Where Does Paid Media Actually Work for Enterprise B2B?
Scott Schnaars
Where Does Paid Media Actually Work for Enterprise B2B?
Enterprise paid media is a different job than mid-market paid media. The channels are similar. Everything else is different.
A recent discussion in the Exit Five community (https://www.exitfive.com/community) about enterprise paid confirmed the core challenge: the metrics that worked at your last company might not work here. Not because the tactics are wrong, but because the buying motion is fundamentally different.
At mid-market, you might optimize for cost-per-lead because a single champion can often move a deal forward. At enterprise, the champion is rarely the decision-maker, and the deal requires sign-off from people who may have never seen your ad.
How to calibrate your paid program for enterprise:
- Extend your measurement window to match your actual sales cycle. If deals take six months, your attribution should look back at least that far
- Track influenced pipeline, not just sourced pipeline. An ad that warmed an economic buyer in month three of a deal matters even if it never generated a form fill
- Prioritize channels that let you target by company and role simultaneously. LinkedIn is expensive but hard to replace for this specific need at enterprise scale
- Use frequency strategically. Enterprise buyers are busy. Being the brand they have seen consistently when the RFP opens is worth more than a single high-engagement touchpoint from three months prior
The enterprise paid media program that works is not necessarily the most sophisticated. It is the one that accounts for the buying motion your customers actually go through.
Yirla helps you connect paid touchpoints to enterprise pipeline so influence becomes visible. (https://www.yirla.com/en/platform)
