Justin Rowe

Founder/CMO @ Impactable - B2B LinkedIn Ads Agency | Acquired in 2021 | 2x Acquisitions in 2024 | Making things up as I go

From Restaurant Hustle to LinkedIn Agency Founder → Acquired → Now Scaling the #1 LinkedIn Ads Agency

I went from serving tables to serving over 1,000 clients in 30+ countries - and building an agency that was acquired in an all-cash buyout.

Starting in the restaurant industry, I had a hunger for something more (pun intended). I turned to LinkedIn to document my journey and connect with people. That content led to job offers, investor conversations, and even a deal to co-launch a restaurant franchise.

I saw the power of LinkedIn firsthand and started helping others. That side hustle turned into Linknlearn, a global lead gen agency built entirely through Upwork and LinkedIn outreach. I became the #1 ranked LinkedIn expert on Upwork, launched a $500 website, and scaled the agency internationally.

In 2021, we were acquired. We pivoted to LinkedIn Ads, launched new tech tools, and Impactable was born.

Today, I lead Impactable — a LinkedIn-Centric B2B Marketing Agency and creators of DemandSense, our proprietary LinkedIn Ads platform. We’ve been recognized by LinkedIn, invited to speak at their Indie Agency Summit, and continue working toward deeper partnerships with their team.

💡 What I’m Focused On Now

👉 Helping B2B brands scale with LinkedIn + Google + Programmatic full-funnel campaigns
👉 Working with clients spending $5K–$200K/month in ad budget to scale high-value pipelines
👉 Building smarter offers, audiences, and funnels through our 90-Day Validation Sprints
👉 Empowering internal marketers with DemandSense: ad scheduling, audience testing, and signal tracking for LinkedIn Ads

🧰 Resources (Free & Paid)

🎯 Free Strategy Resources & Templates
→ linktr.ee/justin_rowe

🛠 LinkedIn Ads Toolset (DemandSense)
→ https://impactable.com/dgp-linkedin-ads-tools/


🎥 LinkedIn Ads + B2B Demand Gen on YouTube
→ https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCATGD6P27kWXDVuaAZeZBuQ/videos

📈 LinkedIn Ads Agency (Done-for-You)
→ https://impactable.com/

💬 Want to Collaborate?

→ Send me a DM if you want to:

Test your audience + offer fit on LinkedIn

Migrate from Google to multichannel demand gen

Build a scalable paid strategy with a trusted partner

Chief Executive Officer

Impactable is a Linkedin Ads Agency that specializes in Linkedin Marketing for B2B companies. We were acquired in 2021 by a data-heavy investor and made a strong pivot into Linkedin advertising. Impactable now manages over 150+ B2B brands with Linkedin advertising being our core focus. 

Other capabilities include website visitor identification, automated Linkedin lead generation, and a few saas tools we are working on.

I've now removed 6,100+ connections in the last 4 months and have 3,500+ more to remove (in this round). Here's why 👇 

Short version:
1. Your networks engagement with your content helps determine reach
2. Much of my network was created early on when I had a career in restaurants (FYI I used to be part owner of 4 restaurants 😜 )

3. I'm all about controlling the things I can control and not complaining about the things I can't. 

I used Sales Navigator to slice and dice my 1st connections and realized there are 7000+ connections that are likely not on LinkedIn any more, wouldn't find any value in my content, and who I should likely just disconnect with. 

LinkedIn has been great for me - it's led to:
1. Connecting with investors that led me to becoming restaurant owner
2. Starting a side-hustle that helped pay for the extra costs of our first son (named Lincoln...which he asks if it h as anything to do with LinkedIn)
3. Turning that side-hustle into an agency that was acquired
4. Continuing to power pipeline for an agency pushing toward 10M ARR

So I understand the power of LinkedIn both organically and on the paid side...and my top advice?

1. Build your network strategically - send 15 connection requests a day and be picky what requests you accept
2. Be clear about your target audience, their pain points, and produce valuable content they'd regularly save and share
3. Spend 5x more time engaging and commenting vs posting
4. Use sales navigator to see ICP profile viewers and send them connection requests
5. Turn your top organic posts into evergreen retargeting ads with thought leadership ads

That's it for today : )

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Founder/CEO @ Impactable | B2B LinkedIn Ads Partners | Paid Ads + Demand Gen + B2B Audience Experts

Short Post - LinkedIn Ads Experiment - Manual Bidding vs Impression Bidding for Video Retargeting. 

Early into this but sharing - I recently looked through our own LinkedIn ads campaigns and thought we just were not getting the results we used to from our retargeting layer. 

Main things I look at:
1. Penetration + frequency - are we reaching the whole audience and at a frequency that will move the needle to action?

2. What assets are working/not working and do we need something fresh in rotation

3. What's our CPC/CPM and are we getting decent price for distribution here. 

I'm starting to look at CPM way more than I ever used to because the more I lean into custom lists and really believe in my targeting...the main thing I care about is just distribution at an affordable rate. 

I don't really want/need LinkedIn to try to figure out which pocket of my target list to show/not show my ads to...in fact I'd rather it turn it's brain off and deliver my ads to the target I've set. 

Manual bidding has been and I believe still today is the gold standard...the gold standard Impactable has set (we are still the largest LinkedIn ads agency with the deepest partnership with actual LinkedIn company)...but even our standards need challenged because things change. 

So I notices while we are getting an ok CPC on these ( for video that is) the CPM  looked wild...$300+ CPM for a warm audience...didn't make a ton of sense other than LinkedIn was just being too selective with my list and just showing it to the highest value (in their mind) targets vs just distributing my assets to this list. 

So I switched to bidding by impresssion and then set a lower CPM threshold.

And like magic..2x impressions, 2x clicks, half the CPM. 

So just like manual bidding on CPC...starting to walk down bid for CPM and see where this goes but it's crazy to me the difference. 

I think though for this to be something you can steal/use you have to have a healthy budget of at least $75/day because just like with manual CPC bidding you can't have a daily budget less than your bid and with CPM bidding it might not make sense to be bidding $10-$50/day in most cases because typical CPM might be $50-$150 so daily budget should match as well. 

Well, that's it for today - just sharing what we are learning and how things are shifting.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Shocking study - only 1 in 50 apps that were “vibe coded” by LinkedIn creators 3 months ago are still being used in any way shape or form today.

And this includes the 38,000 people that commented “vibe” to get access to said vibe coded apps. 

None of those people are actually using any of these apps.

But it felt cool in the moment yea? 

I’ve learned over the years that there is a pretty massive difference between what LinkedIn creators say they are doing… and what actual reality is.

These fantasy funnels that look amazing but have never actually been used/tested.

Ai army of 50 agents that replaced a non existing 500k team… even though the poster is a solo founder who’s never even led a team of 10 yet.

Vibe coded apps that saved the poster “hundreds of hours” when really it cost them a hundred hours to make and saved them 30 min on a task they then only used the app for 3 times….

Reality is that it’s still a brutal proving grounds in the market and these “hacks” won’t save you.

