Why Digital B2B Advertising Is Essential for Your Business

In today’s digitally connected workplace environment, B2B buyers spend only 17% of their purchase journey interacting with sales representatives. An estimated 50-90% of purchasing decisions are debated and finalized before C-suite executives, owners/partners,  ITDMs, or other decision makers initiate contact. 

Since 95% of buyers aren’t actively looking to purchase specific products or services at any given time, most advertising strategies center around brand awareness, audience-relevant messaging, and lead generation—goals best achieved through digital B2B advertising.

Brands reluctant to invest in this technology risk the potentially detrimental effects of missed opportunities, stagnant growth, and being overshadowed by the competition. But it’s never too late to start. 

After reviewing a few of the many reasons digital advertising, in general, is a business essential, you’ll also want to consider how investing in a digital channel that displays your ads in high-value locations during the workday alongside audience-relevant content—content that your target audience engages with multiple times each day—makes your investment even more valuable.

Exploring the Advantages: Why Digital B2B Advertising Is Known to Make an Impact

The success of any advertising strategy requires ad placement in the channels where they’ll have the most impact. Today’s corporate decision makers compare the advantages of products and services for their businesses at the office. Affluent professionals finalize travel arrangements between appointments from their phones. Executives network through various social media platforms.

Related: Modernizing  B2B Marketing to Connect with Hard-to-Reach Professionals

Since most internet users are connected about seven hours each day, market analysts expect digital ad spend to jump to more than $298 billion in 2024 and nearly $325 billion in 2025, numbers suggesting that investing in digital B2B advertising is a sound business decision with significant advantages. Of those many noteworthy benefits, the following examples are considered among the most impactful.

Precise Targeting Capabilities

Although trade magazines, industry publications, and direct mail help you reach a relatively targeted audience, it’s nearly impossible to ensure you’re getting consistent value from your advertising spend because you’re investing in channels that lack precision. Adding the right digital advertising to your B2B media strategy optimizes your targeting capabilities.

As a B2B advertiser on a digital channel, you may leverage complex algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of your ad placement based on the websites your target visits, the topics they search, and the content they engage with—elements that ensure you’re reaching your target in spaces that are audience relevant.

Advertiser Flexibility and Control

Once offline ads are printed or broadcast, they can’t be altered or optimized. Error corrections and updates are costly. Creating and submitting a completely new ad is probably your only option. With their long lead-in times for production and scheduling, there’s no way to respond to market changes in time to course-correct or retain control over where and when your ads are distributed.

As a digital advertiser, you have at least one media channel where you can edit or alter images, change videos, and adjust the layouts of your ads at will. After making changes, your ads may be able to go live almost immediately. Depending on the media publisher you select, you could also have the option of adjusting your daily spending limits if necessary or changing direction if your message is not resonating as expected.  

Cost-Effective Diversification

The traditional advertising channels some of today’s most successful brands have relied on for decades require a considerable investment. There’s the expense associated with production and distribution. There’s also the cost of purchasing airtime, bleed ads, or radio spots. But routinely increasing ad spend across limited advertising channels to keep pace with the competition can be counterproductive, less efficient—and even risky.

If you’re feeling the strain of investing in channels that aren’t achieving the consistent returns you’ve enjoyed in the past, it is time to start diversifying your media investment strategy. Supplementing the impact of big-budget legacy channels with digital advertising is a cost-effective way to achieve that goal. You’ll find that the combination of online and offline strategies is more impactful than utilizing either option on its own.  

Lead Generation and Sales Team Support  

A robust lead generation strategy is crucial for maintaining a healthy sales pipeline and driving sustainable growth. Traditional methods like cold calling, networking events, and referrals can only take businesses so far. By incorporating B2B advertising into their marketing mix, brands can unlock a powerful tool to complement and amplify their existing lead generation efforts.

The right digital advertising platforms offer unparalleled targeting capabilities, allowing you to reach ideal corporate decision-makers with laser precision. Through data-driven insights, you can identify and target specific industries, companies, job titles, company sizes, and even locations, ensuring that your client’s message is most effectively targeting the right audience. 

