The client
GoRamp is a Transportation management platform making proactive decisions for shippers while sourcing, planning and monitoring. The company was created by industry insiders professionals to optimize supply chain workflow and communication between cargo senders and carriers.
Our client’s situation
When we started working with GoRamp we found they had been relying heavily on Google Ads for about 12 months, primarily directing ad respondents to generate more demo request conversion actions. Cost per conversion actions weren’t ideal at almost $585 per lead. Transportation management market is a very competitive niche with high costs per click (CPC). Some of the highest CPCs across any industry as many CPCs were more than $12 per click, with many minimum first page bids more than $10 per click. As a result, opportunities to reach their ideal target audience were limited because of budget constraints. GoRamp needed a more efficient way to target their audience. While keyword search advertising was providing traffic and visibility for their brand, the high cost per clicks from search advertising wasn’t sustainable and not the best way allow them to reach their specific buyer personas.
The solution
GoRamp engaged our LinkedIn Ads Agency to efficiently scale lead generation efforts with PPC and drive marketing qualified leads (MQLs). Therefore, we’ve decided to test LinkedIn advertising in order to better focus to its ideal customer target demographics. Working hand on hands with their internal team we identified GoRamp key buyer personas and, using LinkedIn’s comprehensive B2B targeting capabilities, created campaigns focused on those personas. We also introduced remarketing advertising campaigns in Adwords to reduce the reliance on keyword-based search advertising, while keeping GoRamp top-of-mind to potential prospects.
We decided to opt for Linkedin lead generation ads objectives. More specifically, the LinkedIn lead gen forms, which enable us to do the following:
- Capture leads and measure results without the use of a landing page. Using the lead gen form, we could capture prospects directly from their Linkedin page.
- Allow us to collect more leads, as most of the information is pre-filled by LinkedIn.
- Target highly authoritative decision makers with specific senior job titles, functions and senority that were only applicable to the client’s industry
1. Targeting Audience Research
To make sure we connect with the right decision-makers at the right companies, during our lead generation campaign we came up with a system that still used LinkedIn Search mechanics to filter prospects. In particular, we leveraged:
- Location filters
- Title search
- Company size filters
- Keyword boolean search.
LinkedIn lead generation ads allowed us to target the following:
- Location: We targeted specific European countries where our client identified best leads opportunities.
- Company size: We targeted companies which had over 100 employees
- Job titles: We chose specific senior roles, as our prospects were likely to have authority, such as “Director of…” and “Head of…” roles
- Skills: We targeted specific skills of our buyer persona
With these criteria’s audiences we were able to really laser in on key decision-makers struggling with the problems that goRamp solution solve.
2. Set up a mix of campaigns
We opted for two different types of LinkedIn’s campaigns, sponsored content ads and text ads , which allowed us to promote GoRamp solution in the target audience’s feed. The ads would only show whilst they were connected on Linkedin as we were only using the LinkedIn lead gen forms.
3. A/B Testing Ads
We always consider creating different copy angles before to launch any PPC campaigns. In this case, after analyzing GoRamp target audience, we decided to focus on 3 different pain points segmented with 3 different ads, each one focusing on a specific problem that our buyer persona could struggle with. This way we are sure to A/B test properly our different ads messages, constantly adjusting them to optimise result.
Results
LinkedIn ads proved to be a very effective tactic for online B2B lead generation, allowing GoRamp to reach their exact customer demographics at a lower cost per lead. This, paired with more demographically targeted, rather than keyword-heavy.
The results:
- Revenue increased 181%.
- Pipeline increased 1022%.
- In six weeks, LinkedIn Ads surpassed the lead volume that the previous 11 months of Google AdWords PPC had produced.
- In four months, LinkedIn Ads delivered 67% more leads than what the previous 11 months of Google AdWords PPC produced — for 79% less budget.
