Should I use broad match or exact match for high-intent B2B keywords?

In our experience, exact match performs better for most B2B accounts. Broad and phrase match need a large budget and steady conversion volume to train Google's automation correctly, and most B2B accounts don't generate enough conversions for that yet. Without it, broad and phrase usually widen the audience past the intent you're paying for.

Why do LinkedIn lead gen forms generate leads that don't turn into sales calls?

A lead gen form makes it easy to capture a name and email, but filling out a form for a PDF isn't the same buying signal as someone ready to talk to sales. Use lead gen forms for remarketing, once someone already knows who you are. For prospecting, use formats like thought leader ads, image ads, or video, and save the form for later in the funnel.

How to Generate Qualified B2B Leads from LinkedIn and Google Ads

B2B lead gen is the easy part.

Getting leads that actually move through your pipeline, that's the hard part. Anyone can turn on a LinkedIn lead gen form or a Google Ads campaign and start generating volume. Getting leads that are qualified, high-intent, and actually convert into sales calls is a different problem. It breaks in two completely different ways depending on the channel.

Where Google Ads breaks

Every keyword you're chasing needs three things at once: volume, high intent, and a cost you can actually afford. You rarely get all three.

Chase volume first and you're paying for clicks that browse and never convert. Chase intent first and you find the perfect term with 10 searches a month. Most accounts default to volume, then wonder why the pipeline doesn't match the spend.

Where LinkedIn breaks

Lead gen forms and PDFs make volume and engagement trivial. Someone downloads a guide, the form fires, the lead count goes up.

Turning that into an actual sales call is the hard part. A form-fill for a PDF is not the same signal as someone ready to talk to sales, and most accounts treat them identically.

Start with the foundations, not the channel

Before touching either platform: define the ICP. Pull the real pain points from sales calls and reviews, not assumptions sitting in a slide deck. Build the messaging around what you're actually better at.

Skip this and every tactic below is optimizing on top of a weak foundation.

Winning on LinkedIn

Control exactly who sees the ad. Use a company and contact list if you have one. If you don't, get very specific with native targeting instead of trusting the platform's industry and company-size filters, they read as precise and cast a wider net than they look.

We've seen this fix work independently across more than one account: swap platform auto-targeting for an uploaded, vetted company list, and the same budget starts reaching only companies that actually fit.

Match the format to the funnel stage. Prospecting: thought leader ads, image ads, video. Remarketing: message ads and image ads tied to a lead gen form, once someone already knows who you are.

Winning on Google Ads

Cover your brand term, but on the lowest budget that still defends it. That's not where the budget should be working hardest.

For generic high-intent terms, in our experience exact match wins more often than broad or phrase. Broad and phrase can work, but they need the budget and conversion volume to feed Google's automation, and most B2B accounts don't have either yet.

Cover competitor search terms too, but send that traffic to a dedicated landing page built for the comparison, not your homepage.

The connection that actually matters

Keyword, ad, and landing page have to read as one message. Break that chain anywhere and the intent you paid for leaks out before it converts.

We've pruned campaigns where two keywords were absorbing a large share of spend and producing zero real deals, once we joined actual CRM outcomes back to the keyword level instead of trusting platform conversion counts alone.

We don't have a keyword list or targeting setup that works for every account. What we do have is a process for finding yours.

👉 Book your free 30-minute PPC audit and we'll show you how to generate more qualified B2B leads.