LinkedIn Ads vs Google Ads vs Meta Ads for B2B: Which One Fits Your Business?
The best time to start advertising was six months ago. The second best time is now. But starting on the wrong platform wastes money and kills confidence. This guide helps you pick the right one for YOUR business so you can start strong and build from there.
⚡ 5-Minute Quick Start: Which Platform Should You Use?
🔵 Use LinkedIn Ads if:
You sell to specific job titles (Director+), your deal value is £5K+, your sales cycle is 3+ months, and your buyers do not know they need you yet. Best for demand generation, ABM, complex solutions.
🔴 Use Google Ads if:
People actively search for what you sell AND CPCs are not insane in your niche. Brilliant for smaller, less competitive niches. Watch out for saturated industries and generic searches that attract price shoppers. You also need a converting landing page or you are wasting money.
Before you spend another pound on search, add our free B2B negative keyword lists. They stop students and job hunters eating your budget.
🟣 Use Meta Ads if:
You already get website traffic and need to convert it. Meta retargeting is 3 to 5x cheaper than LinkedIn. Also works for cold targeting of broader audiences (restaurant owners, tradespeople) but not for specific B2B job titles. The big condition: you need traffic first.
💰 Budget guide:
Under £1.5K/mo, pick one. £1.5K to £3K/mo, two platforms. £3K+ per month, all three with a 50/30/20 or 40/40/20 split.
📌 Chapters
🎓 New to LinkedIn Ads? Start here
This guide assumes you know the basics. If you're just getting started, our step-by-step tutorial covers everything from account setup to your first campaign.
LinkedIn Ads Tutorial for BeginnersThe Real Question Is "Which One Fits Me?"
You have probably been told to "just run Google Ads" or "you need to be on LinkedIn." The problem is, the person telling you that usually sells that platform. Every agency has a favourite. LinkedIn agencies say LinkedIn. Google agencies say Google. Meta agencies say Meta. Funny how that works.
The truth? Each platform does a completely different job. Asking "which is best?" is the wrong question. It is like asking "what is better, a hammer or a screwdriver?" Depends what you are building.
The right question is: which platform fits my business model, my budget, and the way my buyers actually buy right now? Once you know that, you can start with confidence instead of guessing and hoping.
And here is the thing most people do not want to hear. Any of these platforms can work brilliantly if you make great ads. The platform matters less than the quality of what you put on it. A boring ad on the perfect platform still fails. A scroll-stopping ad on a decent platform still wins.
Three Platforms, Three Completely Different Jobs
LinkedIn Ads
Job: Demand Generation
"I know exactly who I want to reach. By job title, company, industry. And I need to make them aware of a problem they might not know they have."
Google Ads
Job: Demand Capture
"People are already searching for what I sell. I need to show up when they type those exact words into Google and capture that intent."
Meta Ads
Job: Retargeting & Nurture
"People have already visited my site or seen my content. I need to stay in front of them cheaply until they are ready to buy. But I need traffic first. No traffic, nobody to retarget."
The mistake 90% of B2B companies make
They try to use one platform for all three jobs. LinkedIn for retargeting is expensive. Google for demand generation is like casting a net in an empty ocean. Meta for cold outreach to specific job titles? Good luck. Use each tool for what it is designed to do.
Now I am going to break down each platform honestly — what it costs, when it works, and when it is a waste of money. Skip to your platform using the chapters above, or read the full thing to understand how they work together.
🔵 LinkedIn Ads: The Sniper Rifle
LinkedIn's superpower is targeting precision. No other platform lets you target by job title, company size, industry, seniority, and specific companies all at once. It is the only platform where you can say "show this ad to every Head of IT at manufacturing companies with 200+ employees in the Midlands" and actually do it.
The trade-off? It is expensive. Typical CPCs run £4 to £12, CPMs £22 to £35, and CPLs £75 to £180. But here is what most people miss. Cost per click is irrelevant if the click comes from the exact person who can sign a £50K contract.
