PPC for Manufacturers & Best Practices

Securing new customers for your manufacturing business can be a daunting task. The manufacturing industry is characterized by long sales cycles, high competition, and a need for precision in every aspect of operations. Traditional marketing methods may not always yield the desired results, which is where Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising comes into play.

PPC is a powerful tool for manufacturing marketers, offering precise targeting, measurable results, and the ability to capture high-quality leads. By using PPC effectively, manufacturing businesses can overcome key challenges, reach their target audience, and drive meaningful growth.

What is PPC Advertising in Manufacturing?

PPC advertising, or pay-per-click, is a paid search strategy where you only pay when a user clicks on your ad. This model ensures cost-efficiency by focusing your budget on actual interactions, not just impressions (showing up in search results).

For manufacturers, PPC offers a way to directly connect with decision-makers—whether they are engineers, procurement officers, or C-suite executives—at the exact moment they are searching for solutions. By bidding on relevant keywords and creating highly targeted ads, you can position your business at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) when prospects are actively seeking products or services you offer.

This precision targeting allows you to capture leads at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to decision-making, making PPC a vital component of any manufacturing marketing strategy.

Are PPC and Paid Media The Same?

Oftentimes, the terms PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and Paid Media are used interchangeably, but they are not entirely synonymous.

Here's a breakdown of the distinctions and overlap:

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

• Refers specifically to the advertising model where you pay only when a user clicks on your ad.

• Primarily associated with platforms like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and certain types of paid social media advertising.

• Focuses on driving direct action, such as clicks to a website, lead forms, or downloads.

• Often categorized as a subset of Paid Media.

Paid Media

• A broader term encompassing all types of paid advertising, including PPC, Display Ads, Programmatic Advertising, Social Media Ads, and even traditional forms like sponsorships or native ads.

• Includes various pricing models beyond pay-per-click, such as pay-per-impression (CPM), pay-per-conversion (CPA), and pay-per-view (in video advertising).

• Encompasses both direct response campaigns (like PPC) and brand-building campaigns (like video ads or awareness-driven campaigns).

While PPC is a vital component of Paid Media, Paid Media encompasses a much wider range of advertising strategies and pricing models. Now that we got that covered, let’s dig into the benefits and strategies that manufacturers can achieve through PPC or Paid Search.

Benefits of PPC for Manufacturers

1. Targeted Reach

PPC enables manufacturers to target specific keywords related to their products and services, ensuring their ads appear in front of highly relevant audiences. For example:

• Industry-Specific Keywords: Ads for "industrial-grade 3D printers" or "custom metal fabrication solutions" can attract users with high purchase intent.

• Geotargeting: Reach customers in specific regions where your products are most in demand.

• Device Targeting: Focus on desktop or mobile users, depending on how your target audience conducts searches.

• Audience Layering: Layer in relevant audiences, as offered by Google or Microsoft ads, to further refine your targeting, giving the platforms more signals to optimize against. For example, if you’re marketing for a manufacturing business, you can layer in-market audiences such as “manufacturing jobs” if you’re running a recruitment campaign or “business & industrial products” if you’re running a product or service campaign.

With any PPC strategy, continuous testing is important to any success. There are many elements you can test across PPC campaigns, including but not limited to:

• Keyword Grouping and Match Types

• Landing Pages

• Ad Copy

• Bidding Strategy

By experimenting and identifying what works, you’ll improve your ROI over time. It’s important to allow the algorithms behind these platforms sufficient time to learn and optimize. Avoid pulling the plug too early—typically, for new campaigns, I recommend waiting 4-6 weeks before making major changes (except for adjustments like adding negative keywords, refining audiences, or reallocating budgets).

2. Cost Control and Budget Flexibility

PPC offers complete control over your advertising budget, allowing manufacturers to align spending with their specific goals. Budgets across PPC channels can be set on a daily or monthly basis, and you can choose between allocating a shared budget across multiple campaigns or assigning campaign-specific budgets to prioritize certain keywords or audiences. For example, if you know decision-makers are going to be searching for a certain product during a certain month, you can increase the budget for just one month and then return to normal the next.

Paid platforms such as Google Ads, for example, leverage AI to optimize your ad spend. Google’s algorithms analyze buyer signals—such as search intent, browsing behavior, and conversion likelihood—to dynamically allocate budget toward high-performing keywords and audiences. This ensures your campaigns focus on prospects most likely to convert, maximizing ROI while keeping you within your monthly allocation.

To get the most out of your PPC campaigns, it’s important (and here’s where I emphasize the importance of testing!) to continuously experiment and refine your bidding strategies over time. Most platforms offer a variety of bidding options designed to cater to different objectives, allowing you to tailor your approach over time, rather than “setting it and forgetting it”.

Below are a few examples that we see perform well with many of our B2B clients:

• Target CPA (cost-per-acquisition): Focus on generating leads or conversions at a predetermined cost.

• Maximize Conversions: Allow the platform to use AI to prioritize budget allocation for the highest number of conversions (or likely leads in your case).

• Target ROAs (return on ad spend): If you have a profit margin on your products, or have a value of a lead you’d like to associate, you can use tROAS to ensure your campaigns are acquiring customers at a profitable cost.

💡Check out how to calculate your Google Ads (or Microsoft Ads) search budgets to find your account spending opportunity here.

3. Measurable, Immediate Results and Insights

One of the greatest advantages of PPC is the ability to track and analyze campaign performance in real-time. Manufacturing marketers can measure important metrics such as clicks, impressions, qualified leads, and other KPIs, providing a clear and actionable understanding of ROI. This data-driven approach enables continuous testing, refinement, and optimization to ensure your campaigns consistently deliver results.

