The Situation
The campaign was targeting 'procurement professionals' as a broad job function — which reached purchasing assistants alongside procurement directors. A trial sign-up from an assistant cost the same as one from a director, but the conversion path to a paid customer was completely different. Creative was static product screenshots with no context for why procurement automation mattered to this specific audience.
The Turning Point
Cohort analysis of signed trials by original audience segment revealed that decision-maker (director level+) trials converted to paid at 34% versus 8% for individual contributor trials. The CAC was artificially high because the mix was wrong.
What We Did — And Why
Audience segmentation was rebuilt around precise persona combinations: procurement director OR supply chain VP at manufacturing companies with 100–2,000 employees in France and DACH. Thought leadership content ads (industry reports, cost of manual procurement analysis) were used for cold audiences. Retargeting with direct trial offers and case study content targeted engaged visitors. A systematic 24-variant creative test across 4 formats, 3 angles, and 2 CTAs established the winning template for scaling.
Our Approach
- 1.Audience refinement: company size + industry + seniority combinations targeting the exact decision-maker persona
- 2.Thought leadership content ads driving awareness, followed by retargeting with direct trial offers
- 3.Creative testing framework: 4 ad formats, 3 headline angles, 2 CTA types — 24 combinations tested systematically
The Results
Within 6 months, CAC dropped 44% from €800 to €450. Pipeline volume grew 85% despite the tighter targeting — because qualified pipeline conversion rates were much higher. LTV:CAC improved from 1.8x to 3.2x.
In Their Own Words
“Reach without relevance is just waste. B2B LinkedIn ads work when you're ruthlessly specific about who you're talking to.”