Sorry to break it to you but here is the “hack”

1. Know what makes you actually different / unique - own it 

2. Know your targeting - and map out what pockets of that you have to r biggest advantage 

3. Leverage paid search and LinkedIn as a core motion to create and capture demand - google for in market traffic and LinkedIn to qualify and convert that traffic and layer intentional account targeting and insights 

4 organic + paid is where it’s at. LinkedIn organic amplified by thought leadership paid side is soooo powerful 

Don’t sleep on the demand gen motion - it’s a powerful inbound motion 

5. Use AI to amplify and save time from your current activities before trying to do anything crazy or super new 

6. Its not your job or of any benefit to you or anyone else to go around flagging posts written by ai - I’m more worried about all the posts written by morons

Stay tuned for more hot garbage tips

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Founder & CEO @ Impactable | B2B LinkedIn Ads Partners | Paid Ads + Demand Gen + AI + Audiences

Marketing Leaders and Founders are getting SCAMED by AI SEO tools/agencies right now - Here's my short educational PSA

1. First of all - 9 out of 10 LLM tools are just monitoring tools. Take a look as you're evaluating them.  Most will have some cool looking chart that shows how many impressions and clicks to your website you're getting from LLM. 

A. Note - your basic free Google analytics will show you this for free. (no joke, it's just there for free)

B. Almost all of these tools are just showing you the numbers...there is basically nothing there for you to actually improve the numbers...and again you can see that for free in your basic web tools you already have. 

2. 7 out of 10 AI SEO experts are posting on my feed saying that they have a list of things that seem to work but the rankings change weekly , it's not stable enough to actually predict, and the sites being pulled from is shifting dramatically from month to month. 

A. This means most seem to just have best guesses - mostly best of lists, comparisons, and publishing accross more channels like reddit, LinkedIn, website, youtube etc.  (so you know..the basics of content distribution)

B. Moving away from traditional blogs and pivoting to using articles to answer real humans questions and in a real human way vs keyword chunking for the robots...ok so big pivot here is stop writing for robots....any one who was still doing this last year was likely headed to the graveyard anyway and AI should'nt have been the catalyst for this change. 

3. Another cool shift I'm seeing is that 3 out of 5 AI SEO experts on my feed are also now just saying AEO is basically not a thing and that it's just SEO, Brand, and Distribution... really just creating more questions than answers. 

4. Traffic trade off - Another fun fact just to keep in mind. 100% of companies who had strong organic traffic and SEO now have traffic from LLMs. 

SEO traffic dropped by 40%
LLM Impressions appeared

These are not two separate things you realize right?

LLM traffic isn't exactly a net new touchpoint that didn't exist before...the same article you published a year ago lost organic impressions and gained LLM impressions - the same user is searching for the same thing and finding your content in a different way in many cases. 

That's a big distinction. 


Here's my advice

1. AEO is real but it's new and evolving and I'd be very skeptical of any tools/experts you are thinking about hiring - most don't actually have it figured out and will actually tell you that when you ask how they can prove action to result. 

2. Don't worry about LLM traffic if you don't have basic SEO foundations and content distribution in place. 

If you think you should skip SEO and go straight for LLM visibility...just no...that's not how this is going to work. 

The #1 best way to show up for LLM is still just having foundational SEO and content distribution (and content written for humans).

Marketing leaders should have HILLS THEY DIE ON. 

If you don't have strong POV's worth fighting for...you're an order taker not a marketing leader which is ok, but let's just be real. 

I know this might sound tough but as an agency owner and someone who's worked with hundreds of marketing leaders and have seen soooooooooo many marketing leaders fired....certain patterns emerge. 

1. Companies that play it safe with marketing are wildly less efficient than they could be. It's strange in marketing but being "safe" is often the most dangerous thing you could do. 

If you're a marketing leader who's faking it till you make it and your goal is to mimic what bigger players are doing..you've already lost and your org and your career will suffer. 

If you as a marketer don't like to have strong opinions or make constant strategic bets...that's fine - settle into a mid-level support role and support someone with a strong POV. 

Most ogs can't win by playing the same game massive orgs do...they have to create space and advantages where they kind find it and take some risks/bets on messaging, positioning, channels, audiences. 

Making bets and then tracking data to prove/pivot is what great marketers tend to do. 

2. Who's responsible for the results?

If you're an order taker, and can't/won't override leaderships opinion on marketing paths...then just make it very clear (and in writing preferably) that you are not responsible for marketing results..just project management. 

Problem is no org would ever accept this...the marketing leader owns results...which means if you order take and go down the wrong path..you get fired...as you should honestly.

I say this from personal experience from being fired (as an agency) dozens of times when we made the mistake of letting clients dictate strategy and then being fired for the poor result. 

As we should have been fired...clients should go to an agency either for pure execution and clear ordertaking (staff aug model) or they should come for a strong POV and guidance...and then actually take that advice or wrestle with it together so we can test/bet/learn together. 

That's how great marketing seems to get done. 

Pressure builds, leaders either shrink in the shadows or step forward with their bold bet....they take the chance to seize glory....and own the responsibility to own failure...to learn from it, and make the next move. 

The good ones fail fast and are constantly learning/growing/testing. 

And honestly...if you're in a place where you can't be bold/creative or take risks without support or feeling like you'll be fired...start looking for another role

Just another fun marketing rant from my view looking in. 

I have a ton of respect for marketing leaders on the battlefield in 2026...it can be brutal, and fun, and exhausting, and rewarding.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Here's how to PROVE LINKEDIN ADS ROI to Leadership
5 ways Marketing Leaders can prove LinkedIn Ads is working 👇 

First, the reason a post like this is even needed is that LinkedIn probably the hardest channel to show value to leadership and often thought of as "a hard nut to crack". 

Here's why:
1. Last click attribution will never give LinkedIn enough credit because all the demand that LinkedIn creates is often finally captured by google organic or paid search when they are ready to buy and LinkedIn won't get credit

Meaning - Someone could come in through paid search click, then see 27 ads on LinkedIn over 90 days and interact 15 times and then search for your company by name when it's time to convert...and google will take the credit. 

2. Hubspot and most CRM's are viewed by leadership as "source or truth" but are terrible attribution tools and mostly credit last touch or direct UTM paths only. 

Meaning...in the example above they originally entered your website via google UTM and then interacted natively with LInkedin ads and then came back to the website via google organic...so LinkedIn won't get credit in most org models. 

Example 2 - Say the LinkedIn ads work really really well and they convert directly..sort of. Typically they'd click on the company logo on the ad, check out your company page, then click "visit website" from there entering into your website in what looks like direct traffic (going to company page remove the Linkedin ads utm so it now just looks like direct traffic no paid ads utms)

3. LinkedIn is where you build trust and accelerate deals...not capture intent. 

This is a big distinction - It's a fundamental flaw to try to compare SEO and paid search by the same metrics right?

Google ads is transactional
SEO is long-term momentum building play

LinkedIn is more like SEO - it's not some transactional channel  capturing demand that already exists..it's the channel that helps create, accelerate, and channel demand...and that can't be tracked the same way as google. 

So how do we actually defend it instead of just rolling over and killing the channel we know is likely working. 

A. CAPI + Conversion Tracking - fight like hell for channel attribution. 
-Setup up conversions for key page views, form submissions, and call bookings. You can't rely on CRM or traditional tools to track LinkedIn ads influence

-CAPI (LinkedIn's conversion API) is a great way to funnel offline events back to LinkedIn 

B. LinkedIn native company hub - big upgrade last year from LinkedIn- you can now see the exact accounts exposed to and engaging with your ads. 

See actual accounts in your funnel, gaining influence, and penetration/heatmap of your ABM upload. 

But tell me...how do you prove LinkedIn ads ROI???

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

How to PROVE LINKEDIN ADS ROI to Leadership - Part 2.
(See yesterdays post for part 1)

Short version of yesterday's post. 

