Running a demand generation-led paid strategy
Paid media is no longer just a performance lever—it’s a core part of demand generation. At Cognism, we use paid to build visibility with future buyers, capture intent when it matters, and give sales the air cover they need. In this lesson, you’ll learn how we structure campaigns, separate demand creation from capture, and integrate paid with our broader brand strategy.
Course Details:
4 lessons
65 minutes
Intermediate

Introduction: Why paid media matters in demand generation
Paid advertising in B2B has traditionally been seen as a short-term lever - a way to drive clicks, form fills, and immediate pipeline.
But as buyer behaviour has evolved, so has the role of paid. Paid isn’t just performance marketing, it’s a strategic engine that:
- Creates visibility across the 95% of buyers who aren’t in-market today.
- Captures high-intent demand at the exact moment a buyer signals readiness.
- Provides “air cover” for sales - ensuring Cognism is front of mind wherever prospects research, compare, or engage.
In a fragmented, non-linear buying journey, paid gives us the reach and precision to show up consistently for the right people, in the right places, at the right time.
This lesson breaks down our paid philosophy at Cognism: how we structure campaigns, why we separate demand creation from capture, and how we make paid work hand-in-hand with our wider media and brand strategy.
Lesson 1: Our Paid Ads Philosophy
Why this lesson matters
It’s easy for paid to become a silo. It’s also easy for a paid strategy to get messy. And finally, it’s easy to set ads and forget about them.
But any one of those things could be the nail in the coffin of your paid ads strategy.
Without a philosophy that ties paid back to demand generation, you end up with fragmented campaigns, wasted budget, and missed opportunities.
Our philosophy is simple but impactful: paid media must serve both demand creation and demand capture - always on, always connected, always measurable.
I’ll show you how.
Create demand vs capture demand
We start with a core principle: buyers aren’t linear. They don’t move neatly from awareness to decision. That’s why our paid strategy has two complementary sides:
Create demand
We built our create demand strategy on always-on campaigns designed to establish mental availability with our ideal customer profile.
We know that most B2B buyers aren’t actively in-market at any given time, but when they enter a buying cycle, they’ll default to the brands that already feel familiar.
That’s why our campaigns run continuously, ensuring Cognism is front of mind long before a prospect is ready to purchase.
To achieve this, we organise our paid ads into clear content buckets: thought leadership, product value, social proof, and broader demand generation content.
Each bucket serves a purpose, whether it’s educating the market, demonstrating our expertise, showcasing customer success, or reinforcing our brand’s role in solving key challenges.
Targeting is carefully segmented by region, company size, persona, and seniority, so that the right message reaches the right audience in the right context.
The ultimate goal is simple but powerful: tie the Cognism brand directly to the sales intelligence category, so that when a buying trigger hits, we’re the first name a prospect recalls.
Capture demand
While create demand builds recognition over time, capture demand ensures we’re ready to convert interest the moment it surfaces.
This side of our strategy focuses on always-on search campaigns targeting high-intent keywords, including branded terms, competitor terms, and generic product-related queries.
We designed these campaigns to “win the click” at the exact moment a buyer is actively looking for solutions. By being visible at this critical point in the journey, we can intercept prospects when intent is at its highest and guide them directly into our funnel.
Together, create demand and capture demand form a balanced system: one builds long-term awareness and trust, while the other ensures that existing demand translates into measurable pipeline.
By running both in tandem, we ensure coverage across the full market - the 95% out-of-market and the 5% in-market.
Balancing budget between create and capture demand
One of the biggest challenges in running a paid strategy is knowing where to put your money. Too often, B2B companies over-invest in capture demand because it’s easier to measure - you can see clicks, conversions, and pipeline almost instantly.
But if all you ever do is chase the 5% of buyers who are actively in-market, you end up in a costly bidding war for the same pool of leads as your competitors.
We’ve learned that the more sustainable approach is to maintain a deliberate balance. We allocate a significant share of budget to create demand, campaigns that build mental availability with the 95% of buyers who aren’t ready yet.
These campaigns don’t generate instant pipeline, but they create the conditions for lower-cost, higher-quality conversions later on.
A practical split often looks like 60-70% into create demand and 30-40% into capture demand (we’ve played with this split a fair bit and have first-hand experience to say when you cut create spend, your capture suffers!).
This ensures we’re fuelling long-term brand recall and trust while staying competitive in high-intent moments. Here’s what it looks like in practice:
If we had a budget of $100k for a quarter, we’d split it:
- $60-70k into create demand → always-on LinkedIn campaigns across content, thought leadership, social proof, and product buckets.
- $30-40k into capture demand → high-intent Google campaigns covering branded, competitor, and generic terms.
Channel allocations within create demand ($60–70k), then break down further. For example:
- LinkedIn (80–85%) → $48–59k
- Meta (~10%) → $6–7k
- YouTube/Reddit/Programmatic (~5–10%) → $3–7k
This mix keeps us visible with out-of-market buyers while ensuring we capture pipeline from in-market intent - without overspending in costly keyword auctions.
Equally important is keeping both sides always-on. Bursting campaigns for a month and then going dark wastes budget and attention.
Buyers don’t move in straight lines, and demand can surface at any time. Always-on campaigns mean Cognism is there continuously - building familiarity on LinkedIn while capturing search intent on Google the moment it happens.
This budgeting discipline makes our spend more efficient, prevents us from overpaying for late-stage clicks, and compounds results over time.
Why we use LinkedIn and Google as our primary channels
We built our paid strategy on two pillars: LinkedIn and Google. These are the channels where we see the highest quality engagement, the strongest targeting capabilities, and the clearest link to pipeline.
LinkedIn is our number one channel for demand creation. It’s the most precise B2B advertising platform available, allowing us to target by company, industry, seniority, and even job function.
This means we can run highly segmented campaigns that reach exactly the personas we care about - whether that’s RevOps leaders in enterprise accounts or SDR managers in mid-market companies.
Beyond targeting, LinkedIn is also where our buyers spend time learning, networking, and sharing ideas. It’s a natural environment for thought leadership, product education, and social proof, which makes it the perfect home for our always-on content buckets.
Google is our number one channel for demand capture. When someone actively searches for terms like “B2B contact data” or compares competitors, they’re showing intent right now.
Our Google campaigns ensure Cognism is visible in those high-intent moments, intercepting buyers with brand, competitor, and generic keyword campaigns. It’s the most direct way to convert interest into pipeline.
Together, these two platforms give us balance. LinkedIn builds mental availability with the 95% of buyers who are not in-market today, while Google captures demand from the 5% who are actively looking for solutions.
One fuels awareness and trust, the other drives immediate action. And because they complement each other so well, we see them as the cornerstones of our paid ecosystem - with every other channel layered in to amplify reach and reinforce the message.
Surround sound, not silos
While LinkedIn and Google are the cornerstone channels of our paid strategy, they are only part of the picture. To maximise impact, we’ve built a broader ecosystem that includes platforms such as Meta, YouTube and Reddit.
Each channel plays a specific role, but together they form what we call surround sound marketing.
The principle behind surround sound is simple: buyers don’t live on one platform. They switch between LinkedIn during the workday, YouTube in the evening, Reddit when researching, and Meta throughout their personal scrolling time.
