Customer Story

Visier sees a 234% higher click-through rate with an ABM approach using Demandbase + LinkedIn

The Challenge

Visier, a global leader in people analytics, unifies people and business data from various sources to give insight into a workforce for business impact. The company targets top enterprise organizations while also embedding their solution into existing apps, continuing to expand their reach further in the HR tech space.

The marketing team at Visier had been looking to move away from just a top-of-funnel marketing approach to having their marketing and sales efforts work cohesively to impact the full funnel. They needed a solution beyond their CRM that gave them an overall view of an account without having their sales team spend hours on different reports. Visier also wanted an ABM strategy that helped them unify the relationship between their sales and marketing teams, a primary internal goal for their company.

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Industry
Software Development

Company Size
201-500 employees

Location
Vancouver, British Columbia

Solution
Demandbase One™ with ABX and advertising, LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Matched Audiences

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95 - 100%

of their OEM opportunities engage with their campaigns on LinkedIn

84%

of our top enterprise prospect accounts have visited our site from an ABM ad

234%

higher click-through rate with an ABM approach using Demandbase + LinkedIn

"We've gotten to the right accounts much faster using the magic of Demandbase and LinkedIn together."
Thera Martens Vice President Marketing, Embedded Analytics and Partnerships

Why Demandbase and LinkedIn?

The Visier team had already been long-time customers of LinkedIn before onboarding Demandbase. Digital Marketing Manager Mara Chapin refers to LinkedIn as one of their standard social platforms, their “bread and butter” that plays a significant role in their sales and ads strategy.

With LinkedIn already on board, the team sought an ABM solution that would provide a complete view of an account based on insights like engagement and intent that sales and marketing could use to align on a unified go-to-market strategy. Demandbase provided that and more. As a result, the platform has been well received at Visier, with Mara enthusing, “Our stakeholders love Demandbase!”

As for using both tools together? Mara says that was a natural next step to ramp up their entire ABM strategy. As an aside, she mentions that having both the Demandbase iframe and LinkedIn Sales Navigator within their CRM aligns perfectly for their sales team to use both tools in conjunction with each other easily. She describes a scenario where a salesperson could use Demandbase to learn the essentials of an account, like their qualification score, pipeline predict scores, page views, and revenue, and then use LinkedIn’s robust directory to expand their chances of engagement with someone at the account.

When used together, Demandbase and LinkedIn also play a significant role in their ads strategy. Mara notes that in this day and age, many people tune out ads. Leveraging Demandbase and LinkedIn was a logical next step to help ensure the right message gets in front of the right people. She also notes that by using the Demandbase integration with LinkedIn we can have a very targeted message to a specific persona. Without this, we would have had to use a higher-level message that wouldn’t resonate as much. In addition, Visier uses Demandbase Advertising to reach key audiences at the same target accounts as they research people data solutions on premium sites on the open web, complementing their campaigns on LinkedIn.

"Traditional targeting out of LinkedIn is fantastic, and with Demandbase, I can take that information from LinkedIn and focus it even further."
Mara Chapin Digital Marketing Manager

How’d They Do?

Using both Demandbase and LinkedIn, the Visier team has been able to:

  • Successfully launch a new sales approach

    Visier recently created a new delivery system for their software that changed how they sell and market. This change meant they now primarily use a “land and expand” approach to their sales cycle. This strategy includes landing an account with Visier Essentials before upselling with additional modules over two to three years. Using Demandbase Intent keywords to determine which modules to promote to their client next, they then used both Demandbase and LinkedIn to advertise to the client through the integration. After just one year, they’ve upsold the client on at least two additional modules with more opportunities in the pipeline.

  • Focused their enterprise ads strategy

    Visier has used a combination of LinkedIn and Demandbase to focus their ads campaigns even further with their new “land and expand” approach. The goal is to determine what their client might need and deliver a sales and marketing approach that helps sales drive that pipeline to close.

    One of the key ways the sales and field marketing team determines which module to focus their advertising efforts on is by looking at intent keywords in Demandbase. Using those insights, they write their ad copy specifically for that module and build their person and account list under those guidelines. They then push the list through Demandbase’s integration with LinkedIn as a dynamic audience to target the right people and accounts for their ads on LinkedIn. After this, they report on the campaign’s engagement using the audience insights from Linkedin.

    Using this approach, the team has seen impressive results, including 80% engagement with their enterprise-level accounts, a 206% increased likelihood of closing the gap between close/won and close/lost opportunities, and a 234% higher click-through rate when using Demandbase + LinkedIn.

    Thera Martens, Vice President of Marketing, Embedded Analytics, and Partnerships, notes that Visier has built their entire engagement funnel in Demandbase, focusing on engagement details at an account level, especially for their enterprise customers. She continues that this insight, combined with the account’s interactions with their ads in LinkedIn, has helped them identify accounts as marketing qualified and create a funnel for sales.

  • Met account engagement goals for their OEM segment

    On their OEM side, Visier sells directly to HR technology companies and has a very targeted list of accounts to sell to. Visier has reached at least 88% of those accounts using the combined efforts of their complete ABM strategy, with Senior Demand Generation Manager Jon Kaspszak building out their OEM campaigns using both Demandbase and LinkedIn.

    Visier set a goal to have at least 30% of their TAM engage with their ads and content. They have surpassed that goal, with their engaged accounts typically trending towards 37%-38%.

    Once an account has an opportunity attached and is in their sales cycle, the goal is to have at least 80% interact with their marketing content. They’ve consistently hit at least 95%-100% of that target.

Without Demandbase and LinkedIn?

When asked how they would run their ABM program without Demandbase and LinkedIn, and the ability to use them together, Mara acknowledges that their program today wouldn’t be as impactful. She goes on to say that it would be much more challenging to prioritize which accounts are the most engaged and where we should put our effort, focus, and budget. Mara closes by saying, “Without Demandbase and LinkedIn, we wouldn’t be able to have a targeted approach based on intent to help inform our digital ABM strategy.”

About Visier

Visier is the recognized global leader in people analytics, providing on-demand answers to people-powered businesses. Behind every great brand, product, or idea is the Human Truth, and the Visier People Cloud reveals the fundamental questions and actionable truths capable of elevating your employees—and your business—to new heights. Founded in 2010 by the pioneers of business intelligence, Visier has over 40,000 customers in 75 countries around the world, including enterprises like BASF, Bridgestone, Electronic Arts, McKesson, MerckKGaA, and more. Visier is headquartered in Vancouver, BC with offices and team members worldwide.

About LinkedIn

Founded in 2003, LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. With more than 1 billion members worldwide, including executives from every Fortune 500 company, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. The company has a diversified business model with revenue coming from Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, Sales Solutions and Premium Subscriptions products. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, LinkedIn has offices across the globe.

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