LinkedIn Wins When:
- ✓ Deal value is £5K+ (justifies higher CPL)
- ✓ You sell to specific job titles or industries
- ✓ Sales cycle is 3+ months
- ✓ Buyers need education before they search
- ✓ Account-based marketing (ABM) is your strategy
- ✓ You want to build brand authority with decision-makers
LinkedIn Loses When:
- ✗ Deal value under £2K (can't justify the CPL)
- ✗ Budget under £300/month (not enough data)
- ✗ Buyers already search for your solution
- ✗ Quick-decision purchases
- ✗ You don't know your ICP well enough to target
- ✗ Your product is a commodity (price comparison wins)
📊 Go deeper: UK LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks
See the real 2026 UK data — CPCs, CPMs, CPLs, and CTRs broken down by industry.
View 2026 UK Benchmarks🔴 Google Ads: The Net
Google's superpower is intent. Someone types "managed IT services London" and they are not browsing. They are buying. No other platform puts you in front of someone at the exact moment they want a solution.
But here is the thing everyone oversimplifies. "If people Google your service, use Google." Sure, in theory. In practice, a lot of industries are now so saturated on Google that it is wildly expensive. Everyone and their dog knows about PPC now. Everyone understands SEO. The obvious keywords in industries like cybersecurity, legal, ERP, and financial services are £30 to £65 per click. At those prices, you need a seriously good landing page or you are just burning cash.
And it gets worse. For more generic services like accounting or bookkeeping, Google tends to attract the price-conscious, bottom-of-the-market shoppers. The people comparing five quotes and picking the cheapest. If you are positioning yourself as premium, Google can actually fill your pipeline with the wrong type of client.
That said, smaller niches can absolutely thrive on Google. If you sell something specific enough that the competition is low and the search volume is decent, Google is still brilliant. It is the broad, saturated categories where it falls apart for beginners.
Google Wins When:
- ✓ Smaller niches with low competition
- ✓ Quick decision cycles (days to weeks)
- ✓ Local or regional services
- ✓ Known solution categories
- ✓ CPCs are under £15 to £20 in your niche
- ✓ You have a decent landing page that converts (3%+)
Google Loses When:
- ✗ No search demand exists for your solution
- ✗ CPCs are £30+ and you are a beginner
- ✗ You do not have a landing page that converts
- ✗ Generic categories that attract price shoppers
- ✗ Complex solutions needing education first
- ✗ Saturated industries where big players outspend you
The Google Cost Trap
Google only captures demand. It does not create it. If you are spending £10K/month on Google and £0 on demand generation, you are harvesting a finite pool of searchers. Eventually, you max out.
The other trap? You need a converting landing page before Google is worth it. Sending expensive clicks to a rubbish website is like paying for a Michelin star chef and serving the food on a bin lid. The companies winning on Google are the ones who also invest in proper landing pages and demand generation elsewhere.
See the full demand generation system for a small B2B market.
🟣 Meta Ads: The Secret Weapon Nobody Talks About
Every B2B marketer rolls their eyes when you mention Facebook ads. "Our audience is not on Facebook." Yes they are. They are on it right now. Your target CTO, your dream client's procurement manager, the MD who signs the cheques. They are all scrolling Instagram at 9pm after putting the kids to bed.
But let me be clear. Meta only works for B2B if you have the traffic first. Its superpower is retargeting, not cold prospecting. The targeting is too broad for specific job titles. You cannot say "show this to Heads of IT at mid-market companies" on Meta. It just does not work like that.
Where Meta does work for cold audiences is broader industries. Think restaurant owners, construction business owners, tradespeople, gym owners. If your target audience is a broad job category rather than a specific seniority at a specific company type, Meta can be brilliant for cold prospecting too. But for niche, specific B2B targeting? Forget it.
For retargeting though, it is unbeatable. A Meta retargeting campaign to website visitors costs 3 to 5x less than the same campaign on LinkedIn. You can achieve 10 to 15x the frequency for the same budget. Your prospects see your brand on LinkedIn during work, Instagram in the evening, Facebook at the weekend. Total saturation.
