28.88×return on ad spend
Intelvision
Took a referral-only firm to a real new-business engine — 5 deals and $240K revenue from Meta in a year, plus 2–4 SQLs/month from ChatGPT.
- $240K revenue from Meta
- 5 deals in 12 months
Service · Paid Ads (paid social + paid search) for Enterprise Software Companies
Paid ads for enterprise software companies that need meetings with buying committees at named accounts — not a pipeline of cheap leads that stall in procurement.
Enterprise software deals are decided by a committee of eight to twenty people you mostly never meet, gated by procurement, InfoSec, and a risk-averse CFO who signs off based on a business case — not a demo. A paid ads program that generates cheap leads from curious middle managers or optimizes to cost-per-click fills a CRM with deals that never clear legal review. We run paid social (LinkedIn, Meta) and paid search as one account-based system aimed where it actually moves revenue: the full buying committee at your specific target accounts, reached with proof-led creative that speaks TCO, displacement risk, and compliance outcomes instead of feature lists — and tracked from ad impression to closed-won through every stage your AEs actually lose deals in. Built on paid acquisition for 60+ B2B tech companies and measured in accepted SQLs and CRM-tracked revenue.
- B2B tech companies worked with
- 60+
- Years marketing to technical & executive buyers
- 9+
- CRM-tracked marketing-led revenue
- $30M+
- AI Search recommendation success rate
- 80%
- Define the target account list and the full buying committee structure — economic buyer (CPO, CIO), financial gatekeeper (CFO), technical evaluator, IT, InfoSec, procurement, legal — and map which committee roles need which proof at which stage, so paid reaches the whole committee rather than one inbound persona.
- Build a paid search account that refuses the unwinnable head-term auction: narrow displacement, alternatives, migration, compliance, regulated-vertical, and integration intent terms that precede real enterprise evaluations, aggressive negative lists stripping out students, job seekers, competitor employees, 'what is [category]' traffic, and non-ICP company sizes, and copy that pre-qualifies for enterprise scale before the click.
- Run LinkedIn as the account-based precision layer — targeting the exact committee roles at named ICP accounts by title, seniority, company size, industry, and revenue band, with proof-led creative and formats (thought-leadership, document ads, conversation ads) built for a risk-averse economic buyer and CFO who asks for a business case, not a feature list.
- Run Meta for retargeting the long, multi-touch evaluation cycle at a lower CPM — re-engaging committee members who have visited your site, attended a webinar, or engaged with LinkedIn content, and feeding warm accounts back to LinkedIn precision targeting when they show renewed intent signals.
- Engineer creative and offers that survive a CFO's scrutiny: framed in total cost of ownership versus the incumbent, quantified ROI and payback period, compliance and security posture, displacement risk of staying put, and integration with the committee's existing stack (SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday) — not 'enterprise-grade, scalable, AI-powered' language every competitor also uses.
- Wire CRM and conversion tracking across the full enterprise cycle — ad impression, click, content download, demo request, discovery call, accepted SQL, security review, procurement, closed-won — with committee roles and account-level attribution so spend is credited against the stage that actually stalled, not just the first-touch form.
- Arm the champion for internal selling: account-based retargeting that follows the champion into the committee rooms you are never in, supporting assets (ROI calculators, TCO one-pagers, security questionnaire pre-fills) surfaced by ad and landing page, so the person carrying your case internally has what procurement and InfoSec actually ask for.
- Run continuous creative testing and a structured sales-feedback review each cycle, and report cost-per-accepted-SQL, pipeline by target account and committee role, and revenue influenced in language a founder or board can defend — not impressions, CPL, or demo requests that die before legal.
How the system works
How the paid-ads system works for an enterprise software company
Diagnose the market
We start with your economics — ACV and deal size, the target account universe (named logos, verticals, company size band), how the buying committee is composed, what your AEs define as an accepted SQL, and where deals actually stall — then audit any existing paid account for the classic enterprise-software leaks: volume-optimized campaigns targeting non-ICP noise, head-term bidding you cannot win against the giants, feature-list creative that never reaches the business-case question, campaigns that only ever see one committee role, and tracking that loses deals in the 12-month cycle. If paid is not the right first lever for your account concentration and deal stage, we say so.
Compare against known enterprise patterns
We hold what we find against patterns from 60+ B2B tech companies and 9+ years marketing to technical and executive buyers, including enterprise platform vendors. That tells us fast whether the constraint is the optimization target (CPL vs SQL), auction strategy on the wrong intent signals, targeting that misses the committee roles who actually block or sign, or creative that collapses into the same feature-parity bucket as the incumbent — and what a realistic cost-per-accepted-SQL looks like for your deal size and cycle length. The plan is benchmarked against paid programs that produced tracked revenue through real procurement cycles, not platform best-practice that assumes a three-week sales cycle.
Choose the right growth path
We commit to the channel mix and targeting approach most likely to produce accepted, in-ICP committee-level pipeline first — usually LinkedIn account-based precision against the economic buyer and the buying committee at named target accounts, plus a disciplined high-intent search account on displacement and compliance terms, with Meta retargeting layered on — and deliberately skip a thin presence everywhere. Often the fastest win is abandoning head-term spend entirely and reallocating that budget to reach the CFO and CIO the inbound form never touches.
