SUMMARY: In B2C e-commerce, retargeting is the channel with the highest interaction rates. In B2B it is hardly used so far. Read in this article how your B2B company can use the potential of retargeting to build valuable reach for your content marketing and generate more relevant leads. We evaluate your individual challenges in a free expert call.

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About Leadvolution

Leadvolution is one of the most experienced social media B2B marketers in Europe with over 140 advertising setups for fast growing startups, exciting SMEs and over 25 global market leaders. Within 4-6 weeks we build a globally scalable social media lead generation for very specific & complex B2B target groups for clients, generating up to 500 leads/month. Read More

About Leadvolution

Leadvolution is one of the most experienced social media B2B marketers in Europe with over 140 advertising setups for fast growing startups, exciting SMEs and over 25 global market leaders. Within 4-6 weeks we build a globally scalable social media lead generation for very specific & complex B2B target groups for clients, generating up to 500 leads/month. Read More

The "B2B Paradox": More than 90 percent of all B2B companies do not take advantage of their most valuable target group

If a sales manager sees that an employee is not following up on a prospect, he gets angry. If, on the other hand, someone leaves the company website they just visited, it is considered perfectly normal that they are never proactively contacted again. In both cases, however, it is basically about taking a prospect by the hand and leading them further towards the purchase decision.

This difference in behavior is paradoxical. From a technical point of view, reaching website visitors again is nowadays easily possible with the help of freely available tools and, if implemented properly, is harmless from a data protection point of view.

With retargeting, visitors with whom you have had digital contact can be reached again at a later point in time

Retargeting (often named remarketing – then mostly in connection with Google Ads) has been used successfully in the B2C sector for a very long time. The term refers to the digital marking of users in order to be able to reach them again afterwards. This can happen at different touchpoints, for example when visiting your website, watching one of your videos or staying on your social media corporate page.

A wide variety of people are hidden behind these actions – including interested prospects who just haven’t made themselves known yet, or persons who are already in the sales process or existing customers. Retargeting is the most valuable digital target group for your content marketing – no other will deliver better performance. By the way, not only in marketing, but also for employer branding or partner marketing, for example.

More than 90 percent of all classic B2B companies have not yet set up retargeting technically. These companies irretrievably lose valuable prospects every day. This is because they can only mark visitors and address them again with campaigns from the time of implementation. Would you like to check your current setup? You are welcome to arrange a free expert consultation with us here.

Retargeting offers attractive content advertising across many exciting digital channels

With low media budgets of a few hundred euros per month, you can use retargeting campaigns to proactively reach a highly attractive target group that is usually many times larger than your newsletter coverage, for example. The unique quality of the target group will significantly increase the available relevant outreach for your expensively produced content and leads to a tangible increase in the number of leads.

Depending on the occasion and goal, you can choose from a wide variety of digital advertising platforms with many attractive content formats, such as:

  • LinkedIn (sponsored posts, newsfeed ads)
  • Facebook / Instagram (sponsored posts, newsfeed ads, chat)
  • Google Display (ads on websites)
  • YouTube (content videos and trailers)
  • Twitter (relevant for USA business)
  • etc.

Retargeting reaches all purchase decision makers on the customer side

Many B2B companies lack an actionable concept on how to reach prospects in a scalable way during the customer journey beyond email and phone. Retargeting offers the perfect target group for an “Always on” communication: Besides the already mentioned higher reach than any newsletter and the many potential exciting content formats, the possibility of a comparatively high contact frequency is also very important to mention.

Even if a well-maintained CRM is in place (and this is usually not the case), companies often only know a fraction of the people involved with the customer personally with contact details. This is why companies cannot communicate with the other, equally important, but unknown persons via the classic channels such as email and telephone.

With retargeting, you reach a large part of all the decision-makers relevant to you on the customer side (the so-called “buying center”), as they usually look at your website at least once. Alternatively, you can also proactively address the relevant job positions/functions at all existing client companies via so-called LinkedIn Matched Audiences, even without them having visited your website.

Retargeting is therefore the perfect channel for cross- & upselling and can ensure attractive additional sales in the service sector. And especially in periods of low investment when fewer new machines are purchased.

How exactly does retargeting work technically?

To answer this question, we need to take a closer look – because there are two different approaches:

  • Website retargeting means reaching website visitors again and has to be implemented individually for each advertising platform (LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, etc.). In this case, a script supplied by the advertising platform is installed on the website, which sets a cookie when the page is called up after corresponding consent via a consent banner or (with Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn) alternatively also determines the ID of the user with the respective provider. If the user is recognized at a later time on the basis of this cookie or ID, you can deliver appropriate advertising campaigns to him or her. As a result, B2B companies can then reach website visitors via many advertising platforms with a wide variety of formats.
  • On-platform retargeting means reaching social media users again who have had certain touchpoints with you, such as watching a video, following your page or even opening a form. This does not require the confirmation of a cookie notice, as the responsibility initially lies with the respective network. That is why the recognition rate is 100 percent and target groups can be built much faster. In return, reachability is only possible on the same platform – i.e., after someone has watched a video on LinkedIn, they cannot be reached on Google.

The prerequisite for retargeting campaigns is a minimum target group size of several 100 up to 1,000 people. B2B companies must first build up these visitor volumes, which is why retargeting can often only be used in a scalable and meaningful way in combination with campaigns to acquire new customers.

B2B companies that have not yet set up retargeting technically are irretrievably losing valuable prospects every single day. Because only from the moment of implementation can they mark visitors and address them again with campaigns. Would you like to check your current setup? Feel free to contact us for a free expert evaluation.

Retargeting has been common practice for a long time in terms of data protection

A common question is “Is this allowed in terms of data protection?”. The answer is “yes” – if you formulate your data protection declaration clearly and implement the cookie notice (the information window which initially informs about the use of cookies on websites) in such a way that retargeting scripts are only played after confirmation.

In B2C companies, retargeting has already been common practice for several years and is used without being discussed any further – although in the B2C area the jurisdiction is much tougher than in the B2B area. Paradoxically, in the B2B sector the concerns about its use are usually much higher.

Simply request a free expert consultation:

Together with you, we will evaluate individual retargeting potential and possible complementary content approaches for lead generation for your company.

    Hannes Fehr: Leading Expertise in B2B.

    • 20+ years experience in digital business. Leading positions in media companies (e.g. Tomorrow Focus, Gruner+Jahr etc.) and serial entrepreneur.
    • One of the most experienced German marketers for B2B lead generation.
    • Over 70 B2B Marketing setups for fast growing B2B startups as well as for large B2B enterprises > 2bn € turnover.
    • Official B2B Marketing Guide, B2B Dinner host & speaker @Online Marketing Rockstars, Host & Speaker @Hannover Messe B2B Marketing Executive Dinner series, Official “XING Insider” for B2B Marketing.
    • Marketing & BizDev Mentor at several high-class startup-accelerators (e.g. Google, Microsoft, Axel Springer, Telekom etc.).
    Connect on LinkedIn & request a FREE expert call