B2B teams split their ad budgets across Google, Meta and LinkedIn, and most of them argue about which one works. Spend allocation does not equal performance. The question is which platform actually moves pipeline for your specific business.
The answer depends on what you are trying to do. Each platform has a distinct strength, and the best B2B strategies use all three in different parts of the funnel. Here is how they compare across the dimensions that matter for B2B in 2026.
Google Ads for B2B: intent and first-party data
Google Ads wins on intent. Someone searching for "enterprise CRM pricing" or "B2B lead routing software" is already in-market. They have a problem, they know it, and they are evaluating solutions. Google captures that person at the moment of intent.
Strengths: Highest purchase intent of any platform. You can target by search keyword, build custom segments from keywords and competitor URLs, and layer in-market segments on top. There is no job-title or industry filter, so account-level precision comes from Customer Match lists you upload from your CRM. Google's Performance Max campaigns use AI to allocate budget across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube and Discover from a single campaign. As a directional guide, average cost per click for B2B keywords lands between AUD 5 and 30 depending on industry and competition.
Weaknesses: Volume is limited by search demand. If nobody is searching for your product category, Google Ads does nothing for you. Clicks are expensive for competitive keywords. Brand search clicks from people already looking for you can inflate your reported performance. Google's default attribution models tend to overcredit the last click, which in B2B is rarely the first touchpoint.
Best for: Capturing in-market buyers, competitive conquesting, and high-intent bottom-of-funnel leads.
Meta for B2B: reach, interests and lookalike audiences
Meta has the largest user base of any platform, with Facebook alone over three billion monthly active users and Instagram and Messenger adding more on top. For B2B, this means reach and frequency at a lower cost than LinkedIn or Google. Detailed targeting runs on demographics, interests and behaviours, and lookalike audiences are built from a customer list. Meta's own ad targeting guidance recommends an audience between two and ten million people. That guidance pushes campaigns toward broad reach, and named-account precision stays limited.
Strengths: Lowest cost per click of the three platforms, typically between AUD 1 and 5 for B2B targeting. Retargeting on Meta is excellent for keeping your brand in front of people who visited your website but did not convert. Reels and video content on Instagram are effective for brand awareness campaigns.
Weaknesses: Lower purchase intent than Google. People on Facebook and Instagram are in a discovery mindset, not a search mindset. Lead form quality on Meta is lower than LinkedIn or Google because the barrier to filling a form is low. You need a stronger qualification step and potentially a higher volume of leads to get the same number of qualified conversations.
Best for: Brand awareness, retargeting, lookalike audience prospecting, and high-volume top-of-funnel campaigns.
LinkedIn Ads for B2B: job title, company and seniority filters
LinkedIn is the only one of the three with native filters for job title, company name, industry and seniority. LinkedIn's targeting documentation calls this member-generated professional data, and Matched Audiences adds Company Targeting for a named account list and Contact Targeting for a contact list you upload.
Strengths: The tightest targeting of the three. If you need to reach senior data engineers at enterprise companies in Sydney, LinkedIn is the only platform where that audience exists as a targetable segment. Sponsored InMail lands directly in a professional inbox, which is why direct-response B2B teams pay the premium over feed ads. Lead quality from well-targeted LinkedIn campaigns is typically the highest of any paid platform.
Weaknesses: Highest cost. B2B cost per click on LinkedIn usually lands between AUD 8 and 25, and cost per lead can exceed AUD 150 for competitive industries. Minimum budgets are higher than the other platforms, and audience filters narrow the addressable group quickly. Check the estimated audience size against your criteria in Campaign Manager before you commit the budget.
Best for: Account-based marketing, targeting specific job titles and companies, high-value B2B lead generation, and building thought leadership through sponsored content.
| Google Ads | Meta | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer mindset | Already searching for a solution | Discovery and browsing | Working, open to professional content |
| Targeting depth | Search keywords, custom segments, in-market | Demographics, interests, lookalikes | Job title, company, industry, seniority |
| Typical CPC (directional) | AUD 5 to 30 | AUD 1 to 5 | AUD 8 to 25 |
| Lead volume | Capped by search demand | Highest of the three | Lowest of the three |
| Funnel role | Capture in-market buyers | Top-of-funnel reach and retargeting | ABM and high-value accounts |
| Main blind spot | Last-click overcrediting | Lower lead quality | Cost per lead and reach limits |
How the three platforms compare on B2B targeting
Targeting is where the three platforms diverge most. LinkedIn is the only one of the three with native filters for job title, company name, industry and seniority. Google Ads reaches much the same people through search keywords and Customer Match lists from your CRM. Meta reaches them through demographics, interests and behaviours, layered with lookalike audiences.
