Big Pipeline Growth with Ongoing Ad Engagement Optimization

UserGems is a high-growth company that relies on marketing to generate its pipeline. Isaac Ware, the Director of Demand Generation, is always striving to improve the efficiency of his campaigns. Lead quality and CPLs were excellent, but Isaac knew they could be even better.

The Problem: Maximizing Demand Gen Efficiency

While tactical plays like conversation ads performed well initially, Isaac knew he couldn’t rely solely on bottom-funnel tactics. He needed to spark ongoing demand from audiences less familiar with UserGems but who matched UserGems’ tightly defined ICP.

Campaigns could be more timely and personalized, given a revamp of his strategy. With fresh, tailored audiences and a new approach, he thought performance could skyrocket.

If audiences aren't live or if they're not fresh, campaign performance suffers.

Isaac went looking for a better way to target their TAM and accelerate prospects down the funnel.

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The Hypothesis: Focus on Content Engagement to Drive Pipeline

To boost marketing efficiency, Isaac believed better audience data would improve relevance, response rates, and pipeline.

Specifically, he thought Primer could help them:

• Keep audiences fresh with constant job change updates based on first-party UserGems data
• Tailor messaging and audiences to a prospects' funnel stage  
• Align messaging to persona and segments, including key ABM accounts

With more personalized audiences and then aligning outreach, Isaac expected to see increased engagement, conversions, and velocity.

The Solution: Always Optimizing for Engagement

Isaac used Primer to turn UserGems' Salesforce data into targeted audiences for LinkedIn ads and account-based plays. He pulled recent job changers from UserGems’ Salesforce into Primer, segmented them, and synced them to LinkedIn. In setting up his LinkedIn campaigns, his approach focused less on last-click conversion and more on moving his tightly defined ICP down funnel. Here’s how he did it:

• Campaigns prominently featured educational and customer testimonial videos
• Ad frequency was carefully monitored to balance reach and oversaturation.
• Budget was optimized based on engagement with content, rather than last-click conversion to a form submit.

Rather than immediate conversions, Isaac did something a bit radical these days – he optimized for engagement, not last click source. Wait, what? How could he keep justifying the ad spend? 

The Impact: Clear Pipeline Lift 

Isaac correlated engagement metrics to pipeline over time. This engagement-first strategy succeeded in delivering BIG pipeline growth:

• Ad engagement rates clearly predicted pipeline health. High engagement preceded increases.
• Low engagement periods indicated upcoming pipeline slowdowns.
• The correlation allowed Isaac to optimize spend based on this leading indicator.

As Isaac explained, “When we revisit messaging after engagement drops, we see pipeline follow.” In a world where attribution is only getting more challenging (e.g., Safari stripping UTM params out of ads), Isaac is embracing the uncertainty by focusing on first principles. If you have confidence in your targeting and your ICP is consuming your content, they will convert.

Ongoing optimization ultimately enabled efficient, predictable pipeline generation within a tightly defined ICP.

Conclusion: An “Always On” Approach Drives Growth

For Demand Gen leaders like Isaac, “always on” optimization can unlock growth, even with limited resources. By tying pipeline to engagement metrics, ad spend and creative can be continuously honed to spark interest efficiently.

“I'm able to have an audience that updates every week with job changers.” 

Monitoring engagement and correlating it to pipeline health enables the agility required to cost-effectively drive growth over the long term.

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