I've been advised that advertising enterprise products (for US market) on Facebook are a bad use of resources. Then we looked at Linked In, but their pricing and targeting was disappointing.
What's the best platform to advertise enterprise software on? I think IP level targeting is a good strategy, but curious to hear about other ideas.
Is your target audience on FB? That's question number one. Number two is whether there's anything relevant you could put in front of them that would stick or get some engagement.
Also, for most paid social efforts you need the ability to look at attribution across channels. Oftentimes paid social plays more of an awareness role that makes it look like it doesn't perform worth a damn if you are comparing it on a last click basis to say, paid search.
Your best option is Account Based Marketing. Look into Demandbase.
Facebook does have a brand new ad unit for mobile click to call, and I have seen success with b2b with Facebook ads.
The key is to get your ad unit as native as possible to the atomic consumption unit of the site. So, since facebook is used to share content, inspirational quotes, etc... maybe try promoting a whitepaper, a video or some other strategies.
Bottom line, Facebook right now has by far the most sophisticated targeting of any ad tech that is publicly available (Short of some private DMPs) and their lookalike audience can match over 2000 variables about your audience. There is no better way to find the right people.
Also consider that FB is mostly a mobile product now and that more video is consumed on FB than on Youtube. and they have a broad reach with their audience network.
Facebook have recently launched Lead Ads [0] which could make them work for an entreprise product campaign if you can find the correct targeting. Worth trying it out.
Advertising is a part of lead generation. Content marketing with paid distribution is a valid strategy that is in use by a ton of SaaS companies today operating on the Predictable Revenue model.
What's the best platform to advertise enterprise software on? I think IP level targeting is a good strategy, but curious to hear about other ideas.