B2B Social Media Advertising: Generate Leads on LinkedIn & Meta

B2B social media advertising can feel like a tough nut to crack. Lots of businesses I talk to have tried it, spent a bunch of money, and walked away thinking it just doesn’t work for them. Tbh, most of the time, the problem isn't the platform, it's the strategy. It’s not like selling a t-shirt where you show an ad and someone buys it. B2B is a different beast altogether, with longer sales cycles, more decision-makers, and higher value deals. The goal is usually not an instant sale, but to start a conversation and generate a qualified lead that your sales team can then nurture. Get that right, and paid social can become a very predictable source of new business for you.

In this guide, I'm going to walk you through how we approach B2B paid social strategy, from picking the right platform to crafting ads that actually get a response from busy professionals. We'll look at targeting, what kind of 'offer' to make, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that cause so many B2B campaigns to fail.

So, which social media platform should I even be on?

This is the first question everyone asks, and it's a big one. You've got limited time and budget, so you need to focus your efforts where your ideal customers are actually spending their time. For B2B, it almost always comes down to a choice between two main players: LinkedIn and Meta (which is Facebook and Instagram).

LinkedIn: The Obvious B2B Choice

Let’s be honest, LinkedIn is built for B2B. It’s a professional network. People are there in a work mindset. They’re connecting with colleagues, looking for industry news, and are generally more receptive to business-related messaging. The real power of LinkedIn, though, is its targeting. It’s unmatched for B2B.

You can target people based on:

• -> Job Title (e.g., 'Chief Marketing Officer', 'Head of Sales')
• -> Company Size (e.g., '51-200 employees')
• -> Industry (e.g., 'Software & IT', 'Financial Services')
• -> Company Name (you can literally upload a list of your dream clients and show ads only to their employees)
• -> Member Skills, Seniority Level, and loads more.

This level of precision means you can get your ads in front of the exact decision-makers you need to reach. The downside? It's more expensive. Clicks and leads on LinkedIn will almost always cost more than on Meta. But the quality is often much, much higher. You’re paying a premium for precision. I remember one campaign for a B2B software client targeting specific decision-makers where we were hitting a cost per lead (CPL) of around $22. For a high-ticket software, that was a number they were very happy with because those leads were highly qualified and had a great close rate.

Meta (Facebook & Instagram): Can it work for B2B?

A lot of people write off Facebook and Instagram for B2B, and I get why. It’s a social space, not a professional one. But it can definitly work, especially if your target audience includes small business owners or you have a product with broader appeal. I remember one campaign for a B2B software where we generated over 4,600 registrations at just $2.38 each on Meta. That's a result you just wouldn't get on LinkedIn.

The targeting on Meta is less precise for B2B. You have some options like targeting 'Small business owners' or 'Facebook Page Admins', but it's not as granular as LinkedIn. You can't target by specific job titles at specific companies. So how do you make it work?

The key is often in the creative and the offer. Your ad needs to cut through the noise of personal photos and updates. It needs to speak directly to a business pain point. You also rely more heavily on Meta's algorithm. By optimising for conversions (like leads or sign-ups), you're trusting Meta to find people within your broader audience who are most likely to take that action. It's also fantastic for retargeting. If someone has visited your website from a LinkedIn ad or Google search, you can then retarget them on Facebook and Instagram, where it's cheaper to stay in front of them.

So, the choice isn't always LinkedIn *or* Meta. Often, the best strategy uses both. LinkedIn to find and engage new, highly specific prospects, and Meta to retarget them and find lookalike audiences at a lower cost. A bit like what we did for an environmental controls company, where we combined LinkedIn and Meta to slash their cost per lead by 84%.

What should my goal be? Sales or leads?

This is a fundamental mindset shift you need to make for B2B paid social. You are not selling a product, you are starting a relationship. Unless you're selling a very low-cost, self-serve software, it is incredibly unlikely that a busy professional will see your ad, click a 'Buy Now' button, and enter their company credit card details for a multi-thousand pound deal.

