Google Ads for B2B machinery manufacturers: how to do it right

Google Ads works for machine builders when you go for very specific searches (machine type, application, material, spare part, service), consistently exclude consumers, job seekers and students, and report back to the account which enquiries turn into quotes. Broad terms, the home page as the destination and the form as the only success signal burn budget instead. Expect few but valuable enquiries, and a long sales cycle that the ad account alone doesn’t show.

I worked for Google on measurement implementations and manage B2B accounts today. Most of the problems I see in industrial accounts don’t come from the ads but from what the account counts as success. Why a running B2B account delivers hardly any good enquiries is covered in Why Google Ads delivers so few B2B enquiries. This article is about the setup.

Is Google Ads worth it for machine builders at all?

Yes, if your customers also look for suppliers on Google and a single order is worth a lot. Buyers, design engineers and maintenance managers search for solutions to a specific problem: a replacement machine, a component, a service provider for an application. These searches are rare, but someone searching like that often already has a need.

So the numbers in the Keyword Planner are small for industrial terms, and that’s normal. A handful of suitable enquiries a month can pay off if one of them becomes a five- or six-figure order. What clicks cost in B2B accounts is on the page on Google Ads costs in B2B (in German).

Google Ads is less suitable if your customers buy only through tenders, framework agreements or personal contacts, and nobody searches for your solution.

Which search terms work for machine builders?

The good terms are those where the searcher already knows what they need:

• Machine type plus a feature: design, performance class, material or process.
• Application or problem: what the machine is needed for, in the customer’s words.
• Spare parts, service, maintenance and retrofit: often the fastest enquiries, because a line is down or needs modernising.
• Buying signals: “manufacturer”, “quote”, “buy”, “supplier”.

Start with phrase and exact match keywords. Google describes broad match as ads being able to show on searches that are related to your keyword (Google Ads Help: Keyword matching options). With technical terms that also appear in hobbies, academia or another industry, that relationship quickly becomes too loose.

The exclusion list matters just as much. In the first weeks, read the search terms report every week and exclude what doesn’t fit. Typical candidates for machine builders are job searches and apprenticeships, studies and theses, instructions and “build it yourself”, definitions and encyclopaedia questions, and household or hobby devices with the same name. Whether “used” belongs on the list depends on whether you sell used machines.

How do I structure the campaigns?

Split the campaigns by what you sell and how much it’s worth to you, not by keyword lists:

• One campaign per product line or application, so you can put budget where the margin and the capacity are.
• Service and spare parts separate from new machines, because value, urgency and contact person differ.
• Brand searches separate, so they don’t flatter the numbers of the other campaigns.

Each campaign leads to its own page for exactly that product or application, not to the home page. A design engineer wants to see technical data, application examples and a clear path to a quote. An enquiry form that asks about the application, quantity or material helps you pre-sort, and helps your sales team in the first conversation. If you offer data sheets for download, count the download as an intermediate step, but not as the success the account bids on.

Export markets: region and language

Many machine builders sell abroad. For each market: its own campaign, ads in the local language and a landing page in the same language. Since September 2026, Google has been changing language targeting for Search campaigns. The campaign-level language setting goes away, and when selecting ads Google takes the language of your ad text into account (Google Ads Help: About language targeting). The language of the ad copy matters more than before.

For the region, Google uses “Presence or interest” by default (Google Ads Help: Advanced location options). That means people outside your target market who are only interested in it also see the ad. If you can only deliver to or service certain countries, switch to “Presence”.

How do I measure which enquiries are any good?

This is the most important question in B2B. A submitted form only tells you that someone made contact. That could be a buyer with a budget, a student, or a salesperson who wants to sell you something. If the account optimises only for submissions, it learns to bring in more of all three.

It’s better to tell your account what happens after the enquiry. For this, Google recommends enhanced conversions for leads and, as the goal, a “qualified lead” or a “converted lead” (Google Ads Help: Offline conversion imports FAQ). Two points from the same help page matter particularly for machine builders:

• A conversion with a click ID (GCLID) can only be uploaded if it’s no older than 90 days. An order that comes eight months after the click is too late for that. So report back an earlier stage, such as “qualified” or “quote prepared”.
• For Smart Bidding, uploads should happen at least once a day.

In practice, this means your sales team marks in the CRM whether an enquiry fits, and that information flows back regularly. How that works technically is in offline conversion import for lead generation. Without this step, I wouldn’t run a bidding strategy on conversions.

Search or Performance Max?

I start machine builders with Search. There you see every search term and can exclude what doesn’t fit. Performance Max also spreads the budget across YouTube, Display and other placements and optimises for the goal you give it. If that goal is a simple form submission, it mainly finds cheap submissions. When a PMax campaign pays off is covered in Performance Max: when the PMax campaign is worth it. My advice for industrial accounts: only once qualified enquiries are reported back reliably.

A useful addition to Google Search is Microsoft Advertising, because buyers and planners search during the day on their work computers, often with Windows and Edge.

Checklist: setting up Google Ads for machine builders

1. Check whether people actually search for your products, applications and spare parts.
2. Split campaigns by product line, service and spare parts, and brand.
3. Start with phrase and exact match keywords.
4. Create an exclusion list for jobs, studies, instructions and hobby terms, and read the search terms report every week.
5. Lead each campaign to its own product or application page, with technical data and a clear path to the enquiry.
6. For each export market: its own campaign, ads and landing page in the local language, location option “Presence”.
7. Record the status of every enquiry in the CRM and report a qualified stage back to Google within 90 days of the click.
8. Only then use automated bidding and Performance Max.

Conclusion

• Google Ads pays off for machine builders if people search for your solutions and an order is worth a lot. Few searches are normal.
• Specific terms, a strict exclusion list and a dedicated page for each product or application are the basis.
• Now that Google is removing the language setting for Search campaigns, ads and pages in the local language are what counts for export markets.
• The account has to learn which enquiries turn into quotes. Otherwise it learns to collect cheap submissions.
• Search first, then Performance Max once feedback from sales is flowing.

Your industrial account brings clicks but too few suitable enquiries? In the Google Ads audit, I check the account, the measurement and the enquiry path and write you an action plan. For a single decision, such as whether a new export market is worth it, the Clarity Session from €390 in consulting is often enough. Which one fits your question is something you and I can work out in a free intro call. Book a free intro call.

FAQ

How much budget do I need for Google Ads as a machine builder?

That follows from your own numbers. Multiply the value of a typical order by the share of enquiries that become orders and by the share of that value you’re willing to spend on winning it. The result is the most an enquiry may cost. The budget has to be enough to get, within a manageable period, enough enquiries that you can judge. B2B click prices are on the page on Google Ads costs in B2B (in German).

How quickly will I see results?

You’ll see clicks and first enquiries quickly. Whether they turn into orders only becomes clear over the sales cycle. So judge the quality of enquiries early, together with your sales team, rather than waiting for revenue.

Should sales be involved?

Absolutely. Only sales knows which enquiry fits. Without that feedback, the account optimises for volume instead of suitable customers.