Build the paid system
We build paid as one engineered account-based system: a target account list and full committee audience architecture, search and social accounts built from it, proof-led offers and creative that speak to each committee role's question, landing experiences that surface the business case and trust assets procurement and InfoSec will ask for anyway, and CRM-grade conversion tracking across the full enterprise cycle — so every lead is attributable from ad to closed-won through procurement. Then we launch with a testing plan and spend against cost-per-accepted-SQL, not CPL.
Optimize against CRM + sales feedback
Each cycle we combine CRM attribution with feedback from your AEs: which campaigns produced real committee-level conversations at named target accounts, which produced curious non-buyers with no budget authority, which committee roles appeared in deals that cleared procurement and closed, and why. We cut the noise, double down on the account and role combinations that produce real pipeline, refine creative and offers for each committee stage, and keep building the negative audience lists. The account compounds because it is optimized against closed-won enterprise revenue through the full procurement cycle — not the CPL or demo count the platform rewards by default.
The XQL difference
Why XQL runs paid ads differently for an enterprise software company
- 01
Market memory
We have run paid for 60+ B2B tech companies and spent 9+ years marketing to technical and executive buyers — so we do not guess what moves an enterprise software deal. We know a demo request from a junior IT analyst is not pipeline, that bidding head-to-head on 'enterprise CRM' or 'ITSM platform' against Gartner-darlings burns budget, and that the real paid job is reaching the economic buyer and the full buying committee at named target accounts with proof-led creative that survives a CFO's business-case scrutiny. For Intelvision we engineered exactly this kind of account-based paid demand and delivered a flagship enterprise deal at a 28.9x return on ad spend — $240K in closed revenue, 257 leads, 100 meetings booked from enterprise accounts. Across the portfolio that discipline sits inside $30M+ in CRM-tracked, marketing-led revenue.
- 02
Faster diagnosis
Before scaling spend we name why an enterprise paid account underperforms, against this category's specific failure points: volume-optimized campaigns targeting mid-market noise, head-term bidding you cannot win against the category giants, feature-list creative that never reaches the business-case question the CFO asks, campaigns that reach only the demo requester and never the committee, or weak tracking that loses the lead in the 12-month multi-stakeholder cycle. Most agencies discover the leak after a quarter of rising CPL that never converts to SQL. We usually find it in the first weeks — and we will tell you if paid is the wrong first lever for your stage rather than bill you to scale a pipeline that dies in procurement.
- 03
Smarter channel selection
Paid search and paid social do fundamentally different jobs for an enterprise software company. Search is worth it only on narrow, high-intent terms: displacement and alternatives ('alternatives to [incumbent],' 'migration from [legacy]'), compliance and regulated-vertical intent ('[category] with SOC 2,' 'FedRAMP-authorized [platform],' '[category] for financial services'), and integration queries ('[platform] with Salesforce / SAP / ServiceNow integration') — never the broad head-terms the category leaders own. LinkedIn is usually the primary workhorse: it is the only paid channel where you can precisely target the exact roles that buy enterprise software — CPO, CIO, CFO, VP IT, head of procurement, director of InfoSec — at named accounts in your ICP, filtered by company size, industry, and tech stack. Meta earns its place for retargeting the long multi-touch evaluation cycle and for reaching the broader stakeholder set at a lower CPM than LinkedIn. We weight the mix to your ICP, deal size, and account concentration, and say so when a channel you want is wrong for your account list.
- 04
Sales feedback loop
The people who know whether a paid lead was a real enterprise opportunity are your AEs and founder — not the ad platform, and definitely not your CRM's demo-request count. So each cycle we sit with them: which campaigns produced committee-level conversations at named target accounts, which produced curious middle managers with no budget authority, which accounts were already in a late-stage deal that marketing should not distort, and what the deals that actually cleared procurement and closed had in common. That feeds straight back into targeting, bid strategy, creative, and negative audience lists. The account sharpens on which clicks became accepted SQLs and which committee roles appeared in real deal cycles — not on the CPL the platform optimizes toward by default.
- 05
CRM attribution
Every dollar is tracked in your CRM from ad click to meeting to accepted SQL to closed-won — and critically, we track deals through the stages enterprise software contracts stall in: security review, vendor risk assessment, procurement, and legal redline — as their own named CRM stages, not a bucket called 'stalled.' This matters more for enterprise software than almost any B2B category, because a deal can absorb eight touches over fourteen months and then freeze for a quarter in InfoSec while your paid budget renewal comes up. Without full-cycle CRM attribution, paid looks like a cost center precisely when a long-cycle pipeline needs it most — which is exactly when budgets get cut. We instrument the full path so you can show cost-per-accepted-SQL, pipeline by account and committee role, and revenue by campaign and segment, and stand inside the $30M+ in CRM-tracked, marketing-led revenue we have generated for B2B tech companies.
