Overview
A top player in the customer data platform (CDP) industry looked to gain more leads from an ICP list that targeted a specific list of B2B companies.
A tiered approach was used to build brand awareness and consideration for the brand and retarget an engaged audience to drive qualified leads.
The Google Search Network was leveraged to reach an audience expressing search intent. Image and text ad formats were run on LinkedIn including single image ads for prospecting and retargeting, spotlight ads, and document ads.
Campaigns drove increased reach within the target ICP audience and decrease in cost per qualified lead Y/Y.
Takeaways
In high cost per click B2B marketing, phrase match is more effective than broad match at reaching the target audience.
Competitor search is not a cost-effective way to reach the target audience at the bottom of the funnel.
New ad units are a great way to unlock inventory that may not be as competitive.
Desktop traffic from LinkedIn Ads is much more engaged than Mobile traffic.
Results
17% lower cost per qualified lead year over year
10M impressions driven to ICP prospects.
3x increase Lead to Qualified Lead rate
Background
Customer data platforms have seen a rise in popularity over the last 10 years due to increasingly complex customer journeys and volumes of customer data. The CDP market is estimated to reach $5.7 billion by the 2026 and is expected to grow 17.9% per year between 2022 and 2030.
While there is plenty of opportunity for companies selling CDPs, the market is very competitive. With over 177 as of July 2023 and each year seeing 10-20 new players in the space, the need for differentiation is crucial.
A CDP can be purchased on an annual contract starting in the low six figures but can easily run up into the high seven figures per year depending on the amount of customization desired. This made developing a marketing plan particularly challenging as it required a strategy that considered a 6–12-month sales cycle and prospects in decision-making positions.
Google Ads Strategy
Google Ads was chosen as the first channel to drive traffic due to the requirement for high intent.
Phase 1 – Go broad or go home
Campaigns were set up to target 30 general keywords related to CDP (e.g. customer data platform, cdp platform, cdp data platform) and the solution a CDP provides (e.g. customer data solutions, customer data unification). The approach leveraged broad match keywords which allowed for efficient traffic but resulted in less relevant search queries.
This worked well to drive lead volume but reduced the quality. After one month, we analyzed the results. For every 14 leads generated, only 1 was qualified, resulting in a cost per qualified lead above the goal.
To optimize the campaigns, negative keywords were added to exclude any competitor brand search (of which there was much) and the keyword list being targeted was reduced from 30 keywords, down to the top 10 performing keywords. Due to the high cost per click, there was no risk of underspending even with a smaller keyword target list.
These optimizations helped drive an incremental increase in Lead to Qualified Lead rate – up from 7% in month 1 to 10% in months 2-3. Improvement over time – nice.
Campaigns continued to run for two more months using this approach. Negative keywords were added to exclude irrelevant search, ad copy refreshed, keyword list paired down to the top 8 performers. In month 5, we drove our highest lead > qualified lead rate yet: 12.5%.
There was only so much more that could be done to optimize the current campaign. The broad match campaign was trimmed down to the top 3 keywords, and daily budget was reduced.
Phase 2 – Match me baby one more time
Rather than target broad for more efficient traffic, a campaign targeting phrase match keywords was implemented to increase relevancy. While this increased the cost per click, it allowed more control over the search queries impressions were delivered against.
Qualifiers like ‘top’, ‘best’, or ‘popular’ were included within the keywords to reach users which more expressed intent. Both changes allowed us to reach end users that were in the research phase (consideration) of the buying cycle, rather than more exploratory, top of funnel traffic.
The difference in click efficiency was noticeable right away – clicks cost upwards of 3x as much in the phrase match campaign. What was also apparent was that the search queries in the phrase match campaign were much more aligned with the keywords being targeted – no brainer, right?
It also quickly became clear that lead volume was decreasing, mostly due to the lower volume of traffic making it to the landing page. However, after running the campaign for one month against the broad match campaign, the lead > qualified lead rate was more than double at a staggering 27%. Yes, lead volume was lower, and that contributed to the increase, but we also saw a decrease in cost per qualified lead of roughly 20% when comparing the campaigns.
