How We Helped Capability 4x Revenue With Google and LinkedIn Ads

About Capability

Capability is a all-in-one platform for safety training and work management in energy, utilities, construction, heavy industrial, manufacturing and nuclear. It brings safety training, incidents, CAPAs, audits, qualifications and reporting into one system, so EHS and compliance teams stop juggling disconnected tools and can produce proof in minutes instead of days.

The product was solid and had been around since 2015, with a strong customer base that ran from power generators to federal labs. What Capability didn’t have was paid media that turned that strength and reputation into pipeline.

That’s where Getuplead came in. Here’s what we did in 12 months:

• 1.5x company revenue
• Paid ads grew to 22% of total revenue
• ROAS from 0.7 to 1.3
• 40% lower cost per signup

In this case study, we break down exactly how we did it.

Why Capability Chose Getuplead

On paper, the Google Ads account looked fine. Conversions were coming in and CPCs were average, but the pipeline was empty. Capability was driving clicks from both LinkedIn and Google Ads, but the two platforms ran in parallel with no connection between them.

Capability didn’t need someone to tweak the account. They needed paid senior operators to rebuild the whole paid media foundation and strategy, run by people who understood how a multi-month compliance sale actually works. That is why they came to Getuplead.

The Audit

As with every new client, we began with a full audit of the paid accounts and the tracking, which we do for free. It surfaced four problems, each one feeding the next.

The conversion signal was wrong. The account was optimizing for form fills instead of pipeline. Google was finding the wrong people by design, and months of bad data had trained the algorithm to hunt for form-fillers, not buyers. That habit had to be unlearned before anything else could work.

There was no intent control. Performance Max and Maximize Clicks campaigns on Google Ads were consuming most of the budget with no control over where it spent or who it reached. It produced clicks, not buyers.

LinkedIn demand had nowhere to go. LinkedIn was creating demand among the right accounts, but that warm intent left the platform without follow-up. There was no retargeting to leverage it.

The two platforms were disconnected. Google and LinkedIn ran in silos, so the signal and strategy from each never strengthened the other.

The numbers underneath told the same story. Capability was spending around $15,000 a month and getting back about $0.70 on the dollar, a 0.7 ROAS. Cost per signup sat near $100 with no reliable value attribution, conversions were inflated several times over, and there was no offline conversion import from the CRM and no GCLID-level attribution. Smart Bidding was learning from false signals.

Building the Strategy

Rather than launching new campaigns, we started by diagnosing what the account was telling Google to find. Then we rebuilt it in three phases, designed as one system that compounds rather than three disconnected fixes.

Phase 1: Fix the Signal Before Touching the Budget

A paid account is only as good as the data it optimizes toward, and Capability’s was pointed at the wrong thing. So before spending another dollar, we changed what counted as a conversion.

We switched the conversion event from form fills to real pipeline activity, then connected the CRM so the account optimized on verified outcomes rather than form submissions. Using offline conversion import with GCLID-level attribution, the deal signals that actually mattered flowed back into Google tied to the click that produced them. The inflated, unreliable conversion data was replaced with a clean signal, and the ads started speaking to actual buyers instead of anyone willing to fill in a form.

Phase 2: Rebuild the Structure Around Intent

With the signal clean, we rebuilt the account around buying intent. We cut Performance Max and Maximize Clicks, which only drove low-quality, low-intent clicks, and reduced more than half of the category keyword spend. We redirected that budget into long-tail, capability-level and problem-aware search, where the intent is clearest. That shifted the account from attracting anyone who clicked to capturing buyers already looking for a solution.

We also went after the category’s incumbents directly. The big training providers gatekeep their pricing behind a sales rep, so we ran competitor brand name campaigns, bidding on buyers already shopping those providers and meeting them with the one thing the incumbents won’t put on a page: Capability’s transparent pricing and self-serve setup. It was some of the highest-intent traffic in the account.

We also moved bidding away from chasing clicks and onto value-based bidding weighted by customer lifetime value, so budget went to the buyers most likely to pay rather than the cheapest to convert. And we reworked the landing pages for message match, which lifted landing-page conversion rate by around 30% and supported a higher Quality Score, bringing CPCs down in turn.

Phase 3: Reaching Buyers Before They Search with LinkedIn

Why we used it. Google captured the demand that already existed, but Capability also needed to reach the right buyers before they ever typed a search. LinkedIn gave us direct access to the exact roles that drive a Capability purchase: the heads of Safety and EHS, Training and L&D, HR and People, Risk and Compliance, and Operations, inside mid-market manufacturers across automotive, aerospace, chemical, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, metals and electronics.

A Capability purchase runs over several months and pulls in several of those stakeholders, so a single ad was never going to close it. Retargeting suited that long cycle. It let us keep the conversation going across the buying committee without assuming anyone was ready to book a demo the first time they saw us.

What we ran. We ran three main campaign types:

• Retargeting Conversation Ads. Sent from a named person to people who had visited high-intent pages in the previous 90 days. These were the strongest-performing LinkedIn campaigns for Capability.
• Content and lead-generation campaigns. Thought Leader Ads and Document Ads promoting case studies and lead magnets built around the problems Capability solves, like audit readiness, qualification tracking and incident management.
• Account-based targeting. The same high-intent roles at a selected list of mid-market manufacturers in Capability’s core verticals.

Across these we also tested Spotlight, Text, Carousel and Video formats, along with “us vs. them” comparison messaging that leaned on Capability’s real edge over the big training incumbents: transparent pricing and no contracts, in a category where the rest of the field hides pricing behind a sales rep.

Results. LinkedIn produced the highest volume of platform-recorded conversions of any channel, but it also showed exactly why platform numbers alone can’t be trusted:

• 337 conversions recorded by LinkedIn
• 23 SQLs confirmed in HubSpot

That gap, from 337 down to 23, is the whole reason the CRM connection mattered. On LinkedIn’s own dashboard the campaigns looked far more productive than they were. Only by tying results back to HubSpot could Capability see what LinkedIn actually contributed, and keep optimizing toward the 23 that were real rather than the 337 that weren’t.

Connecting It Into One System

Finally, we tied the two platforms together with shared first-party data. LinkedIn worked the target accounts from both ends, reaching new buyers and retargeting the ones who had already engaged, while Google captured intent the moment it turned into a search. Because both platforms read from the same data, a prospect warmed up on one was recognized on the other instead of leaking away.

The infrastructure didn’t just deliver in year one. It built a pipeline that compounds instead of resetting every month. Google and LinkedIn keep working together, the first-party data keeps feeding the algorithm, and each month builds on the last rather than starting from scratch. That compounding system is the foundation Capability’s paid media now scales on.

The Results

Twelve months earlier, the account had zero qualified pipeline and no paid media infrastructure to speak of. By rebuilding the signal, the structure and the connection between platforms, the program turned into a direct revenue driver.

• 4x company revenue in 12 months
• Google Ads now accounts for 12% of total company revenue
• ROAS improved from 0.7 to 1.3
• Cost per signup down 40%

Today, Google Ads is not a support channel or a brand awareness play for Capability. It is a direct revenue driver, built from a standing start, and it now accounts for more than one in every ten dollars of company revenue.

If you’d like to see how we help B2B SaaS and tech companies turn paid media into qualified pipeline, book a free audit with our team or email info@getuplead.com.