Source: B2B Marketing: 3 Killer Paid Social Media Campaigns.
B2B Marketing magazine recently published an article “3 Killer Paid Social Media Campaigns”. The article highlights the value of paid social in delivering ROI – if done right. It showcases three campaigns, one of which is Sherpa’s LinkedIn campaign for client, Talari Networks.
Delivering ROI via Paid LinkedIn Sponsored Content
Our client, Talari tasked us with delivering real pipeline opportunity via paid traffic, and we looked at LinkedIn as a potential source of high-value leads, given its ability to target professionally. We also had the benefit of end-to-end sight not only of the performance of the ads themselves, but also which ads were delivering which leads and how those leads were creating pipeline opportunities. This has allowed for optimisation towards ROI and not just lead volume.
Another advantage we had in this campaign was using skills-based and group-based targeting, rather than targeting solely on job titles. IT decision makers – particularly in the larger sized enterprises, which made up the target audience, come with a huge variety of job titles. There could be a whole department which oversees network architecture (for which the Talari Solution, SD-WAN, is designed) – but this department could be overseen by IT function heads of. Or even operation heads of. Targeting by skills and interest groups, and targeting by number of years in work ensured that we were casting our nets in the right direction in terms of job remit and seniority.
Leverage in this campaign was also by having a fantastic set of assets from Talari; a license for a Gartner report comparing vendors (in which Talari was featured). Making that investment in a great piece of content, from such a well-known name such as Gartner, was a key component in the campaign’s success – and we couldn’t recommend this more. This will really drive ROI from these types of campaigns and delivers real value to the audience’s targeting.
Test & Refine
We implemented a testing process for our campaigns with regular reporting, optimising and refining of both the audiences, the bidding and the creative elements.
The process paid off – after six months, the conversion rate on the Sponsored Content was 19% click to new leads, and new leads costs on average $30. We also have a stage of lead qualification, undertaken in-house on behalf of the client – and additionally we have sight of the sales reporting via the client’s analytics. This means that we can see the real pipeline value delivered by these campaigns.
Not everything has been as successful with LinkedIn – we tried a sponsored InMail campaign to a smaller target group – something which we have had success with for other clients. We had +70% open rates on the InMail, however the cost per new lead was much more expensive - so it’s an activity we might try again with an account-based or retargeted audience segment.
If you are struggling to get traction from your LinkedIn campaigns and would like to discuss some of the tactics outlined above, please get in touch with our digital team.
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