The benefits afforded to an enterprise lead gen program by LinkedIn Advertising are immediately apparent: through its unique targeting options, you can reach highly-specific groups with tailored messaging on a platform where people are engaging in a business mindset.

The challenge on LinkedIn is to run campaigns cost-efficiently. There’s no getting around it – impressions and clicks are pricey on LinkedIn. Committing to gradual improvement overtime and aggressively searching for opportunities to optimize are key to succeeding on this platform. The average cost-per-click for LinkedIn ads is around $5.26, while Facebook’s average CPC is $0.97. Cost of course varies case-by-case, but the same principle generally applies between platforms.

In order to generate meaningful performance improvements, Bamboo needed to launch countless tests, take big swings, learn from losses and iterate upon wins. The approach came down to shifting away from a full-funnel approach to consolidate into KPI driving campaigns only, test and refine core audiences, lean into lead magnet assets and gated content, and leverage unique ad formats such as Conversation Ads.

Bamboo observed that when upper-funnel campaign spend is incorporated into overall CPA, the blended rate was not efficient enough to achieve goals. In response, Bamboo collapsed the funnel into two stages: gated content at the top and demo offers at the bottom.

The team was able to evolve the targeting approach by casting a wide net to start, and then testing out different segments within that pool. When a winning segment was identified, Bamboo would get even more specific with things like job function, job titles, and company size.

On average, ads promoting Webflow’s blog content had 25% higher CTR than the product demo campaigns. Bamboo leveraged this insight to find a happy medium between the two approaches – keeping audiences engaged with content offerings, with the caveat that the asset is unlocked through submission of a contact form.

The team found early success with native lead gen forms and conversation ads. Conversation ads were leveraged for their benefit of keeping the experience on-platform and utilizing their decision tree mechanism that functions like a chatbot or choose-your-own-adventure game. The end result is a highly targeted, highly personalized message delivered directly to a user’s inbox.

These key strategies and tactics compounded to deliver massive improvements in performance toward aligned KPIs. Bamboo evolved Webflow's LinkedIn campaigns to reach valuable audiences with a seamless, high converting ad experience. In six months from start to scratch, the team drove the following results:

• 2X Increase in spend
• 10X Increase in lead volume
• 85% decrease in CPA