This page is for UK businesses that sell to other businesses rather than to the public: wholesalers, distributors, trade suppliers, business service firms and medical equipment suppliers selling to clinics, care homes and NHS departments. It explains how I set up and run Google Ads when the buyer is a professional, orders repeat, and the sale is closed on the phone or through a quote rather than at a checkout.
If you make the products yourself, the page on Google Ads for manufacturers covers capability and make-to-drawing campaigns. If you sell software, Google Ads for SaaS and software companies deals with trials and demos. This page is for the businesses in between, the ones that stock, supply and service.
How business buyers search in the UK
A business buyer rarely searches the way a consumer does. They type the product code, the size, the standard it has to meet or the job it has to do: “nitrile gloves case of 1000”, “pallet racking inspection”, “ECG electrodes supplier”. Often they already have a supplier and are looking because the price went up, stock ran out or the service slipped. There are fewer of these searches than in consumer markets, but each one can be worth years of repeat orders.
More than one person is usually involved. The person searching is often the user or specifier, such as a practice manager, a facilities manager or a theatre lead, while someone in finance or procurement signs the order. Public-sector buying, including much NHS purchasing, tends to run through frameworks and formal tenders, so Google Ads reaches the clinician or department head who forms a preference rather than the team that issues the purchase order. I plan campaigns around the searcher you can actually reach.
Searches cluster in working hours on weekdays, and the gap between the first click and the first order can run to weeks. That timing shapes nearly every setting in the account.
What changes in Google Ads for a B2B supplier
Keeping consumers and job-seekers out
The most common leak in a B2B account is money spent on clicks from people who will never open an account: home users, students, people looking for a job with you, or someone after a single item. I keep generic terms on tighter match types, build lists of negative keywords for words such as “jobs”, “salary”, “home”, “DIY” and “free”, and write ads that say plainly who they are for: “Trade accounts”, “Prices ex VAT”, “Minimum order 10 cases”. Fewer clicks with a higher share of genuine enquiries is nearly always the better trade.
Schedule and location
If your sales team works 8am to 6pm on weekdays, the account should reflect that. I look at results by hour and day before changing the schedule, rather than switching ads off at weekends by default, because some buyers research on a Sunday evening and ring on Monday morning. Location targeting follows your delivery area and your account managers’ patches, not simply “United Kingdom”. If you cannot deliver to the Scottish Highlands or Northern Ireland at a sensible cost, the campaign should not be bidding there.
Ads, assets and landing pages
Business buyers want facts quickly: stock, lead times, delivery charges, credit terms, accreditations you genuinely hold, and a phone line answered by someone who knows the range. Callouts, sitelinks to product categories and a call asset during office hours carry those facts into the ad itself. The click should land on the matching category or product page with a trade account or quote form, not on the homepage. If those pages do not exist yet, I can build landing pages for your ad campaigns that answer a buyer’s questions and ask for the right details.
Medical equipment and other restricted products
Medical devices are where B2B Google Ads gets complicated. Google’s healthcare and medicines policies restrict some products, and claims about what a device does fall under section 12 of the CAP Code, which the ASA enforces, even when the audience is professional. Devices placed on the market in Great Britain generally need MHRA registration and the correct UKCA or CE marking, so I ask to see what is in place before writing any claim. Ad copy stays with what the product is and what it is approved for, and anything borderline comes to you for sign-off before it runs. If you run a clinic advertising treatments to patients, the page on Google Ads for private clinics is the one you need.
Tracking the order, not the form
In B2B, a form or a phone call is the beginning. Some enquiries are competitors checking your prices, some are students, and a few are new accounts worth thousands of pounds a year. If Google is told that every form counts the same, automated bidding will chase whichever kind is cheapest to get. I connect the ad click to what happens next in your CRM, using offline conversion imports or enhanced conversions for leads, so the account learns from quotes sent, accounts opened and first orders placed. With a long sales cycle, it needs time and a steady flow of real outcomes before automated bidding can be trusted with the budget.
How I usually structure a supplier account
Every account depends on the catalogue and the margins, but a supplier account I build usually starts from a similar shape.
- Brand. A small campaign on your own name, so you pay a low price for people already looking for you, and resellers or marketplaces do not take that traffic.
- Product ranges. One campaign per range with its own budget, split by margin rather than by how the catalogue happens to be organised. High-margin consumables and capital equipment rarely belong in the same campaign.
- Specification and problem searches. Ad groups built around the standard, size or use, which is where buyers who have not yet chosen a supplier tend to look.
- Existing customers. Customer Match lists, uploaded only where your privacy notice and lawful basis under UK GDPR allow it, used to keep current accounts out of acquisition campaigns or to tell them about a new range.
- Shopping. Only if you run an online trade shop with visible prices and a product feed that Merchant Center accepts.
I am cautious with Performance Max for suppliers until tracking reports on enquiry quality, because it can spend heavily on display and video placements that produce form fills from people who never order.
Common mistakes in B2B accounts
- Counting every form fill, newsletter sign-up and brochure download as a conversion, so the account optimises towards the cheapest of them.
- Broad generic keywords with no negatives, paying for consumers and job-seekers.
- Ads that hide the fact that you sell trade only, which raises click volume and lowers enquiry quality.
- Every click sent to the homepage, where the buyer has to hunt for the product they searched for.
- No call tracking, when many B2B orders start with a phone call.
- Judging the account after a few weeks, when a typical first order takes longer than that to arrive.
- Ads running while a line is out of stock or while nobody is answering the sales phone.
How the work runs
- A call. We talk about what you sell, who signs the order, your margins and where you deliver.
- A review. I look at the current account, the tracking and how enquiries are recorded in your CRM, or plan a new account from scratch.
- Tracking first. Calls, forms and, where possible, quotes and orders are measured before any budget is increased.
- Build and launch. Campaigns, ads and landing pages go live with copy you have approved, and for regulated products copy your compliance lead has seen.
- Ongoing management. If you want me to keep running it, monthly PPC management covers search terms, bids, budgets and a report written in quotes and orders rather than clicks.
Google Ads buys visibility on the terms you need this quarter. B2B SEO builds pages that keep earning visits without a cost per click, and most suppliers benefit from planning both from the same keyword list. If you would like me to look at your account, or to talk through whether Google Ads suits your range at all, get in touch to book a call.