If Cognism only showed up in one place, we’d risk missing key touchpoints in that journey. By layering our presence across multiple platforms, we make sure that even if someone skips past our ad on LinkedIn, they’re likely to reencounter us later - in a YouTube pre-roll, a Reddit thread, or a Meta feed.
This strategy is powerful because it creates the perception of ubiquity without requiring an unsustainable budget.
Because we focus our spend on highly targeted audiences and use remarketing intelligently, it feels to the buyer like Cognism is everywhere they go.
That repeated exposure builds trust, strengthens familiarity, and creates mental availability. In other words, when they eventually face a buying trigger, it feels like we’ve always been part of the conversation.
Surround sound isn’t about dominating every channel with brute force spend - it’s about orchestrating a presence that feels inescapable, even when in reality it’s highly efficient and strategic.
Content buckets: How to structure paid ads
We structure all of our paid campaigns around five clear content buckets. This framework gives us consistency, makes our spend more deliberate, and ensures that our ads do more than just chase clicks - they build brand equity over time.
The first bucket is Content, which focuses on category education. These ads tie Cognism’s name to the broader problems and opportunities in the market.
They’re designed to spark awareness, introduce ideas, and help our ICP connect their challenges with the category we operate in. By running this content, we ensure that when buyers start thinking about sales intelligence or data quality, Cognism is the first brand they associate with those conversations.
The second bucket is Thought Leadership. Here, we showcase internal and external expertise on the pain points our audience cares about most.
Sometimes that means our VP of Brand sharing a framework for content distribution; other times it’s a RevOps leader discussing the challenges of CRM data accuracy.
The purpose is the same: demonstrate credibility, add value, and position Cognism as a trusted authority.
The third bucket is Product Value. These campaigns show the product in action - through demos, walkthroughs, and feature highlights.
It’s not about shouting specs; it’s about helping buyers see how our platform solves real problems. For example, how Sales Companion reduces wasted time on bad data, or how Cognism helps teams prospect more efficiently.
The fourth bucket is Social Proof. This is where we amplify customer stories, case studies, and testimonials.
Nothing is more powerful than proof that others like you have succeeded with Cognism. These ads are critical for building trust and reassurance, especially for buyers evaluating multiple vendors.
Finally, there’s Remarketing. This bucket blends all of the above but tailors the message to where a user is in their journey.
If someone visits our pricing page, they might see social proof content that reinforces trust. If they’ve consumed thought leadership, they may be retargeted with product walkthroughs.
Remarketing ensures that we keep showing up with the right message at the right time, nudging prospects forward in their decision-making process.
Creative and messaging in paid
We’ve learned that creative is the biggest performance driver in paid media. The right message, delivered in the right format, can make the difference between an ad that gets scrolled past and one that builds lasting recall.
Ad formats by content bucket
We structure creative choices around the same five content buckets we use to organise our campaigns:
- Content and Demand Gen → Blog promos, playbooks, or guides often work well as a mix of static images (for clarity) and short-form video teasers (for scroll-stopping impact).
- Thought leadership → Video is the most effective format. It allows us to bring expert voices to life, build authority, and deliver insights with more nuance than text alone.
- Product value → Both static and video ads work well here. Static is clean and focused, great for quick product highlights and driving clicks through to demos. Video adds depth, showing the product in action and delivering value directly in-feed. Together, they play a complementary role.
- Social proof → Carousels are powerful for telling a story - problem, solution, result - or for showcasing multiple customer logos and quotes in one ad. Video testimonials or short clips can also reinforce trust in-feed.
- Remarketing → Here we test a blend of all the above, tailoring creative to what a prospect has already engaged with. If they’ve watched a video, they might next see a carousel with customer proof. If they’ve visited a product page, they might get hit with a static or video demo ad.
This structured approach ensures our creative choices match the intent of each stage, rather than defaulting to a single format across the board.
Repurposing big rocks into paid assets
One of the ways we scale creative efficiently is by breaking down our big rock campaigns into dozens of smaller, channel-ready assets. For example:
- The Cold Calling Report starts as a long-form asset, but gets repurposed into LinkedIn carousels (top stats), short-form video clips (expert reactions), static quote graphics, and even quiz-style ads.
- Date-a-vendor launches as a flagship video campaign, but is sliced into ad hooks, animated snippets, and thematic carousels that carry the same narrative into paid.
This approach means we’re not reinventing the wheel for every campaign. Instead, we’re maximising the value of the creative work we’ve already done - while ensuring consistency across organic and paid.
Hooks, testing, and refresh cycles
No matter how strong a campaign is, ads can’t stay static forever. Audiences fatigue quickly, and platforms reward freshness. That’s why we focus heavily on hooks and testing frameworks:
- Every ad starts with a strong hook designed to stop the scroll. It could be a surprising stat (“Only 0.2% of leads convert”), a pain-led statement (“Your CRM is lying to you”), or a question buyers are already asking, such as “Why are my emails bouncing?”.
- We test multiple creative angles for the same message - urgency vs curiosity vs authority - to see which resonates with different personas and regions.
- Creative is reviewed and refreshed on a 4–6 week cycle to avoid fatigue. High performers get new variants; underperformers are retired quickly.
By treating creative as a living system, not a one-off asset, we keep our ads relevant, engaging, and aligned with our demand gen goals.
Measurement and reporting
Measuring the success of paid media in a demand generation model requires a different lens than traditional lead gen. Vanity metrics like CTR or form fills can tell you whether people are clicking, but they don’t tell you whether your campaigns are driving revenue.
Instead, we track performance across three tiers:
- Lagging revenue metrics → pipeline, revenue, CAC, ROI, ACV, SQOs. These are the ultimate measures of success.
- Early revenue indicators → MQLs, meetings booked and attended, lead quality scores, and sales feedback from opportunities influenced by paid. These give us early signs that campaigns are turning into sales activity.
- Leading indicators → reach into ICP accounts, account penetration, engagement (CTR, likes, comments, shares), video view rates, time on page, and bounce rate. These show whether we’re capturing attention and interest at the very top of the funnel.
By layering these three tiers, we can see not only what’s working today, but what’s likely to generate pipeline tomorrow. It also helps us communicate to the board: yes, pipeline and revenue are our North Stars, but here are the early signals showing we’re on track.
Example: Paid Media Performance Dashboard
Tier 1: Lagging revenue metrics (North Stars)
- Pipeline generated (in $)
- Revenue closed-won (in $)
- CAC (cost to acquire a customer)
- ROI (pipeline/revenue vs spend)
- ACV (average contract value)
- SQOs (sales-qualified opportunities)
Tier 2: Early revenue indicators (conversion signals)
- MQLs created (marketing-qualified leads)
- Meetings booked & attended
- Lead quality scores (sales feedback, e.g. “good fit” vs “bad fit”)
- Opportunities sourced by paid campaigns
- Opportunities influenced by paid campaigns
Tier 3: Leading indicators (engagement signals)
- Reach into ICP accounts (number of accounts touched, % penetration in target list)
- Ad engagement (CTR, likes, comments, shares)
- Video view rates (e.g. % watched 50%, 75%, 100%)
- Website behaviour (time on page, bounce rate, scroll depth)
- Content engagement (downloads, repeat visits, newsletter sign-ups)
How we use this dashboard
- Weekly → Marketing ops and paid media teams track leading indicators to optimise campaigns.
- Monthly → Demand gen reviews early revenue indicators with sales to check alignment and pipeline progression.
