August 12, 2025
With budgets tightening and KPIs being closely scrutinised, B2B reporting on campaign performance has become more difficult. Senior marketers and board members are looking for better ROI proof; so how do we do this when most of the data supplied is vanity rather than sanity?
The likes of CTR and engagement rates may always have their place. At the end of the day, we as marketers can only report on what the platforms give us – and a great deal of senior folk in marketing do see the value in them. These metrics, amongst the likes of video views and impressions do give us a rough idea on the success of ads and campaigns. But do raw numbers and rough benchmark data go deep enough?
In the simplest of terms – number go high, campaign good.
But budget scrutiny is happening more frequently. The slower buying process in B2B is not helped by this, so validating campaign performance and slower funnel filling compared to B2C is challenging. Luckily, we have tools available to us that help us to broaden visibility of campaign performance – and we can see this data within the platform backends themselves.
It’s time to dig deeper than CTR and video views – let’s go beyond percentages and raw numbers and bring out the tangible data.
Such as?
Setting up Meta pixels and tracking tags on LinkedIn is a great way to open the doors to better visibility on the performance of campaigns. It joins the dots for you and your management team on where the leads are coming from and can even aid retargeting campaigns further down the line. So while some platforms will only give you the action of a click, additional pixels and tracking tags can help you to understand who on your targeting list was properly engaged.
This will aid in the ROI conversation and help to give the sales team what they want.
The reality here is that top line social media backend systems are not delivering the necessary context anymore – and the wider marketing world is aware of it. AI encroachment on creativity and advertising processes may be streamlining workflows, but it’s your reporting and how you
The B2B buyers you don’t expect
While targeting lists are built on audience profiling, it’s important to remember that the B2B buying groups are shifting. These audiences are younger and often hidden – but are just as influential.
We spoke about this in another one of our recent blogs here.
It’s vital to not focus on overly senior roles and responsibilities. The longer buying processes of B2B means that people change positions in businesses and can become more influential overnight.
Contact us if you’re looking for more B2B insights for paid social.