How League Increased Meeting Bookings by 41% Using Demandbase

Executive Summary

League, the leading healthcare consumer experience platform, was facing challenges with optimizing their account-based marketing and display advertising strategies. They were looking for better ways to generate pipeline, turn ads into real sales opportunities, and get their sales and marketing teams working more closely together. After adopting Demandbase, League boosted meeting booking rates by 41% for accounts that saw targeted ads and improved their conversion rates.

Introduction

Founded in 2014, League is the leading healthcare consumer experience platform, reaching more than 40 million people around the world and delivering the highest level of personalization in the industry. Recognized for their strong reputation, League’s marketing and sales team identified an opportunity to elevate the impact of their ABM and display ad campaigns. By refining their strategy, they aimed to create stronger organizational alignment, unlocking greater efficiency and results.

The Problem

Despite an investment in ABM strategies and tools, League encountered key challenges:

• Turning advertising into a pipeline driver: Display advertising was mostly seen as a brand awareness play. League wanted to push beyond this perception and use display campaigns as a tool for generating net-new pipeline, securing meetings, and delivering measurable results.
• Sales and marketing misalignment: Sales teams lacked actionable insights from marketing campaigns, making it difficult to personalize outreach and drive meaningful engagements.
• Effective budget allocation: League needed a more structured, data-driven way to decide where their ad dollars should go. They wanted to focus their budget on the accounts that mattered most and were most likely to convert.

These challenges made it hard for League to get the full value out of their advertising efforts and hit their growth goals.

The Solution

League turned to Demandbase to reimagine their ABM and advertising strategies. With Demandbase advanced capabilities, they addressed their challenges head-on and saw measurable improvements across the board.

Implementation Highlights

• Weighted budgeting approach: League implemented a weighted ad model with Demandbase, allowing them to allocate more resources to high-priority accounts while controlling spend on lower-priority ones. This method allowed for more precise targeting and better ROI on their advertising campaigns.
• Enhanced sales enablement: Demandbase gave League’s sales team valuable real-time insights at the account level. They could see which individuals within each account were actively engaging with content, allowing reps to tailor their outreach and have more meaningful, impactful conversations.
• Customized campaign strategy: League built custom campaigns with content designed specifically for their Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). They used a mix of display ads and pre-roll video to grab attention and drive engagement with the right people.

Strategic Partnership

The Demandbase customer success team was a key partner in helping League get up and running smoothly, including making sure the platform integrated seamlessly with League’s existing tools. Beyond the technical setup, they also provided hands-on guidance to help League adopt ABM best practices and stay focused on their goals.

The Results

League’s partnership with Demandbase unlocked significant business outcomes, transforming its marketing impact and alignment with sales teams.

• 41% increase in meeting booking rates (MBR): Accounts that were served targeted advertisements displayed a remarkable 41% lift in meeting bookings compared to those that were not, driving a clear pipeline impact.
• Conversion rate improvements: Targeted ads helped secure more initial meetings and improved the rate at which those meetings converted into sales-qualified opportunities (SQLs). League also saw better performance from SQLs to SQOs compared to non-targeted accounts.
• Active engagement across accounts: Demandbase’s platform allowed League to measure and track new account activity effectively. Prioritized accounts that engaged with display ads exhibited a substantial 47% lift in platform activity, compared to those that did not engage.
• More efficient ad spend: Utilizing a weighted allocation model, League allocated more budget toward high-value accounts. This laser-focused strategy not only improved cost efficiency, but also drove significant results, further illustrated by a 0.08% click-through rate (CTR) that provided clear signals of interest from target buyers.

Key Takeaways

1. ABM can drive tangible sales impact: League’s success showed that display advertising, when combined with actionable insights for sales, can do much more than build awareness. It can directly impact strategic objectives like pipeline generation.
2. Alignment fuels success: The alignment between marketing and sales proved essential in maximizing the value of Demandbase. By sharing insights, both teams worked seamlessly toward shared revenue goals.
3. Intent data makes the difference: Using real-time intent signals helped League move away from broad targeting. Instead, they were able to run more focused, high-precision campaigns that reached the right accounts at the right time.

Looking Ahead

League plans to expand their Demandbase application by:

• Leveraging marketing qualified accounts (MQAs): The team will use Demandbase to identify accounts exhibiting purchase intent and prioritize engagement with these MQAs, enabling further personalization and impactful communication.
• Scaling advertising initiatives globally: After seeing strong results in initial markets, League plans to expand their advertising efforts globally. They will use Demandbase to tailor their strategies to fit the unique needs of each region.
• Refining metrics: League will focus on measuring more than just engagement. They plan to analyze how deeply their ads influence key pipeline metrics, including sales-qualified leads and revenue attribution.

Conclusion

Demandbase helped League turn their ABM challenges into opportunities for measurable growth. By aligning sales and marketing, fine-tuning their ad strategy, and making the most of data-driven insights, League boosted their meeting booking rates by 41%. League’s success demonstrates the power of precise, tech-enabled ABM strategies in driving real impact.