- Quarterly → Marketing leadership reports lagging metrics to the board: pipeline, revenue, CAC, ROI.
Paid as air cover for Sales
Our sales team owns territories - specific industries, segments, and accounts - and builds relationships one by one. But no matter how talented your reps are, there’s only so much ground they can cover in a given week.
That’s where paid comes in. Paid campaigns expand sales’ reach far beyond the conversations a rep can realistically have.
They allow us to stay in front of thousands of prospects at once, reinforcing Cognism’s message consistently while sales focuses their energy on the highest-priority opportunities.
The result is a powerful balance: sales builds depth while marketing builds breadth. A rep might be working an account directly, but while they’re doing that, paid ensures decision-makers across the buying committee also see Cognism content in their feeds and search results.
From a buyer’s perspective, this feels seamless. Instead of fragmented messages, they see a unified presence - one that’s credible, consistent, and present wherever they go.
That perception of ubiquity matters. It builds trust because by the time a prospect speaks to sales, they already feel like they know who we are and what we stand for.
Paid isn’t just about driving leads; it’s about creating an environment where sales conversations land warmer, faster, and with more credibility. That’s what we mean when we call it air cover.
Alignment with brand and the media machine
Design your paid strategy to amplify the brand-led campaigns and media machine that fuel demand generation.
Campaigns like the Cold Calling Report or Date-a-Vendor aren’t just pieces of content - they’re moments designed to earn attention, build credibility, and position Cognism as a thought leader in our space.
Paid comes in as the amplifier. By putting budget behind the best-performing clips, snippets, and creative assets from these campaigns, we extend their reach far beyond our organic audience. This means our buyers don’t just stumble upon Cognism content; they see it consistently, in multiple formats and channels.
This is why we say paid shouldn’t be run in isolation. If you only treat it as a pipeline lever, you miss the bigger opportunity.
Paid is the distribution engine that compounds the impact of our media loops: podcasts, newsletters, videos, blogs, and live events. It takes the assets we’ve already invested in creating and ensures they show up in the feeds, searches, and communities where our buyers spend their time.
The result is more than just impressions. It’s reinforced brand recall. It’s the perception that Cognism is everywhere, leading the conversation on topics that matter to our ICP. And when that moment of intent arrives, it’s not a cold click; it’s a familiar brand they’ve already seen, trusted, and remembered.
AI search and zero-click
The landscape for paid capture is changing. As AI-driven search tools like Google SGE, Perplexity, and ChatGPT become part of the buying journey, traditional keyword strategies must evolve.
Buyers may no longer click through to a vendor site after a search - they’ll get answers summarised in the AI interface. That means demand capture ads on Google may see diminishing returns over time.
The opportunity?
- Double down on demand creation. Brand-led, media-driven content will matter even more when buyers rely on summaries and trusted names.
- Optimise for visibility in AI outputs. Structured, authoritative content and video transcripts can help ensure your brand is cited.
- Experiment early. Keep testing new ad formats as Google and others roll out AI-enhanced search results.
This reinforces why our strategy is media-led. If buyers aren’t clicking, they still need to recognise and trust our brand in the places where they get their answers.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned, choose from one of the following:
1. Audit your paid mix
- Look at your current paid campaigns. What percentage of your budget goes into create demand vs capture demand?
- Are your campaigns always-on, or are you still relying on bursts?
- If you had $100k to spend next quarter, how would you split it? Try mapping it against Cognism’s 60–70% create / 30–40% capture model.
2. Map your content buckets
- Take your last 10 ads. Categorise them into the five buckets: Content, Thought Leadership, Product Value, Social Proof, Remarketing.
- Where are you under-invested? (e.g., are you too product-heavy, with no social proof?)
- Sketch one idea for a new ad in a bucket you’re not currently using.
3. Evaluate your channel coverage
- Beyond LinkedIn and Google, what other channels are you running (Meta, YouTube, Reddit, programmatic)?
- Are you creating a “surround sound” experience, or showing up in silos?
- Identify one low-cost channel where you could expand your presence.
Lesson 2: Paid ads on LinkedIn
Why this lesson matters
LinkedIn is Cognism’s number one paid channel, and for good reason. No other platform gives us the same level of precision in targeting B2B buyers by company, industry, seniority, and persona. It’s also where our audience already spends time learning, networking, and sharing ideas. And it’s the best environment for brand-led demand creation.
But running LinkedIn ads effectively isn’t as simple as turning on campaigns. You need the right structure, the right audiences, and a clear framework for balancing awareness with remarketing. Otherwise, you risk wasted budget, narrow reach, or missing the chance to connect with future buyers.
In this lesson, we’ll walk through Cognism’s approach to LinkedIn advertising - from account setup, to audience targeting, to how we distribute content in the feed.
LinkedIn as our primary demand creation channel
LinkedIn is where we spend the majority of our paid budget. Up to 90% of our LinkedIn spend goes into awareness campaigns, designed to reach net-new people across our total addressable market.
This is deliberate. If we only focus on the 5% showing intent now, we miss the chance to shape future demand. Awareness campaigns give us breadth, so when buyers eventually enter a cycle, Cognism already feels familiar.
Remarketing plays a smaller role (currently, around 10% of our spend), but it’s vital for increasing frequency and nurturing warmer accounts. By stacking remarketing on top of awareness, we build both reach and depth.
Account structure: How we scale with precision
Running paid at scale requires a clear and consistent structure. Without it, campaigns quickly become messy, budgets blur together, and reporting becomes almost impossible.
LinkedIn gives us three levels to work with - campaign groups, campaigns, and ads - and we organise these layers to reflect our business goals and reporting needs.
By region → We maintain separate ad accounts for the UK&I, US, France, rest of EMEA, and ABM. This allows us to tailor creative and messaging to the nuances of each market and gives regional teams clear visibility into how paid is performing in their territory. For example, ads in France need French copy and may feature different proof points than ads in the US.
By segment → Within each regional account, we split campaigns by company size: SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise. Buying cycles, budgets, and priorities differ massively between these segments. A message about efficiency and quick wins resonates with SMB, while Enterprise buyers may care more about compliance, scale, and integrations. By segmenting upfront, we ensure messaging stays relevant.
By persona → Campaigns then break down further by role type - Sales, Marketing, and RevOps. Each persona has different pain points, and yours will be different. Sales wants cleaner data to book more meetings. Marketing cares about demand generation efficiency. RevOps looks for CRM accuracy and compliance. Structuring at the persona level means our ads speak directly to those challenges, rather than using one-size-fits-all copy.
By seniority → Even within personas, there are big differences between decision-makers and practitioners. That’s why we separate VPs, C-suite, and Directors from individual contributors like SDRs, managers, or executives. A VP of Sales is thinking strategically about revenue targets, while an SDR is frustrated by chasing bad phone numbers. Our creative, tone, and call to action shift depending on who we’re speaking to.
By content bucket → Each persona group is then divided across the five buckets we use to organise paid: Content, Thought Leadership, Product Value, Social Proof, and Remarketing. This ensures that any given audience isn’t just seeing one type of message on repeat - they get a balanced mix of education, authority, proof, and product.
By format → Finally, video and static ads are in separate campaigns. If a static ad underperforms while the video version does well, we know it’s about creative format, not audience or targeting. This allows us to control budgets by format rather than letting LinkedIn’s algorithm decide where to spend.

