In this new monthly "How to", Olivia from Overdrive Digital will share her take on the latest paid media trends and what they mean for B2B marketers.

Paid media platforms rarely stand still. Every month brings new features, changes to campaign settings and updates to the way platforms report and optimise performance.

August was no different.

With a number of useful updates across Google Ads and LinkedIn, we've rounded up some of the changes that caught our attention last month - and, more importantly, what they mean for B2B marketers.

Google Ads: Changes to Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns

One of the bigger Google Ads changes to come into effect in August was an update to the way budget-limited Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns behave.

From 17th August, Google changed how these campaigns respond when they are constrained by their daily budget. The update gives Google's bidding systems more flexibility to optimise towards conversions rather than being as restricted by the campaign's target.

For advertisers, the key thing to consider following the change is whether campaign performance has actually improved or deteriorated, rather than immediately reacting to fluctuations in individual metrics.

Automated bidding doesn't operate in isolation. A campaign might have a higher CPA on a particular day but still be delivering better commercial results if it's generating more valuable leads.

What should you do?

Now that the change has been in place for a few weeks, it's worth reviewing performance before and after 17th August to understand whether it's having a meaningful impact on your campaigns.

Don't look at CPA in isolation. Consider conversion volume, lead quality, cost per qualified lead and, where possible, pipeline generated.

The bigger takeaway from this update is simple: don't let a platform metric become your business KPI.

LinkedIn Ads: Company Reporting gives B2B marketers more visibility

Another useful LinkedIn update this summer was the introduction of Company Reporting in Campaign Manager.

The feature gives advertisers greater visibility into which companies are engaging with their campaigns, helping B2B marketers understand performance at an account level rather than relying solely on individual clicks, impressions and leads.

This is particularly useful for marketers running account-based campaigns, where success isn't necessarily about generating the highest possible number of leads. It's about reaching and influencing the right businesses.

For example, a campaign might generate relatively few leads but show strong engagement from companies that closely match your ideal customer profile.

That's useful information, particularly when it's shared with sales.

What should you do?

If you haven't already, take a look at Company Reporting and start incorporating account-level engagement into your LinkedIn campaign analysis.

Look at:

• Which target accounts are engaging with your campaigns

For B2B marketers, this can help create a much more useful picture of campaign performance than lead volume alone.

A reminder: don't optimise B2B campaigns around CPL alone

While not a specific August platform update, one theme we've been particularly focused on recently is the importance of looking beyond cost per lead when measuring paid media performance.

CPL is an easy metric to report on. But in B2B, it doesn't necessarily tell you whether your marketing is working.

A campaign generating leads at £30 each isn't automatically better than one generating leads at £100 each.

If the £30 leads never progress, while the £100 leads turn into opportunities and pipeline, the cheaper campaign could actually be costing the business more.

As paid media platforms become increasingly automated, this becomes even more important. Platforms are getting better at optimising towards the signals we give them - so marketers need to make sure those signals reflect what actually matters to the business.

What should you do?

As you review August performance, look beyond the initial conversion.

Where possible, connect your paid media data with metrics further down the funnel, including MQLs, opportunities, pipeline and revenue.

Ask yourself:

Are we optimising for the cheapest conversion, or the most valuable one?

That distinction can have a significant impact on where you allocate budget.

What can B2B marketers take from August?

The biggest takeaway from August's updates isn't that you need to completely rethink your paid media strategy every time a platform makes a change.

It's that the platforms are becoming increasingly sophisticated - and marketers need to be equally sophisticated in how they interpret the data they provide.

Google is giving its automated bidding systems more flexibility. LinkedIn is giving advertisers more visibility into account-level engagement. Both developments point towards a more automated and data-rich paid media environment.

But more data doesn't necessarily mean better decisions.

As we head into September, it's worth reviewing the impact of August's changes, checking how your campaigns have responded and making sure you're measuring performance against the metrics that actually matter to your business.

We'll be back next month with another round-up of the paid media changes and updates worth knowing about.