increase in lead form completion
decrease in CPL
A leading productivity platform for businesses, faced a familiar challenge to B2B SaaS marketers — optimizing lead generation for their sales-led product stream. The original strategy involved manually targeting decision-makers across sales, marketing and customer support on LinkedIn.
Even with solid lead quality, the cost per lead (CPL) stayed high, and results fluctuated weekly. Aiming for efficiency, the team hypothesized there were opportunities to reach additional relevant audiences.
The SaaS company’s mission was clear. They sought to drive consistent lead quality while streamlining their lead generation process to be more efficient and cost-effective.
When LinkedIn approached Closed Loop with an exclusive opportunity to test their Accelerate AI tool, the team partnered with the SaaS provider to take on the challenge. With our rock-solid partnership with the client and a strong relationship with LinkedIn, we dove in with a strategy built around three key pillars:
1. Manual to AI transition: Closed Loop fed the AI detailed summaries of the platform’s content offers—everything from white papers to product descriptions. The AI then analyzed this content to automatically generate target audiences, replacing the manual targeting process.
2. Comparison testing: The team rigorously compared the performance of AI-generated audiences against those created manually. They tested broad targeting for the platform as a whole and more precise targeting for specific content offers, not just trusting the AI, but challenging it to outperform.
3. Continuous optimization: As the tests progressed, the strategy evolved. The AI took on a greater role in audience creation while Closed Loop honed the strategy and managed the AI’s output. They discovered that while the AI excelled at targeting, its creative output needed human refinement. As so, the team focused energy on targeting alone.
The LinkedIn’s Accelerate AI yielded standout outcomes:
Contrary to initial concerns, the quality of leads generated by the AI was also on par with those from manual efforts, if not better. The leads were highly engaged, as shown by the boost in lead form completions. Week after week, the AI-driven audiences delivered consistent, stable results with a tighter CPL range compared to the rollercoaster of manual targeting.
With AI handling the heavy lifting of audience targeting, the SaaS provider and Closed Loop zeroed in on strategic planning and optimization. The success of LinkedIn’s Accelerate AI beta program with the productivity platform provider proves what’s possible with cutting-edge technology and expert human oversight. Together, AI and human expertise can deliver extraordinary results.
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