This structure might sound granular, but it gives us three big advantages:
- Budgeting → We can allocate spend precisely by region or segment to align with pipeline targets. If Enterprise EMEA is a growth priority, we can increase investment there without disrupting other campaigns.
- Reporting → We get clear visibility of performance by audience. We can see whether Mid-Market Marketing leaders in the UK are engaging more than Enterprise RevOps in the US. That clarity helps us optimise where to double down and where to pivot.
- Creative tailoring → It ensures that every ad speaks directly to its audience. An SDR never sees the same message as a VP of Sales. Each role receives content that reflects their context, challenges, and motivations.
An important thing to mention at this stage: For smaller advertisers, this level of granularity may not be realistic - and that’s okay. The principle still applies: mirror your business priorities in your ad account structure.
Whether you have five or fifty campaigns, organise them so that targeting, spending, and reporting all align with your strategic goals.
Creative and ad formats on LinkedIn
Great targeting and account structure will only get you so far. On LinkedIn, creative is the single biggest driver of performance. Your ads’ format, message, and freshness determine whether someone scrolls past or engages.
At Cognism, we’ve tested all the major ad formats LinkedIn offers, and here’s what consistently performs best:
- Single image ads → Our most reliable workhorse. Clean visuals with sharp copy cut through best in-feed and deliver strong CTRs. These are our “bread and butter” ads — perfect for testing at scale since you can create multiple variants from the same resources.
- Carousels → Ideal for storytelling or social proof. We use them to showcase customer logos, case study highlights, or multi-frame problem/solution journeys. They work well for nurturing, though they tend to fatigue faster.
- Video ads → Best for thought leadership and building authority. Video lets us bring subject-matter experts to life and deliver insights static assets can’t. Completion rates and engagement are higher, though CPCs are often more expensive as fewer people click (even if CPMs can be cheaper).
- Document ads → Surprisingly effective for distributing gated-style assets (like reports or guides) in a native way, without forcing a form fill. These perform particularly well for top-of-funnel education campaigns. While we don’t run them often, they can be a strong option.
Creative freshness
No matter the format, the golden rule on LinkedIn is keeping creative fresh. Audiences fatigue quickly, and even strong ads will eventually decline if they’re left to run unchanged. That doesn’t mean chopping and changing for the sake of it - the goal is to monitor performance data and refresh when the signals show you’re due.
To stay ahead, we:
- Develop multiple variants of each ad from day one.
- Rotate in new hooks and visuals monthly.
- Let performance metrics guide when to refresh, rather than relying on arbitrary timelines.
This rhythm keeps campaigns efficient, prevents wasted spend, and ensures our audience doesn’t tune out because they’ve seen the same ad ten times in a row.
In short: LinkedIn performance lives or dies on creative. Get the format right, refresh it regularly, and your campaigns will feel like part of the feed - not background noise.
Lead gen forms vs website conversions
One of the biggest philosophical calls we’ve made at Cognism is to avoid LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. On the surface, they look attractive: low-friction conversions, fewer clicks, and easy-to-measure results.
But in practice, they deliver a problem we’ve worked hard to avoid: low-quality leads that never turn into a pipeline.
Here’s why:
- Lead Gen Forms make it too easy for someone to “convert.” A buyer can click a button and submit pre-filled details without much intent. That inflates lead volume but tanks lead quality.
- These leads rarely match our ICP precisely. They create work for SDRs, clogging the funnel with names of people who aren’t ready to buy.
- It pulls us back into a lead gen mindset - chasing MQLs and form fills rather than measuring what matters: pipeline and revenue.
Instead, we deliberately route traffic to our website and demo pages. That extra step acts as a natural filter:
- Buyers who click through to the site are showing higher intent.
- We can control the experience better, aligning the messaging, proof, and CTAs with our demand generation strategy.
- It strengthens our media loops because we can retarget site visitors across channels with more tailored content.
This might mean fewer “conversions” on paper, but the quality of those conversions - and their likelihood of becoming opportunities - is significantly higher.
For us, the lesson is simple: don’t let platform convenience dictate strategy. Just because LinkedIn offers Lead Gen Forms doesn’t mean they’re the right lever. If your goal is pipeline, not just leads, prioritise website/demo traffic every time.
Audience building: why we don’t rely on job titles
One of the biggest holes you can fall into when advertising on LinkedIn is over-relying on job title targeting. On the surface, it feels like the most logical option - just pick “Marketing Manager,” “VP Sales,” or “RevOps Lead” and you’re set.
The problem is that LinkedIn’s job title database is far from comprehensive. It only recognises around 30% of job titles, and many of them get lumped into broad, catch-all categories.
That means when you target something like “Marketing Manager,” you’re not just reaching marketing managers. You could be hitting product managers, brand managers, or even completely unrelated roles that LinkedIn has bucketed together.
This can lead to wasted spend, irrelevant clicks, and a message that misses the people who influence the buying decision.
This is where Cognism comes in (and yes, we’ll toot our own horn here because it really is the difference-maker). We enhance LinkedIn’s native targeting in three key ways:
- Keyword-based job title searches → Instead of relying on LinkedIn’s pre-set buckets, we build keyword-based lists that capture all the variations real buyers use. For example: “RevOps,” “Revenue Operations,” “Rev Ops,” “Head of Revenue Operations.” This helps us reach far more of the actual audience while filtering out the noise.
- Real-world buying signals → We overlay intent-like signals such as funding events, recent hiring activity, or job joiners. For instance, if a company has just hired a new SDR team or raised a Series B, we know they’re likely investing in sales infrastructure. These signals help us prioritise accounts that are primed for our message, not just people with the right job title.
- Contact lists for precision → We use Cognism’s database to upload highly accurate contact lists, ensuring we don’t miss relevant titles that LinkedIn doesn’t classify properly. This also lets us expand beyond titles into targeting based on seniority, department, and account-level criteria.
Together, this gives us broader reach and sharper accuracy. Broader, because we capture all the relevant variations LinkedIn might miss. Sharper, because we cut out wasted impressions on irrelevant roles.
The payoff? Lower wasted spend, higher quality engagement, and campaigns that consistently reach the right decision-makers and influencers inside our ICP accounts.
Distributing content to the right people, at the right time
Buyers don’t move in straight lines. They loop, pause, restart, and research on their own terms. That’s why our philosophy is simple: show prospects a mix of content that matches their context, not force them down a path we’ve designed.
This means we don’t exclude remarketing audiences from awareness campaigns. If someone visits our website, they’ll still see top-of-funnel content, like educational blogs, thought leadership, or category-level insights.
Because even if they’ve shown interest, they may not yet be ready for a hard sell. By keeping them in awareness campaigns, we maintain breadth and continue building familiarity, while also layering in more product-focused or proof-based ads as their intent increases.
To make remarketing more effective, we segment it by recency and intent:
- High-intent audiences → Visitors who have been to our pricing page, demo page, or case study library are clearly further along in their journey. They see urgent, trust-building ads - like customer testimonials, product walk-throughs, or credibility messages. The goal here is to remove friction and reinforce why Cognism is the safe, proven choice.
- Recent visitors (last 30 days) → Fresh traffic that has engaged recently but hasn’t yet signalled high intent is given direct, value-driven offers. For example, ads promoting a playbook, a product explainer, or a relevant webinar. These provide a natural next step without being overly aggressive.