The catch is obvious. If you are getting 50 website visitors a month, you have nobody to retarget. You need to build the traffic first (LinkedIn, Google, SEO, content) and then layer Meta on top.
Meta Wins When:
- ✓ Retargeting website visitors (cheapest option by far)
- ✓ You have 1,000+ monthly website visitors to retarget
- ✓ Broad target audiences (restaurant owners, tradespeople)
- ✓ Long nurture cycles where you need to stay top of mind
- ✓ Video content that feels native to the platform
- ✓ Budget is tight but you need visibility
Meta Loses When:
- ✗ Specific job titles at specific company types
- ✗ You need firmographic targeting (seniority, company size)
- ✗ Very low website traffic (nobody to retarget)
- ✗ Niche B2B categories with small audiences
- ✗ Highly regulated industries with ad restrictions
- ✗ No creative that feels native to social feeds
📖 Go deeper: B2B Retargeting Strategy
See how one IT company doubled their enquiries by reallocating just 10% of their budget to retargeting.
Read the Case StudyNot sure which platform fits your business?
We will look at your business, your buyers, and your budget and tell you exactly where to start. No pressure, no jargon.
📊 Head-to-Head Comparison
| Factor | Meta | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Demand generation | Demand capture | Retargeting / nurture |
| Avg CPC (UK B2B) | £4 to £12 | £3 to £65 | £0.50 to £3 |
| Avg CPL (UK B2B) | £75 to £180 | £50 to £200+ | £15 to £60 (retarget) |
| Targeting precision | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ (keyword) | ⭐⭐ (broad) |
| Intent level | Low-medium | High | Varies (retarget = high) |
| Best for cold traffic | ✅ | ✅ (if search exists) | ❌ |
| Best for retargeting | ⚠️ Expensive | ⚠️ Banner blindness | ✅ Best value |
| Min viable budget | £300/mo | £300/mo | £200/mo |
| Setup complexity | Medium | High | Low-Medium |
| Lead quality | High (targeted) | High (intent) | Medium (warm) |
💰 Budget Allocation by Scenario
Under £1,500/month
Pick ONE platform. Don't split.
People search for what you sell? Google 100%
You know exact job titles to target? LinkedIn 100%
You already get traffic but no conversions? Meta retargeting 100%
£1,500 to £3,000/month
Two platforms: primary + retargeting.
Option A: LinkedIn 70% + Meta retargeting 30%
Option B: Google 70% + Meta retargeting 30%
Option C: LinkedIn 60% + Google 40% (if no retargeting audience yet)
£3,000 to £10,000/month
Full three-channel strategy.
LinkedIn 50% / Google 30% / Meta 20% (demand gen heavy)
Google 40% / LinkedIn 40% / Meta 20% (balanced)
Google 50% / Meta 30% / LinkedIn 20% (demand capture heavy)
£10,000+/month
Advanced multi-channel with testing budget.
At this level, allocate 10-15% to testing new channels (YouTube, TikTok, programmatic). Use the remaining budget on what's proven across LinkedIn, Google, and Meta. Consider YouTube for long-form education and trust-building.
🏭 By Industry: Where to Start
🔧 Manufacturing
Start with LinkedIn. Buyers don't Google "industrial automation partner" — they get recommended solutions at conferences or see them on LinkedIn. Layer Meta retargeting once traffic builds.
Recommended split: LinkedIn 60% / Meta 25% / Google 15%
💻 IT / MSP
Start with Google. People search "IT support near me" and "managed services provider." Capture that intent first. Add LinkedIn for targeting specific company sizes, then Meta retargeting.
Recommended split: Google 45% / LinkedIn 35% / Meta 20%
📋 Professional Services
Depends on your positioning. Professional services get searched (accounting, legal, HR consulting), but beware. Google for generic accounting searches often attracts the budget-conscious end of the market. The people comparing five quotes and picking the cheapest. If you are premium, LinkedIn plus content marketing will attract better clients. If you are price-competitive and want volume, Google works.
