Paid Media
Search Engine Optimization
Data & Insights
Building a Revenue Focused Lead Gen Engine for a B2B SaaS Company
A leading provider of cloud-based spend management solutions partnered with Marcel Digital to improve the performance of its lead generation program and strengthen marketing’s contribution to revenue.
Rather than simply increasing lead volume, the focus was on improving marketing efficiency and revenue efficiency by attracting higher-intent buyers, increasing the percentage of qualified leads, and making sure marketing investment translated into measurable pipeline and revenue outcomes.
By aligning acquisition strategy with revenue-focused metrics such as cost per qualified lead, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and revenue by channel, the company aimed to build a scalable demand generation engine that could support long-term growth.
The Challenge
The company was investing heavily in digital marketing, but results didn’t always translate into meaningful pipeline or revenue impact.
On the surface, performance looked strong. Traffic was up. Lead counts were healthy. But once those leads reached sales, familiar issues kept surfacing:
Many leads did not meet the company’s ideal customer profile or were too early in the buying process.
Search traffic was heavily weighted toward early-stage informational queries rather than evaluation-stage searches.
Core solution pages were underperforming as conversion drivers.
Paid media campaigns generated inexpensive leads, but those leads rarely translated into revenue.
Reporting lacked visibility into revenue by channel over time, making it difficult to understand which efforts actually contributed to growth.
The Approach
Marcel Digital implemented a strategy focused on improving demand quality, optimizing conversion paths, and reallocating investment toward channels and tactics that improved marketing and revenue efficiency.
Capture Higher-Intent Search Demand
Both SEO and paid search were reoriented around keywords that signaled active evaluation, including searches tied to demos, software comparisons, and solution selection.
This helped shift acquisition away from low-intent traffic and toward prospects further along in the buying journey. It also improved the company’s branded versus non-branded demand mix, increasing visibility for non-branded searches that reflected new market demand rather than existing brand awareness alone.
Improve Conversion Paths
Pages responsible for turning interest into qualified leads, including core solution pages and supporting content, were strengthened to better guide prospects through the decision-making process.
Messaging was refined to answer buyer questions more directly, address pain points more clearly, and better communicate the company’s value. Internal linking was also improved to move users from educational content to conversion-focused pages.
These updates helped increase engagement on high-value pages and improved the likelihood that visitors would turn into qualified sales conversations.
Optimize Media Mix and Reduce Acquisition Waste
Performance data and sales feedback made it clear which channels, campaigns, and keyword approaches consistently produced low-quality leads.
Those efforts were reduced or removed, and budget was reallocated toward tactics that generated stronger-fit opportunities at a better cost per qualified lead over time. This also improved the company’s media mix, concentrating spend on the channels most likely to contribute to qualified pipeline and revenue.
The Results
By prioritizing search intent, lead quality, and channel-level performance, the company improved both lead generation results and the efficiency of its broader demand generation program. Key outcomes included:
Search-driven leads increased by 61% year-over-year
Traffic to conversion-focused pages grew by 25.73%, driving higher engagement and stronger conversion rates
Organic traffic from targeted markets increased by 21.4%
First-page keyword rankings expanded significantly, including multiple top-three placements
Lead-to-sale conversion rates improved, as sales engaged with more qualified prospects
Paid media exceeded revenue targets despite generating fewer total leads, demonstrating improved revenue efficiency and stronger alignment between spend and business outcomes
A relatively small group of optimized and newly created content delivered an outsized share of lead-related actions, reinforcing the value of focused, intent-driven optimization.
By tightening search intent, improving conversion paths, and optimizing its media mix, the company built a lead generation program that was not only more effective, but more efficient. The result was stronger lead quality, better visibility into which channels contributed to revenue, and a more scalable approach to growth.