The ranking on the criteria that define a B2B ideal customer profile runs like this.
- LinkedIn. Job title, seniority, company name, company size and industry all exist as filters, and Company Targeting takes a named account list for account-based marketing.
- Google Ads. Search keywords and custom segments signal intent. Account-level precision comes from Customer Match lists you upload, and lookalike segments run only in Demand Gen campaigns.
- Meta. Detailed targeting works on demographics, interests and behaviours. Lookalike audiences expand a customer list well, and Meta's own audience-size guidance points campaigns at broad reach.
| Criterion | Google Ads | Meta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job title and seniority | Native filters | Approximated with custom segments and Customer Match | Approximated with interests and behaviours |
| Company name and account list | Company Targeting from an uploaded account list | Customer Match list from your CRM | Custom audience from a customer list |
| Company size and industry | Native filters | No direct filter | No direct filter |
| Lookalike audiences | Company and contact lists cover list expansion | Lookalike segments, Demand Gen campaigns only | Lookalike audience built from a source list |
| Intent signal | Member profile data and engagement | Search keywords and in-market segments | Interests and behaviours |
Sources read in October 2026: LinkedIn ad targeting, Google Ads audience segments and Meta audience ad targeting.
Where the budget should go first
The best approach is a funnel strategy that uses each platform where it works best.
Start with Google Ads to capture the buyers who are already searching. This gives you the fastest path to pipeline because the intent is already there. Use LinkedIn for the accounts and job titles that are in your ideal customer profile, especially if your deal sizes are above AUD 20,000 and you need a targeted approach. Use Meta for brand awareness, retargeting visitors who did not convert, and building lookalike audiences from your best customers at a lower cost per touch.
The real challenge is measuring what each platform actually contributes to pipeline. When your B2B buyer sees a LinkedIn ad, searches for your product on Google, reads a blog post, then converts through a retargeting Meta ad, each platform claims the conversion. Without unified attribution, you will over-invest in whichever platform gets the last click.
We built a unified ad attribution system that tracks the buyer journey across all three platforms and assigns credit to every touchpoint. Our unified ad reporting guide shows how to set up a dashboard that pulls data from Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn into a single view with Make. Once you have the measurement layer in place, you can allocate budget based on actual pipeline contribution rather than last-click reporting.
For attribution, we recommend a data-driven model that weights each touchpoint by its role in the buyer journey. Google's data-driven attribution is a good starting point for search. LinkedIn's conversion tracking works well for direct response campaigns. But the real value comes from connecting all three into a single attribution pipeline. Google's data-driven attribution documentation explains how the model works, and LinkedIn's conversion tracking setup covers their approach.
If you want a deeper look at how advertising performance changes when you have the right measurement, our marketing attribution pipeline guide walks through the reporting layer step by step.
A 90-day test plan before you commit the budget
Platform comparisons describe what is typical. Your own numbers tell you what is true for your market, your deal size and your sales cycle, and a controlled test is how you get them. Run all three platforms for 90 days with fixed budgets, then judge each one on qualified pipeline. Cheap leads and healthy pipeline are rarely the same platform.
Define qualified before the test starts. Agree with sales on the threshold a lead must cross, and count only leads that cross it. If the definition stays fuzzy, every platform will look the same at day 90.
