In B2B, be cautious not to rely solely on sponsored media. This is why, years down the road, content and SEO can lower CPLs.

It is possible to “buy” clients.

It turns out not very well in the long run.

Digital ads with direct response (similar to sponsored search) are some of the highest-converting channels available.

Like, forever. Across the annals of time.

Not to be laughed at. Look it up on Google.

It’s the best option available for spending money now to increase revenue later on. (Or perhaps in the ensuing two to three months.)

But here’s why: if you don’t exercise caution, you could be taking a hazardous path that raises your CPL in the long run.

1. Overly dependent on paid acquisition to achieve sustained growth

A couple of massively significant implicit issues arise when B2B marketers use paid media:

Long-term costs for auction-based networks, such as Google Ads, will continue to rise.
Ad spend optimization can be enhanced in the short term by A/B testing audiences, placements, creatives, graphics, scheduling, and other factors. Still, long-term control or reduction of ROI is improbable due to competitors’ ongoing bidding up of CPCs.
Part of the reason for this is that, at that point, there are only around 5% of “in-market” prospects, so you have to compete directly and fiercely for those few prospects (more on this in the following section).
Moreover, it becomes more costly to compete over time due to the Law of Shitty Clickthrough rates, which states that a channel’s performance and necessary minimum spend often decline over time.
Furthermore, sophisticated customers in intricate, consultative purchasing processes seldom “click and convert”; instead, they sometimes need to go through several advertising or funnels before giving you any money.

Examine any chart showing CPC and CPL expenses over the last ten years, not just one, and you’ll quickly notice a similar trend:

Over time, paid media (in recognized categories) rises.
Over time, reaction rates and click-through rates for creative ads frequently decrease.
As a result, your potential return on investment and profit margins decline over time.
This is also nothing new.

This very website has been demonizing B2B CPCs and decreased click-through rates since 2007!

It’s not that B2B marketers aren’t intelligent. The reverse is true. It’s merely that “click + convert” B2C sales are easily generated from low-priced, transactional transactions or impulse purchases.

2. Dependency on highly branded, in-market, bottom-of-the-funnel leads

It is rather evident when a B2B brand has “over-relied” on paid media for an extended period.

It looks like the top-heavy body builder who adores arm day but hides their poor foundation of glaringly oversized chicken legs with baggy jeans.

With SEO, though, it’s frequently the opposite.

What I mean is this:

Open your preferred keyword research tool, insert the URL of your website to obtain organic ranks, and let me know if any of these warning signs resonate with you:
One of the most visited pages on your website is your homepage.
This indicates that you should rely more on consumers aware of your brand while neglecting the other 95% of out-of-market consumers who may require your services in the coming months or years.
Your homepage is eating other non-branded searches on your site for commercial phrases (more on this old chestnut below).
It frequently indicates that the pages on your website intended to inform and convert visitors need more traffic.
And minimal to nonexistent MOFU or TOFU-associated top-five rankings that assist you in future-proofing your pipeline for years or reducing advertising expenses through more effective channel targeting.

3. Cannibalization of content structure mismatch and search purpose, resulting in low to non-profitable ranks

You should be able to see the waterfall impact of these errors by now.

The first issue causes the second, which in turn causes the third.

If ever there was a self-reinforcing negative spiral, this is it.

In the same way that a stressful job (yours!) causes you to shortcut healthy eating habits, which in turn causes you to lose energy and become sedentary, which in turn causes you to gain weight, which in turn causes you to eat worse, lead an even more sedentary lifestyle, and gain even more weight the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

This is how your website’s third error exacerbates the previous two.
“A lot of keywords” are ranking for your product page.

Hooray!

However, it needs to be genuinely appropriately tuned to target any of them.

Thus, it is unlikely (almost impossible) to rank in the top three for any of those keywords.

Put otherwise, your seemingly impressive rankings are deceiving you.

Based on SERP CTR averages, you won’t likely see more than 5% of the traffic. Alternatively, it is insufficient to “move the needle” and encourage the bean counters to increase your budget.

In summary

For generating B2B leads, paid media is quite effective.

But there’s more to the issue than that.

If you solely depend on sponsored media and ignore everything else, you’ll eventually be on a slippery slope with a more significant cost per lead.

It takes up most of the marketing budget, encourages salespeople to be lazy by only expecting leads with a credit card, and gives your executives the impression that they can keep underfunding every other aspect of your business.
And if and when you try to jumpstart the SEO and content farming process that you ought to have been performing years earlier, the consequences are abruptly devastating.

With time, all marketing channels become more competitive and advanced. Consequently, their costs increase.

In contrast to most marketing channels, SEO and content done well can lower CPL in five to ten years.

But only if you make sound investments today.

If you’re still having trouble understanding everything, check out our monthly SEO packages and let the professionals assist you.