The solution was to bring in a mix of new digital marketing channels, including content syndication, programmatic media, and audio.
The new channels were integrated with O2’s existing martech stack, with unified reporting across multiple channels. The information was presented in dashboards that allowed the O2 team to refine the targeting and the messaging in real time.
After 2.1 million impressions (with a CTR of 0.39%), the program delivered 63.29% of the O2’s complete enterprise MQL target, with a conversion rate of lead to MQL of 23%, an increase of 13%.
Specific issues or challenges to be addressed
O2 was looking to run lead generation campaigns targeting enterprise customers in the UK.
An annual campaign was deployed, delivering multiple elements and topic streams that made use of existing channels as well as channels O2 hadn’t used before.
This mix included:
- Content syndication
- Programmatic media
- Display activity
- LinkedIn lead gen/display
- Audio.
However, O2’s martech stack was built for their existing channels and didn’t allow for new channels to integrate. This meant they could not accurately report across the campaigns to ensure controlled spend against targets.
twogether’s existing relationship with O2 meant it could utilise the martech investments previously made with the SMB team to enable the enterprise team.
The target audience
- Enterprise customers and prospects.
- ITDMs, operations and c-suite DMs.
The martech solution
twogether’s media analysis shows that when lead data takes longer than 48 hours to follow up, there is a substantial drop in conversion rates. Capturing data across multiple channels in real-time was, therefore, critical for optimisation.
Deployment
Implementing these new on-demand solutions avoided a longer-term investment whilst they were trailing the new channels. With these in place, twogether enabled smarter automation which identified the right message, across multiple streams, to achieve optimal conversion rates.
Using bespoke data processing, twogether evaluated the new channels autonomously to identify the right type of nurture activity needed, ultimately tailoring automation to enhance the customer experience.
Tracking engagement in this way allowed twogether to serve targeted content that enhanced existing messaging, trialled new topics with those who were least engaged and applied custom paths for each contact generated.
Ongoing reporting varied in requirements for each stakeholder:
- Campaign team: contacts generated and MQLs.
- Marketing ops: results of customised paths and result monitoring against benchmarks.
The deployment included A/B testing of content, changes to custom paths based on evolution of campaign strategy, and integration of intent data from third-party sources.
Impact on the business
twogether met the needs of the existing tech stack without costly development and implemented this as a test campaign to monitor results for long-term investment.
Custom paths created meant that, instead of applying the historical lead scoring model to create MQLs, contacts became an MQL based on their detailed intent, not the amount of activity shown.
Additionally, twogether was able to append lead data with information needed for O2’s existing tech stack, not only transferring leads quickly, but automatically activating nurture activity, based on the content of engagement.
This process meant the entire team were focused on optimisation throughout the year.
ROI (and budgeting)
This process alone achieved 63.29% of the business’ complete MQL target and achieved a conversion rate of lead to MQL of 23% (13% higher than previous conversion rates).
"The activation of this campaign meant we had to plan the journey end to end, from the initial expression of interest via third party channels, through a personalised journey to the eventual provision of qualified leads to our sales teams. The customer journey needed to be engaging and human while the marketing automation did the heavy lifting invisibly in the background. The marketing ops challenge was to integrate the media provider, marketing communications and our CRM system, tying the touchpoints into a customer-centric journey. Several qualification steps were needed before leads were created to make sure the leads stood apart from the crowd and would ultimately make best use of sales time."
