preferred analytics software solution. Follow instructions within the account admin to add the brand’s website or landing page as a trackable property. This involves adding the website URL and protocol (e.g., Http: or Https:).

The analytics solution provider will provide a tracking ID, a short line of code, or a tag that is added to the branded website’s HTML code. Most analytics platforms offer online tutorials to guide users through this process.

Once the analytics data starts to flow into the user account, B2B marketers can analyze key metrics to help them make better decisions around campaign planning and lead generation strategies.

Important metrics to track include: increase in ecommerce site conversions, email signups, content pages with high page views, website referrals from social media and search engines, or completed lead generation forms.

Organic and paid social media campaign strategies driving traffic to the website or landing page can be optimized using A/B testing software, which helps marketers determine which on-site copy and creative resonates and converts the most leads or paying customers.

Many website analytics solutions integrate with digital ad campaign analytics tools to help marketers capture deeper insights into how their ads perform on various platforms. Visit LinkedIn’s Campaign Reporting overview page to learn how to set up B2B advertising performance and ROI tracking online.

LinkedIn Digital Marketing Quick Guide

Digital Marketing Quick Guide

How to use digital marketing types in a B2B plan

Let’s review the steps needed to develop an overall B2B marketing plan incorporating multiple types of digital marketing channels or formats in its media mix.

Illustration of a to-do list for a B2B plan.

Step 1: Define target audiences

B2B marketers should develop buyer personas (or ideal customer profiles) and research their online behaviors. List their key demographics (e.g., age, job title, and geography) and psychographics (e.g., career interests, challenges, and specialized skills) before creating a campaign or media brief to share with key stakeholders.

In-house or digital advertising agency media buyers, copywriters, and graphic designers will use the brief to develop the campaign creative and media plan.

Step 2: Set a campaign objective

Be sure to define the campaign objective in the creative brief. Common B2B digital marketing objectives include building brand awareness, attracting new marketing-qualified leads, or converting new customers online.

Step 3: Select the right digital marketing platforms and media mix

Digital media planners and buyers using the campaign brief will select and plan for the best digital advertising platforms and formats to deliver the campaign message.

Download LinkedIn’s digital media planning template for ideas and help with launching a B2B social media marketing campaign for the first time.

Step 4: Develop digital marketing campaign creative

Work with design and copywriting teams at this stage to develop the creative campaign elements. Meanwhile, work through desired ad or content platforms to identify the best formats and design specifications to inform the types of creative needed for the campaign.

Step 5: Launch, track, and optimize campaigns

Once the creative is ready to post online, it’s time to launch and track campaigns on strategic digital marketing platforms. B2B marketers typically define key performance indicators (KPIs) for their campaigns at this point to track and measure each digital marketing strategy or initiative.

B2B marketers can set up their targeted LinkedIn ad campaigns based on their ideal audience segments in Campaign Manager. Refer to LinkedIn’s definitions page to review standard digital ad performance metrics to track and monitor. Also, consider using third-party tracking platforms, such as Moat. LinkedIn’s guide helps marketers learn more about third-party ad tracking.

Step 6: Build effective websites and landing pages

Many digital marketing types drive sales leads and prospective buyers to a website or landing page as part of an overall B2B campaign plan. After target customers click through social media posts or ads, these pages are essential for converting and convincing them to buy a product or service or sign up to receive content or newsletters to be nurtured throughout the sales funnel.

Digital website and landing page marketing are specialized types of marketing in and of themselves. Review LinkedIn’s Landing Page Guide for ideas on what to incorporate into key website pages to which ad or content marketing campaigns will drive target customers.

LinkedIn’s Call to Action (CTA) Guide also explains the key strategies that drive customer action via ads, social media posts, websites, and landing pages.

Using digital marketing types with LinkedIn

Digital marketing continues to be an important way for B2B brands to reach, engage, and convert sales leads and prospects into buyers and loyal customers. The types of digital marketing strategies described in this guide help marketers achieve their desired campaign objectives.

The choice of solutions depends on digital marketing campaign budgets and insights about where ideal target customers, or buyer personas, spend the most time online.

Each digital marketing type can play a significant role in an integrated online campaign at various points in a buyer’s purchase journey. Consider testing and using each as part of a B2B multi-channel marketing approach.

Visit our website to learn how to incorporate LinkedIn Ads – from text and display social media ads to Sponsored Content, Live-Event streaming videos, and Conversational InMail opportunities – into a multi-channel B2B digital marketing campaign.

Efficiently acquire new customers online with LinkedIn Ads

Learn more

Talk to a specialist now

Learn more about LinkedIn Ads

Get support

Advertising Advertising

How to get started