5 B2B ad campaigns that actually worked
Five B2B Ad Campaigns That Actually Worked (With Real Numbers)
Nothing gets people paying attention more than examples.
I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and the one thing I know for certain is that marketers can never get enough real examples. Not frameworks. Not theory. Just: what did you actually do, how much did you spend, and what happened?
Today I’m sharing examples from five demand gen marketers on our recent “B2B Ad Campaigns That Actually Worked” call. Here’s the video if you want to watch each example.
1. Thought Leader Ads: $8K Into $700K in Pipeline
Cindy Dubon, Director of Growth Marketing at Goldcast, ran an influencer-powered product launch on LinkedIn. She found four people who genuinely used the product, paid them $500 to $1,000 each to post about it in their own words, and then ran those posts as thought leader ads against a tight list of target accounts. No scripted copy. No brand account posts. Real people talking about how they actually use the product, promoted to accounts that sales was already working. Total ad spend: $8,000. Pipeline generated: $700,000. Closed-won revenue: $400,000.
2. Surround Sound: CTV, YouTube, LinkedIn +41% Pipeline
Kelly Arndt, Sr. Demand Gen Manager at Vector, built a surround sound campaign using one hyper-targeted ICP audience across connected TV, YouTube, brand solution ads, and thought leader ads on LinkedIn. Same audience everywhere. Different formats, different messaging, all running simultaneously. She spent $35K on four videos and kept the CTV budget between $30 and $60 per day. Early results: 34% increase in net new traffic, 22% increase in demo requests, and 41% more pipeline month over month. Total quarterly budget: $60K.
3. Direct Mail to VCs: $11.5K Spent, $324K in Revenue
Jeremy Chung, founder of Ads by Jer, wanted to book meetings with venture capital partners. He used Claude to audit the ad accounts of their portfolio companies, then sent 1,200 personalized postcards at $1.50 each with a QR code linking to a Loom video walkthrough of the audit. Anyone who scanned got a $35 custom booklet shipped to their office with the full teardown. He layered in email sequences and about $3K in LinkedIn retargeting on top. Result: 22 meetings booked, roughly $324K in revenue, at about $500 per meeting.
4. Tradeshow: No Booth and 2,000% ROI
Tess Pfeifle, Associate Director of Marketing at AirVet, went to a conference without a booth. Her move: sponsor the pre-event happy hour to get the attendee list, upload it to LinkedIn, and run two ad creatives. One said “Let’s talk at the conference.” The other said “Win a dog pen.” The dog pen ad won. Intent data showed 65% of conference attendees visited their website before the event, nearly double typical booth traffic. Total spend including sponsorship: $11K. Results: 11 on-site meetings, 5 post-event meetings, 3 open deals, and over 2,000% ROI.
5. Facebook and Google Display vs. LinkedIn
Richard Meyer, Director of GTM and Growth at GoHappy, had 90% of his ad spend on LinkedIn when CPMs jumped 91% in one quarter, audience penetration dropped to 23%, and meeting booking rates fell 36%. He moved just 20% of his budget to Facebook and Google Display using signal-based targeting, building an intent flywheel where first-party signals feed into Clay, sync back to HubSpot, and push audiences into ad channels. The results: 2x the impressions of the entire previous quarter, CPMs dropped 75%, pipeline hit 3.5x the monthly average, and from paid channels specifically, 5.2x.
Everyone we featured above was super helpful during this session, and if you have a question about something they covered here, I bet they might be able to answer a question or two, so I linked everyone’s LinkedIn profiles above. Ex: if you have a question about CTV or Thought Leader ads.
What about you?
What’s the best ad campaign or marketing play you’ve run recently?
Hit reply and tell me about it.
We’re always looking for real examples to feature on the podcast and in the newsletter.
– Dave