A. Last click attribution will never give LinkedIn enough credit 
B. Hubspot and most CRM's are viewed by leadership as "source or truth" but are terrible attribution tools 
C. LinkedIn is where you build trust and accelerate deals...not capture intent. It's a middle and bottom of funnel hero and signals command center

Now to the good stuff...how can you prove value of LinkedIn ads to leadership? Where to look??

1. Channel attribution - fight like HELL to get conversion tracking and CAPI (conversion API to upload offline conversions )
-Key page views - leading indicators
-Form fills on site
-Call booking (use CAPI)

Frustration of course is you won't be able to match back to the actual person...but knowing/seeing the channel influence can help

2. LinkedIn Company Hub - Props to LinkedIn for rolling out this great update in 2025 - you can now see the EXACT ACCOUNTS exposed to and engaging with your LinkedIn ads. 

Go in there and filter by uploaded list or by campaign and sort by highest impression/clicks to give leadership a heat map of the accounts LinkedIn is influencing and touching..if these look like great accounts and they are moving through stages from unaware to aware to engaged...that's a great thing to show. 

3. CRM Sync to see LinkedIn ads influence on pipeline deals - there are a few tools on the market for this. My favorite is DemandSense - basically taps into the LinkedIn API and looks up ad exposure to any deals in your pipeline so you can see (image below what that looks like). 

This is great for closed won deals and current pipeline. 

This ads a great data point for leadership to connect ad efforts to tangible deals. 

Bonus if you can then prove/show that the deals with higher Linkedin influence close faster, are better quality deals, and have bigger deal sizes/value (which tends to be the case). 

4. Self-Attribution - feels old school now but it's foundational - for every call booking/demo ASK THEM HOW THEY FOUND YOU. 

Make it a required ask and leave it open ended (not multiple choice). 

It's crazy to me how many times the CRM will say web, search, google...but prospect says it was LinkedIn. 

That's something no leader can ignore. 

5. Other metrics to track on a macro level

The above are data points but a few things tend to consistently happen when running a good LinkedIn ads program in your ecosystem and a smart marketer can track this and prove on a marketing mix level of what's improving. 

When LinkedIn ads are running correctly
A. Deal velocity tends to improve 
B. Show up rates to calls improves 
C. Close rates improve
D. Deal sizes increase 
E. Cost per qualified or quality lead/demo

What did I miss??

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

If you can't reply to all your own post comments and spend 30 min/day engaging in your home feed.....POSTING MORE WON'T DO ANYTHING. 

One thing you really don't hear enough from the LinkedIn influencers is that posting isn't actually how they get followers and engagers. 

Posting is like 20% of the equation....

So why is that what the influencers focus on the most when they talk about growing on LinkedIn...

Because it's easier to sell...you. 

Said another way....if they were honest with you...you wouldn't give them your money to "build a personal brand". 

So what's the truth?

And this is just my humble/human/flawed/100%correct/jk/ opinion

Here's the secret LinkedIn formula. 

1. 60% engagement 
2. 10% posting quality
3. 10% posting consistency
4. 10% sending targeted connection requests
5. 10% sending targeted dms

The vast majority of what actually helps you become visible, create an engaged following, and drive actual eyeballs to your posts...engaging with others like this is a networking event. 

Rules to live by
A. 90% of those who send you connection requests are trying to sell you...be selective with who you accept. 

Either build your own network (send requests) or get built into everyone else's network (accept requests)

B. Send 10-15 targeted connection requests per day to strategically build your network. 

Start with warm ICP fit profile visitors + company page followers (use Sales Nav to see this)

C. Spend 30 min a day if you can engaging in your home feed and removing anyone who's posts will never give you value (and takes away valuable time you could be spending engaging with those who might have value). 

This does a few things..leans into the human nature of quid pro quo (this for that), and it also tells the algo that those engaging with eachother might want to see the next post published so it increases the number of people your posts show up at top of feed. 

D. Send intro messages to new ICP fit connections - nothing crazy..just introduce yourself and how you could help if/when they have a need. After that just go back to adding value with posts + engagement

E. Use organic to test and then use LinkedIn thought leader ads to amplify and guarantee distribution of your best content to your best warm prospects (website visitors, company page visitors, current pipeline etc)

Just a little hot garbage tip (stole this from minecraft movie...I have a 6 year old) for Linkedin today - nothing special. 

P.S. Stop worrying about if you should even post and if anyone cares..and about all the bigger influencers on here so why bother.....truth is if you have 1k connections and they are actually targeted (you sent the invites)....90% of them have less than 500 connections and their feeds are DEAD...to them..YOU ARE THE MOST VISIBLE EXPERT

Your feed is not their feed

You're not competing against the influencers in your feed.
Your connections don't even know who they are...

IT's IN YOU HEAD. 

Create your own targeted ponds ; )

Still one of the most underrated combo's in B2B 
Google Ads + LinkedIn Retargeting = 20% lower CAC in many cases

This single fact - LinkedIn is the only native ads platform in existence that can see all your website traffic (yes even traffic from Google ads, bing, SEO, organic, paid listing sites...all of it) ...

AND THEN Layer on qualifying filters such as industry, company size, job title or seniority level and job function - distilling your traffic down to just warm ICP fit traffic which is pure gold to target with ads for next 90-days while they are in decision mode. 

And why do we think they are in decision mode?

Because if you have a solid Google ads strategy, then you are targeting high-intent and in-market traffic. 

For us, we are bidding on things like

LinkedIn ads agency
B2B LinkedIn ads management service
LinkedIn marketing experts

These searches have what I call an Intent modifier. 

Agency, service, platform, solution, vendor, provider, expert, partner....words like this tell us the person is looking for someone else to execute vs just educating themselves to execute on their own. 

This type of traffic is usually later on in the buyer journey. 

They are problem aware, solution aware, and looking to now choose the right vendor/solution and you are now in the running. 

That's why Google search traffic is so expensive...because when done right it's pure gold. 

But the harsh reality is that this traffic is not just expensive but highly competitive. The prospect is often visiting 3-4 competitor sites as well. 

Pressure for that landing page and 1st click experience is critical..it's basically you're only shot at the lead. 

But that's exactly where LinkedIn retargeting for qualified visitors changes the story. You now can continue the conversation over the next 90 days when the prospect is likely to make a decision and give them the reasons to choose you. 

Things they might not have seen in their 2 minutes on your site. 

Tell them why you're different
Tell them why they can trust you
Tell them what success with you looks like
Tell them what the experiences of others who worked with you looked like

You do this through digital nurturing with LinkedIn ads campaigns. 

And you do it on the platform that B2B buyers actually log in to be influenced on B2B buying decisions...think about it..that's why we are all here. 

We are here to see what other orgs are doing, what new strategies exist, what tools others are using, what tactics and channels and solutions are helping others win...we WANT to be influenced on things that can solve our challenges. 

That's why this combo works so well...there is really nothing like it. 

And honestly, I'm seeing this is just one piece of the puzzle. There are other multi-channel plays and combos like this that just fit so beautifully together. 

So much so you feel like you didn't even understand how marketing could work until that clicked mentally into place.

TL;DR If you run Google budgets 10-30k+/mo , LinkedIn is no longer a separate experiment. LinkedIn should be a mandatory strategic deployment to prote

Open article: Improve Google Ads ROI 2-3x With LinkedIn Account + Signal Based Retargeting by Justin Rowe • 6 min read

Improve Google Ads ROI 2-3x With LinkedIn Account + Signal Based Retargeting

What happens if you SHUT LINKEDIN ADS OFF TODAY? 
Here's exactly what would happen for most... 👇 

I know a lot of marketing leaders who end up having to defend their LinkedIn ads budget or leadership forces them to shut it down..and they don't quite know how to fight that battle. 