- Longer-term visitors (older than 30 days) → Audiences that haven’t engaged in a while are nurtured with softer, value-led content - educational guides, thought leadership videos, or entertaining campaign clips like Date-a-Vendor. The goal is to re-engage, stay top of mind, and gently pull them back into the conversation.
By layering audiences this way, we create the perception of ubiquity. Buyers encounter Cognism in multiple contexts - LinkedIn, YouTube, Meta - and at every stage of their journey. They see content that feels relevant to their intent and timing, not a one-size-fits-all message.
The result is a demand gen system that feels consistent and personalised, making Cognism look like it’s everywhere buyers turn, without overspending.
Measuring LinkedIn’s true impact (dark social and beyond)
One of the biggest challenges in paid demand generation is proving impact. Nowhere is this truer than with LinkedIn. Unlike Google, where a click on a keyword often ties directly to an opportunity, LinkedIn plays a broader role in shaping awareness and influencing pipeline.
The problem is that LinkedIn isn’t always easy to measure. Attribution gaps, cookie consent issues, and the rise of dark social mean not every impression or engagement leads to a neat “click → form fill → opportunity” trail in your CRM.
A buyer might see your ad, scroll past, talk about it in a Slack community, and only surface months later in a demo request. Traditional reporting often misses that influence.
When we analyse our customer journeys, we’ve often found that the account started seeing impressions on LinkedIn years before a form fill led to an MQL.
That’s why we layer our measurement approach across three levels:
1. Engagement benchmarks
- CTR and engagement rates per format give us directional signals: Are people paying attention, clicking, or watching?
- We benchmark these against past campaigns, formats, and industries. For example, if video engagement rates consistently outperform statics, we double down. If a carousel ad underperforms, we know the story or hook needs rethinking.
2. Account-level reporting
- Individual clicks don’t tell the full story. We zoom out to the account level. Using LinkedIn’s Company Engagement dashboard and tools like Dreamdata, we can see patterns of exposure and engagement across buying committees.
- For example: if an Enterprise account that just booked a meeting has seen 1,000 impressions and 50 ad clicks across different stakeholders, we know LinkedIn played a meaningful role - even if the final demo request came in via organic search.
3. Pipeline influence
- CRM integrations allow us to track how LinkedIn activity correlates with opportunities created or influenced. We look at metrics like deal acceleration, multi-threading, and account penetration to assess whether LinkedIn is helping move opportunities forward.
- This is especially powerful for ABM. If an account in our ABM list becomes an opportunity after heavy LinkedIn engagement, we can attribute paid’s role in getting us there.
In short: LinkedIn may not always show up in last-touch attribution reports, but it is a critical driver of awareness, trust, and influence in the dark funnel - the 70% of the buying journey that happens before a buyer fills out a form or speaks to sales.
That’s why we measure it not just by clicks but by impact on accounts and pipeline. In demand gen, the real question isn’t “who clicked?”, it’s “who remembered us when it mattered?”
Budgets and bidding: Reach and frequency first
Budgeting on LinkedIn isn’t about chasing the cheapest clicks - it’s about ensuring that the right people see your ads often enough for the message to stick. That’s why our approach prioritises reach and frequency.
We use daily budgets rather than monthly lump sums. This gives us tighter control, helps smooth out spend, and makes it easier to test and optimise campaigns without overcommitting.
Each month, we model our budgets through media planning, using four key inputs:
- Audience size → How many people are in the segment we want to reach (e.g. UK Mid-Market Sales leaders)?
- Historic CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) → This tells us roughly how much it costs to reach our audience. If CPMs are rising, we know we’ll need to allocate more to maintain visibility.
- Desired reach → What percentage of the audience do we want to reach? For example, is 40% of the total audience enough for a test, or do we need 70–80% for a flagship campaign?
- Desired frequency → How often do we want each person to see our ad? A single impression rarely sticks. We usually aim for multiple touchpoints per month so Cognism feels familiar and trusted by the time intent surfaces.
Combining these factors allows us to calculate the proper budget to achieve effective coverage. This prevents underfunding campaigns (where too few people see the ads to make an impact) or overspending on audiences we don’t need to saturate.
When it comes to bidding, we lean toward manual bidding rather than auto-bidding. Auto-bidding often pushes you to the top of LinkedIn’s suggested range, driving costs up unnecessarily. Instead, we ignore LinkedIn’s inflated recommendations.
For example, if the platform suggests $15 per click with a $5–30 range, we’ll start at the bottom - $5–6 - and then gradually increase bids until the budget spends efficiently.
The goal is simple: maximise reach at the lowest cost possible. By resisting the temptation to overbid, we keep CPMs manageable, ensure we’re reaching the maximum number of ICP accounts, and protect efficiency while still hitting pipeline goals.
This disciplined approach turns budgeting from guesswork into a repeatable system. It’s not about spending the most; it’s about spending smart, so every dollar builds reach and recall.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned, please choose at least one of the following activities:
1. Audit your current spend split
- Look at your current LinkedIn ad account.
- What % of your budget goes to awareness vs remarketing?
- Compare it against Cognism’s 90/10 split.
- Write down one change you’d make to better balance reach (future demand) with depth (current demand).
2. Map your account structure
- Sketch out your ad account hierarchy, for example: region → segment → persona → seniority → content bucket → format.
- Where are you segmenting today, and where are you grouping too broadly?
- Identify at least one layer you could introduce (e.g. by persona or seniority) to sharpen targeting and reporting.
3. Build a persona matrix
- Pick one market segment
- Map 3 key personas
- For each persona, list:
- Their #1 pain point
- The type of content that would resonate most (e.g. playbook, testimonial, explainer)
- The call-to-action you’d use
- Use this to plan one campaign per persona.
Lesson 3: Google Ads
Why this lesson matters
Google is Cognism’s #1 channel for demand capture. While LinkedIn helps us build mental availability and shape future demand, Google is where we meet buyers at the exact moment they’re showing intent.
When someone searches for “B2B contact data provider” or even “Cognism pricing,” they’re raising their hand and telling us they’re actively evaluating options. These are the buyers who are already problem-aware and solution-seeking.
That’s why getting Google Ads right is so critical. If we’re not visible in those key searches, we risk losing in-market demand to competitors. If we are visible, we can intercept buyers in the exact window when they’re most ready to engage, and ensure Cognism is front and centre as the credible choice.
Audiences and campaign types
Keyword research
The foundation of any successful Google Ads strategy is keyword research. We always begin with seed keywords that directly reflect buyer intent, the exact terms our ICP would use when searching for solutions like Cognism.
From there, we expand the list using tools like SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool and Google Keyword Planner, which surface variations and related queries. As the account matures and accrues sufficient in-platform data, we also layer in the best-performing keywords from Google’s Search Term Report.
Importantly, we don’t treat all keywords equally. We use phrase match for discovery, then graduate high-performing keywords to exact match once they prove their ability to generate pipeline. This approach ensures we’re investing in the terms that matter most.
Brand campaigns
Brand campaigns are non-negotiable for us as we work in a highly competitive market. Without them, we’d be leaving the door wide open for our competitors to capture the demand that our other marketing efforts have worked hard to create.
We structure brand campaigns by intent, for example, “Cognism pricing,” “Cognism Chrome Extension,” or “Cognism reviews.”
Each intent type gets its own tailored landing page, making the user’s journey feel seamless. Protecting branded searches is one of the easiest wins for capturing high-intent traffic, and it directly safeguards pipeline.
