What is the difference between B2B and B2C advertising?
The channels look alike, but the way people buy is very different. You see that in almost every part of a campaign.
| B2B advertising | B2C advertising | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Organisations, with several decision makers | Individual consumers |
| Buying process | Rational and staged, often months | Shorter, more often impulsive |
| Order value | High, often with long-term contracts | Low to medium, per purchase |
| Channels | LinkedIn, Google Search, email, AI search | Social media, display, marketplaces |
| Conversion goal | Enquiry, demo or meeting | Direct purchase |
| Content | Proof, figures, cases, risk reduction | Experience, brand, price and convenience |
A B2B process takes time. According to the 6sense B2B Buyer Experience Report, the average buying cycle in 2025 was just over ten months. B2B markets also have few customers. B2B International notes that 100 or fewer customers often make the difference to revenue.
The Digital Marketing Institute distinguishes four types of B2B markets:
- Producers: companies that use your product or service to make something themselves.
- Resellers: wholesalers and retailers that sell your offer on.
- Governments: national, regional and local public bodies.
- Institutions: healthcare, education and non-profit organisations.
Rational does not mean unemotional. B2B International refers to a 2019 study in which emotional connection with a brand explained 56 percent of the purchase decision. Trust in the supplier matters, because the buyer is accountable for the choice inside their organisation.
How do you reach the full buying group in B2B marketing?
A business purchase is rarely made by one person. According to Gartner, a complex B2B purchase involves six to ten decision makers. Together they form the decision making unit, or DMU. The most common roles are:
- Economic buyer: releases the budget and wants to know the return.
- User: will work with the solution every day and looks at ease of use and time saved.
- Champion: drives the process internally and needs arguments for colleagues.
- Blocker: raises objections from IT, legal or procurement.
Each role has different questions. So you address them separately: the economic buyer with a business case, the user with a demo and the blocker with certifications and documentation. The goal is to give the whole team enough confidence to say yes.
That team covers most of the journey without you. Gartner found that buyers spend only 17 percent of their time talking to potential suppliers. The rest of the time they read, compare and discuss internally. A sharp ideal customer profile tells you which roles need attention in that phase.
Which channels work for B2B advertising in 2026?
No single channel covers the whole journey. Results come when channels complement each other: one builds awareness, another captures demand and a third keeps the contact warm.
LinkedIn Ads
On LinkedIn you target by job title, seniority, industry and company size. That lets you reach the DMU roles at a predefined list of companies. According to Dreamdata's benchmarks, 41 percent of paid B2B budgets goes to LinkedIn. You can read how we set this up on our page about LinkedIn advertising for B2B.
LinkedIn also works for building awareness beyond current demand. Research by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, cited by B2B International, shows that only about 5 percent of business buyers are in the market at any given time. The other 95 percent buy later, and often pick a name they already know.
Google Search
Where LinkedIn creates demand, Google Search captures existing demand. Someone searching for a supplier or a comparison has a concrete need. Careful keyword selection keeps budget away from consumers and students. Our page on Google Ads for B2B explains how to capture that search demand.
Generative engine optimization
More and more business buyers start their research in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews. According to 6sense, 94 percent of B2B buyers used generative AI during the buying process in 2025. An analysis by MarketScale of more than 500,000 AI answers shows that about a quarter of those answers name a brand.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) makes sure your brand shows up in those answers. That takes factual content with your own figures and definitions, mentions on external sources and a website that is technically easy to find. GEO does not replace SEO, it extends it. Read more in our article on SEO in the AI era.
Retargeting and nurturing
According to 6sense, buyers complete 61 percent of their journey on average before they first contact a supplier. During that time they visit your website several times. Retargeting on LinkedIn and Google, plus an email flow with cases and white papers, keeps you in view. With marketing automation in HubSpot you base that follow-up on behaviour rather than a fixed schedule.
What should a B2B landing page contain?
The landing page turns ad budget into enquiries. In B2B, that page has to give visitors enough information to defend the choice internally.
Building proof
Business buyers take a personal risk when they pick the wrong supplier. Proof reduces that risk. Think of:
- case studies with measurable results;
- logos of well-known clients;
- reviews on independent platforms;
- ISO certifications, quality marks and information on security and privacy.
Low-threshold conversion points
Not every visitor is ready for a quote. So offer conversion points that match the stage someone is in:
- Exploring: a white paper, checklist or benchmark report.
- Considering: an ROI calculator or a free scan.
- Deciding: a demo, introductory meeting or quote request.
An ROI calculator is often valuable, because the result is directly useful for the economic buyer.
B2B copywriting
Good B2B copy describes what a solution means for the organisation. The buyer wants to know which risk gets smaller, how much time it saves and how implementation works. Concrete, verifiable wording works better than superlatives. You lay that foundation when you have your website built.
What does B2B advertising cost, and what does it deliver?
Costs depend on the industry, competition on the channel and what you count as a lead. Public benchmarks with Dutch figures are scarce. International studies do give an indication, but absolute amounts in the Netherlands may differ.
In WordStream's Google Ads benchmarks for 2025, the average cost per lead for business services came to about €93, converted at the ECB rate of 28 October 2026. For industrial and commercial it was about €77. These are click costs within Google Ads only: content, tools and sales follow-up come on top.
European price information mostly covers outsourced prospecting. Lead Matrix, a Luxembourg-based prospecting provider, lists market prices based on French price comparisons from 2025 and 2026. Under a pay-per-meeting model, that overview puts the price at €200 to €350 per qualified meeting. That concerns outbound prospecting rather than advertising, but it gives a European reference point for what a sales meeting costs.
Conversion rates of B2B landing pages
The Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report, based on more than 41,000 landing pages, shows a median conversion rate of 6.6 percent. For SaaS it is 3.8 percent. In WordStream's data, Google Ads traffic for business services converts at 5.14 percent on average. A conversion rate between 3 and 7 percent is therefore a realistic starting point for a B2B landing page.
Cost per lead says little about what a lead is worth. A cheap lead that never becomes a client costs more than an expensive lead that often turns into a contract. So also measure how many leads lead to a sales meeting and how many of those become clients. Our article on calculating marketing ROI explains how to turn that into a return figure.
How we approach B2B advertising at Art of Advertising
We work for B2B companies with high order values and long sales processes. With our clients we start from the ideal customer profile, and only then look at channels. We judge campaigns on meetings and deals, not clicks.
One example is Templari Benelux. We redrew the ideal customer profile and combined LinkedIn and Google Ads. For sales intelligence we used Leadinfo.
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Should you outsource B2B marketing or keep it in-house?
An in-house B2B marketer knows the product and the organisation well and is always available. Effective B2B marketing does call for several specialisms: campaign management, SEO and GEO, copywriting, landing pages, data analysis and marketing automation. You rarely find that combination in one person.
A specialised agency brings those disciplines together and has comparison material from several sectors. Many organisations choose a middle way: strategy and ownership in-house, execution and optimisation outside. Our page on outsourcing online marketing explains what that looks like in practice.
B2B marketing works when channels, pages and sales work together
B2B marketing is about a team that decides carefully and does most of its research alone. You reach that team with channels that reinforce each other, landing pages that provide proof and insight into what a lead is really worth. Get the basics of B2B marketing right as well, and you build a predictable flow of enquiries step by step.