The next two months consisted of routine optimizations to the phrase match campaign – negating irrelevant search and honing the keyword list to include only top performers. This yielded marginal gains, but importantly, maintained consistently better performance when compared to the broad match campaign. Eventually, the broad match campaign was paused to shift budget to the stronger performing phrase match campaign.
LinkedIn Ads Strategy
LinkedIn Ads was added to the strategy for its proven effectiveness with B2B marketing. unique capability to target job titles and company names. The ICP was built using a list of target companies, and job titles were used to narrow the audience to decision-makers at B2C companies.
Phase 1 – All about images
To get into market quickly, image assets were repurposed from existing creative and used to run image ads to prospecting and retargeting audiences. Prospecting focused on company names & job titles as the primary form of targeting while retargeting included ad engagement and site visitor audiences both using 90-day lookback windows.
Ads ran to landing pages with downloadable whitepapers or reports, acting as lead magnets. Impression and click-based optimization models were tested against each other which yielded some interesting results.
Costs per click were much higher with impression-based bidding – unsurprising. However, the sessions that these clicks produced were much higher quality. When comparing the cost per engaged session, impression-based bidding drove greater efficiency.
When looking at the device breakdown, it started to become clear. Click-optimized campaigns drove impressions almost exclusively on mobile devices while impression-optimized campaigns saw roughly 15% of the impressions served on desktops. This led to a key finding – desktop traffic on LinkedIn is much more engaged than mobile.
After running these campaigns for 1 month, they had generated 1 lead, not qualified. It became clear a shift in strategy was necessary.
Phase 2 – Document ad in the spotlight
Testing new ad inventory on LinkedIn became the clear path forward. Without access to updated creative assets or landing pages, the decision was made to test Text ads and Spotlight ads which are both text-based formats. This ensured that there was minimal lift on the client team and the test was able to get in market quickly.
Initial results were very promising. While text ads drove high CPCs about $30, they were able to deliver very low CPMs around $1. Similarly, Spotlight ads saw low CPMs but also much more efficient clicks when compared to image ad prospecting. In fact, clicks were generated at a fraction of the cost, almost 3 times less.
Additionally, traffic quality was much stronger from Spotlight ads as they only serve on desktops. Within the first month of running these ads, a majority of the budget was allocated due to more efficient performance on platform and engagement on site. Moreover, these placements generated leads and after one month, lead volume increased 10x!
This proof of concept allowed for further testing. Additional audience segments were added to test job functions and member interests. Ultimately, it was found that member interests when aligned with marketing drove the most efficient lead volume as well as qualified leads.
Given the success with Spotlight ads and learnings around ideal audience targeting, we looked to continue testing different formats to broaden reach on the platform. Document ads offer users the ability to download a document directly from the LinkedIn platform – no landing page needed – in exchange for their user information. This meant that there was no concern for data loss from ad blockers, inconsistent page loads, or browser settings that can hurt attribution.
Lead forms were created for each whitepaper using ad copy pulled directly from the landing page, and required user data fields were also copied directly from the form submission on the landing page. No new assets needed to be created and allowed for a streamlined launch.
A small portion of the budget was allocated, and within the first month of this test, already surpassed the Spotlight ads in conversion efficiency. The driving factor in this was a much higher conversion rate (on the order of 3x higher) due to the limited steps between ad engagement and report download.
The only drawback to Document ads is the missed opportunity to drive site visitors that can be retargeted across other platforms. A retargeting audience can be created in LinkedIn based on lead form opens. However, this tends to be a small fraction of the total clicks received and not very viable.
Conclusion
A dynamic strategy is important in digital marketing as what works today will not necessarily work in the future. Always test new inventory sources and methods of targeting to ensure not only ongoing success, but improvements to campaign performance and your clients’ bottom line.
Through ongoing optimization and continued testing, we were able to generate a 17% decrease in cost per qualified lead year over year. Reach within the ICP audience was expanded with over 10M impressions driven to qualified prospects.
Thanks to clear ICP definition and the ability to target granularly through Google and LinkedIn, we were able to deliver timely media to the target audience. This in turn allowed us to drive more quality brand awareness and conversion for the client and scale the campaign with the tactics that had proven successful.