INSIGHTS FROM EXPERTS ON LINKEDIN
Adam Holmgren argues that many intent signals only show that someone at a company is researching a topic, not that they are actually interested in buying from you. He suggests focusing on signals you can clearly understand, like website visits, ad engagement and public company changes, and looking for several of these signals together before reaching out.
Garrett Mehrguth shares Directive’s four-step sales process for agencies: intro, methodology, pitch and SOW review, with each call having a clear purpose. Instead of trying to close everything in one meeting, the process builds the relationship gradually and makes sure pricing, decision-makers and procurement are addressed before the contract stage.
David Blinov shares the channels he used to market to large B2B companies, with events, webinars and LinkedIn thought leadership driving the strongest results, while paid ads worked better as part of a broader strategy than on their own. His broader point is that big B2B deals usually take hundreds of touchpoints across multiple channels, with consistent human interaction playing a major role in building trust.
Nikolai Skouv Pedersen argues that marketing is less about guiding people through a perfect funnel and more about understanding whether they are already in the market. He highlights mental availability, emotional and distinctive advertising, broad reach and consistent presence across channels as key ingredients for growing market share.
WHAT'S NEW IN THE INDUSTRY
LinkedIn’s feed changes appear to be concentrating organic reach among a smaller group of highly active creators, while company pages are seeing much lower visibility. At the same time, LinkedIn has been expanding paid options like boosting and thought leader ads, making it increasingly important for brands to balance organic content with paid distribution and audiences they own.
Some marketers report that organic ChatGPT traffic increases when they run ads, but there’s no clear evidence that ads influence ChatGPT’s answers. A more likely explanation is that ad clicks are being recorded as organic referrals, though brand awareness and ad-driven conversations could also play a role, making clean tracking and holdout tests important for understanding what’s really happening.
Adthena’s new Decision Intelligence tool combines advertisers’ own Google Ads or ChatGPT Ads data with wider market and competitor data to explain why performance changes and what to do about them. The tool can identify issues like falling Quality Scores, competitor activity, keyword gaps and wasted spend, then turn those findings into specific actions rather than just another dashboard.
Google Ads now lets advertisers supplement tag-based conversion data with offline information from CRMs and backend systems, using transaction IDs to match records. This can fill in missing customer details and update conversion values, giving Smart Bidding a more complete picture of conversions.
Google now says Smart Bidding can take up to around 50 conversions or three conversion cycles to calibrate after major changes, though campaigns with enough historical data may learn faster. The update gives advertisers a more practical benchmark for judging learning time, especially for lower-volume campaigns where collecting enough conversion signals can take longer.
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!
