Author: Scott Sweeney
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The Future of Demand Gen: Leaner, Smarter, and Built for Scale
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The way demand generation teams are built is changing—fast. The traditional model of scaling by headcount is giving way to a more agile, insight-driven approach. As marketing budgets tighten and expectations continue to rise, organizations are rethinking how to build effective teams that can do more with less. The smartest…
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Audience Layering For Improved LinkedIn Campaign Performance
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When a Linkedin campaign performance is poor, most marketers will look at the high-level metrics—CTR, CPL, impressions—and assume something fundamental is broken. But sometimes, the best-performing segments are buried under the averages. And if you don’t peel back the layers of your audience data, you’ll never know they’re there. Recently,…
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Why Rushing Direct Response in Paid Search May Be Hurting Lead Quality
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When analyzing paid search performance, the focus often gravitates toward direct response metrics: click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per lead. These numbers are important, but they can also be misleading when it comes to actual business outcomes. This is where direct response in paid search comes in to play.…
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How Channel Expansion Focused on Audience Relevance Improves Paid Media Success
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When it comes to scaling paid media efforts, the first instinct many brands have is to simply invest more heavily into the largest platforms—Google, Meta, LinkedIn. While these platforms undeniably hold vast audiences, they are not always the best or most efficient next step for every business. A more strategic…
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What to Know About Manual CPC in the Smart Bidding Era
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Google Ads has been steadily nudging advertisers from manual CPC into Smart Bidding territory for years—with promises of automation, machine learning, and higher efficiency. And for many, those benefits are real. But here’s the twist: Manual CPC is making a comeback. In a recent campaign test, a brand running Smart…
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Why Is Marketing Measurement So Hard to Get Right?
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Marketing measurement is one of the most talked-about and misunderstood parts of the job. Marketers are under constant pressure to prove ROI, optimize spend, and make decisions rooted in data. But despite the countless tools and models available, most teams still struggle to answer a simple question: What’s really working?…
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Paid Media Doesn’t Drive Pipeline—It Drives Qualified Traffic
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t might sound like a game of semantics—but this distinction matters more than most marketers realize. Too often in B2B organizations, teams equate paid media performance directly with pipeline results. But here’s the reality: paid channels like Google Ads or LinkedIn Ads don’t generate pipeline on their own. They generate…
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The PPC Myths That’s Costing You Money (And How to Fix It)
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Let’s bust a myth that’s quietly draining marketing budgets every single day: 🚫 “Broad match keywords bring in more traffic, which means more conversions.” Spoiler: That logic is flawed—and it could be costing you thousands. I’ve seen it time and again: businesses launch Google Ads campaigns, eager to scale, and…
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Setting Realistic Conversion Benchmarks for New PPC Campaigns
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One of the most common questions when launching a new PPC campaign is: “When will we get our first conversion?” While general industry benchmarks are a helpful starting point, I’ve found that more account-specific benchmarks lead to better expectations—and better campaign analysis. Especially in performance marketing, where every click and…
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3 Ways to Find What’s Really Driving Your Marketing Results
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If you’ve spent any time in marketing, you’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule—the idea that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. While it’s not always exact, it rings true in most lead generation campaigns I’ve seen. Some channels, strategies, or campaigns simply do more heavy…