case study
Generating 2,800+ Qualified Leads For a B2B SaaS Company
How we became the digital marketing arm for a leading HR management company.
Llama Lead Gen was engaged to be the core marketing partner for a company focusing on delivering leading HR marketing SaaS software for learning and development. We worked diligently with the team for 10+ months to promote their HR recruiting SaaS through a holistic multi-channel marketing strategy. We were responsible for not only increasing lead generation, but defining and driving their digital marketing campaigns.
#humanresources
#hr
#saas
#paidsocial
#b2b
Results
2,837
Leads and Conversions
across all campaigns (MQLs)
Data shown is over a 7 month period
189
Closed-Won
Deals
274%
Average ROI
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2,837 total leads and conversions generated (MQLs) since Llama Lead Gen ran all digital marketing activity across LinkedIn, Google, Demandbase, and Drift.
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In the first and second quarter of our engagement, our LinkedIn campaigns produced 937 qualified leads given our strategy and direction.
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Conversions were defined from testing multiple CTA's across the campaigns such as 'Schedule a demo', 'Register for the webinar', 'Download asset', and 'Listen to podcast' with 'The Coaching Playbook' being the top performer.
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189 Closed-Won deals, as defined by the sales team, which turned into opportunities and closed/won sales.
About the client
Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD) offers a variety of SaaS-based talent management solutions for HR and the learning and development of employees. Their focuses are on learning, training, developing, and retaining employees. We worked with their SMB team, were in close contact daily, and had weekly calls with their Head of SMB Marketing, VP of Marketing, and Senior Marketing Manager to discuss all of our campaigns, projects, and strategy.
Originally, Llama Lead Gen was brought in to take over full digital marketing responsibilities to fill a gap on their team for a 3-month engagement. However, after establishing a trusted relationship and delivering great results during this period the client requested a subsequent contract for additional work. We even led the hiring of an internal team member.
Their goals
CSOD needed someone to assess their digital marketing needs after their previous Digital Marketing Director had left. We performed a holistic account audit and came up with a digital marketing strategy based on their goals. Their main goals were to increase leads on key channels and to develop an evergreen brand awareness campaign for the remainder of the year.
Our responsibilities
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Managing all external vendors such as their PPC agency, content marketing agency, and web design agency
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Managing all of their digital properties for paid ads including global properties across EMEA (Europe) and North America
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Consulting with internal stakeholders and team members, as well as providing strategy, and best practices
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Setting the strategy for lead generation digital marketing campaign efforts, brand awareness campaigns, creating a media plan, and updating our budget reconciliation document to ensure we spent consistently
They were fantastic! They're professional and definitely brought in a lot of leads for us via LinkedIn. The quality of their work is fantastic. We collaborate in real-time with Google Sheets. They managed and restructured campaigns, spoke for the team to vendors, and acted as a full employee of the company. If you have a problem, they will try to solve it before you ask a follow-up question.
A lot of other vendors aren't very proactive, so Llama Lead Gen stands out. I would highly recommend them. Adam and his team feel like teammates who enjoy working with the company.
