OVERVIEW
Just Global successfully piloted a new Global Center of Excellence and Search program that attributes marketing to revenue for leading-edge multi-cloud security and application delivery company, F5.
OBJECTIVES
F5 had accumulated a rich collection of online conversions, yet were not incorporating offline conversions in their marketing planning or performance reporting. Moreover, with the impending loss of third-party retargeting data, F5 needed a long-term, first-party data strategy.
EXECUTION
Just Global reverse-engineered F5’s marketing conversion rates to find the most valuable areas in their buyer’s journey. With this attribution model enabled, F5’s global marketing efforts across Google Ads could utilize a real-time, value-based bidding method optimized for return on investment.
RESULTS
We produced a 53% lead-to-MQL conversion rate and 77% more net new pipeline growth. The establishment of this process has also allowed F5 to future proof their search strategy by easing their reliance on third-party data and focusing their insights through their own first-party data.
Overview
Just Global successfully piloted a new Global Center of Excellence and Search program for leading-edge multi-cloud security and application delivery company, F5. Through this CoE, we would also execute an advanced Offline Conversion Tracking program to directly attribute marketing to sales.
We collaborated closely with the client to develop a bespoke model for communication, strategy development, and regional coordination. This model took into account the unique client needs based on a centralized global Center of Excellence team charged with unifying the regional approach to marketing, along with the individual regional team needs based on localized nuances and a rich history of in-region performance. Our agency team was able to implement a delicate balance between global standardization and unique regional needs by working closely with all parties involved and sharing our experience rooted in Google best practices and powerful regional insights tools.
Objectives
F5 had accumulated a rich collection of online conversions, yet were not incorporating offline conversions in their marketing planning or performance reporting. As the industry moves towards automated marketing and an impending loss of third-party retargeting data, F5 needed a long-term, first-party data strategy. Leveraging a newly established global Center of Excellence, Just Global set up the framework to launch a global SEM effort that could be templatized.
Key countries were selected based on F5 site traffic analytics, available translated content, and market opportunity reports. Users within each country were targeted exclusively to keep marketing data clean and align user language preferences with translated content. To specifically reach users in financial services, Google’s demographic employment industry targeting was layered on top of keywords in a targeting mode for Encrypted Threats.
By reverse-engineering F5’s marketing conversion rates to identify the most valuable opportunities in their buyer’s journey, we developed an attribution model that would enable us to utilize Google’s Offline Conversion Tracking feature.
Execution
Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT) allows brands to measure which ad clicks are resulting in offline sales and other important customer actions. Google has the most advanced platform in the world to track offline conversion rates and apply those insights into marketing automation that optimize for the outcomes that matter most to businesses.
Just Global reverse-engineered F5’s marketing conversion rates to find the most valuable areas in their buyer’s journey. With this attribution model enabled, F5’s global marketing efforts across Google Ads could utilize a real-time, value-based bidding method optimized for return on investment.
The first step was to leverage an existing integration with Datorama from F5’s AMER team to inform the creation of reporting dashboards for other regional teams. Performance across regions, countries, and campaigns could then be observed within these dashboards.
Marketo pipeline actions including Leads and MQLs were pulled into Google Ads via Offline Conversion Tracking. These metrics were then pulled into Datorama as conversion points so each region could see actual pipeline impact from paid search campaigns in real-time. This reporting was cleaner and more efficient than F5’s existing internal Marketo reporting and could be easily leveraged by F5’s global teams.
Lead-to-MQL conversion rate
Net new pipeline
Results
The result of developing this automated workflow allowed teams to identify opportunities that would continue to drive improvements and optimize campaign strategies in real-time. The establishment of this process has also allowed F5 to future-proof their search strategy by easing their reliance on third-party data and focusing their insights through their own first-party data.
