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How Lattice decreased their cost per quality lead by 60%

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Advertising

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Ad Targeting

"If you're a B2B marketer, everyone talks about Facebook," says Charlie Liang, Head of Demand Generation at Lattice.

"But very few actually execute successful Facebook ad campaigns. They'll tell you it drives a lot of leads, but what they don't tell you is that it can drive a lot of garbage leads, and it pisses off your SDR team."

Charlie had already experienced this firsthand at previous companies, so he was keen to not make the same mistake at Lattice. But he also realized how pivotal Facebook could be for his lead acquisition goals. He wanted to reach people who'd never been to Lattice's website before, and as an economical channel with a huge user base, Facebook was more likely to bring those people in.

While LinkedIn has more reliable ad targeting capabilities, it falls short on cost and reach. As Charlie explains, "LinkedIn is super expensive," he says, "and not everyone logs into LinkedIn. People are on Instagram more."

He turned to Clearbit Advertising to solve Facebook's native targeting inaccuracy. Clearbit Advertising combines a company’s first-party data (Salesforce records, website user data) with Clearbit’s proprietary data on businesses and employees to improve targeting in digital-marketing channels. "Initially I was really skeptical, but we were very pleasantly surprised at the results," Charlies says.

Clearbit Advertising made Facebook a newly viable acquisition channel for Lattice. "Clearbit Advertising gives us access to our target demographic on Facebook that we previously didn't have with Facebook's native targeting capabilities." Here's how.

Clearbit Advertising gives us access to our target demographic on Facebook that we previously did not have with their native targeting capabilities.

Charlie Liang
Charlie LiangDirector of Demand Generation, Lattice

The challenge with Facebook’s native targeting

More than half of Lattice’s U.S. business is in California and New York. "Part of that is because we target high-growth companies," he explains, "so geography is really important."

Lattice even launches takeover campaigns in cities where their target companies are located. So prospects see Lattice wherever they go, including offline — on billboards and public transit spaces, in events and via direct mail. "If you live in San Francisco, you've probably seen some of our ads at bus stop shelters," Charlie says. "We combine that with digital targeting, so we appear everywhere."

Unfortunately, Charlie had experienced Facebook ad campaigns that brought in the wrong people for Lattice, even with surprisingly simple targeting conditions. Those campaigns were supposed to reach audiences based on basic details like geographic location or job title.

"Facebook's native targeting was not good enough. If we targeted in the U.S., leads from outside the U.S. would come in. We'd say we want HR managers, and random students would come in from the middle of nowhere. It just didn't work," Charlie recounts.

Being able to customize Facebook ads based on location is a crucial piece of the takeover tactic, especially with Lattice planning on doubling the amount of cities next year. Clearbit Advertising adds a whole new layer to these multichannel campaigns — not only to serve up awareness online but also to advertise for those in-person events in the region.

lattice team

Harnessing Clearbit’s granular B2B targeting

Clearbit Advertising gives you the ability to define audiences on Facebook using B2B-specific filters found natively on more B2B-focused networks such as LinkedIn. This allows Lattice to target and create custom messaging, not just for different locations but for different personas as well. For example, as Charlie states, "Now we can go after VPs of People inviting them to a local dinner in different regions."

setup for sending one of Lattice's audiences to Facebook Custom Audience

Charlie was also surprised to find that Clearbit Advertising enables targeting on Facebook that gets even more granular than LinkedIn's, accounting for distinctions within specific job or company details that are key to specific personas. "Even for HR personas, there are nuanced but important differences. LinkedIn will group all HR managers the same," Charlie points out. "But we know these include people operations managers or benefits managers, and we definitely sell better to the people ops managers."

"So the ability to target just the people ops managers with the right type of messaging on Facebook is a capability we haven't had in any ad platform, including LinkedIn."

The result — better targeting and costs than LinkedIn

With better targeting capabilities and increased reach to bring in and nurture net-new leads, Clearbit Advertising overcame Charlie's initial doubts about making Facebook work for B2B. And it all works at a better cost.

Compared to $30 a signup on LinkedIn, Lattice spent roughly $12 a signup from Facebook, with similar, if not more precise, targeting capabilities. Charlie adds, "There are these ABM ad companies that offer similar levels of targeting, but their cost per thousand impressions — CPMs — are roughly $40. So we're able to get cheaper CPMs with the same level of targeting."

This opens up the world of who Lattice can reach and changes how demand gen there can operate. "Before, we would have had to try to get them to click on an email, come through our website, and then we could re-target them — and that's with 3-5% click rates," Charlie comments. "Now we're able to get exposure to net-new without them having to click through an email."

Lattice's location-based ABM segments created with Clearbit

From not being able to do much with Facebook at all, with Clearbit Advertising, Lattice now has a powerful channel to add to any demand generation effort. From Lattice's city takeovers to outbound prospecting to top-of-funnel nurture, Facebook ads can now increase the chances for connection and conversion, especially when combined with email efforts as a "nice one, two punch."

Clearbit Advertising has convinced Charlie, the skeptic, that the days of “garbage leads” from Facebook are over. He says, "I think it solves this problem for B2B marketers that has been talked about for a really long time. It was like a breath of fresh air."

Clearbit solves the [lead quality] problem for B2B marketers that has been talked about for a really long time. It was like a breath of fresh air.

Charlie Liang
Charlie LiangDirector of Demand Generation, Lattice

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