The B2B sales cycle is just too long and complex for that. There are often multiple stakeholders involved, budgets to approve, and a need to build trust before a purchase is made. Pushing for an immediate sale with a "fixed offer" funnel is a strategy that's much better suited to B2C markering.

For B2B, your objective should almost always be lead generation.

Your entire paid social strategy should be built around getting a potential customer to raise their hand and say, "Yes, I'm interested in learning more." From there, your sales process takes over. The ad's job is to get the lead, not close the deal.

So what does that look like in practice? It means your Call to Action (CTA) isn't 'Buy Now'. It's something like:

• -> Download our Free Guide
• -> Watch the Demo
• -> Book a 15-Minute Consultation
• -> Get a Free Audit
• -> Request a Quote

This is what we call the 'offer'. It's a low-friction next step that provides value to the prospect in exchange for their contact information. A well-crafted offer that solves a real problem for your target audience is probably the single most important element of a succesful B2B campaign. You're trading a piece of valuable content or a consultation for the opportunity to have a conversation. Once you have that lead, you can nurture them through email, have an intro call, and offer a custom service to solve their specific problems. This is how high-ticket B2B deals are done.

How do I get the targeting right on LinkedIn?

Alright, so you've decided LinkedIn is the place to be. Now for the fun part: finding your people. As I said, the targeting is incredible, but you can also easily waste a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing. The key is to be specific and build an audience that matches your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as closely as possible.

Don't just go for a broad industry and hope for the best. You need to think deeply about who you're trying to reach.

Let’s walk through a hypothetical example. Say you're selling a contact data enrichment tool. Your ICP might look something like this:

• -> Companies: Small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs) with 50-200 employees.
• -> Industries: Business Services, Software, Marketing & Advertising, Financial Services.
• -> Decision Makers (Job Titles): Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Sales Officer, Head of Marketing, Head of Sales, VP of Revenue.
• -> Geography: United Kingdom.

On LinkedIn, you can build this exact audience. You'd go into the campaign manager and start layering these attributes. You'd select the industries, then the company sizes, and then you'd narrow it down further by job title or seniority. This ensures your ad is only shown to the people who can actually make a buying decision for your product at the right kind of company.

I find it helps to build this out on paper first before you even touch the ads manager. Here’s a simple table to structure your thinking:

Another really powerful technique is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). If you have a list of, say, 100 dream companies you want to work with, you can upload that list directly to LinkedIn. You can create this list using tools like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo, or just from your own research. Then you can layer on the job title/seniority targeting to ensure you’re only showing ads to the key decision-makers within those specific target accounts. It’s incredibly focused and can be very effective for high-value sales.

The main takeaway here is this: on LinkedIn, narrow is your friend. It's better to have a small, highly relevant audience that costs more to reach, than a large, vague audience where you're wasting 90% of your spend on people who will never buy from you.

What about targeting on Facebook and Instagram?

Targeting on Meta for B2B requires a different approach. You don’t have the job title and company data, so you have to be a bit more creative and rely on interests, behaviours, and Meta’s algorithm.

When I audit new client accounts, a common mistake I see is people testing audiences that are way too broad or just plain wrong for their goals. Here's how I'd prioritise audiences for a B2B campaign on Meta, moving from the coldest prospects to the warmest.

Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Finding New People

For a new account with no data, you have to start with detailed targeting. This means using interests and behaviours. But you have to be smart about it. Let's say you're targeting owners of eCommerce stores. Targeting a broad interest like "Amazon" is a terrible idea. Why? Because millions of people who just shop on Amazon will be in that audience. The majority won't be eCommerce owners.

Instead, think about the tools, software, publications, and influencers that your target audience follows. For eCommerce owners, you could target interests like:

• -> Software: 'Shopify', 'WooCommerce', 'BigCommerce'
• -> Events: 'Shopify Unite'
• -> Publications/Influencers: 'eCommerceFuel', 'Ezra Firestone'
• -> Behaviours: 'Facebook Page Admins' -> 'Retail Page'

You’re looking for interests that have a high concentration of your ICP. You can also layer audiences, for example, people who are 'Facebook Page Admins' AND are interested in 'Shopify'. This helps narrow things down.

