[Breakdown] $5M+ in Pipeline From LinkedIn Ads

Intro 

Hello and welcome to Mark Sourced, where we break down successful B2B marketing programs that you can leverage to hit your growth goals.

In this post, we’re looking at how Metadata generated massive results from LinkedIn Conversational Ads, including over $5M in pipeline and $1M in revenue. The campaign results were originally detailed on their blog.

Let’s unpack the campaign!

Summary

Metadata is a platform that enables marketers to manage various ad platforms all in one place.

In the interest of growing pipeline and revenue, Metadata was an early adopter of LinkedIn Conversational Ads, which enabled them to reach their ideal customer profile (ICP) at scale and drive huge results.

They built a target audience of primary buyers based upon industry and company size, and then sent out targeting messaging offering a $100 Amazon gift card for a demo.

The results were eye opening, with millions in pipeline and revenue sourced from the campaign.

The Results

$266,000 spent
2,089 demos requested
$5.3M in pipeline generated
$1.3M in revenue
5X ROI

Why This Worked

The team at Metadata executed a well thought out campaign that reached and converted their ideal buyers at scale.

Here is what they did that I think made this campaign so effective:

1. They targeted a clearly defined ICP

The beauty of LinkedIn ads for B2B companies is that you can set up extremely tight targeting to reach exactly who you want.

That’s exactly what Metadata did — they targeted decision makers within their target industries and company sizes…the folks that represent their typical buyers.

Metadata also struck a good balance of targeting with audience size. Their ultimate audience size ended up being about 50,000 people, which is a sizeable enough audience to drive good volume from the channel.

2. Their messaging resonated

Metadata’s primary users tend to be marketers. That helped their own marketing leadership team to deeply understand the challenges and goals that their customers face.

With that deep customer understanding in mind, they were able to craft messaging that showed their audience that they understood them, and position their solution in a way that helped their audience understand its value.

3. They had a valuable offer

Included within their conversational ad was an offer of a $100 Amazon gift card. That offer helped to establish trust that a demo was going to be worth their prospect’s time, and that Metadata was a legit company with real dollars to put behind their marketing.

I understand why folks are hesitant to include a gift card in a campaign like this, out of fear that people are going to respond just for the free money. In my experience, I haven’t seen too many people abuse an offer like that, and they tend to legitimately hear you out if they hop on a call.

Who Should Consider Running This Type of Program

The drawback of using LinkedIn for advertising is that it tends to be more expensive than others channels. LinkedIn provides the highest level of granularity in its B2B targeting, and makes you pay top dollar to get access to it.

With that being the case, LinkedIn really only makes sense for companies with at least a $10K customer lifetime value, in order to have the potential of generating a positive ROI.

How to Run This At Your Company

In order to effectively run a program like this at your company, there are a few things that you need to have in place:

1. A clear picture of your ICP and proven product-market fit

As mentioned, LinkedIn ads is an expensive channel relative to other ad networks. With that being the case, it’s easy to waste a lot of money by targeting the wrong folks.

Prior to investing in a campaign like this, make sure that you have a clear picture of your ideal customer and that your demo can effectively convert your audience.

LinkedIn ads should be an accelerator channel, not one that you use to help find the gas pedal.

2. A skilled paid media resource

Did I mention that you could waste a lot of money on LinkedIn ads? As a result, it’s important to have someone turning the LinkedIn dials that knows what they’re doing.

That could be an internal hire or a contractor, but don’t put someone at the wheel that has no background in paid media.

3. A prepared sales team

As mentioned, the gift card offer was one of the things that helped to make this campaign so effective. If you’re offering an incentive like that, make sure that your sales team is aware and knows the process for fulfilling the gift card offer.

Conclusion

Metadata used LinkedIn ads creatively and effectively to help scale their business. For B2B marketers, it can be a powerful channel to reach your target audience at scale.

However, it’s an expensive channel where you can burn cash quickly, so make sure that you have good product market fit, and an experience resource at the helm running your ads.