Competitor campaigns
Competitor campaigns are one of the trickiest areas in Google Ads, but they can be powerful when run strategically. We start broad by grouping multiple competitors into one campaign.
This allows us to gather data efficiently without fragmenting spend. We split into single-competitor campaigns once we see consistent conversion volume, typically 30+ conversions per month.
This way, we can more precisely control bids, budgets, and creative. We’re also careful to focus investment where ROI aligns with ICP fit. For example, we won’t chase clicks from competitor tools that primarily serve SMBs if our priority is Enterprise.
The Quality Score Challenge
One of the biggest limitations with competitor campaigns is quality score.
That creates a natural relevance gap:
- Keyword = competitor brand name
- Ad copy = can’t reference that name
- Landing page = can include it
This mismatch means competitor campaigns will almost always carry lower quality scores and, therefore, higher CPCs than brand or generic campaigns.
The key is to accept this limitation, but still run competitor ads where ROI aligns with ICP fit. Don’t chase every click. Focus only on where competitor traffic can turn into qualified pipeline.
Generic campaigns
We design generic campaigns to capture category-level demand. These target unbranded queries like “B2B data provider” or “sales intelligence tool,” where buyers are actively exploring options.
To stand out in this competitive space, we align ad copy and landing pages with Cognism’s differentiating product features, for instance, positioning Audience Builder as the solution to complex targeting needs.
Generic campaigns are essential for intercepting buyers who may not yet know Cognism by name. They can be more scalable than brand and competitor traffic.
Case study: $500k saved in wasted ad spend
Our disciplined approach to audiences has also delivered major efficiency gains. By systematically excluding low-value segments, devices, and timings, we reduced wasted spend by over $500k annually.
Here’s what we found:
- Age groups: Certain brackets, like 18–24 and 65+, consistently delivered high impressions but negligible pipeline. These audiences were unlikely to match our ICP of sales and marketing leaders in active B2B buying roles. By excluding them, we immediately eliminated a large portion of wasted spend.
- Devices: Mobile and tablet traffic looked cheap in terms of CPC and delivered significant click volume. However, when we traced those sessions through offline conversion imports, the pipeline contribution was negligible. Conversion rates were too low and cost/MQL too high to justify the spend. Since Google Ads is used exclusively as a demand capture channel for us, we can’t afford to rely on it for nurturing. By contrast, desktop was where decision-makers engaged deeply with demo and content pages. As a result, we cut mobile/tablet placements entirely, freeing up budget for desktop and significantly improving efficiency.
- Timing: Weekends and certain off-peak hours were another blind spot. While ads still generated clicks, the quality was far lower, and few converted into meetings or opportunities. Switching off ads during these periods freed up budget for the hours when decision-makers were most active.
- Location: Finally, geography mattered. We found that metro hubs consistently produced stronger opportunities compared to dispersed rural traffic. By reallocating budget to focus on high-value cities and regions, we sharpened our targeting and aligned spend with accounts more likely to close.
This wasn’t just about cost savings. Cutting irrelevant traffic also meant the budget we did spend worked harder, leading to stronger lead quality, higher conversion rates, and a more efficient pipeline engine overall.
Account structure – How we scale
Running Google Ads at scale requires a disciplined account structure. Without it, budgets blur together, campaigns compete with one another, and reporting becomes messy and unreliable.
We’ve built a structure that balances precision with scalability, making it possible to run dozens of campaigns across multiple regions while still keeping control.
Quality score
Quality Score is Google’s way of measuring how relevant and useful your ads are to users. It’s influenced by three main factors: keyword relevance, expected click-through rate, and landing page experience.
The higher your score, the lower your CPCs - which means you get more clicks for the same budget. To maximise Quality Score, we keep our ad groups small and tightly themed. Each ad group focuses on a narrow set of related keywords, paired with tailored ad copy and a landing page that matches the user’s intent.
For example, an ad group built around “Cognism pricing” will drive traffic directly to our pricing page, with ad copy that mirrors the search intent. This level of granularity takes more work, but it pays back in efficiency and pipeline.
Improving quality score in practice
We’ve taken a very hands-on approach to lifting quality scores, and the results have been significant.
- Redesigned ad group structures to keep them tight, with only a small set of closely related keywords.
- Optimised landing pages by ensuring keywords appear naturally in H1, H2, and H3 tags and adding variations to avoid keyword stuffing.
- Refined ad copy so it better mirrors search intent.
These changes delivered a 60% increase in conversion rates month-on-month, alongside higher quality scores.
Match types
We use match types strategically to balance discovery with efficiency. Phrase match campaigns allow us to discover new variations and gather performance data, while exact match campaigns focus on proven pipeline drivers.
Over time, we graduate high-performing keywords from phrase match to exact match. This process ensures we’re continuously refining campaigns, keeping discovery open but channelling spend toward the keywords that deliver results.
Negative keywords
Negative keywords are the guardrails that prevent wasted spend. They filter out irrelevant clicks, so budget isn’t wasted on users who were never going to buy in the first place.
For example, if someone searches “free B2B data provider,” we don’t want our ads to show. We maintain a rolling list of negative keywords that’s continuously updated using the Search Term Report.
This is an ongoing process: every week we review which queries triggered our ads, identify irrelevant ones, and add them as negatives to protect the budget. The more disciplined we are with negatives, the more efficient our account becomes.
Optimising for revenue (not just leads)
Most advertisers stop at measuring leads. They optimise for MQL volume, report on cost per lead, and assume that revenue will follow if lead numbers go up.
The problem is, not all leads are created equal. Some never fit your ICP, others never progress past a form fill, and many waste SDR time.
Our Google Ads are optimised for pipeline and revenue, not just leads. We do this by importing offline conversion data back into Google Ads.
This allows us to see which keywords and campaigns generate form fills and which generate qualified opportunities and closed-won deals.
We also segment our leads into SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise. Each segment has a very different ACV and cost per MQL, which means we set different CPA targets depending on the segment.
For example, we’ll accept a higher CPA for Enterprise, because the deal values justify it, whereas SMB needs much tighter efficiency.
To make this actionable, we’ve built custom columns in Google Ads. Instead of just reporting on cost per lead, we measure cost per MQL, cost per SQO, MQL-to-SQO conversion rate, and pipeline ROI.
This gives us a truer picture of ROI and ensures spend flows into the campaigns that generate revenue.
Budgets and bidding: Cognism’s framework
Getting budgets and bidding right is one of the most important levers in running efficient Google Ads. Overspend in the wrong area and you waste money on clicks that never convert. Underspend in the right area and you risk losing in-market buyers to competitors. At Cognism, we use a clear framework that ties bidding strategies to campaign type and budget maturity to conversion volume.
By Campaign Type
- Brand → Target impression share. Branded searches are high intent and high value. If someone searches “Cognism pricing” or “Cognism reviews,” we want to guarantee visibility. That’s why we set brand campaigns to target impression share at 95%+ on the top of the page. It ensures we don’t lose the demand we’ve already worked hard to create.
- Competitor → Target CPA. Competitor keywords are expensive and come with higher CPCs. To avoid overspending, we use Target CPA bidding. This lets us cap costs while still competing for valuable in-market buyers. It keeps us disciplined, so we only pay when campaigns meet efficiency thresholds.