And I get it - LinkedIn Ads is one of the harder channels to prove ROI/Influence to leadership. 

So part of what I think is healthy to understand is what happens when you shut it off...since they don't think it's doing anything or maybe not enough...

Here's what really happens. 

• Immediate (1–2 weeks): committee reach drops. Fewer titles in target accounts see your messaging, so sales gets fewer “warm” conversations and more cold, noisy inbound.

-Small drop in conversions/demos and in quality but that won't be fully visible for weeks more.

• Delayed (4–12 weeks): Google and other high-intent channels convert less efficiently. Demo conversion rates and win rates fall as buyers lack prior exposure and trust.

Cost per conversion start to creep up on Google and ROAS starts to slip. 
You'll also notice in google analytics that your returning visitors numbers starts to drop. You're still attracting new visitors..just not getting the right ones to return as much. 

• Hidden (weeks → months): sales blames search or creative, not the missing upstream influence. Deal size, velocity and pipeline quality degrade subtly and are misattributed.

Why?

 LinkedIn is the upstream qualifier and committee builder: it turns anonymous clicks into identified, fit accounts and builds coverage across decision makers. 

So how can you position/prove this to leadership if needed?

Where to look to prove the effect (and what leadership will actually accept) These are great things to track anyways..sometimes just knowing the direction these are going on a macro level helps us know if we are headed in a good/bad direction. 

• Decision-maker reach in your TAL: % of target accounts where a decision maker was reached.
• TAL penetration: % of target accounts with 3+ impressions or engagements.
• Branded search lift: volume or share of branded queries while LinkedIn is live.
• Qualified conversations / meetings booked that map to engaged accounts.
• Pipeline created or influenced for warmed accounts.


Most of this can be found either in native LinkedIn company hub and dashboard and in a tool like DemandSense that syncs with CRM's like hubspot to show LinkedIn influence on pipeline. 

And all of this is actually only true if you are using LinkedIn retargeting frameworks properly to actually qualify and convert your Search and Website traffic to actually make it an ROI enhancer like it's supposed to be. 

Hopefully this helps someone confidently talk about the value of LinkedIn Ads.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Linkedin ads shut off

I could almost GUARANTEE ROI of adding LinkedIn Ads if these are true....
And I'll explain why...and exactly how I'd build it. 

Not to toot my own horn but I believe our agency (Impactable) is responsible for introducing more B2B orgs to LinkedIn ads than any other agency in the world. 

Bold claim I know but I think it's true. 

So much so that LinkedIn even noticed and...

A. We've been invited to attend and speak at multiple LinkedIn Agency Summit's in their New York Office
B. Gotten access to more than $200,000+ in LinkedIn ad credits from our partnership
C. Set to be the first LinkedIn CAPI (conversion API) certified agency in the world. 
D. Participated in LinkedIn's customer advisory board
E. On track to be the first every agency to become agency + ad tech partners of LinkedIn (via our tech arm in DemandSense which is easily the #1 LinkedIn ads optimization tool on the market)

I say all this because introducing B2B advertisers to LinkedIn is something we've gotten damn good at...and part of that is knowing who should NOT be running LinkedIn ads and who should be. 

So here's the simple list and short why

1. Strong Paid Search - 10k+/mo in paid search spend
-This is a strong indicator that you've got high-intent and in-market traffic that you could be doing more to convert

2. Strong organic and/or SEO foundation 
- another warm audience pocket and fuel for LinkedIn middle of funnel plays and intel

3. Website that actually converts some 
- signal that paid traffic won't be a complete waste of money

4. LinkedIn Company Page has 5k+ followers
-Another warm audience pocket to work with
-Signal that your audience is active and reachable on LinkedIn

5. Strong sales motion with SDR/BDR support
-These are bigger deals with longer sales cycles...many orgs find it hard to realize the ROI of LInkedIn leads that require some actual manual effort to convert and stay in front of

Those are the top 5 traits I'd look for...if you have 3+ of these...I'd pretty much guarantee you can get a positive ROI from deploying LinkedIn ads (if done right). 

And honestly...no additional spend. 

Slide 20% of your Google budget to LinkedIn and watch the following happen. 

-Google CPA improve by 15%
-Number of conversion on Google +15%
-Quality of conversion +10%
-Time to close -10%
-Show up rate of leads to demo call +20%
-Close rate of active pipeline +15%
-CAC -10%

Read the full newsletter where I also then show what the 6-month rollout looks like and give away the 20+ deck for the 6-month build...steal it, run it, thank me latter 

Honestly - if you're a marketer looking to introduce LinkedIn to your org and you want a badass launch plan that leadership will buy into...

Shoot me a DM and my team can help build it out for free and help you make the case with your actual numbers.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Most B2B companies should not start with LinkedIn Ads. Yes..I'm aware I run one of the largest LinkedIn Ads agencies out there but also why I'm able t

Open article: When LinkedIn Ads Is a No-Brainer (And When ROI Is Almost Guaranteed) by Justin Rowe • 7 min read

When LinkedIn Ads Is a No-Brainer (And When ROI Is Almost Guaranteed)

In B2B Marketing...Humans are still very much influencing big deals (shocker right?)

That was a big takeaway from my conversation with Gabe Larsen, CRO of Signals.

When everything starts to look the same, especially in the age of AI, buyers stop comparing features. They start asking people they trust.

Gabe shared that more and more buying decisions are happening before a demo ever takes place. 

People are leaning on their network, not review sites or feature checklists.

That’s why trust has to be built upstream.

Through real conversations, visible leadership, and showing up consistently where your buyers already spend time. 

The demo just confirms what they already believe.

#B2BMarketing #TrustBasedSelling #ThoughtLeadership #PersonalBrand #Impactable

New Marketing Leaders - Here's Exactly When and How to add LinkedIn Ads to your ecosystem - Time to get that Promotion (or maybe just not get fired)

First thing's First - Who should be running LinkedIn ads or when can you add it and it be pretty low risk/high chance of success? (because no marketing leader wants to strike out with their ideas). 

Quick “LinkedIn Ads Perfect Fit” checklist:
1+ years in market (trust + PMF more likely present)
5,000+ monthly website visitors (warm audience 🔥 )
SEO or organic driving inbound conversions (at least some consistently)
$10k+/mo in paid search or similar paid channels (in-market trafffic to work with)
5,000+ LinkedIn company page visitors (audience active and reachable on LInkedIn)
Conversions happen on the site and you have a sales team + CRM
Willing to run a 90 day test with a minimum test budget

IF some or most of these exist...LinkedIn ads is likely one of the highest impact moves you can make to see quick wins, improved funnel metrics and usually higher ROI for same spend by simply moving weaker pockets of google spend over to LinkedIn. 

In this weeks newsletter I go over the exact criteria that I call the perfect storm that make LinkedIn ads super low risk and then exactly how I'd approach introducing LinkedIn ads and the logic that helps explain it to leadership. 

Take a read and ask any questions!

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

I've noticed a very specific pattern where companies fit a certain criteria that I'm kind of calling "the perfect fit for LinkedIn ads" and when this 

Open article: A Marketing Leader's Field Guide to Launching a Profitable LinkedIn Ads Motion by Justin Rowe • 10 min read

A Marketing Leader's Field Guide to Launching a Profitable LinkedIn Ads Motion

AI ad image + copy analysis AND image variations in less than 60 seconds?????
I'm damn impressed by this. 

This is what I've just got my hands on and am testing - but this is pretty crazy. 