This targeted approach not only increases the quality of leads for the brands you represent but also maximizes the efficiency of marketing spend, reducing wasted efforts on irrelevant prospects.

How B2B Brands Are Overcoming Challenges and Reaping the Rewards of Digital B2B Advertising

With B2B buyers spending significant sums during working hours, B2B advertisers need effective ways of reaching professional audiences where and when important purchasing decisions are made. Although digital advertising offers a cost-effective path to highly targeted ad placement, many B2B brands have yet to invest in digital spaces.

Related: The Essentials of B2B Digital Advertising: Strategies for Success

For some, the decision to allocate the entirety of their budget to offline advertising is based on the notion that their target audience is more traditional—less tech-savvy. Others feel that digital advertising has too many obstacles to ensure a favorable ROI: consumer scrolling habits, limited attention spans, and ad-blocking software, for example. 

They’re raising valid points. Of the many impressions vying for views, only 4% get more than a single second of attention, and 42% of internet users have ad-blocking software installed on their computers, tablets, and smartphones. 

The good news? There’s much more to digital advertising than a cluttered online space. If you’ve been letting those (or similar) concerns keep you from advertising online, consider investing in an alternative that overcomes those challenges by merging the advantages of digital ad placement with a channel unaffected by ad-blockers or consumer scrolling habits: digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens.

How B2B Advertising on DOOH Screens Drives Business Growth

While traditional digital advertising channels like banner ads, sponsored content, and social media campaigns remain essential for reaching B2B buyers, forward-thinking brands are increasingly recognizing the powerful potential of digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising. 

By leveraging DOOH screens strategically placed in high-traffic commercial properties, such as office lobbies, elevators, and common areas, businesses can capture the undivided attention of their target audience in a captive, yet premium environment. 

By partnering with the right DOOH media network provider, you can harness the power of contextual relevance, ensuring your B2B ads are delivered to the right decision-makers in ideal B2B-specific locations while also fostering brand awareness and creating positive brand associations. Your B2B ads broadcast only in locations that make sense for your brands, based on highly refined targeting parameters like industry, company size, annual revenues, job titles, and geographic locations. Here are some key ways the magic happens.

Professionally Curated Programming

Digital advertising is more impactful when viewers enjoy watching the screens broadcasting your B2B ads. In premium locations nationwide, top-tier media network partners amplify the impact of their digital displays with an expertly curated programming mix that your target audience values: content that includes reliable, brand-safe business news reports, stock market indices, real-time transit updates, weather reports, health information, and more.

Custom Collaborations and Dynamic Integrations

High-value media network providers have a dedicated team of professionals available to collaborate on content customization and dynamic ad integrations—everything from a b2b specific content series, stock market triggered creative strategy or gamification. Having the option of adding something as simple as a  QR code to your digital ad can encourage viewer engagement by providing instant access to your product pages, retail website, or contact information.

A Brand-Safe Environment

Keeping influential, B2B audiences captivated as they come and go throughout the day is of little value if advertisers are negatively impacted by competitor ads, factually questionable reports, or unverified data. The best media publishers ensure your brand is protected by an editorial staff working across multiple time zones to provide programming from world-class, trustworthy content, meaning your ads display in a brand-safe environment.

Discover How Advertising on DOOH Digital Screens in Premium Locations Will Benefit Your Brand

Some of today’s most successful b2b advertisers influence the purchasing decisions of C-suite executives, corporate gatekeepers, and other influential business professionals from digital screens installed in workplace lobbies, elevators, and other high-impact common areas. Their investments help build brand awareness, create positive associations, generate leads, and drive sales.

With the right media partner, you’ll have a cost-effective digital channel that merges the advantages of online and offline advertising. To explore the benefits of integrating our contextually relevant, expertly curated programming into your B2B advertising strategy, visit Captivate to see our screens in action. To continue the conversation, submit a contact form. Ready to get started?