// Case study

Paid media

Bonusly

The budget was spending. Nobody could say what it was buying.

0% to 7%
LinkedIn landing page conversion
on a page that had never converted
Role
Performance Marketing Specialist
Dates
2022, remote
Industry
HR tech, employee recognition
What I owned
Paid across every platform, plus nurture and landing pages

// Context

Reporting nobody believed.

Bonusly had been outsourcing paid to an agency that never delivered. Campaigns were running, budget was spending, and the question of what was actually driving returns did not have an answer anyone trusted.

I took the whole thing in house.

// The work

What I did

  • Conversion rate optimization

    New landing pages for the LinkedIn campaign and the nurture program. The LinkedIn page went from a 0% conversion rate to 7%; the nurture page gained 12%.

  • Demand generation

    Paid taken back in house from an agency and rebuilt across Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook, with tracking implemented from the ground up and Databox on top so ROAS was finally legible. An account-based LinkedIn campaign built with Sales lifted campaign performance 400%.

  • Graphic design

    Ad creative, email graphics and landing page visuals, built in house so the paid and nurture work could ship the same week it was planned.

  • Email marketing

    Nurture flows rebuilt in HubSpot: rewritten copy, tighter segmentation and executive-grade CTAs. Open rates and engagement came back on a program that had lost both.

// Process

How I did it

  1. 01

    Make the numbers trustworthy before touching the spend

    Paid across Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook, rebuilt rather than optimized: new campaign structure, tracking implemented from the ground up, and Databox brought in so ROAS was finally legible. You cannot allocate a budget against reporting you do not believe.

  2. 02

    Go where the buyer already is, and talk to the right one

    HR lives on LinkedIn, but performance had never matched the audience. I worked directly with Sales to name high priority accounts and built an account based campaign aimed at decision makers rather than anyone with HR in their title. It returned VPs, Directors and Heads of HR, including enterprise contacts at several FAANG companies, and it was the strongest response the team had seen from the channel. Campaign performance rose 400%.

  3. 03

    Write email for the person who signs

    Nurture was failing on every measure: low opens, worse engagement, and content that did the product no favors. I rebuilt it in HubSpot, rewriting flows, tightening segmentation and cutting anything that did not have a reason to be there. Data carries further the higher up the org chart it travels, so the rebuild leaned on it: clearer messaging, stronger graphics, and CTAs an executive could act on. The LinkedIn landing page went from 0% conversion to 7%. The nurture page gained 12%.

We had already lost their attention. The job was earning it back.

// What I would do differently

The honest part

This was a short stint, and short stints produce tidy stories. Paid came in house, tracking got rebuilt, the LinkedIn page went from zero to seven percent. What I cannot show you is the quarter after, because I was not there for it. I would want to know whether the account-based campaign held up once the first wave of named accounts was spent, and I do not.

The 0% to 7% is also a reminder that the easiest wins are the ones a page was never set up to have. The old page could not convert; the new one could. That is a fix, not a feat, and I try to keep the two separate when I talk about results.

// Footnote

One more thing

I pitched the quiet quitting post before the phrase was everywhere. It pulled thousands of clicks and brought inbound from several companies asking for the same thing. Timing is a channel.

// Writing

Published work and live pages

// Outcomes

The results

0% to 7%
LinkedIn landing page conversion
12%
conversion lift on the nurture landing page
In house
paid brought fully in house
VP + Director
enterprise leads from HR leadership

The full results

LinkedIn landing page conversion
0% 7%
Nurture landing page conversion
baseline +12%
LinkedIn campaign performance
baseline +400%
Paid media ownership
outside agency in house, all platforms
Lead quality from LinkedIn
unqualified VPs, Directors and Heads of HR, including enterprise contacts at several FAANG companies
Return on ad spend
not visible tracked in Databox for the first time

// The stack

The tools

  • Canva
  • Excel
  • HubSpot
  • Google Ads
  • Databox
  • LinkedIn Ads
  • Meta Ads
  • Twitter Ads

// Proof

Proof

  • Sponsored LinkedIn creative for the account-based campaign aimed at HR leadership.
  • Promoted post driving to the LinkedIn landing page that went from 0% to 7% conversion.
  • The conversion form on that page.
  • Rebuilt nurture email: data first, executive CTA, in-house graphics.
  • Workflow email opens by month after the nurture rebuild, Jun to Sep 2022.
  • 35.2% open rate on the rebuilt program.

// Keep going

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