HR Tech SaaS

How we helped an HR platform increase SQLs by 140% while reducing cost per lead by 58%

How we helped an HR platform increase SQLs by 140% while reducing cost per lead by 58%

$12M

Company ARR

58%

Cost Reduction

140%

SQL Increase

$50K

Monthly Ad Spend

$12M

Company ARR

140%

SQL Increase

58%

Cost Reduction

$50K

Monthly Ad Spend

The Challenge

The Situation

This HR Tech SaaS company was spending $50,000 per month on LinkedIn and Google Ads. On paper, the numbers looked decent—click-through rates were solid, traffic was coming in. But demos weren't booking and pipeline was flat.

Their agency kept sending dashboards showing "strong performance" based on clicks and impressions. But their CMO was getting pressure from the board to justify the $600K annual ad budget.

Before dilucidus

Monthly Ad Spend

$50,000

SQLs per Month

5

Cost per SQL

$10,000

After dilucidus

Monthly Ad Spend

$50,000

SQLs per Month

12

Cost per SQL

$4,167

What Was Broken

When we got read-only access to their ad accounts, the problems were obvious:

  • Audience overlap: The same people were seeing ads 12+ times across different campaigns. Wasted spend.

  • No segmentation: LinkedIn campaigns targeted everyone from HR coordinators to C-suite executives with the same message.

  • Competing with themselves: Google search ads bid on their own brand terms, driving up costs.

  • Zero retargeting: No campaigns to bring back website visitors who didn't convert.

  • Broken attribution: No way to track which ads drove actual deals.

The Breaking Point

Their CFO asked a simple question: "Which campaigns drove our last 10 closed deals?"

Nobody could answer. Attribution was broken. Marketing blamed sales for not following up fast enough. Sales blamed marketing for sending junk leads.

That's when they called us.

The Solution

Week 1-2: Audit & Strategy

We got read-only access to their ad accounts and analyzed everything:

  • Found audience overlap - same people seeing ads 12+ times

  • Discovered retargeting pixel wasn't installed on key pages

  • Identified attribution tracking errors in HubSpot

  • Built new full-funnel strategy based on actual buyer journey

Week 3-4: Rebuild

We didn't tweak campaigns. We rebuilt them from scratch:

  • Segmented LinkedIn audiences by company size: HR Directors (10-50 employees) vs. VPs of HR (50-500 employees)

  • Rebuilt Google search campaigns around intent keywords, not brand terms

  • Set up programmatic retargeting for website visitors

  • Launched ABM campaign targeting top 100 prospects from sales team

  • Fixed attribution: connected ad platforms to HubSpot, enabled multi-touch tracking

  • Created lifecycle email sequences for cold leads

Month 2-3: Optimize

We tested aggressively and killed what didn't work:

  • Tested 15 new ad variations

  • Shifted 40% of budget from LinkedIn to programmatic (better ROI)

  • Expanded ABM to 200 target accounts

  • Built one-pagers and comparison guides for sales team

  • Programmatic display ads followed key decision-makers from target accounts

"Before Dilucidus, we were flying blind. Our agency told us everything was great, but we had no idea if ads were driving revenue. Now we have clear attribution, qualified pipeline, and the confidence to scale. We've since increased our ad budget to $75K/month because we can finally prove ROI."

"Before Dilucidus, we were flying blind. Our agency told us everything was great, but we had no idea if ads were driving revenue. Now we have clear attribution, qualified pipeline, and the confidence to scale. We've since increased our ad budget to $75K/month because we can finally prove ROI."

— VP of Marketing

Key Takeaways

What Worked:

  • Audience segmentation by company size (not just title)

  • ABM targeting specific accounts from sales pipeline

  • Programmatic retargeting outperformed social retargeting 3:1

  • Lifecycle email automation moved 40% of cold leads to SQL stage

What Didn't Work:

  • Video ads on LinkedIn had high engagement but zero conversions

  • Broad awareness campaigns on Meta wasted budget