Winnow Achieves 274% Of MQL Target While Dropping CPL By 19x 😲

Find out how Winnow partnered with Cheetah Growth to transform their lead generation operations through LinkedIn and Google advertising.

1) Who's Winnow?

Winnow helps hospitality giants like Hilton, Accor, and Compass Group reduce food waste.

Their AI-enabled solution enables professional kitchens to track food waste, allowing them to buy less of what they don't need, save money, and act more sustainably. 🌳

Winnow is a Series C scale-up that has raised $41.9 million in funding from Circularity Capital, Mustard Seed, the European Investment Bank, and others.

2) What were they looking for?

David Jackson, Director of Marketing, hired a performance marketing agency to relaunch Winnow's demand generation activities, which had been halted due to the pandemic.

Unfortunately, their campaign was largely unsuccessful. They drove a very small number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) at a CPL (cost per lead) that was 9x higher than target.

David then decided to look for a new demand generation partner in order to drive more MQLs at a lower CPL and began working with Cheetah Growth to that end.

3) What did we achieve?

The goals were ambitious. We needed to reduce CPL by (a lot) compared to the previous agency while still delivering a lot more MQLs.

Nonetheless, here's what we achieved:

• 274% attainment rate by driving 2.7x more MQLs than originally planned.

• Generated MQLs at a CPL that was 4.2x lower than our target.

• Reduced CPL by 18.9x when compared to the previous agency.

4) How did we achieve such results?

We started by understanding Winnow's audience and product, as well as what content they had available, and then identified and acted on these two opportunities:

• Reallocated budget to LinkedIn. Google ads were costly, and the quality of the leads was poor. LinkedIn allowed us to better target accounts and personas.

• Took a more targeted approach. We decided to run only campaigns where we knew we were targeting the relevant audiences with relevant content.

To maximize performance, we also followed best practises across the two platforms:

LinkedIn advertising:

1. Built account lists based on their top target firms, allowing us to allocate 100% of our budget to where it truly mattered.

2. Built audience-based campaigns so we could target them with content created just for them, ensuring a higher engagement.

3. Updated technical settings, such as using manual bids and making the creative mobile-friendly to increase CTR.

As a result, we drove 80% of all MQLs from LinkedIn at a 4.8x lower CPL than our target.

Google advertising:

1. Built search campaigns to promote quality content where the search intent was related to professional kitchens.

2. Stopped brand search campaigns since Winnow has several meanings and people were searching for it for various reasons.

3. Added Youtube and Display retargeting to stay top of mind with relevant website visitors.

As a result, we lowered CPL by 3x compared to the previous performance marketing agency. 💪

5) What should I learn from this story?

A) Focus, focus, focus on your target accounts. Understand what they care about, where you can find them, and ensure they can find you there. Your marketing will be far more effective.

B) Create highly relevant, quality content for them. Winnow had awesome case study videos and sector-specific white papers we could promote. It's no surprise that the campaign did so well.

C) Google Ads may not be the best option for you. LinkedIn ads are likely to be more effective if your product is new and not searchable and you have a very specific target audience.

And above all, any demand generation program's success should be measured by the amount of sales pipeline and revenue generated.💰

The goal of this project was to show that we could generate qualified leads through paid advertising, but we quickly began working on a new program that is longer-term, heavily involves Sales, and where success is measured by the number of won deals.

6) How can I learn more about Cheetah Growth?

• Follow Nuno on LinkedIn to learn about his thoughts on SaaS marketing and growth.

• Book a free strategy call with Nuno to find out how Cheetah Growth can help you with your marketing and growth. 🚀