Table of Contents
AI-Driven Sales Funnel Optimization
Introduction
Welcome to logiclabsai.com’s ultimate guide to AI-driven sales funnel optimization! In this guide, we will take you behind the scenes of the marketing strategy used at Breadcrumbs, backed by real examples and actual figures. This guide is different from others because we won’t give you any theory or BS. Instead, we will provide you with practical insights so that you can adapt them to your own B2B marketing funnel.
Let’s dig in and discover how AI can transform your sales funnel!
Why LinkedIn is Key for B2B Advertising
LinkedIn’s ad platform, Campaign Manager, has undergone significant changes in recent years. If you’ve tried LinkedIn ads in the past and didn’t have much success, it’s time to give it another chance. Here’s why we focus so much on LinkedIn for our paid social advertising:
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Best B2B Targeting Options: LinkedIn has the most comprehensive and effective targeting options for B2B ads.
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Wide Reach: With over 900 million members across 200 countries and territories, LinkedIn allows you to reach key decision-makers on a large scale.
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Business-Focused Audience: LinkedIn users are on the platform for business purposes, making B2B offers highly engaging.
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High Degree of Trust: Major brands like Adobe, SAP, Sage, and Microsoft advertise on LinkedIn, contributing to the trust users have in the platform.
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Remarketing Options: LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences feature allows you to build a full marketing funnel by targeting users who have interacted with your ads or website.
LinkedIn’s commitment to Trust & Safety and its ownership by Microsoft make it an ideal platform for B2B and enterprise companies looking to protect their brand image.
While LinkedIn ads may come at a premium cost compared to other social networks, the long-term value and return on investment often justify the expense.
The Breadcrumbs Marketing Funnel
At Breadcrumbs, our focus is on generating new leads for the pipeline. Lead generation allows for long-term relationship building via email, which is a cost-effective approach for B2B marketing. With the powerful targeting options on LinkedIn and the trust users have in the ads, we can often skip the initial awareness stage and go straight for lead generation as the first touch.
However, it’s important to note that social media platforms are different from search platforms like Google. Users on social media are not actively searching for your content, so we must introduce our brand gently and provide value before asking for a sale or demo. At Breadcrumbs, we achieve this by offering high-quality content, such as ebooks, in exchange for an email address. Other popular lead magnets include white papers, quizzes, mini-courses, and gated video content.
Testing and Optimization: Finding the Right Lead Magnet
Social advertising platforms provide us with valuable data and metrics to optimize our campaigns. One of the first tests we ran to optimize our sales funnel was to test ads for different ebooks and determine which one had the lowest cost per lead (CPL). This test revealed the importance of finding the lead magnet that resonates best with your audience, as it can make or break your social media advertising funnel.
It’s crucial to keep interacting and testing until you find the content that works best for your target audience. Only when your offer is well-received should you move on to testing the ad creative itself. For example, at Breadcrumbs, we found that switching from landscape to square image formats resulted in a doubled clickthrough rate and a halved cost per lead. So, if you’re running LinkedIn ads with the traditional landscape image format, updating them to square images should be a priority.
Other tests we conducted included:
- A/B testing different ad creatives
- Testing different audiences
- Testing different offers
AI-driven sales funnel optimization relies on continuous testing and data analysis. By being guided by the results, you can optimize your campaigns, reduce costs, and maximize ROI.
Monitoring and Improving Lead Quality
When it comes to optimizing your sales funnel, lead quality is more important than lead quantity. If you fill your funnel with the wrong leads, they will never convert into sales later on. Monitoring and improving lead quality requires tools and strategies that go beyond what ad platforms can provide.
At Breadcrumbs, we use a tool called Breadcrumbs to ingest all our marketing, sales, and product data and create lead-scoring models that surface high-value leads. By capturing information about how closely a lead resembles our ideal customer profile (ICP) and how engaged they are with our online properties, we can prioritize and optimize our sales funnel accordingly.
Here’s how the lead quality monitoring process works at Breadcrumbs:
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HubSpot CRM Integration: Breadcrumbs integrates with HubSpot CRM to sync lead scoring data.
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Creating Lead Scoring Models: Using the data from Breadcrumbs, we create various lead scoring models based on factors like lead source, engagement level, and other relevant criteria.
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Optimizing the Sales Funnel: With the lead scores in HubSpot, we can optimize our sales funnel by creating different nurturing strategies based on the lead score. For example, highly scored leads may receive more personalized and targeted content, while lower scored leads may receive more general nurturing campaigns.
Monitoring lead quality allows us to focus more resources on high-quality leads and nurture them effectively through the sales funnel.
Engaging Cold Audiences with Valuable Content
Engaging with cold audiences on social media requires a delicate balance. Since users are not actively searching for your content, it’s crucial to provide value first before asking for any actions like booking a demo or making a purchase.
At Breadcrumbs, we achieve this by providing valuable content that our cold audiences will find useful. This content can take various forms, such as blog posts, videos, or industry reports. By offering valuable content upfront, we build rapport and establish ourselves as a trusted source of information in the eyes of our audience.
Planting the Seed with Meta Advertising
While LinkedIn is our main platform for B2B advertising, we also utilize Facebook and Instagram for remarketing purposes. These platforms offer lower ad pricing and longer average time spent by users, making them ideal for warming up our audience before asking for a demo or trial.
The great thing about Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads is that they can use similar ad creative to what we already have on LinkedIn. This allows us to run ads across all three social networks without much additional effort.
For mid-funnel content, we focus on building awareness of lead scoring in general and the Breadcrumbs platform specifically. Video ads and traffic campaigns for blog posts on our website are effective ways to nurture our warm audience. With Meta’s lower ad pricing, we can reach our warm audiences at a lower cost.
Closing the Deal at the Bottom of the Funnel
The bottom of the B2B funnel is where the most valuable audience resides. After nurturing them with mid-funnel content, they are ready for the final push towards a sale. At this stage, simplicity is crucial.
The goal is to ask the audience to take action, whether it’s booking a demo or signing up for a trial. There’s no need for elaborate ads or creative strategies. Keep it simple and straightforward, and clearly communicate the next steps the audience should take.
At Breadcrumbs, we have used various strategies for this stage, including ads for booking a demo or signing up for a trial. Recently, we have switched to a freemium signup campaign, allowing users to sign up for a free version of our product. By experimenting with different offers, you can find the approach that yields the best results for your business.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AI-driven sales funnel optimization is the key to maximizing your ROI in social media advertising. By leveraging the powerful targeting options on platforms like LinkedIn, and using AI tools like Breadcrumbs to improve lead quality and engagement, you can optimize your marketing funnel for success.
Remember to continually test and optimize your campaigns based on data and results. Be flexible and willing to adapt your strategy as needed. By doing so, you can achieve scalable growth and revenue acceleration in your business.
To learn more about AI-driven sales funnel optimization, join us for our upcoming webinar on April 27th, where we will share the actual results we achieved from advertising for Breadcrumbs using LinkedIn and Meta ads.
About the author: Paul is the founder of logiclabsai.com, a company specializing in LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram advertising for ambitious B2B and e-commerce companies. With a decade of experience in social media, Paul has worked at leading companies like Facebook and Hootsuite. Through his expertise in paid social, Paul loves helping businesses scale rapidly.
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