Why XQL vs alternatives
Why XQL vs the alternatives for an enterprise software company
DimensionTypical approachThe XQL way
Performance / paid ads agencyOptimizes to cost-per-lead and cost-per-click, targets broad category head-terms against the Gartner-darlings, and ships feature-list creative that collapses into the same 'enterprise-grade, scalable, AI-powered' bucket as the incumbent — then reports cheap leads from mid-market researchers that die in procurement.Optimizes to cost-per-accepted-SQL defined with your AEs, targets displacement and compliance intent plus precise LinkedIn role-targeting at named accounts, and separates committee-level pipeline from non-ICP noise in your CRM — tracked through security review and procurement to closed-won.
Generalist marketing agencyRuns the same paid playbook for an enterprise ERP vendor, a consumer app, and a logistics company, with no read on committee-driven buying, the procurement and InfoSec gauntlet, the incumbent displacement case, or what proof a CFO and a risk-averse buying committee need to say yes.Runs paid built for enterprise software buyers, with 9+ years and 60+ tech companies of memory on what produces committee-level pipeline versus a discovery call that stalls in legal — and creative credible to both a technical evaluator and a CFO.
Freelancer / contractorCan launch campaigns and write ads, but rarely owns the account-based audience architecture, the business-case creative that survives a CFO, the AE feedback loop, or CRM attribution that tracks deals through procurement and legal across a 12-month cycle.Owns the whole system — account list and committee targeting, search and social, proof-led offers, champion-arming assets, sales feedback, and end-to-end CRM tracking through procurement — and is accountable to accepted SQLs and closed-won, not CPL.
In-house growth teamCan run tactical paid campaigns and manage platforms, but typically lacks the cross-company benchmark for what a qualified enterprise SQL should cost, the pattern memory for which committee roles appear in deals that actually close, and the bandwidth to run both account-based LinkedIn precision and a disciplined displacement-intent search account simultaneously.Adds senior paid execution aimed at the full buying committee at named target accounts, with enterprise benchmarks — cost-per-accepted-SQL, committee role coverage, pipeline-to-close rates by segment — known before spending a dollar.
DIY / in-platform automationRuns broad category keywords and LinkedIn broad audiences on platform autopilot — for an enterprise software vendor, paying premium CPMs to reach the widest, least-qualified audience and funding the platform's easiest conversions: mid-market demo requests from practitioners with no budget authority.Engineers account-based targeting, committee role audiences, displacement intent keywords, proof-led offers, and full-cycle CRM tracking so every dollar is attributed from ad to closed-won through procurement and legal — not trusted to the platform's CPL optimization that ignores how a seven-figure enterprise deal actually closes.
Commercial outcomes
Proof from the same playbook.
Strategy first, channels second, sales feedback always. We measure by the qualified demand and revenue we can trace back inside the CRM.
Selected results
Senior operators on every account. Never a junior pod.- $1.8Minbound pipeline, built from zero
WeSoftYou
Rebuilt inbound from scratch — 100% YoY SQL growth, 207% more traffic, domain rating from 12 to 45, and 141 articles shipped.
- 100% YoY SQL growth
- 207% traffic increase
Client signal
What B2B tech founders and CEOs say
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we've seen a 207% increase in web traffic and an improvement in domain rating from 12 to 45. The team has successfully optimized our SEO strategy and gained around 160 backlinks. Overall, they're responsive and thorough in their project management.
Since working with XQL Group, our domain rating has improved from 27 to 44. In addition, we've seen a 15% increase in monthly traffic within nine months. The team completes work on time and within the agreed budget. Moreover, their subject matter expertise is highly impressive.
XQL Group's efforts have resulted in 44 leads from paid campaigns and improved web traffic from Germany by 5x. The team is responsive, quickly surfaces issues, and communicates regularly through chats and virtual meetings. Their expertise and proactiveness have impressed our team.
Organic traffic has increased by 10–15% each month, and we have started receiving our first inbound requests. XQL Group's optimization tips have also helped improve keyword rankings, and internal stakeholders are impressed with the team's collaborative approach.
XQL Group has successfully defined a clear marketing strategy and established our company's unique value proposition. The team has also helped hire critical specialists for our marketing team. They are communicative and organized, and their expertise in the tech industry is impressive.
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we have defined our marketing strategy and hired key developers for our website. The team has launched retargeting campaigns on LinkedIn and developed a strong content marketing strategy. XQL Group's marketing expertise is a hallmark of the engagement.
They were not just talking about AI search in theory; they knew how to approach it practically.
What impressed us most was their deep specialization in working with software development companies.
They've brought structure, strong execution, and constant initiative to improve outcomes.
They operated with the discipline and initiative of an internal senior marketer.
Their ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution was particularly valuable.
Their focus on results and true interest in making things work set them apart.
XQL Group's project management was exemplary.
The quality of their work is consistently high.
FAQ
Questions about this service.
Ready when you are
Let's talk.
Bring your offer, channels, and revenue goals. We'll show you where the biggest growth constraint is and what to build next.
Danylo FedirkoFounder
For B2B tech companies selling complex expertise to serious buyers.
- B2B tech clients
- 60+
- Revenue generated
- $30M+
