Deep Data Dive to Improve the Customer Journey
Paycor, a leading Human Capital Management SaaS platform, needed to find a new growth path for both overall leads and Small Business users. They worked with Metric Theory to develop a plan to get a new pricing strategy in front of the right audience at the right moment, scaling growth for that market in this client story that was a finalist in the Drum Search Awards 2020.
The Goal: Audience-Based Market Growth
Reaching SMB prospects on networks like LinkedIn is straightforward with strong firmographic targeting, but search ads don’t offer the same level of dependable audience data. Paycor challenged their Metric Theory team to help them find ways to segment and increase SMB leads for search, using updated pricing for that market as the central offer, since pricing is a key decision criteria for that market.
Our Strategy
- Semantic Analysis Using CRM Data
- Personalized Customer Journey
Semantic Analysis Using CRM Data
To reach Enterprise and SMB audiences separately on search, Paycor and Metric Theory started with known audience data from Paycor’s CRM, creating Customer Match audiences for all searchers who are known to Google and already categorized in order to serve personalized messaging to each group.
Segmentation was harder for unknown searchers. But using Metric Theory’s Compass reporting tool, Paycor integrated their CRM data to analyze keyword groups based on historical CRM behavior – not only where prospects were in the funnel when they converted, but also the size of the company – allowing the teams to predict future behavior for unknown searchers. That data was used to categorize search markets into groups, reflecting likely company size and which stage of the acquisition funnel they were likely in: Awareness (Top), Consideration (Middle), and Conversion (Bottom). They also used these predictive audiences to personalize the customer journey on search ads and other channels like paid social.
"SMB leads are very important to us, and the strategy that our two teams have crafted, using all data available to us, has meant that we are able to grow those leads in a cost-effective way. "
Personalized Customer Journey
Using both known and extrapolated SMB audiences from CRM data attribution, Paycor and Metric Theory segmented the search account to personalize the customer journey for business size and funnel stage. For the key SMB audience, the teams were able to reduce the number of clicks it took to find cost info at all stages, and added price-specific language to ad messaging for those closer to purchasing decision.
They also applied a funnel-specific call to action from ad copy through to landing pages, increasing from three to 18 messaging and landing page combinations. The messaging for each funnel stage was modified to speak specifically to that audience. This kind of specificity had not been possible before, and was the result of SEM data analysis driven by Compass, aggregated client CRM data, and unique client-side customer research insights that gave the teams what was needed to personalize the customer journey.
The updated approach to messaging for both known and extrapolated audiences led to surprisingly large gains in ad engagement – moving search CTR for SMB audiences up a staggering 67%, and creating even more growth in new business opportunities for Paycor.
67%
increase in ad CTR
240%
increase in Leads
63%
improvement in Cost per Acquisition