Once your account has enough conversion data (I'd say at least a few hundred leads), you can start testing broad targeting with no interests at all. You just define the location and demographics and let Meta's algorithm find the right people based on who has converted in the past. It sounds crazy but it can work surprisingly well on mature accounts.

Middle & Bottom of Funnel (MoFu/BoFu) - Retargeting

This is where Meta becomes really powerful for B2B. Anyone who interacts with your brand should be added to a retargeting audience. This is your warm audience who already knows who you are. You can create custom audiences of:

• -> All website visitors
• -> People who visited specific pages (e.g., your pricing or services page)
• -> People who watched a certain percentage of your video ads (e.g., 50%)
• -> People who engaged with your Facebook or Instagram page

These audiences are usually small but mighty. You can show them ads that are more direct, like an invitation to book a demo or a case study showcasing your results. Since they are already familiar with you, the conversion rates here should be much higher.

Lookalike Audiences

This is the final piece of teh puzzle. Once you have enough data for a custom audience (you need at least 100 people, but more is better), you can ask Meta to create a 'lookalike' audience. This is an audience of millions of users who share similar characteristics to your source audience. The best lookalikes are built from your most valuable customers. You can upload a list of your customer emails and create a lookalike from that. Or you can create a lookalike of people who have submitted a lead form or reached the 'thank you' page on your website. This is a brilliant way to scale your campaigns, finding new people who behave like your existing best customers.

Here’s a simplified funnel structure we often use for B2B on Meta:

You'd have separate campaigns for each stage of the funnel. Test different audiences within your ToFu campaign, and when you find a winner, put more budget behind it. Your MoFu/BoFu campaign will be an always-on campaign that continuously shows ads to your warm audiences, keeping your brand top of mind and pushing them towards conversion.

What kind of ads actually work?

You can have the best targeting in the world, but if your ad is boring or irrelevant, no one will click. Your ad creative (the image or video) and copy (the text) have to work together to stop the scroll and get your message across in seconds.

LinkedIn Ad Formats

On LinkedIn, you have a few options. I generally find the most success with Sponsored Content campaigns for lead generation. This is where your ad appears natively in the newsfeed.

• -> Image Ads: Simple, effective, and quick to produce. A strong image with a clear headline and value proposition can work really well to drive clicks to a landing page or a Lead Gen Form.
• -> Video Ads: Great for telling a more complex story or demonstrating a product. A good video can be very persuasive and help qualify leads before they even click. People who watch a significant portion of your video are showing strong intent.
• -> Carousel Ads: These let you use multiple images in one ad that people can swipe through. They're good for showcasing different features of a product, telling a step-by-step story, or highlighting multiple services.

You'll also come across Conversation Ads (part of the Message Ads format). These are like paid InMails that land directly in a user's LinkedIn inbox. They can feel a bit more personal, but also a bit more intrusive. I'd frame them as a form of paid cold outreach; they can work to start conversations but need to be handled carefully.

A big decision is whether to use LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms or send people to a landing page on your website. Lead Gen Forms are pop-ups that appear within LinkedIn and are pre-filled with the user's profile information. This makes it super easy for them to convert, so you'll usually get a higher volume of leads at a lower cost. The downside is that the quality can be lower because there's so little friction. Sending them to a dedicated landing page on your site requires more effort from the user, so you'll get fewer leads, but they are often much better qualified because they've had to take more steps and have seen more of your messaging. I'd recommend testing both to see what works for your business.

Ad Copywriting for B2B

This is where so many businesses go wrong. They write ad copy that's all about them and their product's features. Nobody cares about your 'synergistic platform' or your 'AI-powered solution'. They care about their own problems.

Good B2B ad copy speaks directly to the customer's pain points and then presents your product as the solution. You need to get inside their head. What keeps them up at night? What are their biggest frustrations at work? What would make them look like a hero to their boss?

Let’s look at a quick comparison. We often work with a copywriter who specialises in SaaS, and it makes a huge difference.

See the difference? The first one lists features. The second one identifies a painful problem, agitates it, and then presents the solution with a clear, low-commitment call to action. This approach will outperform the feature list 9 times out of 10.