One of the things AI is allowing us to do is aggregate and cross-reference data better and faster and wield it like more powerful weapon than ever before. 

At Impactable we have launched and managed thousands of LinkedIn ad campaigns and that data is now being weaponized to inform on copy and design and it's absolutely going to be a secret sauce of ours and a competitive advantage. 

Our amazing team also has an AI agent that can do competitor research on LinkedIn ad campaigns by visiting their LinkedIn ad libraries and combing through all of their ads and comparing and contrasting all the variables vs benchmarks and top industry performers to spot patterns that would take the best humans weeks to do. 

This is something that got me very excited!

Shout out to some of our Impactable AI OGs - Nemanja Jovanovic Nikolay Titov Anna K. Branko Jovanovic Vladimir Ilić 

We have some big plans in 2026 to use AI responsibly but to weaponize our POV, strategies, frameworks, and aggregated campaign data to fuel better/faster insights for our clients. 

Check yourself before you wreck yourself 😉

If your positioning is off, no channel will fix it.

That was one of the strongest points from my conversation with Oleg Kovalev, CMO of Aspect Health.

Yes, channels still matter. 

But success on any platform comes down to clarity, not activity. 

Oleg is a great example of that. He was able to build meaningful momentum and grow his audience quickly by being clear on who he was speaking to and why his message mattered.

But his bigger point was this.
Channels and assets are secondary. 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴.

He’s seen more startups fail because they didn’t clearly define who they were for and why they mattered, not because they picked the wrong channel or ran out of budget.

Get the positioning wrong and no channel will save you.
Get it right and almost any channel can work.

#B2BMarketing #Positioning #StartupMarketing #LinkedInGrowth #Impactable

Some of the best B2B marketers didn’t start in marketing at all.

That was clear in my conversation with Oleg Kovalev, CMO of Aspect Health.

Oleg started his career in B2B sales, not marketing. 

Within a few years, he moved from sales rep to leading retail sales, helping grow revenue nearly fivefold. 

Eventually, sales and marketing merged into one department under his leadership.

That’s where he fell in love with marketing.

What stood out to me is how much that sales foundation shaped his perspective. 

When you’ve carried a quota, led teams, and driven revenue firsthand, marketing stops being abstract. It becomes deeply connected to outcomes.

Seventeen years later, that blended background still shows up in how he approaches his role today.

#B2BMarketing #MarketingLeadership #SalesAndMarketing #CareerJourney #Impactable

Most orgs think "they have plenty of strategy" - Spoiler alert...they don't
A comment I made to a post saying Orgs just need faster execution from agencies. 

The original post - super smart man who's built multiple businesses and makes the point that orgs are giving this feedback. 

-Agencies move to slow and just want to focus on "stratetegy"
-The orgs believe they have "plenty of strategy" and just need faster execution
-The orgs complain that agencies are taking 3 months to make beautiful strategy and playbooks before doing actual meaningful work
-The orgs say they just need faster execution..just do the work!

Now I 100% believe this is the feedback he's getting from orgs...but let me share my perspective form the agency side. 

1. When most orgs say they "just need execution" and they "have plenty of strategy"...9 times out of 10 what the reality is more like this. 

-They are desperate for leads and are seeing a decline due to lack of great positioning or PMF or clear idea of audience/offer and they need to show leadership some "results"

So the "action" they are looking for is for the agency to throw up some lead gen ads and put the coins in the ol slot machine and get the leads out so they can save their job

But I'm looking at this like...if I do that..and shovel hot garbage leads to save your job...you're still getting fired in 6 months when sales eventually uncovers the hot mess and lack of quality/intent leads your pushing their way. 

2. I'll admin most agencies arn't really that helpful on the strategic front either. They make beautiful decks to mask lack of actual creative thoughts or business accumen. 

They think if you make the reports pretty enough it will kick sand in your eyes and distract you from the truth...that's not how an agency should operate. 

3. I'll also admit that many agencies also are super slow to get their hands in and actually start the work. 

They are often more concerned with looking good and mitigating risk and stretching out the engagement that quick starts and quick action just isn't their priority (and many arn't actually built for it either)


My advice when working with an agency?

Understand who really owns strategy and what it is. 
1. Are you actually clear about how you're unique in the market?
2. Are you actually clear about who you are targeting and why and what their real pain points are and how you uniquely solve?

3. Are you clear about the size of those audiences, what warm and 1st party data exists, and how much budget is needed to accomplish your goals for that audience?
4. Are you clear about what channels to deploy that budget and how to structure it to accomplish those goals?
5. Are you clear on how we'd measure and track progress against those goals?

90% of orgs either arn't super clear on this or have assumptions that need challenged..which means you need a strategic partner...not just execution. 

But also...agencies...get your freaking lives together...giving us a bad name lol

Actual Hot Take.....99% of "Hot Takes" are just garbage click bait with no real POV or anyone who really disagrees with you. 

Take this for example...my hot take here is clearly something you agree with and not controversial at all and yet you feel like you just want to slam the like/share button and scream "this dude get's it!"

And now that I've called it out..you're not sure if you should like this post or ignore it to "put me in my place" ...which is also something that happens here on LinkedIn. 

You see, everyone wants to support you until you actually start being successful and then they think you're overrated and nothing special....

Until you cross that line where the success is undeniable and you clearly have growing support without them...then they finally join back in as it clearly benefits them to be connected to your success and their "dis" clearly isn't negativly impacting you...

That's a crazy thought...creators on here might withhold support to "punish" those they are jealous of but give that up only when they realize they don't actually hold that sort of power. 

My advice?

Content creators on here arn't your demographic...F*k them

Do you and focus on delivering value to your ICP, develop real relationships with other founders in complimentary spaces...and don't get lost in the politics of LinkedIn (or actual politics for that matter...you won't catch me speaking on politics). 

I've been on here long enough to know the game and how to win in the long run - stick with me if you want to learn : )

AI isn’t just another tool. 
It’s becoming a coworker.

That was one of the most interesting takeaways from my conversation with Gabe Larsen, CRO of Signals.

Instead of thinking about AI as something that handles one-off tasks, Gabe is focused on what he calls cloud employees. 

Autonomous, job-based AI that works across channels and owns real responsibilities.

Think less “𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵” and more “𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦.”

In the future, a SaaS company might not be 200 people.
It might be 200 people working alongside 200 cloud employees.

That shift challenges the idea that growth has to mean more headcount.

We’re moving from tool-first thinking to organization-first thinking.

The way companies scale is changing and the ones who adapt early will have an unfair advantage.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T


#ArtificialIntelligence #AIInBusiness #FutureOfWork #B2BSaaS #Impactable

Marketers are asked to prove impact in ways sales never are.

Sales doesn’t invent attribution.
They don’t design the system.
They don’t debate what “counts.”

The CRM already exists.
Pipeline stages are defined.
Revenue is the output.

Marketing operates very differently.

To prove impact, marketers are expected to:

Learn and master $1k/month attribution tools

Stitch together CRM, GA, and ad platform data

Create custom views and narratives leadership will accept

And somehow make it all feel objective and trustworthy

This is why attribution tools are raising hundreds of millions of dollars.
And yet… attribution is still one of the biggest problems in marketing.

Not because the data doesn’t exist.
But because the structure doesn’t.

A HubSpot report like this one is incredibly insightful - Something cool I built over the weekend looking for additional ways we can show marketing data in ways leadership will trust (and Hubspot/CRM is of course going to get accepted  more than any 3rd party tool/report). 

