CDP Marketing Strategy: Growing Leads with LinkedIn and YouTube Ads

Executive Summary

Our CDP marketing strategy focused on partnering with Company X to increase qualified demo requests for their Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Email Service Provider (ESP) products. Through a strategic multi-channel approach combining LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google Search, we achieved significant growth in lead generation while maintaining cost efficiency.

Pre-Test Period
May-July 2024

Test Period
August-September 2024

Post-Test Period
October 2024

Key Results

Drove a 205% increase in qualified website traffic from paid channels.

Achieved 475% growth in qualified leads compared to control period.

No change in cost per qualified lead.

Background

Company Overview

Company X is an international marketing technology company specializing in customer engagement and retention. Two of their flagship solutions include:

  1. Customer Data Platform (CDP)
    • Unified database system
    • Integrates customer data from various sources (Website, CRM, Social Media)
    • Enables cross-platform data leveraging
  2. Email Service Provider (ESP)
    • Enterprise-level email marketing platform
    • Comprehensive campaign management capabilities
    • Integration with CDP for enhanced targeting

Market Context

  • Data graph with 240+ million customer profiles
  • Integrated CDP-ESP solution
  • Enterprise-scale capabilities

Sales Process

Enterprise software purchases typically follow a structured Request for Proposal (RFP) process:

  1. Initial research phase by decision-makers
  2. Vendor evaluation and comparison
  3. Product demonstrations
  4. Final selection and implementation

Our strategy targeted decision-makers in their initial research phase to raise awareness and bring company X into consideration.

Average sales cycle ranges from 6-12+ months, with significant stakeholder involvement throughout the process.

Audience

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) was developed to reach Company X’s target audience including:

  • Marketing Leaders
    • VPs & Directors
    • Managers
    • Consultants
  • Business Leaders
    • Executives
    • Founders

Measurement

We expanded on Company X’s lead scoring system with analysis of secondary KPIs:

  • Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Site Visitors
  • Engaged Sessions
  • Video Watch Time
  • Frequency

Challenge

Prior to working with us, Company X faced several key challenges:

Search Marketing

  • Non-branded keywords costs ranged from $30-100 per click
  • Unsustainable model competing against advertisers with larger budgets
  • Limited ability to compete effectively in search auctions

Brand Awareness

  • Low consideration during RFP processes
  • Limited brand recognition among target audience
  • Need for increased marketing visibility

Complex Sales Environment

  • Low consideration during RFP processes
  • Limited brand recognition among target audience
  • Need for increased marketing visibility

Approach

We developed a comprehensive multi-channel strategy targeting three key objectives:

Channel Strategy

Appealing to an audience of business decision makers required precision targeting and long-form content.

YouTube

Audience

  • ICP profile-based lookalike modeling
  • Reached 200,000 unique users
  • Average monthly frequency: 3 impressions per user

Content Strategy

  • Customer Testimonials
  • Product demonstrations
  • Live educational sessions

LinkedIn

Target Audience

  • Proprietary ICP audience of 50,000 users
  • Average monthly frequency: 10+ impressions per user

Content Strategy

  • Educational blog articles
  • Industry trend analysis
  • Best practice guides
  • Integration benefits
  • RFP process guidance

Google Search

Campaign Structure

  • Solution-specific ad groups
  • Branded search terms
  • Custom landing pages

Optimization Strategy

Results

LinkedIn Impact

Engaged Sessions

  • Significant increase in engaged users indicating quality.
growth in engaged sessions from LinkedIn over duration of cdp marketing strategy test

ICP Site Visitors

  • Majority of sessions from users within target ICP audience
growth in ICP site visitors from LinkedIn over duration of test

YouTube Impact

Engaged Sessions

  • Increased engaged sessions
  • Watch time of video ads ranging from 20s-80s

ICP Site Visitors

  • Strong ICP alignment
  • Growth in line with engaged sessions
growth in ICP site visitors from Youtube over duration of test

Lead Generation Results

Qualified Leads

  • 475% increase in qualified leads
growth in qualified leads following implementation of cdp marketing strategy

Cost per Qualified Lead

  • Consistent cost per acquisition
Cost per qualified lead compared before and after implementation of the CDP marketing strategy

Conclusion

The multi-channel strategy demonstrated clear success in:

  1. Expanding market presence

2. Engaging qualified decision-makers

3. Driving meaningful business outcomes

Our CDP marketing strategy success hinged on:

  • Strategic audience targeting
  • High-quality content development
  • Integrated channel approach
  • Robust measurement framework

Future Recommendations

Immediate Actions

Implement always-on consideration campaign

Rotate seasonal content

Stay up-to-date on emerging trends

Sustain brand lift

Short-term Initiatives

Launch matched market test

Test Youtube & LinkedIn in separate markets

Compare to a control market

Determine optimal media mix

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