From awareness to trust: The full funnel approach to B2B advertising
September 9, 2025
When your business growth relies on attracting new business-to-business (B2B) customers, the journey from awareness to purchase can be quite different than targeting consumers. While consumers can purchase on impulse, B2B buyers often go through a longer process to move them from awareness to finally purchasing and building loyal relationships.
The B2B buyer’s journey
B2B buyers are motivated by logic. They need to see the financial return on investment or proof of your expertise. Beyond that, they also need confidence in your company’s ability to provide what they need, when they need it. Often their business success relies on your ability to deliver results.
The B2B buyer’s journey is divided into four stages:
Awareness
They are experiencing a problem or opportunity.
They research to understand this problem or opportunity.
Consideration
They have clearly defined the problem or opportunity.
They are committed to researching and understanding how to solve this problem or opportunity.
Decision
They have decided on a solution or strategy.
Their research has provided a short list of final purchase options.
Trust
They want to confirm they made the right choice.
They may be responsive to renewals, upsells and referrals based on their experience.
Creating your full-funnel ad strategy
Your full-funnel advertising strategy will capture attention, develop relationships and drive sales. This means guiding your prospects from first touch to loyal customers, using the right channels, a consistent brand voice and clear measurement at every step.
Enlisting a full-funnel advertising strategy that educates and has multiple touchpoints is key to driving business growth. Aligned with the buyer’s journey, your ads should answer the questions buyers are asking at each stage. You should anticipate concerns and provide early explanations for a smooth decision process. Focus on the benefits your product and services will give their company.
Examples of tactics for each stage of the funnel:
Awareness:
Leverage LinkedIn Ads, digital campaigns and sponsored content to introduce your brand to decision-makers.
Consideration:
Use retargeting, social media and direct mail to develop leads and provide value as they explore solutions.
Decision:
Focus on personalized PPC, retargeting and social media to help businesses make a final choice.
Trust:
Use ads with success stories, videos and ongoing education to create loyalty and return business.
Your brand positioning and voice should be consistent across all channels and funnel stages. This builds trust and credibility, which are important in B2B decision-making.
Achieve this with the following:
Clear message guidelines.
Ensure every ad reflects your unique brand values and tone.
Use logic, statistics and testimonials to draw in decision-makers.
Your advertising strategy is only as strong as your ability to measure and optimize results. Do this with clear key performance indicators (KPIs) for each funnel stage, including:
Awareness: Impressions, reach, engagement rates
Consideration: Click-through rates, content downloads, e-newsletter sign-ups
Conversion: Demo requests, qualified leads, cost per acquisition
Trust: Customer retention rate, referrals, lifetime value
Key advertising channels
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to B2B advertising. The most effective strategies often use multichannel advertising to meet decision-makers where they are most active. Each channel supports awareness, trust and lead generation and is key to a successful advertising plan.
Pay-per-click (PPC)
PPC is a form of digital advertising where you pay a fee every time someone clicks your ad. For B2B advertisers, PPC reaches decision-makers who are searching for products or services you provide. Platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads or LinkedIn Ads allow precision targeting based on industry, job title, company size or search intent.
Along with this visibility, PPC supports brand awareness and lead generation. Because you can track metrics in real time, it’s easy to measure what’s working and make adjustments to your advertising. This level of control or measurability makes PPC important as ROI is just as important to B2B advertising as generating leads.
Digital Display
With its eye-catching visuals, videos and content, display advertising grabs the attention of your B2B customer to deliver results. Interactive display ads strengthen your brand presence by keeping it visible and memorable to your target audience. When decision-makers are ready to make a purchase, your business is more likely to come to mind.
Maintaining consistent branding through display ads builds awareness, which in turn boosts engagement and increases the chances of conversion. When you place display ads on industry-specific websites or respected publications, you are establishing credibility and trust, answering the final step in the buyer’s journey.
Display ads are versatile and fit different needs:
Static ads: Stationary ads containing text and images are easy to create and load quickly.
Interstitial ads: Full-screen ads covering an entire website or app page gain a browser’s attention.
Animated ads: Use motion to capture attention and convey more complex messages with storytelling.
Video ads: Engage audiences with motion and sound on websites, social media feeds or pop-ups.
Rich media ads: Interactive ads with video, audio and clickable features for an engaged experience, often expanding and revealing additional content when hovered over or clicked.
Native display ads: Feel less like ads as they relate to the native content the consumer is viewing.
Pop-up ads: Appear as static or interactive small windows over a website’s content.
Retargeting
When a business interacts with you through your website, app or social media, you can retarget them with advertising. Useful during the awareness and consideration phase, you can track your visitors as they browse other sites by using a small piece of code known as a pixel. After they leave, this pixel follows them to show targeted ads about your products and services, especially those areas they showed interest in.
To be most successful, follow these strategies for retargeting:
Segment your audience: Not all potential customers are the same. When you segment your audience based on behavior—such as pages visited or blog subject matter—you get more personalized ads.
Personalize your message: Craft messages to appeal to each audience segment to increase the chance of conversion.
Use dynamic ads: Dynamic ads display content around what a potential business has seen or shown interest in to drive higher engagement.
Clear call-to-action: Make sure your ads drive the action you want the business to take like clicking on a webpage, making a purchase or contacting you for more information.
Social media
It can be hard to use social media to connect with business customers, but it’s not impossible. It likely comes in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey as they seek to educate themselves on your business. Social media is also effective in sharing content and brand expertise, which B2B decision-makers value.
There are two avenues to explore: organic social media and paid social media. Organic is free on your social channels and reaches a broader audience. Paid social ads promote posts to your target audience based on demographics like job title, company or location.
The top B2B social media channel is LinkedIn, but there are other social media channels you should consider like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X.
Direct mail
Targeted direct mail adds a personal touch for your B2B customers. Analyze the data you have on your potential leads and then connect with relevant messages. For example, if a product page is very popular on your website, it’s a good time to send a tailored piece of direct mail that highlights the product’s features, benefits and real-world applications. You can even include a limited-time offer, testimonials or a QR code linking to a demo or landing page.
Direct mail is also effective to generate awareness around an upcoming event, special announcement or new product launch. This type of timely, personalized outreach shows businesses that you understand their interests and needs, making it more likely they’ll engage and take the next step toward doing business with you.
Sponsored content
Instead of pushing a sales message, sponsored content delivers educational and relevant information to your audience in an unassuming manner.
Here are a few key points about B2B sponsored content:
Educate: B2B buyers want to make informed decisions. Sponsored content allows you to address pain points, discuss industry insights and provide solutions.
Integration: Sponsored content is placed within trusted websites where your business audience is already reading content.
Build trust: When your content appears in respected media, it benefits from their reputation and builds more credibility and authority for you.
Top-of-mind: Sponsored content includes calls-to-action like downloading a guide or signing up for a demo that keeps your brand top-of-mind with buyers.
Trends to watch
Business decision-makers aren’t that different from consumers. They are equally drawn to stories, values and trusted brands. That’s why these emerging trends are worth watching as you create your B2B advertising strategy.
Advertising shifts to reach younger generations.
Advertising must connect with video storytelling.
Advertising needs high-quality content to build relationships.
Buyers want a trusted brand behind your product or service.
Buyers want brands that align with their values and goals.
A full-funnel approach to B2B advertising guides buyers through their decision-making journey. By aligning ad strategies with the stages of awareness, consideration, decision and trust, you’ll develop connections with your target audience over time. Advertising that resonates with their values and offers verifiable solutions becomes the driver of growth and success in a competitive market.
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