These reports shown break down opportunities by source (Google vs LinkedIn), then by company size and industry, tells a real story about quality, direction, and momentum.

It was really cool to see in this case that LinkedIn brought in bigger opportunities more constantly and Google search had more sporadic size over time. 

Also super interesting to see which industries seem to be showing higher levels of in-market signals (coming in via google search) vs what industries are being directly targeted on LInkedIn. 

It's possible that this could be a good signal to consider when splitting and prioritizing account lists. 

But here’s the catch:

That story only matters if the organization agrees it matters.

In most companies, marketers don’t just analyze data.
They have to create the narrative, define the rules, and convince leadership to trust it.

And if they don’t?
The marketer gets blamed.
Then replaced.
And the next marketer walks into the same environment with no trusted system to operate inside.

Same problem. New person.

This isn’t a performance issue.
It’s an org design issue.

Sales works inside a structure that already defines success.
Marketing is expected to build the structure while being judged by it.

My conviction:

Either organizations evolve to give marketing a first-class measurement system

Or agencies will increasingly be forced to fill that gap.

Not just by running campaigns, but by creating the attribution, tracking, and reporting framework the business actually operates on.

Until then, marketers will keep doing two jobs:
Driving growth.
And inventing the system that proves it.

B2B SEO & Web Design For Revenue Not Vanity | DM To Discuss | Host @ Business Growth Show (Top 10 B2B Marketing Podcast, Cognism)

Your website struggling to drive a steady flow of qualified demos/leads?
Tired of losing leads to competitors ranking higher on Google/AI?
Frustrated your current agency isn't delivering results?

WE CAN FIX THAT.

OUR GROWTH STRATEGIES:

→ SEO to get top of Google & LLMs, bringing revenue-focused traffic and leads
→ Start driving pipeline from AI and Google organic as fast as 90 days
→ Web design that builds trust and drives leads and sales

BREAKING B2B - B2B MARKETING & DEMAND GENERATION PODCAST

Grow your b2b/SaaS company without the BS. Weekly top 2.5% podcast with actionable marketing tips to grow your revenue: www.breakingb2b.com

STILL NOT CONVINCED?

→ See our work, client results & starting rates here: www.breakingb2b.com

BOOK A CALL:

💻: www.breakingb2b.com
📧: Connect & DM Me
✉️: sam@samdunning.org

CORE SERVICES:

→ B2B SEO strategy and execution
→ Content marketing
→ Digital marketing for SaaS

WHY BREAKING B2B?

→ We focus on revenue, not vanity metrics
→ Our strategies are data-driven and results-oriented
→ We have a proven track record with B2B and SaaS companies
→ Our podcast (Breaking B2B) gives you free, valuable insights into B2B marketing

About time your website became your best (24/7) salesperson?
Get in touch today, and let's start growing your business.

P.S.
Agencies: We offer white-label SEO to help you deliver results on time and within budget.

Sam Dunning

0-$6.7M ARR under 2yrs. Fully boostrapped. Adam Robinson leaked his full SaaS growth framework in 34mins. Now its yours:

Adam and I don’t do fluff.

You’re about to learn: 

- The secrets to building epic products
- RB2B weird insane strategy for growth 
- Where Adam took inspiration from
- The framework so you can copy it
- How he’s diversifying to hit 10M ARR+ 

SaaS marketers and founders, hit 2026 with a bang.

Watch the 34-minute masterclass: https://lnkd.in/eHdqi3uD

Founder @ Breaking B2B | B2B SEO For Revenue Not Vanity | SaaS & B2B Teams Hire Us To Scale Organic Pipeline From Google & AI Search | DM To Discuss | Host @ Breaking B2B (Top 2.5% B2B Marketing Podcast)

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Breaking B2B podcast just turned 6yrs old...I’ve interviewed 471 marketing leaders & founders. Here’s my 8 biggest takeaways:

1. Customer research before anything.

Before content, ads, or messaging, talk to customers. Interview recently won and churned clients. Ask what they struggled with, what problem cost them money, what competitors they looked at, and what made them choose you. Record the calls. GPT the transcripts for patterns and common replies. Use their exact words in your website, ads, and sales calls so you stop guessing.

2. Organic growth is a must.

Ads keep getting more expensive. SEO and AEO build long-term moats. Go after buyers who are ready now. Create pages for searches like competitor alternatives, pricing, and best software for a niche. Build better pages than what already ranks. These pages drive pipeline quick as 90 days.

3. Show pricing.

Hiding pricing brings poor-fit leads. People want to know cost before a demo. SaaS companies should show clear tiers. Service companies should show ranges. Pricing pages can also answer common questions, video testimonials and speed up sales cycles. You get fewer leads but better buyers.

4. Track the full funnel.

Leads do not equal revenue. Follow deals from first call to closed won. Look at which channels create real sales, not just signups. Double down on what closes and cut what does not (after a fair test).

5. Product-led content wins.

Most content never shows the product. Revenue driving content does. Be useful and show how your product fixes the problem. Use examples, screenshots, and real use cases. Teach, then show the solution. Ahrefs are masters here. Check their blog.

6. Build a media engine. 

At Breaking B2B most of our long form linked posts and breakdowns fuel long form YouTube scripts. We then chop up and distribute on LinkedIn and the newsletter.

7. Founder brand.

Build in public. Share what is working and what is not. Share wins and mistakes. This builds trust fast and attracts buyers who already believe in you. SEO / YouTube / LinkedIn is working as a deadly trio for us at Breaking B2B to drive pre-sold inbounds atm. 

8. Speed beats slow giants. 

Big companies move slow. I’m talking months to approve and publish content at the enterprise level. Small teams move fast. Publish faster. Test faster. Act on customer research. Speed helps you steadily steal market share for underserved segments. Especially in SEO/AEO.

___

This was massively simplified to keep in word count.

Watch my full 16-minute breakdown video: https://lnkd.in/eY6Vsvk6

Fibbler got recommended by AI search just weeks after we started SEO/AEO. Now Adam has prospects mentioning it on demo calls. Here’s how we did it:

SEO doesn’t have to take 12 months.

There's money to be made in 90 days.  

Competitor content is one of many winner for quick AI and organic search impact, sign-ups and demos.

This is one of the first places we start on a program. 

These terms are low difficulty and can rank super fast.

List out the competitors your customers often evaluate, or move over to you from.

Then look at terms like:

[competitor] alternatives
[competitor] reviews
[competitor] pricing
[competitor 1] vs [competitor 2] vs [you]

Right now, listicle based articles rank exceptionally well on google and AI search.

Position your solution as the top choice (backed by customer research), showing your product in action + social proof along with where you're a strong/poor fit. 

Then a fair comparison of other vendors.

Not only can you get fast bottom funnel visibility.

You can control the narrative in LLMs and Google.

And drive pipeline from high intent prospects frustrated with their current vendor or evaluating options.

PS. grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO playbook and video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

RB2B nearly hit $7M ARR. We run their SEO/AEO engine at Breaking B2B. Next up $10M ARR. Here's our January battle-plan for Adam Robinson SaaS:

HIGH LEVEL OVERVIEW.

The mission? Drive high intent sign-ups as quick as humanly possible from google organic and AI searches.

This month we've found more competitor-focused pricing page opportunities with healthy search volume. 

For example, “Instantly pricing” generates 3,000+ monthly high-intent searches, showing prospects actively evaluating costs and purchase options. Third-party pricing pages (in addition to Instantly’s own site) are already capturing a meaningful share of this traffic, which signals clear opportunity to compete and drive inbound with a well-optimized pricing page.

