Asset Bank’s journey with Arke began in December 2022, when they approached us to help them end a four-year marketing hiatus for its Digital Asset Management (DAM) product, which is a solution for storing, managing, sharing, and organising digital assets.
With Arke’s help, Asset Bank was ready to develop a strategy to get DAM in front of their audience and Arke aimed to identify whether focusing on industries would outperform a broader approach targeting mid to large-scale businesses.
After a year of strategic experimentation and market analysis, our efforts paid off. By November 2023, with valuable insights and a robust paid media strategy, Arke and Asset Bank set ambitious KPIs to boost growth, aiming to increase leads by 260% and increase monthly sales.
The channels
In the targeting stage of the marketing strategy, we knew we wanted to hit several major platforms where the DAM audience would be spending their time, including LinkedIn and Google Search.
To address high CPCs in the B2B DAM space, we layered targeting parameters on LinkedIn, including:
- Specific job titles in design, communications, media, and marketing with seniority
- Member interests like marketing software
- Company size of 201-1000 employees
- Member age between 25-54
Additionally, we created a secondary audience of lookalikes based on Asset Bank’s current customers for LinkedIn. Here we utilised lead gen ads to generate MQL’s which integrated directly into HubSport for email campaign nurturing.
Next, we shifted our focus to Google Search. Initially, during the learning phase, the ad groups were divided into ‘brand’ terms, ‘broad DAM’ terms, competitor keywords, and a retargeting group for website visitors. This strategy, however, proved too costly when competing with large, investor-backed rivals and attracted low-intent and spam leads.
Therefore, we devised a detailed and strategic approach to avoid the high CPC keywords, by utilising long-tail, high-intent keywords. We restructured the campaigns from ‘prospecting’ and ‘retargeting’ to four more specific groups:
- DAM
- Alternatives
- Brand
- Competitor
Implementation
Utilising strategic targeting, we initially focused on maximising impression share across platforms to build awareness and capture market share. Soon, the data accumulated so we shifted to optimising campaigns for clicks.
During this phase, ad creative and messaging had to be tailored appropriately, so we transitioned it from ‘learn more’ to ‘book now’ CTAs to drive website traffic and populate retargeting pools for further optimisation towards conversions.
Keeping an eye on the competition
The digital asset management space is a competitive one, and Asset Bank struggled to differentiate its messaging and creative from their many competitors, uncertain about its market positioning and USP. They needed clarity on what would appeal to their target market and how to communicate it.
We needed to help Asset Bank overcome this with a deep understanding of the market, so we proposed an extensive competitor research project. We developed a matrix to compare competitors’ core positioning, pricing, and customer processes against Asset Bank’s. We measured each of the DAMs’ customer journeys, creating detailed profiling reports on each.
Through this project, we identified particular strengths that Asset Bank had over their competitors, such as a user-friendly sales process and a number of popular features.
Our report also showed that to better reflect their quality offering in the market the client needed to reposition their product. They are now in the process of launching their new brand and positioning, alongside a new website, with our support along the way, further contributing to ad quality and lead generation.
Keyword Competition
We quickly found that we were up against some stiff competition in the DAM keyword space in which Asset Bank was advertising. Given that CPC rates in the B2B sector are typically higher and Asset Bank’s budget was smaller compared to larger competitors, it was difficult to make a significant impact without exhausting the entire budget.
So we had to get creative. We split the Google Search campaigns from one campaign into multiple, resulting in a refined, more granular account structure. This allowed for much more efficient budget distribution, enabling us to respond to fluctuations in both the bidding environment and the wider industry.
This approach was a success! It created a significant impact on conversion rates, we were able to increase conversions by 154% from the initial test phase of the campaign to Q1. This also helped to increase impression share among competitors, previously in the test phase, impression share was 17.21% and grew to 21% in Q1.
Results
Winning high-intent conversion in a B2B advertising space was never going to be easy. However, due to our relentless dedication and re-strategising, we are proud to have supported Asset Bank in achieving their most successful month in the company’s history in January 2024, surpassing our goal of increasing leads by 260% per month and beating the previous monthly lead record.
While Asset Bank was initially reluctant to invest in marketing, partnering with Arke led to record ROAS and valuable business insights that helped them reposition their brand-enhancing competitiveness.
Despite the competitive landscape dominated by established, investor-backed DAM providers, Arke’s innovative and data-driven approach showed that targeting non-industry-specific businesses yielded a greater ROI, positioning Asset Bank to outshine its competition.
Our long-standing partnership with Asset Bank has made us an extension of their team, built on trust and shared success. This campaign showcases the immense value of a dedicated paid media agency, delivering not just more conversions but scalable, long-term growth.
Our efforts garnered international attention! We are so proud to have been announced as finalists for the 2024 European Paid Media Awards for the category Paid Media Led Campaign of the year with our ‘DAM Good Campaign’!
Check back here later this year to see if we will take home the title!