Matthew Vandewouwer
Senior Marketing Manager @ Cornerstone OnDemand
Execution and implementation
Being embedded as part of the client's team and managing their entire digital marketing efforts, we broke their goals into the following areas:
Initial Audit and digital marketing strategy development
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Facilitated several discovery calls with their team internally and vendors externally to assess needs, goals, target audience, roadblocks
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Completed extensive Google Ads, SEM competitors, and landing page CRO audits
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Conducted before/after analyses after audit changes were made
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Set the strategy for each quarter and built out a media plan for all channels
Campaign builds for paid ads
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Built all of their digital ad campaigns across LinkedIn, Google Search, and Display, Demandbase (programmatic and ABM)
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Built their target audience based on extensive research: HR professionals who are the decision makers at their respective companies. We worked with the SMB team so we were targeting small businesses interested in software as a service HR solutions
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Defined what the target audience cared about to inform our messaging and ad copy. Key pillars for these HR leaders included: recruitment process, performance management, employee engagement, employee experience, data security, human resources management, talent management, benefits administration, and having a top of the line recruiting software
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Launched webinar campaigns for EMEA (both on-demand and live) and podcast campaigns for NA
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In Q1 of 2020, we continued running with top performers based on extensive A/B testing, insights, and optimizations
campaign management and reporting
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Ensured proper tracking was in place. We found that there was a duplication in tracking from the agency they were working with previously (they were double-counting conversions, so we corrected this)
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Created a link tagging tool to ensure that we had a system in place to properly tag websites and utilize our conversion tracking pixels effectively
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Created LinkedIn campaign wrap up reports packed with insights and optimizations for improvement
Marketing automation and CRO
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Set up Drift marketing chatbot on their page to bolster their marketing automation efforts and enhance their lead flow and reduce lead friction
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Set up HotJar (a heat mapping tool) to gain insights about their website and capture visitor activity and time spent onsite to improve the product outcomes for improving the experience and conversion
We needed a holdover while we found a full-time equivalent that could manage our paid search, Google Ads, social, LinkedIn, etc. This involved creating a digital marketing strategy for us, building out campaigns and landing pages, executing them, and tracking results. Llama Lead Gen ran our Google Ads and LinkedIn campaigns. They started by leading an audit of our channels and then implemented recommendations based on the audit results.
I liked that Adam used to work at LinkedIn because we lacked that expertise. After the initial results, I felt confident to let Adam run with the project. We’ve have learned a lot, especially leveraging LinkedIn for campaigns. We performed lots of A/B testing, running hundreds and hundreds of campaigns. it added rigor and effectiveness to each campaign.
They’re open to whatever communication methods we asked for and we used Monday for project management and tracking. Llama Lead Gen had a small team that allowed them to add a personal touch. They were accountable, engaged, and responsive. They were flexible with time zone differences. Adam would make himself available at crazy times of the evening for us. Llama Lead Gen is an organization that I plan to stay close with because you never know when you’ll need additional help.
Negin Kamangar
Head of SMB Marketing @ Cornerstone OnDemand
A peek into the campaigns ...
We built lead generation campaigns with the goal of downloading various pieces of long-form content that CSOD had which then funneled interested prospects into an email nurture/drip marketing sequence to bring them down the funnel we created for them.
730 leads in 7 months from LinkedIn with an $83 average CPL (Cost Per Lead)
677 conversions
from Google Ads
over 7 months
39% increase in page views over 2.5 months for a programmatic display campaign
Average Cost Per Lead (CPL)
decreased month over month
In the new year, overall engagement and clicks
increased every month
Llama Lead Gen delivered prospects who converted at a 25% conversion rate during one of our campaign periods.
Ads we created
Other areas we improved for the client
Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
We analyzed all of their key landing pages and web pages on their domain and determined where people had been dropping off, performed form fill and heat mapping analysis, and other conversion rate optimization strategies to enhance lead flow and reduce friction for sign-ups, demos, and interactions on site.
marketing automation
We set up their Drift chatbot to answer any FAQs a prospect had when reaching their website, reduce lead flow friction on-site, and to add another channel to engage with prospects.
Some more words from the client ...
We needed assistance with digital marketing campaign management, including internal process improvements and campaign attribution. We had weekly team meetings and ad hoc calls to address things as they came up. Llama Lead Gen connected our digital campaigns with our Marketo and Salesforce systems. They revamped our LinkedIn and Google Ads campaigns by developing a new strategy, making budgetary recommendation, and more. We have much better tracking of our LinkedIn and Google advertising campaigns and a deeper insight into how we’re spending our money and the effectiveness of each campaign.
They were reachable and easy to work with. Before we brought on Llama Lead Gen, we didn’t have a good system for tracking the results of our ads. I was impressed with their ability to navigate this complex system and give us insight into the performance of our advertising spending. The team was wonderful to work with. Give them as much information as you can. Even though they’re an outside contractor, the more information you give them, the more they can help.
brian benner
Associate Director, Marketing @ Cornerstone OnDemand