And a bunch of other pricing-related pages with consistent search demand, strong buyer intent. Solid for organic acquisition.

We’re crafting a product listicle for “Cognism alternatives.” This keyword attracts solid monthly traffic and has low difficulty, with strong opportunity to rank and capture users who are in the consideration stage and actively comparing software.

NET NEW CONTENT.

pricing articles:
- Instantly pricing (3.1k searches/mo)
- Cognism pricing (1.2k/mo)
- Clearbit pricing (1k/mo)
- Uplead pricing (500/mo)
- Leadinfo pricing (400/mo)

these pages review the software pricing, share user feedback, breakdown of costs and share where RB2B is differentiated and why customers choose them. plus they often rank well within 90 days.

alternative listicle:
- Cognism alternatives (400/mo)

aq quick summary and intro, why listen to us, what is cognism, why look into alternatives (based on what prospects say e.g. on G2), list of 12 alternatives, RB2B at #1 with why customers choose them, show product in action, pricing and feature info, where they are good + poor fit then list of 11 other options below with fair summary + conclusion and FAQs.

listicle and alternative/competitor content on your own site is solid for being cited and recommend in AI search and enables you to control the narrative with dream clients on ChatGPT and google ai overviews.

EARN BACKLINKS (DA50+).

- free b2b lead generation software
- lusha vs zoominfo
- zoominfo vs uplead

EXTERNAL LISTICLE PLACEMENTS.

- best data enrichment tools x 3 
top 3 placements in 3 niche relevant external listicle articles.

solid to ramp AI search visibility and mentions.
plus can get direct inbound.
and the backlink.

___

Wanna see if we can scale demos quick as 90 days for your B2B/SaaS?

Visit the Breaking B2B site to check our results, pricing and grab a call.

Watch my 34-minute SEO/AEO breakdown video for RB2B below 👇

Proposify had good SEO before partnering with Breaking B2B. We crafted a strategy and execution taking demos, AI and organic visibility to the next level 👇 

#1 for "quoting software" in the USA - Top organic position for this money keyword, appearing above competitors in standard results and AI Overview.

#1 for "proposal software" in the USA - Top organic position for another critical solution keyword.

68% more clicks from competitor pages (prospects comparing vendors or looking to switch).

AI search visitors up by 91%
Engaged sessions up by 20%

Longer term conversions are stable, starting to see big spikes in organic demo requests on shorter timelines:

Last 1 weeks demos vs previous period: +115%.
Last 2 weeks demos vs previous period: +72%.

___

Cheers to Kyle Racki and Jennifer Faulkner for the review.

See our results, pricing and book a call: https://lnkd.in/eT_F8zZB

You're being lied to about SEO & AEO
(The myth: SEO traffic is down 25%+)
Juicy research hot off the press.
Per similarweb and graphite 👇 

You've probably seen the headlines claiming organic traffic has dropped anywhere from 25% to 60%.

These numbers are based on flawed research methods, mostly surveys and often small sample sizes of 10-20 websites.

The problem with surveys is that human memory is unreliable, and people who respond to surveys about AI adoption tend to be early adopters who use LLMs more than average.

So the data gets skewed.

___

Here's what the actual numbers show

Graphite partnered with Similarweb to analyze over 40,000 of the largest sites in the US.

Here's what the analysis revealed...

SEO traffic is down only 2.5% year over year, not 25%.

That's an overestimation by 1,000% in a lot of the studies floating around
And this aligns with what Google themselves said in August 2025, that overall organic click volume has been "relatively stable year-over-year".

Visits to search engines actually increased in 2025.

Traffic to search engines went up 6.9% from 2019 to 2020

Decreased slightly in 2022 by about 1.5%

And has been relatively flat since 2023

In fact, traffic increased slightly in 2025 to both Google at plus 0.8% and search engines as a whole at plus 0.4%

Visitors to Google grew by 1.35% comparing Q4 2025 versus Q4 2024

___

Google is still a demand capture beast

Per earlier research from Datos and Sparktoro, Google processes over 14 billion searches every day.

ChatGPT handles about 37.5 million search-like prompts daily

That means Google receives 373 times more searches than ChatGPT

Even if you combined the daily prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, the total would still be under 2% of the search market
Google maintains a 93.57% market share of search.

___

Dropping the report along with my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO playbook & video course below 👇

If I joined as CMO for a SaaS with $20k+ ACV I’d triple down on this deadly trio to scale demos this year: 

- SEO/AEO.
- YouTube.
- LinkedIn (founder brand & paid).

I’m yet to see a more powerful trio.

Especially when your offer is $10k+ ACV and involves multiple stakeholders.

Yet many SaaS still sleep on this deadly trio.

1. SEO/AEO.

Craft a program to show top of Google organic and AI search when dream cleints need your solution now, are comparing options, are annoyed with their current vendor or have an expensive problem you solve.

Why bother? Control the narrative with ICPs. Get into you into the consideration set and capture active demand for 5% of your dream clients in-market today.

2. YouTube.

This is not throwing old webinars and hoping for results. 

Crafting searchable videos that share every aspect of your playbook / approach / strategies / product / problems you solve.

Going in with a YouTube first approach.

Solid packaging, hook, story, CTAs and pacing.

Painfully focused on your dream client.

Just like SEO not going for traffic or views at all costs…going for the right type of folks with intent.

Giving away so much your ICP can copy then do it in house OR trusts you so much they buy into your offering.

3. LinkedIn founder brand & paid.

Daily founder or execs posting organically to become a trusted voice for ICPs and your niche.

I tend to play on edutainment with memes, videos and breakdown posts.

Then using ads a mix of helpful, trustworthy and social proof organic posts as thought leader ads to retarget site traffic from all above channels plus serve ads to a tight list of cold ICPs.

These 3 channels working together are cooking demos for us right now at Breaking B2B with many others.

RB2B are on the road to $10M ARR. 6mos ago we fired up their SEO/AEO engine. How did Adam Robinson describe working w/ Breaking B2B? BANANAS. Full breakdown below:

———

90-day non-branded clicks up 43% (4,270 vs 2,980) on 1.36m total impressions … which were only up 8%. 

So, SEO is driving LOTS of clicks

———

Engaged sessions are up from 33k to 62k (+90%) … on total sessions only rising 11%, from 77k to 86k.. 

So, SEO is driving LOTS of engagement.

———

We’re winning on 164 high-value keywords (+270%), whereas we were only winning on 44 when we started. 

So, SEO is driving LOTS of targeted pageviews.

———

Traffic is up 50% from keywords that both rank well AND drive signups: 

- website visitor identification
- website visitor tracking
- identify b2b website visitors
- b2b website visitor tracking
- b2b website visitor tracking software
- leadfeeder alternatives
- clearbit alternatives
- many more

———

And for icing on the cake, organic traffic hitting the signup page is +201% of the past 3mo, and 27-35% of those visitors are signing up for RB2B. 

———

Check our pricing, results or grab a call: https://lnkd.in/e7XuM6au
 
Watch my full RB2B SEO strategy breakdown vid: https://lnkd.in/eiZfaXXq

- events
- dinners 
- paid media
- review sites
- partnerships 
- outbound sales
- presidents club
- influencer marketing
- beers for the sales team

Just a small list of things that typically get budget & resource priority over SEO/AEO.

Truth is organic search isn’t always worth it for B2B/SaaS orgs.

Especially if you’re in a newer category where dream clients aren’t actually aware of your solution/category or problems you solve and may not be searching for them yet.

But.

A good chunk of you are in a known market.