Recommended split: LinkedIn 45% / Google 35% / Meta 20%
🚛 Logistics / Supply Chain
Start with LinkedIn. Logistics buyers are operations directors and supply chain managers — very targetable by title. Google CPCs for logistics keywords can be brutal.
Recommended split: LinkedIn 55% / Meta 25% / Google 20%
🏗️ Construction / Trades
Interesting one. If you are selling TO construction business owners, Meta can actually work well here for cold prospecting because the audience is broad enough. "Construction company owners" is a large, identifiable group on Meta. Google works for specific services. LinkedIn is less natural for this audience.
Recommended split: Meta 40% / Google 40% / LinkedIn 20%
☁️ SaaS / Tech
All three matter equally. Google captures solution-aware search. LinkedIn targets ideal users by role. Meta retargeting nurtures free trial users. Full-funnel is essential.
Recommended split: LinkedIn 35% / Google 35% / Meta 30%
The Multi-Channel Truth Nobody Wants to Hear
Here is the uncomfortable reality. No single platform will be your silver bullet.
B2B buying journeys are messy. A typical deal might look like this. Prospect sees your LinkedIn ad. Googles your company. Reads a blog post. Leaves. Sees your Meta retargeting ad three times over the next week. Comes back and fills in a form. Your sales team follows up.
Which platform gets the credit? If you are using last-click attribution, Google gets it. But Google did not create the demand. LinkedIn did. And without Meta's retargeting, they would not have come back at all.
But here is the bit that matters most. The quality of your ads matters more than the platform you choose. A brilliant ad on a decent platform will outperform a boring ad on the perfect platform every single time. The companies that win are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones making ads that people actually want to watch, read, and click.
So pick the right platform for your situation. But then spend most of your energy making the ads themselves genuinely good. That is where the real leverage is.
📖 Go deeper: B2B Attribution Explained
Why last-click attribution misleads you and what to focus on instead in complex B2B sales.
Read the Guide🧪 Other Platforms Worth Experimenting With
LinkedIn, Google, and Meta are the big three for B2B. But once you have those dialled in and your budget allows it, there are three other platforms worth testing. None of these should be your first move. Think of them as level two.
🎬 YouTube Ads (Google Video)
Best for: building trust through long-form education
YouTube is the only platform where someone will willingly watch you talk for 10 minutes. That is incredibly powerful for B2B. If your sale depends on trust and expertise, a well-structured YouTube ad that educates your buyer can do more than 50 LinkedIn impressions.
The big thing to know: prioritise ads that get your videos suggested alongside similar topics, specific videos, and channels you pick. Not pre-roll ads that interrupt someone else's content. Unless you are creating ultra specific bespoke video content designed for that placement, pre-roll ads will tank your watch time and hurt your organic views and rankings.
Most B2B companies throw up a corporate promo video as a YouTube ad and wonder why nobody watches past 5 seconds. The content needs to teach something genuinely useful, not just promote.
PROS
- ✓ Builds deep trust (long watch times)
- ✓ Cheap views (£0.02 to £0.10 per view)
- ✓ Intent signals from Google Search data
- ✓ Content lives on your channel forever
- ✓ Suggested video placements feel organic, not interruptive
CONS
- ✗ You need good video content (no shortcuts)
- ✗ Campaign structure is complex
- ✗ Pre-roll ads can hurt organic rankings if watch time drops
- ✗ Attribution is messy (view to conversion gap)
- ✗ Not a quick win. This is a long game.
When to experiment:
You are already spending £3K+ per month on the big three, you have video content that educates (not just promotes), and your sales cycle is long enough that trust-building matters. Focus on suggested video placements over pre-roll. Great for consultancies, SaaS, and complex services.
🎵 TikTok Ads
Best for: retargeting, repurposing proven short-form content, and reaching existing audiences
Think of TikTok Ads as an extension of Meta Ads. If you have short-form vertical video content that you already know works and converts, TikTok gives you another channel to run it on. It is also excellent for retargeting if you have the traffic.
