The Challenge
On paper the account looked healthy: demo volume was up 40% year on year and cost per lead was falling. In the CRM the picture inverted — win rate had halved, and two thirds of booked demos were from company sizes the product was never built for. Marketing was optimising to the cheapest form fill available.
What We Built
We pulled 18 months of closed-won data, isolated the two segments that accounted for 81% of revenue, and rebuilt targeting, ad copy and landing pages around their language rather than the generic category pitch. Offline conversion imports pushed real pipeline value back into the ad platforms, so bidding learned from revenue instead of submissions. A short qualification step replaced the one-field form — volume dropped, qualified volume rose.
The Outcome
Cost per qualified demo fell 61% across two quarters while total qualified pipeline tripled, and paid acquisition reached a 22-day payback — inside the board’s target for the first time.