- Generic → Smart bidding. Generic keywords like “B2B data provider” can be harder to convert. Once we have enough data (at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days), we shift to smart bidding strategies like Max Conversions or Target ROAS. Google’s algorithm then optimises automatically toward the keywords most likely to drive results.
Bidding maturity stages
Our bidding strategy evolves as accounts mature and data volume increases.
- Manual (CPC control) → In the early stages of a campaign, when conversion data is limited, we start with manual CPC bidding. This gives us tighter control while gathering enough data to make smarter decisions.
- Conversion (MQLs / pipeline) → Once we have a steady flow of leads, we move from optimising purely to MQLs towards optimising to qualified conversions (e.g. SQOs, opportunities, or pipeline if offline conversion imports are enabled). This helps us see which keywords drive meaningful sales outcomes, not just form fills.
- Conversion-Value (deal value / ACV) → At the most advanced stage, particularly for Enterprise, we optimise bidding not just to opportunities but to actual deal value. This allows us to invest more in the campaigns that generate high-ACV wins, even if the upfront CPL looks higher.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned, pick one of these:
1. Audit your keyword portfolio
- List your top 10 performing keywords.
- Identify the 2–3 you can graduate from phrase to exact match.
- Spot the 3 worst-performing, highest-spending keywords and pause them.
- Identify one opportunity to add a new match type or related keyword to scale performance.
2. Map your account structure
- Sketch your campaigns by Brand, Competitor, Generic.
- Add notes on match types and negative keywords.
- Spot one area where a tighter structure could boost quality score.
3. Test bidding maturity
- Check how many conversions you’ve had in the last 30 days.
- Based on that volume, which bidding stage should you be in (Manual / Conversion / Conversion-Value)?
- Write down one change to align your bidding with that stage.
Lesson 4: Meta ads
Why this lesson matters
Meta (Facebook + Instagram) isn’t the first channel B2B marketers think of when it comes to paid media. They often see it as too consumer-driven, broad, or informal for serious buyers.
But that mindset misses a crucial truth: our buyers are people first. They don’t stop being decision-makers when they scroll Instagram at night or check Facebook during their lunch break.
Meta gives us two unique advantages in demand generation:
- Cost efficiency: CPMs and CPCs are significantly cheaper than LinkedIn, which makes Meta a budget-friendly channel for expanding reach.
- Human context: Ads land in a more natural, personal environment. Done right, this creates higher engagement and adds another touchpoint outside of traditional “work” channels.
Meta isn’t our primary demand creation channel - that’s LinkedIn - but it plays a valuable supporting role. Especially in remarketing, Meta keeps us visible in the moments between work, building familiarity and nudging high-intent buyers further toward conversion.
Audiences: How we build effective audiences
Audience design on Meta is all about striking a balance between precision and scale. Unlike LinkedIn, the platform doesn’t offer deep native B2B targeting, so we rely on a layered approach.
Our strongest lever is remarketing. We build audiences directly in Meta by:
- Website visitors (segmented by recency or by landing page type - demo, case study, product).
- Page engagers (Instagram or Facebook profiles, filtered by 30, 90, or 365 days).
- Uploaded lists (to replicate ABM targeting using Cognism data, which functions as third-party data in this context).
We then expand our reach with first-/third-party data imports, ensuring the accuracy of contact and account lists. This is essential for B2B targeting inside Meta since it allows us to go beyond consumer-style signals and actually reach the right accounts.
Finally, we layer in native targeting, limited firmographics (like location, industry, company size) and behavioural filters (interests such as “B2B marketing” or “SaaS”). These can add scale but are less precise, so we use them as a supplement rather than the core.
The result is a layered audience system that ensures Meta campaigns don’t just reach more people, but the right people.
Account structure: Building for scale without cannibalisation
A clean account structure is critical for running Meta campaigns effectively. Without it, you run into three big problems:
- Overlap → The same audience gets hit by multiple campaigns, creating competition between your own ads.
- Budget dilution → Spend spreads too thin across overlapping campaigns, making it harder to drive meaningful results.
- Poor learning signals → Meta’s algorithm struggles to optimise if it can’t clearly distinguish audiences and objectives.
We apply the same principles we use on LinkedIn to keep things clean, scalable, and aligned with business priorities.
- By region → We separate campaigns by geography (e.g. UK, US, France, EMEA). This allows us to tailor creative, language, and offers to each market. For example, French audiences might see ads in their own language with case studies from French customers, while US campaigns emphasise scale and compliance.
- By funnel stage → Awareness, consideration, and conversion campaigns are run separately so we can control spend by stage. This prevents early-stage awareness budgets from competing with high-intent remarketing campaigns.
- By persona or segment → Within each region, we split further if scale allows. Sales leaders, marketers, and RevOps all have different pain points - campaigns speak directly to those needs rather than pushing one generic message. For instance, a RevOps campaign might lead with CRM accuracy, while sales-focused ads highlight efficiency and time savings.
- Avoiding overlap → We carefully design audiences to reduce crossover. For example, if a remarketing audience is based on “demo page visitors,” we’ll exclude that group from awareness campaigns. This gives Meta clean signals and ensures each campaign complements, not cannibalises, the others.
This structure has two major benefits:
- Efficiency → Budgets are spent deliberately, not wasted competing against ourselves.
- Clarity → Reporting is easier to interpret. We can compare performance by region, persona, or funnel stage and make decisions based on clear data.
For smaller advertisers, this level of granularity may not be necessary. However, the principle still holds: mirror your business priorities in your account structure.
If you’re targeting one region or persona, keep the structure simple. But as you scale, consider splitting campaigns so each has a clear purpose, budget, and audience.
Content buckets: Adapting for Meta
The content strategy we use on Meta mirrors the same buckets that underpin our paid approach across other channels - we have to adapt the execution to the environment.
Facebook and Instagram aren’t professional networking spaces like LinkedIn. They’re where people scroll in downtime, often in a more personal, relaxed headspace. That means content that feels too “corporate” stands out in the wrong way.
The ads that perform best are those that feel like they naturally belong in the feed.
Here’s how we translate our buckets for Meta:
- Product value & demo offers → This is the most important bucket on Meta, because it aligns directly with how we use the platform: to drive efficient conversions at scale. Our best-performing ads in this category are simple, direct offers like “Get 25 free leads” or “Book a demo today and see Cognism in action.” Product walkthrough clips and GIFs also work well, showing value in seconds. On Meta, shorter, punchier hooks are essential because you have less time to capture attention compared to LinkedIn.
- Social proof → Testimonials, logos, and customer results are highly effective in Meta remarketing. A short quote like “Cognism helped us triple meetings booked in EMEA” paired with the customer’s logo builds instant credibility. We’ve also found carousel ads work well here - one frame for the problem, one for the solution, one for the result. These help reassure audiences who have already engaged with us but may not yet be ready to convert.
- Content/thought leadership → We’ve tested running thought leadership content from LinkedIn directly on Meta - for example, screenshots of posts or blog-style ads. The results were clear: they didn’t resonate. Scrollers on Meta don’t want to see long text blocks or corporate commentary. Instead, what performs better is rethinking thought leadership into more “Instagrammable” formats - e.g., short video snippets with captions, story-format graphics, or highly visual stats pulled from reports. The golden rule: make it quick to absorb and visually engaging, rather than text-heavy or formal.
