INSIGHTS FROM EXPERTS ON LINKEDIN
Liam Moroney explains that brand marketing’s real role is getting companies into more buyer consideration sets before sales conversations even begin. He argues that relying only on outbound tactics like SEO, events, partnerships, or sales outreach becomes expensive and inefficient when buyers don’t already know the brand. According to Liam, brand and demand generation should be treated as two equally important parts of B2B marketing.
Dale W. Harrison breaks down how smaller companies struggle because they rarely make it into buyer consideration sets, while bigger brands are almost always considered. He explains that brand marketing helps companies get into buyers’ early consideration lists, but performance marketing is still necessary to create more opportunities later in the buying journey. He also shares a model showing how much growth brands leave behind when they rely too heavily on only one approach.
Adam Holmgren analyzed data from 450 SMB advertisers and found that LinkedIn Ads were connected to 6.5% higher close rates and deals that were 33% larger. He believes LinkedIn works well because it reaches entire buying committees, not just one decision-maker inside a company. He also hints that the best-performing campaigns are the more personal and engaging ones, not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets.
Steffen Hedebrandt explains how CRMs often give credit to the final click while ignoring the months of marketing that happened before a deal closed. Using a B2B example, he shows how LinkedIn impressions, engagement, and multiple touchpoints across different stakeholders slowly built trust and demand long before someone searched the brand on Google. He argues that companies risk cutting the marketing efforts actually driving growth because traditional attribution models fail to capture the full customer journey.
WHAT'S NEW IN THE INDUSTRY
Google is bringing Gemini into Google Ads dashboards, letting advertisers explore campaign performance through prompts instead of manually building reports. The new feature updates charts, tables, and graphs in real time based on questions users type in, making reporting feel more conversational and easier to use. Advertisers will also get quicker insights into metrics like clicks, impressions, video views, audiences, and device performance.
This article explains why data from Google Ads, GA4, Meta Ads, and CRMs will never fully line up, mainly because each platform measures different parts of the customer journey in different ways. It breaks down how attribution models create blind spots, often leading marketers to make poor budget decisions when they rely too heavily on one “source of truth.” Instead of chasing perfect numbers, the article recommends using triangulation — comparing data across platforms while understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
Google Ads will soon automatically connect advertiser accounts with associated YouTube channels, removing the need for manual linking. The update gives advertisers easier access to YouTube engagement data, audience targeting, organic video metrics, and conversion signals like subscriptions or additional views. Google is clearly pushing video engagement data to become a bigger part of campaign measurement and optimisation.
Microsoft Advertising is expanding LinkedIn profile targeting into connected TV campaigns, giving advertisers a new way to reach professional audiences across streaming platforms. Marketers will now be able to target viewers based on signals like industry, job function, and company type, making CTV campaigns more useful for B2B advertising. The move also shows how Microsoft is pushing further into audience-first and AI-driven advertising as brand and performance marketing continue to blend together.
Dean Kadi shared a real PPC example where a client paused high-performing Meta ads in favour of polished branded creatives, even though the original campaigns were delivering much stronger results. After weeks of declining performance and rising costs, the client eventually returned to the original UGC-style ads, which quickly improved results again. The story highlights how important testing, tracking, and performance data are in PPC — and why assumptions or personal preferences rarely beat what audiences actually respond to.
That’s the scoop for this week! If you found this valuable and any useful insights caught your eye, feel free to share them with your network.
Until next week!
