Account-Based Marketing Helps Ironclad Lock in Better Leads via Google & LinkedIn Advertisements

Leading digital contract platform Ironclad enables legal departments to simplify and accelerate contract collaboration, approvals and filing. As the six-year-old startup entered its next phase of growth, its marketing team set out looking for ways to reach more potential customers. Having discovered that their customer acquisition efforts require multiple touch points over a longer period of time, Ironclad turned to Round Barn Labs to help them engage potential customers with precision targeting, retargeting and competitor conquesting – with immediate and lasting results.
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‍Key Results:

"RBL was instrumental in helping Ironclad grow its paid search strategy from zero to one with top-notch support and a data-driven approach to everything they did." – Sophie Song-Fang, Growth Marketing Lead

Ironclad Looks to Engage Customers in a Wary, Risk-Averse Market

Ironclad approached Round Barn Labs in the early stages of building their digital marketing strategy, and as they prepared to undertake their first paid acquisition efforts. They wanted to increase lead volume and accelerate growth, but turning leads into customers in the risk-averse world of contract management called for a significant investment of time and an in-depth understanding of growth that the early-stage company had not yet fully developed within the ranks of their marketing department. 

Unlike consumer-facing product marketing, their b2b sale requires a greater level of engagement, more points of contact and establishment of trust. But Ironclad needed to find an efficient and sustainable way to accelerate lead acquisition and better engage potential customers in order to improve its competitive standing and take the next step in its growth plan.

RBL Improves Leads Through Precision Targeting and Rigorous Message Testing

RBL helped Ironclad implement a cross-channel, account-based marketing strategy in order to build awareness and trust with potential customers. It began with identifying and precision-targeting decision makers in legal departments, while setting criteria that would enable them to better prioritize accounts and allocate resources.  

By targeting general counsel and contract negotiators via LinkedIn, and then retargeting them with display ads in Google, RBL enabled Ironclad to engage these potential customers even more effectively with new content on LinkedIn – ultimately inspiring them to share their email addresses to get a resource guide or to view a recorded webinar.

RBL’s growth experts identified relevant keywords on Google paid search that would capture intent-laden searches and used competitor conquesting to raise brand awareness and improve competitive position. Ironclad was able to break through the noise of the digital contract management field’s competitive landscape through RBL’s rigorous testing approach toward creative, and insightful recommendations on customer journey and landing-page improvements. Through close collaboration with the Ironclad growth team, including a shared testing pipeline, RBL was able to rank-stack the tests and come up with an approach that drew out important strategic takeaways and results.

Ironclad’s MQL Gains Are Significant and Sustainable

Through RBL’s efforts, Ironclad was able to accelerate lead generation and to build trust with key decision-making prospects. 

What’s more, the collaborative approach would leave Ironclad well positioned to sustain and build upon its progress on lead generation, awareness building and customer acquisition. In fact, since partnering with RBL, Ironclad has increased its MQLs every quarter, and has exceeded its MQL goals in three of the last four quarters – all that in spite of the marketing challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“RBL exceeded our lead volume expectations through iterative A/B testing and excellent paid performance marketing on Google, LinkedIn and other channels. I'd definitely recommend you work with RBL if you are looking for help in paid marketing and growth,” says Chris Souza, head of lifecycle marketing, Ironclad.