- Brand storytelling → This bucket is more important on Meta than LinkedIn. Because people are in a “cosy time” mindset, they’re more open to narrative-driven creative - ads that use humour, emotion, or cultural references. Campaigns like Date-a-vendor fit perfectly here, because they play into familiar entertainment tropes while still delivering a B2B message.
ABM: LinkedIn-level targeting on Facebook
A common misconception about Meta is that it can’t support ABM. Many B2B marketers assume the platform is too broad or consumer-driven to reach precise decision-makers.
However, with the right data enrichment and list upload process, Meta can get surprisingly close to LinkedIn-level precision.
Here’s how we make it work:
- Upload contact lists → Using Cognism data, we build lists of target accounts and decision-makers, which we then upload directly into Meta.
- Match to Meta profiles → Meta cross-references those lists with user profiles, using signals like email addresses, phone numbers, and employer data.
- Monitor audience size → Once processed, Meta provides an estimated audience size range for the matched list. This gives us confidence that we’re reaching a meaningful proportion of the accounts we care about, and lets us spot issues quickly if a list is too narrow.
The results? Meta becomes more than just an awareness channel. It becomes a cost-effective ABM lever. Compared to LinkedIn, CPMs and CPCs on Meta are much cheaper, so we can repeatedly reach target accounts at a fraction of the cost.
For example, if a Fortune 500 company is on our ABM list, we may run LinkedIn campaigns to their senior sales leaders, but at the same time, we’re serving supporting ads to their wider buying committee on Meta. This builds familiarity across more stakeholders at lower cost, strengthening the impact of our LinkedIn spend.
Measuring success: Beyond platform metrics
It’s tempting to judge Meta performance by surface-level numbers like clicks and impressions. And while those indicators matter for efficiency, they don’t tell the full story. In B2B, the ultimate question is: Is this channel contributing to pipeline and revenue?
We measure Meta campaigns on three levels:
1. Platform Metrics
These are the basics - CTR (click-through rate), CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), and CPC (cost per click).
They help us understand whether our ads are landing in the feed and whether people are engaging. For example, if CTR drops significantly on a creative, we know it’s time for a refresh.
If CPMs rise, we check whether we’re targeting too narrowly.
These metrics are useful for optimisation, but are leading indicators, not the goal.
2. Conversion Metrics
The next layer is declared intent - actions that show genuine buyer interest. For Meta, this often means demo bookings, trial sign-ups, or landing page interactions. These metrics help filter out “cheap clicks” from genuine engagement.
Example: A campaign offering “Get 25 free leads” might have a slightly higher CPC than a broad awareness ad, but if it generates demo requests from ICP accounts, that’s far more valuable.
3. Pipeline Metrics
This is where success is really measured. We track:
- Sales Qualified Opportunities (SQOs) created.
- Opportunities influenced (e.g., an account saw a Meta ad before converting elsewhere).
- Incremental revenue contribution.
By integrating Meta with our CRM and attribution tools, we can see whether the channel is helping to accelerate deals, expand account penetration, or nudge stalled opportunities forward.
When you view Meta through this lens, its role becomes clearer. It may not rival LinkedIn for targeting precision or Google for direct intent capture, but its cost efficiency makes it a powerful contributor.
Lower CPMs mean you can reach more of your ICP for less, which compounds when those impressions translate into warmer accounts and lower CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) later on.
The key takeaway:
Judge Meta not by clicks alone, but by its ability to create the conditions for pipeline. The incremental contribution - the accounts warmed up, the opportunities nudged, the deals accelerated - proves its value.
Course homework
To apply what you’ve learned, please choose at least one of the following exercises:
1. Audience design
Map out three Meta audiences for your business:
- One firmographic audience (e.g., by location, industry, company size).
- One remarketing audience (e.g., website visitors segmented by page type or recency).
- One uploaded list audience (e.g., accounts or contacts from your CRM).
- Ask: Does this layered system balance scale (broad enough to matter) with precision (focused on ICP)?
2. Account structure audit
- Sketch your current Meta account structure (campaign groups, campaigns, and ad sets).
- Identify where overlap may occur (e.g., audiences being hit by multiple campaigns).
- Propose one structural change that would reduce cannibalisation and give Meta’s algorithm cleaner learning signals.
3. Content bucket adaptation
- Take one of your existing LinkedIn ads (thought leadership, product value, or social proof) and adapt it for Meta.
- Ask: How would you make this ad feel more “Instagrammable” or “feed-native”? (e.g., shorter hook, story format, GIFs, carousel).
- Test your idea against the “Would this feel natural here?” filter.
Module 5 wrap-up: Turning paid into your demand gen amplifier
Paid isn’t a silo or a short-term lever - it’s the distribution engine that makes sure your demand gen strategy shows up everywhere your buyers are.
Your demand-gen-led paid strategy checklist
If I were rebuilding a B2B paid strategy from scratch today, here’s the order I’d follow:
- Anchor paid to demand gen philosophy
Paid must serve both sides of the journey: always-on create demand campaigns that build mental availability with the 95% not in-market, and capture demand campaigns that intercept the 5% ready to buy. - Balance budget deliberately
Avoid over-investing in capture just because it’s easier to measure. A healthy split (like 60–70% create / 30–40% capture) builds sustainable growth and keeps capture costs efficient. - Prioritise core channels
LinkedIn for precision B2B demand creation, Google for high-intent capture. Treat everything else (Meta, YouTube, Reddit) as surround sound — amplifying your presence and making your brand feel ubiquitous. - Build around content buckets
Run campaigns across five buckets: content, thought leadership, product value, social proof, and remarketing. This ensures variety, reinforces brand equity, and meets buyers where they are in their journey. - Treat creative as the growth lever
Strong hooks, scroll-stopping formats, and a 4–6 week refresh cycle prevent fatigue and drive lasting recall. Repurpose big rocks into dozens of smaller paid assets to scale efficiently. - Measure what matters
Move beyond CTR and CPL. Layer lagging (pipeline, revenue), early (SQOs, ACV), and leading (branded search, account penetration, engagement) indicators to show true impact. - Think air cover, not just clicks
Paid expands sales’ reach. While reps go deep in 1:1 conversations, paid ensures the whole buying committee sees consistent, credible messaging everywhere they turn. - Prepare for what’s next
With AI-driven search and zero-click environments rising, brand-led demand creation will matter more than ever. Paid must evolve to keep your brand visible even when clicks disappear.
Done well, paid becomes the amplifier that compounds everything else in your media machine. It’s the system that ensures your brand feels inescapable, your message resonates, and your demand engine scales.
About Fran Langham
Fran Langham is Cognism’s Director of Demand Generation, where she shapes the strategy behind integrated campaigns that balance paid, organic, and field marketing to drive revenue growth. With a strong foundation in paid acquisition and digital strategy, Fran has been instrumental in evolving Cognism’s approach to demand generation, ensuring paid isn’t siloed, but works in lockstep with brand and content.
Her focus is on using paid to do more than capture leads. Fran builds paid ecosystems that amplify big-rock content, fuel multi-channel campaigns, and support ABM motions, ensuring budget is spent where it creates lasting impact across the funnel.
By combining creative, data, and cross-functional alignment, she’s helped Cognism prove that paid media, when tied to demand generation, can be both scalable and pipeline-driving.
Ready to put it into practice?
Test your understanding of Cognism’s paid media approach with this quick quiz. Check what you’ve learned about demand creation, demand capture, and how paid fits into our wider strategy.