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About

Our client is a leading sales compensation management platform that helps revenue and finance teams automate commission calculations, manage incentive plans, and resolve payout disputes quickly and accurately. Trusted by enterprise sales organizations across industries, their platform turns one of the most painful back-office processes into a driver of rep motivation and trust.

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Challenge

Coming out of Q1, the paid program was generating leads but not enough revenue impact. The quarter closed with 39 MQLs, yet only 5 of them became SQLs and just 2 turned into opportunities. Pipe-to-spend sat at 3.8x, which isn’t bad, but we wanted more than that.

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The diagnosis was clear: the program was optimized for volume, not quality. 

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Heading into Q2, we aligned with the client on an ambitious open pipeline target and set out to:

• Shift optimization from lead volume to down-funnel outcomes: SQLs, opportunities, and open pipeline
• Rebuild paid search around intent so budget flowed to the terms most likely to convert
• Gain account-level visibility into which target accounts were actually seeing and engaging with ads

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Solution

We rebuilt the program around pipeline efficiency, pairing a sharper capture engine with low-cost awareness plays and disciplined experimentation.

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1. Restructured Google Search Around Intent

We reorganized ad groups by intent, refreshed ad copy to match, and tested different bidding strategies across brand, competitor, and non-brand themes to find the most efficient approach for each. 

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Brand spend was increased from 48% to 57% of the search budget to protect high-converting demand, and automation rules were built in Sami to flag non-performing keywords before they burned budget.

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The restructure paid off fast: non-brand CTR nearly doubled from 2.1% to 3.9%, and the program generated its first-ever SQL and SQO from paid search.

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2. Launched ABM Social Proof Campaigns on LinkedIn

We ran always-on social proof campaigns against the client's target account list, putting customer outcomes and case studies in front of buying committees before sales ever reached out. 

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The impact was the single biggest of the quarter: 5 target accounts moved into open opportunities, representing over $1M in pipeline.

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3. Added YouTube for Low-Cost Brand Exposure

Instead of paying $55+ per click to compete on high-intent search terms alone, we launched YouTube campaigns targeting the same keyword intent at under $2 per click. 

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The channel drove brand exposure at a fraction of the cost, engaged 41 qualified target accounts, and even produced an SQL of its own.

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4. Layered in Account-Level Measurement

We launched campaigns through an account intelligence platform to measure account penetration, exposure, and view-through rates across the target account list. 

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This gave the client visibility they never had before into which accounts were being reached, and built the measurement foundation for smarter account prioritization in the quarters ahead.

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5. Killed Underperformers Fast

Not everything worked, and that was by design. A no-brainer offer test produced no direct conversions and was paused. A small Meta test hit targeting limitations and was shelved for a future retest. By cutting losers quickly, budget stayed concentrated on the plays that were compounding.

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Results

Q2 was a dramatic turnaround. With nearly identical spend, the program more than doubled its down-funnel output and came within touching distance of a 10x pipe-to-spend ratio.

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And the momentum carried straight into Q3: within the first month of the new quarter, paid-sourced SQOs had already surpassed the total from all of Q1.

Key Takeaways

• Quality beats volume. MQLs dropped 31% quarter-over-quarter while SQLs doubled and pipeline nearly tripled. Fewer, better leads moved the numbers that matter.
• Structure is strategy. Rebuilding search around intent, with the right bidding strategy per theme, turned a stagnant channel into a source of first-ever SQLs and SQOs.
• Cheap awareness feeds expensive capture. Sub-$2 YouTube clicks warmed the same audiences that $55+ search clicks converted, making every capture dollar work harder.
• Kill fast, scale faster. Pausing underperforming offers and channels quickly kept budget concentrated on the experiments that compounded.

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