The Situation
The root cause was keyword strategy: broad match on 'payment solutions' in a market where that phrase means entirely different things to a one-person Etsy shop and a 300-person manufacturer. LinkedIn had been tried but abandoned after a month of expensive clicks with no conversions — because the ads were running against job title targets that were too broad.
The Turning Point
A pipeline audit revealed that 80% of closed deals came from companies with 50–500 employees, specifically those with dedicated finance or operations functions. The targeting wasn't even close to that profile.
What We Did — And Why
The LinkedIn rebuild used a layered targeting approach: job title (CFO, Finance Director, VP Operations) plus company size (50–500 employees) plus industry verticals where payment volume was highest (manufacturing, wholesale, professional services). The ad creative led with a specific business pain — 'Still paying 1.8% on every international transfer?' — rather than a generic product pitch. Google Search was restricted to transactional, comparison, and alternative-seeking queries.
Our Approach
- 1.Built LinkedIn campaigns targeting CFOs, Finance Directors and Operations Directors at companies with 50–500 employees in France and Benelux.
- 2.Restructured Google Search with phrase-match and exact-match only, separating B2B intent queries from consumer finance terms with 200+ negative keywords.
- 3.Created a gated ROI calculator lead magnet offering personalised payment cost analysis, increasing form completions by 4x over a generic demo request.
The Results
Cost per acquisition fell from €420 to €176. Monthly qualified leads grew from 12 to 38. The lead-to-meeting rate improved from 22% to 47% as the quality of inbound changed. Pipeline attributed to paid grew from €280k to €870k per month.
In Their Own Words
“B2B paid is not about reach. It is about precision. One right person is worth a hundred wrong clicks.”