The table below shows one workable split for a total monthly budget near AUD 6,000.
| Platform | What the test funds | Primary metric | What the result tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Search campaigns on your highest-intent keywords | Cost per qualified lead | Whether demand exists for you to capture |
| One ABM list of 200 to 500 target accounts | Meetings booked from target accounts | Whether precision targeting converts at your deal size | |
| Meta | Retargeting for site visitors, plus one lookalike audience | Cost per retargeted visit | How cheaply you can stay in front of warm audiences |
Split the example budget AUD 3,000 to Google, AUD 2,000 to LinkedIn and AUD 1,000 to Meta. Against the directional cost-per-lead ranges above, those buckets buy roughly 55, 15 and 30 leads a month. The arithmetic is illustrative, and the shape is what matters. Google gets the most weight because search intent carries the shortest path to a deal, LinkedIn gets enough to read its lead quality, and Meta gets enough to build a retargeting floor. Hold the split steady for the full 90 days. Moving money at week three restarts the sample and teaches you nothing.
At day 90, compare qualified pipeline across the three buckets and move budget toward the platform that produced it. Trim the weakest bucket by a third, add that to the strongest, and leave the other shares stable so the next quarter still compares against a known baseline. Rerun the comparison each quarter, because platform algorithms and buyer behaviour keep moving. Treat the split as something you review regularly and change slowly, and it keeps earning its own evidence.
Which platform travels best into other markets
The comparison shifts when the buyer sits in another country, because the mechanics behind each platform change with geography.
- LinkedIn's professional graph is deepest in North America, the UK, Australia and Northern Europe. Check the estimated audience size for your target titles inside campaign setup before promising reach in a new market.
- Google's search volume and click costs vary by language and country. A keyword that produces leads at AUD 8 in one market can cost several times that in a market where competitors are already bidding, so pull the Keyword Planner forecast for each country you enter.
- Meta's reach is broad almost everywhere, so it can carry the top of the funnel in markets where the other two platforms are thin.
Run the test country by country, or cap regional spend until each market produces enough data to compare. A single blended number hides which geography is doing the work. Whichever platform leads at home, give each new market its own read before you scale spend there, because the same platform rarely leads in every geography.
Frequently asked questions
Which platform is best for B2B lead generation?
LinkedIn is typically best for high-ICP, low-volume B2B leads where targeting precision matters more than volume. Google Ads is best for in-market buyers searching for solutions and ready to evaluate. Meta is best for brand awareness and retargeting at a lower cost per touch. The best results come from using all three in a coordinated funnel.
What is the average CPL for B2B advertising?
As a directional guide, LinkedIn CPL runs from roughly AUD 80 to 200 depending on industry and targeting. Google Ads CPL ranges from AUD 30 to 80. Meta CPL ranges from AUD 15 to 50. These numbers vary significantly by industry, competition level, and campaign quality. The cost per qualified lead is more important than the cost per raw lead.
Should I use all three platforms?
If your budget allows, use Google for capture, LinkedIn for precision and Meta for retargeting. Each serves a different part of the funnel. The real advantage comes from unified attribution that shows you how each platform contributes to pipeline instead of just last-click revenue.
How do I track cross-platform performance?
You need a unified attribution system that tracks the buyer journey across platforms. Single-platform reporting overestimates that platform's contribution because it ignores the touchpoints that happened before or after. Our social campaign reporting guide shows a practical way to build this with tools your team already has.
What is the minimum budget for B2B ads?
A meaningful test budget is roughly AUD 2,000 per platform per month. Below that, the data is too thin to make allocation decisions. Expect to run tests for 60 to 90 days before you have statistically significant results for B2B campaigns with longer sales cycles.
Which platform is best for targeting by company and job seniority?
LinkedIn, by a wide margin. Company name, industry, job title and seniority are native targeting filters on LinkedIn, so an ABM list takes minutes to build. Google reaches similar buyers through search intent and in-market audiences, which stand in for company and title data. Meta's detailed targeting covers demographics, interests and behaviours, so job title precision trails LinkedIn's.
How do you compare B2B ad platforms on targeting?
Write down the criteria that define your ideal customer, then check whether each platform offers them as filters today. LinkedIn's targeting page lists job title, company, industry and seniority. Google's audience segments cover affinity, custom, in-market, detailed demographics and your own data. Meta's ad targeting guide covers demographics, interests and behaviours, with lookalike audiences built from a customer list. Compare the estimated audience size each platform reports before you allocate budget, because a filter that exists can still be too narrow to deliver.