When a business selling to other businesses decides to invest in advertising, the conversation usually lands in the same place within minutes: LinkedIn. It makes sense, it's the network where people are in professional mode and where you can target by job title, sector or company size. The problem is everyone else has figured out the same logic, and that has driven cost per click up to levels that, for many small businesses, no longer add up.
LinkedIn is a valid tool, but not the only one, and in many cases not even the most profitable. The people making buying decisions at a company (managers, directors, purchasing leads) don't live exclusively on LinkedIn: they also search on Google, watch videos on YouTube, read technical articles, listen to industry podcasts and, yes, also use Instagram and Facebook, even if outside working hours.
Google Ads: the most underrated route in B2B
When a purchasing manager has a specific problem to solve, the first thing they do, in the vast majority of cases, is search for it on Google. "Fleet management software for transport company", "biodegradable industrial packaging supplier": these searches carry very clear purchase intent and, compared with LinkedIn, usually come with a noticeably lower cost per click, precisely because fewer B2B companies compete there in a sophisticated way. The key lies in working long-tail keywords well (specific searches of three or more words), where competition is lower and intent is more precise than with generic one- or two-word terms.
YouTube: where technical doubts get resolved before hiring
Before hiring a service or buying equipment with a certain amount of complexity, it's common for the decision-maker to look for videos explaining how it works, comparisons or use cases. YouTube works very well in B2B for this kind of content (product demos, recorded webinars, customer testimonials), with a cost per view that's usually a fraction of LinkedIn's cost per click, although the goal here tends to be more about education and consideration than immediate conversion.
Meta Ads: yes, it works for B2B too
It sounds counterintuitive because Facebook and Instagram have a reputation as consumer platforms, but targeting by professional interests, job title and sector exists there too, and cost per click is usually noticeably lower than on LinkedIn. It works especially well for B2B businesses with a mid-range ticket (not the six-figure enterprise contract, but faster-decision services and products: software for small businesses, accounting services, professional training), where the decision process doesn't necessarily need LinkedIn's ultra-professional context.
Programmatic advertising and display networks on specialised media
Many sectors have their own go-to media (digital sector magazines, specialised portals, trade newsletters) that sell ad space directly or through programmatic networks. Advertising there puts your brand in front of an audience already filtered by professional interest in your sector, at a cost that in many cases is lower than competing on a mass platform where you have to pay the premium for fine targeting.
Email marketing and remarketing: the channel that doesn't compete in an auction
The B2B sales cycle is long, often months, and much of the real work happens after the first contact, not in the ad's initial click. Building a list of qualified contacts (through downloadable content, webinars or forms) and working it with well-segmented email marketing doesn't compete in an auction with anyone, has a very low marginal cost per contact once captured, and often plays a decisive role in closing sales that started on another channel weeks or months earlier.
How to decide the channel mix for your B2B business
It's not about picking one channel and abandoning the rest, but assigning each one the role it fulfils best: Google Ads to capture active buying intent, LinkedIn to reach a very specific job title or sector precisely when the ticket size justifies it, YouTube and educational content to accompany the consideration process, Meta for volume and lower cost in mid-ticket decisions, and email marketing to sustain the relationship once the contact is captured. The exact proportion depends on your product or service's average ticket: the higher the contract value, the more justified paying LinkedIn's premium becomes; the lower it is, the more profitable diversifying toward cheaper channels tends to be.
A real case: how a garage software provider halved its cost per lead
A management software company for car repair shops had spent a year putting almost its entire acquisition budget into LinkedIn, with a cost per qualified lead around 90 euros, a figure that made returns tight even with a relatively high average contract value. Analysing who actually made the buying decision (in most cases, the garage owner themselves, not someone with a title that fit neatly into LinkedIn's professional targeting), they decided to test Google Ads with long-tail keywords like "car garage management software quotes" and Meta Ads targeting business management interests and garage owner groups.
The combined result of both channels, six months later, was a cost per qualified lead of 38 euros, less than half of LinkedIn's, with lead volume 60% higher thanks to the freed-up budget. LinkedIn didn't disappear entirely: a small, very targeted campaign was kept aimed at multi-site garage chains, where a clear "operations director" title did exist and it was worth paying LinkedIn's premium for that specific profile's precision.