For example, in a paid search campaign, you can identify the specific keywords driving account-qualified leads. If these high-performing keywords are not ranking organically, your team may need to maintain a paid presence at the top of search results for a period. However, if your paid media and SEO teams collaborate effectively, this performance data can be shared. The SEO team can then optimize your website content to rank for those top-performing terms organically. Over time, this synergy allows you to reduce dependency on paid campaigns for those keywords, reallocating the budget to other high-value keywords.

💡See more integrated ways to reach your B2B Manufacturing audience leveraging SEO and PPC.

4. Competitive Advantage

PPC through Paid Search offers manufacturers a significant advantage in competitive markets by ensuring your business stays highly visible when prospects are actively searching for solutions. Here’s how Paid Search can help you outpace competitors:

• Prime Visibility: Paid Search ads appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), often above organic listings. This ensures your brand is seen first, especially for high-value, high-intent keywords.

• Targeting Competitor Keywords: Paid Search allows you to bid on competitor brand names, enabling your ads to appear when prospects search for alternatives. This strategy helps redirect traffic to your business while highlighting your unique value proposition.

• Real-Time Adjustments: Unlike static traditional marketing, Paid Search campaigns can be quickly adjusted to reflect shifts in demand, new product launches, or evolving market trends.

• Cost-Efficient Testing: Paid Search enables rapid testing of keywords, messaging, and landing pages, allowing you to refine campaigns and outperform competitors who might not leverage these insights.

• Localized Targeting: With geotargeting, you can dominate search visibility in specific regions, making it easier to win market share in areas critical to your business operations.

By staying agile and leveraging Paid Search strategically, manufacturers can maintain a strong presence in competitive markets and attract high-intent customers at key decision-making moments.

PPC Strategies and Best Practices for B2B Manufacturers

To make the most of your PPC efforts in the manufacturing industry, consider these actionable tips to optimize your campaigns:

1. Focus on High-Intent Keywords

Identify keywords that indicate strong purchase intent, such as "buy industrial equipment" or "request a quote for [product]." Use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Microsoft Advertising Keyword Planner Tools to find relevant terms with high search volume and low competition. I recommend a mix of tools, so Semrush and Ahrefs are a couple of other tools I use, though they are paid resources.

2. Leverage Negative Keywords

Avoid wasting ad spend by excluding irrelevant search queries through the use of negative keywords. For instance, a manufacturer of heavy-duty equipment might exclude terms like "DIY" or "cheap" to ensure their ads are shown only to qualified prospects. Negative keywords can be applied at the campaign level or account level, depending on your strategy.

When using account-level negative keywords, take care to ensure they won’t inadvertently block potential traffic for future campaigns. Regularly reviewing and updating your negative keyword list is a best practice to avoid unintentional restrictions that could prevent your ads from running effectively. This proactive approach helps maintain campaign efficiency and ensures your budget is spent on the right audience.

3. Optimize Ad Copy for Your Audience

Create ad copy that speaks directly to the pain points and needs of your target audience. Highlight unique selling points, such as fast lead times, custom capabilities, or ISO certifications.

4. Use Asset Extensions

Enhance your ads with extensions like sitelinks (additional links to pages on your site), callouts (unique selling points), and structured snippets (categories like product types or services). These provide more information and increase the likelihood of clicks.

5. Align Landing Pages with Ads

Ensure your landing pages match the intent of your ads. If your ad promotes a specific product, the landing page should provide detailed information about that product, along with a clear call-to-action like "Request a Quote" or "Download a Spec Sheet."

6. Monitor and Optimize Regularly

PPC campaigns require ongoing analysis and optimizations to ensure consistent performance and ROI.

Here are some actions you can take:

• Analyze Key Metrics: Regularly track click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-lead (CPL), and conversion rate to identify trends and optimize performance. Bring in CRM data to understand the quality of the lead, not just the quantity of the leads these campaigns are generating.

• Pause Underperforming Keywords: Stop spending on keywords that fail to generate conversions or have high costs with low returns.

• Test Ad Variations: Experiment with new headlines, descriptions, and CTAs to improve engagement and identify what resonates with your audience.

• Adjust Bids Strategically: Increase bids on high-converting keywords while reducing spend on underperforming ones. Automated bidding strategies like Target CPA can help.

• Refine Targeting: Use performance insights to adjust geographic, device, or audience targeting for better alignment with your ideal customer.

• Retarget Prospects: Re-engage users who interacted with your ads but didn’t convert by creating tailored retargeting campaigns, regularly called RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) campaigns.

• Integrate Search Strategies: Share your paid data with your SEO counterparts. It’s likely your date can help inform their search strategy. Over time, you may start to rank organically for high-value keywords so you can then focus your budget on other areas of your business.

By regularly monitoring performance and making data-driven tweaks, you can drive ROI and ensure your campaigns stay competitive and effective.

Ready to Get Started with PPC for Your Manufacturing Business?

PPC advertising allows manufacturing marketers to connect with their target audience precisely when they’re actively searching for your products or services. By appearing at this stage of the buyer’s journey, you position your brand as the solution to their needs at the right time.

Whether you’re looking to generate high-quality leads, increase brand visibility, or gain a competitive edge, PPC is a great tool for manufacturers. With its ability to deliver measurable results, precise targeting, and immediate results, PPC can enhance your marketing strategy and drive growth.

Ready to take your manufacturing marketing to the next level? Let us help you craft a PPC strategy customized to your goals.