Where we have seen it work best for B2B? Clients who have already built a presence on TikTok organically. They take their best performing videos, add a CTA and landing page, and run them as ads to their current followers, engagers, and lookalike audiences of those people. That works. Cold prospecting to strangers with corporate content? That does not.
The algorithm does not care about your ad budget or your brand. It cares about watch time. If your video is interesting, it gets shown. If it is corporate waffle with a logo animation, it dies.
PROS
- ✓ Incredible reach for the price
- ✓ Algorithm rewards quality over budget
- ✓ Great for retargeting if you have traffic
- ✓ Repurpose proven organic content as ads
- ✓ Lookalike audiences of followers/engagers work well
CONS
- ✗ Most B2B content is too corporate for the platform
- ✗ No firmographic targeting at all
- ✗ Attribution is a nightmare
- ✗ Cold prospecting rarely works without an existing presence
- ✗ Geopolitical uncertainty (bans, restrictions)
When to experiment:
You already have short-form vertical video that performs well (organically or on Meta). Or you have built a TikTok following and want to monetise it by turning top posts into ads with a proper CTA and landing page. Also worth testing as a retargeting channel alongside Meta if you have 1,000+ monthly visitors.
💬 Reddit Ads
Best for: reaching technical buyers in niche communities
Reddit is the most underrated B2B advertising platform out there. The reason? Subreddits. There are active communities for almost every B2B niche you can imagine. r/sysadmin, r/MSP, r/accounting, r/cybersecurity, r/smallbusiness. These are places where your actual buyers hang out, ask questions, and recommend solutions.
The downside? Reddit users hate ads. Seriously. They can smell corporate marketing from a mile away and they will roast you in the comments. Your ad needs to provide genuine value or it will backfire. But if you get it right, the CPCs are cheap and the audience is highly engaged and technically savvy.
PROS
- ✓ Niche targeting via subreddits
- ✓ Cheap CPCs (£1 to £3 typically)
- ✓ Highly engaged, technical audiences
- ✓ Low competition from other advertisers
CONS
- ✗ Users actively hostile to obvious ads
- ✗ Small scale (limited audience sizes)
- ✗ Requires genuinely valuable content
- ✗ Comments are public and can go wrong fast
When to experiment:
Your buyers are technical (developers, IT, engineers, finance). There is an active subreddit where they discuss problems you solve. You can create ads that genuinely help rather than just promote. And you have thick skin for public comments.
Important reminder
Do not touch any of these until you have at least one of the big three (LinkedIn, Google, Meta) working profitably. These are experiments, not foundations. Get your core platform right first, make great ads for it, and then start testing.
🧭 Decision Framework: Pick Your Stack
Answer these four questions to find your starting platform:
1. Do people already search for what you sell?
Yes and CPCs are reasonable? Google should be in your mix. No, or the keywords are wildly expensive? Skip Google for now, start with LinkedIn.
2. Can you define your buyer by job title and industry?
Yes and they are senior enough to justify the CPL? LinkedIn should be in your mix. No? You need to define your ICP first. That is a bigger problem.
3. Do you get 1,000+ website visitors per month?
Yes? Meta retargeting should be running today. No? Focus on driving traffic first. Retarget later.
4. Is your target audience a broad industry or specific job titles?
Broad (restaurant owners, tradespeople)? Meta can work for cold prospecting too. Specific (Head of IT at mid-market SaaS)? LinkedIn is your only real option for cold targeting.
5. What is your monthly ad budget?
Under £1.5K: One platform only. £1.5K to £3K: Two platforms. £3K+: Three channel strategy.
📚 Related Resources
Are LinkedIn Ads Worth It for B2B?
The honest reality check for LinkedIn Ads ROI
LinkedIn Ads vs Google Ads (Deep Dive)
The original two-platform comparison with more detail
B2B Video Ad Blueprint
How to script and film video ads that work across all platforms
Every LinkedIn Ad Format Ranked
Which LinkedIn ad format to use once you've chosen LinkedIn
I run all three for UK B2B firms. Here's how I approach each one: LinkedIn Ads agency, Google Ads management and Meta Ads for B2B.
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