My ads are running, but I'm not getting results. What's wrong?

This is a common frustration. You've set everything up, the ads are spending money, but the leads just aren't coming in. Tbh, a lot of the time, the problem isn't even the ad itself.

First, look at your website and landing page.

You can run the world's best ad campaign, but if you send people to a confusing, slow, or untrustworthy website, you will get zero conversions. I've looked at so many B2B websites where I can see instantly why their ads are failing.

Common issues I see are:

• -> A weak or unclear offer. I once audited an accounting software company that was trying to sell their system directly from ads without offering a free trial. Their competition was offering months-long trials and big discounts. Who is going to pay for a whole new accounting system without trying it first? The offer was completely misaligned with the market. You need a compelling, no-brainer offer like a free trial, a genuinely useful demo, or a valuable resource.
• -> A confusing value proposition. The same accounting software had the headline "Where business meets privacy." Is that really the main thing businesses care about when choosing an accounting system? Probably not. They care about reliability, features, and saving time. Your headline and copy need to scream the main benefit you provide.
• -> No clear call to action. What is the one thing you want the visitor to do? If your page has 10 different buttons and links, you're just creating confusion. Your landing page should have one goal and one CTA button that stands out.
• -> Lack of trust signals. B2B is built on trust. Your site needs testimonials, case studies, logos of clients you've worked with, and clear contact information. Without these, you look amateur and risky.

Your ad's only job is to get the click. After that, it's up to your landing page to do the heavy lifting. If your perfomance is poor, this is the first place I would look.

Next, diagnose with metrics.

If your landing page is solid, then you can start looking at your ad metrics to figure out where the drop-off is happening.

• -> Low Impressions/Reach: Your budget might be too low or your audience too small/niche.
• -> High Impressions, Low Click-Through Rate (CTR): This is a clear signal that your ad creative or copy is the problem. It's not grabbing attention or resonating with your audience. It’s time to test new images, videos, and headlines.
• -> High CTR, Low Conversion Rate: People are clicking, so the ad is doing its job. But they aren't converting when they get to your site. This points directly back to a problem with your landing page or your offer. The message in your ad might also be disconnected from what they see on the landing page (message mismatch).

Remember that for B2B, ROI isn't always immediate. A lead today might not become a customer for three or six months. It’s important to track your lead-to-customer rate and the average contract value over time to understand the true return on your ad spend.

We've seen this optimisation process work time and time again. For one medical job matching SaaS client, they came to us with a Cost Per Acquisition of over £100. By systematically working through their targeting, creatives, and funnel, we were able to bring that down to just £7. It's possible, but it takes patience and methodical testing.

So how do I put this all together?

Okay, we've covered a lot of ground. It can feel like a lot to take in, but a successful B2B paid social strategy boils down to a few core principles: choosing the right platform for your audience, making a valuable offer, targeting with precision, and creating ads that speak to customer pain points. It's a process of continuous testing and learning.

To help you get started, I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a table to give you a quick overview.

Is it worth getting expert help?

You can absolutely take these principles and start implementing them yourself. But as you can probably tell, it's not just a case of clicking a few buttons. A successful B2B paid social campaign is a complex system with many moving parts: deep audience research, strategic platform selection, compelling offer creation, persuasive copywriting, constant creative testing, landing page optimisation, and detailed analytics tracking.

Getting it wrong can mean wasting thousands of pounds on ads that don't generate a single valuable lead. The learning curve can be steep and expensive.

That's where a professional consultancy like us can make a huge difference. With years of experience running campaigns for dozens of B2B clients, from software startups to industrial product companies, we've already made the mistakes and learned the lessons. We can provide insights that you might not have thought of and take over implementation of the entire optimisation process for you, ensuring that every pound you spend is working as hard as it possibly can to grow your business.

We can help you skip the costly trial-and-error phase and move straight to a strategy that is built on a foundation of proven success. If you'd like to have a chat about your specific business goals and see how a tailored B2B paid social strategy could work for you, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can review what you're currently doing and provide some actionable advice you can take away, whether you decide to work with us or not.

Hope this helps!