How to spot if your B2B product is a poor fit for LinkedIn
A clear sign of mismatch is when your real buyer's title or sector doesn't fit well with the targeting options the platform offers: sole traders, small family businesses or decision-makers without a clear formal title (like the owner of a garage, a hair salon or a corner shop) are hard to isolate precisely on LinkedIn, which is built primarily for corporate structures with defined roles. If your ideal customer fits "small business owner" better than "purchasing director at a 200-employee company", that's a reasonable sign other channels will perform better per euro invested.
The role of events and webinars as a complementary channel
A B2B channel that often gets left out of the digital advertising conversation, but that still works well for capturing qualified leads, is running your own webinars and having a presence at sector events, both in-person and online. Unlike an ad, a webinar demands a much bigger time investment from the attendee (30 to 60 minutes), which naturally filters out people with real interest from the rest, generating leads with a higher average quality than most forms filled in after seeing an ad.
Paid advertising can complement this channel instead of competing with it: using Google Ads or Meta Ads specifically to promote sign-ups for your own webinar, instead of to sell directly, usually generates a reasonable cost per lead and noticeably better contact quality than an ad that asks directly for contact details with nothing of value offered in return.
The role of advertising on sector-specific directories and comparison sites
Many B2B sectors have online directories or specific comparison platforms (for example, business software review platforms for companies selling digital tools) where potential buyers arrive with already very advanced buying intent, comparing specific options before deciding. Getting featured prominently on these directories, through paid advertising within the platform itself, usually comes with a lower cost per lead than LinkedIn and very high contact quality, precisely because whoever is browsing there has already moved past the "do I need this?" stage and is in the "who do I buy it from?" stage.
Step by step for diversifying without stopping investment while testing
For a business already investing in LinkedIn that wants to explore alternatives without risking its current lead flow, a reasonable four-step process: first, keep the current LinkedIn budget untouched during the first month of testing, so as not to lose the base of leads it already generates. Second, allocate a modest additional budget (equivalent to 20-30% of current LinkedIn spend) to testing Google Ads with sector-specific long-tail keywords. Third, after four to six weeks, compare the real cost per qualified lead (not just raw cost per lead) between both channels, including in that comparison how many of those leads actually progress through the sales process. Fourth, adjust the budget split between channels based on that result, without fully eliminating either one until you have at least two or three months of comparable data.
Frequently asked questions
Should I abandon LinkedIn entirely if it's that expensive?
Not necessarily. It remains the channel with the best pure professional targeting (exact job title, company, headcount), so it can make sense to reserve it for campaigns very tightly aimed at a specific decision-maker profile, while using cheaper channels for the rest of the funnel.
How do I know if my B2B product fits better on Google Ads or on social media?
If your customer already knows they have the problem and is actively searching for a solution (for example, "electronic invoicing software"), Google Ads usually performs better. If your product solves a problem the customer hasn't yet clearly identified as a priority, social media, with its ability to generate interest before active search, usually contributes more.
Is it worth doing B2B advertising on Instagram if my company sells industrial machinery?
It can work better than it seems, especially for brand awareness and for reaching younger decision-makers who consume that kind of content even during working hours. It doesn't replace Google or LinkedIn for the decision phase, but it can contribute in the discovery phase at a low cost.
How long does a B2B campaign take to show results compared with a consumer one?
Quite a bit longer. While a consumer cycle can close in minutes or hours, in B2B it's common for weeks or months to pass between the first advertising contact and the sale closing, so you need to measure patiently and with intermediate metrics (qualified leads, meetings booked), not just the final sale.
Do I need a different landing page for each channel?
It's advisable to at least adapt the initial message: someone arriving from an active Google search already knows what they're looking for, while someone arriving from social media needs more context on why they should care. The landing page doesn't need to be completely different, but it's worth adjusting the headline and first screen to the source channel.
What minimum budget makes sense for starting to diversify beyond LinkedIn?
There's no fixed figure, but with budgets under roughly 1,000 euros a month it's usually more effective to concentrate on one well-worked channel (normally Google Ads for its buying intent) than to spread thin money across several channels, which leaves all of them without enough volume to learn.