A tighter search structure, more relevant LinkedIn messaging and better conversion paths helped turn an inefficient paid program into its strongest quarter from digital sources.
ROI improved from 1.2x to 4.6x.
The company already had an established paid acquisition program across Google and LinkedIn.
But the economics weren't where they needed to be.
Google Ads was becoming increasingly expensive, the campaign structure made it harder to concentrate spend around the strongest intent, LinkedIn messaging wasn't doing enough to speak differently to different audiences, and the post-click experience had room to improve.
The goal wasn't to add more channels or simply increase budget.
It was to make the existing investment work much harder.
A business intelligence and analytics platform helping organizations work with and understand their data.
The existing Google Ads structure made it harder to control where budget went and focus investment on the searches most likely to convert.
LinkedIn ad copy wasn't personalized enough for the different audiences the company needed to reach.
Landing pages weren't aligned closely enough with campaign messaging and audience intent.
The work focused on making the existing channels easier to control, easier to learn from and more relevant to the people seeing the ads.
Google Search campaigns were restructured around query intent, with tighter match-type control and clearer grouping of related searches.
Different automated bidding strategies were tested based on campaign goals, while regular search-term reviews removed irrelevant traffic before it consumed more budget.
Instead of relying on broad messaging, ad copy was tailored around the needs and context of different audience segments.
The goal was simple: make the right buyer feel like the message was actually meant for them.
LinkedIn traffic was directed to more relevant landing-page experiences aligned with the campaign message and audience.
That reduced the disconnect between what someone clicked and what they saw next.
Campaign experiments were documented and reviewed systematically so successful changes could be scaled and weaker ideas could be stopped quickly.
Additional conversion signals were also tracked to give the team a fuller view of how paid activity was contributing beyond the first form fill.
Once the fundamentals started working together, the numbers moved well beyond platform-level efficiency.
Quarter-over-quarter figures compare Q1 '23 with the preceding quarter. “Potential pipeline from digital sources” is pipeline value, not closed revenue.
It came from making the fundamentals work together.
Search was structured around stronger intent.
Messaging became more relevant to the buyer.
The landing-page experience better matched what brought someone there.
And testing became deliberate rather than reactive.
Once those pieces were working together, there was finally something worth scaling.
This work was completed while I was part of the Paid Media team at Powered by Search. I was responsible for the paid acquisition strategy and was hands-on in the planning and execution covered in this case study.
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