And have prospects using Google/A search when they need your solution, are comparing vendors, frustrated with the incumbent, or looking to fix a specific problem.

Neglect it and give your competitors free visibility, organic traffic, mindshare and inbounds around the clock.

Build a solid strategy around it and enjoy a moat that can be in the foundation of your b2b marketing ecosystem and drive a solid flow of inbounds.

Not just for the short term (90 days) but for years to come.

PS. try my 90 days to revenue SEO video course & playbook: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

Breaking B2B was invisible on AI search 120 days ago. Now we’re often top. Stop giving SaaS competitors a free lunch on ChatGPT & Google. Here’s the fix:

QUICK WINS.

Start where you win already (commercial bottom funnel pages typically listicle articles, landing pages, comparison pages, competitor content etc) update these, making them best in class to blow the competition out the water at every angle.

BUILD THE MOAT.

Build a moat like no other on your site. (cover all pages across industries, product, features, pricing, documentation, competitors, use cases etc. each covering all ICPs jobs to be done, Qs etc).

Craft and improve with add unique stats, data, research, social proof and date updates on blog articles.

AEO/SEO CHEATCODE.

The cheat code for LLMs (listicles) build all relevant “best X software/platform/tools” listicle article on your own site.

Then outreach or leverage partners to get your brand featured on well ranking niche relevant  external site listicles in top 3 placements.

This was a huge part of how we got Breaking B2B mentioned regularly in AI searches (and classic google organic rankings for pipeline driving keywords).

LEVERAGE PAST MEDIA.

Leverage past media such as your founders appearances on podcasts, interviews, press and more. Head to - ahrefs > backlinks on media/pages that only point to an execs linkedin profile, ask the author of the page for a brand mention and backlink.

CONTROL THE NARRATIVE.

Ecosystem marketing FTW. Based on where you have resource. Control the narrative where folks search around your niche and compare options.

Redddit, YouTube and beyond.

Right now, SEO/youtube/linkedin is a killer trio working together to drive booked calls for us at Breaking B2B.

SPEED BEATS GIANTS.

Enterprise orgs move slow, they have layers of approvals and a lot of red tape.

This is your advantage as a fast moving mid or startup company.

Publishing and doing above at speed can steal market share over time, especially in undeserved niches.

___

Grab my free 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

I’m 35 today.

So here’s a list you didn’t ask for: 

1. Family > all

2. Don’t wait until new year to start something

3. Hard work still goes a long way

4. Putting some pressure on isn’t always bad

5. Take time out to enjoy w/ fam and friends

6. Most emails that say urgent aren’t

7. Don’t need to start emails w/ hope you're well

8. Transparency wins

9. A website is your best or worst salesperson

10. Many companies still underestimate SEO/AEO

11. Bootstrapping a co. is tough but fun

12. Daily habits & activities are a winner for biz

13. Podcasts while driving = free university

14. Build something on the side and get paid 

15. Learn from those who’ve actually done it

16. Learn to sell, then learn to market

17. Fitness is medicine for the mind

18. I’m not for everyone

19. Some will, some won’t, so what, next.

20. Outbound is alive

21. SEO died in 1973. JK it's alive in b2b.

22. Everyone talks a good game on LinkedIn

23. Personal brand is great but not everything

24. Don’t rely on one marketing channel

25. Experimentation FTW in marketing

26. Have marketing channels you own and rent

27. Hire people smarter than you 

28. Don’t be tight 

29. Likes and shares don’t pay bills

30. It ain’t sold until cash hits the bank

31. Stay humble 

32. Lists are dead

33. God is good

34. Cheers 🍺

35. Your B2B/SaaS struggling to drive pipeline from SEO & AI search? I hear Breaking B2B are decent.

I just told a $1M ARR SaaS founder not to invest in SEO yet.

He was ready to spend $20k with us and already trusted us as had been following the Breaking B2B newsletter for years. 

Weirdly on paper their solution looked great for SEO & AI search.

Prospects were searching for their solution.

There is active demand to capture with search.

Quick wins from competitor focused content that could drive demos as fast as 90 days.

This issue?

Up to now they’d grown from outbound sales and proven that model works for their $60k+ ACV.

They’d never done SEO before.

And didn’t have the runway to keep SEO running with us for 6 months plus.

So I recommended they kept ramping the outbound model until they have runway to make SEO a longer term bet with us 

Rather than a couple months and chasing us for results and everyone getting frustrated.

And we’ll likely chat again in a few months when the timing makes sense.

___

join 1,910+ legends enjoying my 90 days to revenue free SEO/AEO video course and playbook: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

AEO “experts”: Chunk up your content
Leader at Google: Don’t do it mate. 

___

From Googles Danny Sullivan last week:

“One of the things I keep seeing over and over in some of the advice and guidance and people are trying to figure out what do we do with the LLMs or whatever, is that turn your content into bite-sized chunks, because LLMs like things that are really bite size, right?
So we don't want you to do that. I was talking to some engineers about that. We don't want you to do that. We really don't. We don't want people to have to be crafting anything for Search specifically. That's never been where we've been at and we still continue to be that way. We really don't want you to think you need to be doing that or produce two versions of your content, one for the LLM and one for the net.”

“…So you've gone through all this effort. You've made all these things that you did specifically for a ranking system, not for a human, being because you were trying to be more successful in the ranking system, not staying focused on the human being. And then the systems improve, probably the way the systems always try to improve, to reward content written for humans. All that stuff that you did to please this LLM system that may or may not have worked, may not carry through for the long term.”

___

I even got sucked into it when AI search first started rolling out. 

Thinking putting content into bitesize sections and over optimising for AI agents to read easily was the play.

Then remembered most of our B2B/SaaS clients are selling complex products with long sales cycles to multiple stakeholders.

Which is why we place huge emphasis on researching dream clients, their struggling moments, jobs to be done, motivations, competitors they evaluate, why they choose you, differentiators in the market place and beyond.

To not just rank and be mentioned & cited in Google organic and AI searches but resonate with target buyers. 

If you don’t resonate you won’t convert.

___

Grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO free playbook & video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

Gurus love screaming SEOs dead and AEOs a brand new playbook. It’s not. Here’s 10 steps to drive demos in 90 days (share with your CMO):

1. Nail your MONEY keywords.

Map out every way a dream client could search for your solution when ready to speak to sales now.

At a high level in SaaS that’s:

“best X software/tools/platform”
“X for industry”
“competitor alternatives/pricing/reviews”
“competitor a vs competitor b (vs you)”

And a variety of others.

Ignore the top funnel traffic trap.

Prioritise lower search volume and low difficulty at the bottom of the sales funnel.

This is gonna rank and drive leads fast when done right.

We have ranked competitor fast as 4 days top of Google and AI search. 

2. Build & upgrade your money pages. 

Search your money keywords on Google & LLMs and see what kind of content shows up or gets cited.

Is it a listicle article, landing page, jobs to be done article, or something else.

See if you have pages ranking page 1 but not top for a quick win with a refresh.

3. Blow ‘em out the water. 

Once you’ve researched what top-ranking pages are doing, figure out how to blow them out of the water. 

Leverage customer research, sales call Qs, plenty of social proof and feature ypur product as the painkiller and solution.

LLMs love fresh content and unique research. Keep your commercial, money pages up to date.

4. Most technical SEO is BS.

(Until you get to having 1000s of pages).

Sort any massive technical issues, but don’t obsess over technical SEO. Get your focus keyword in URL, meta data, H1 and sort some internal links. Sort structured data. Not a tonne more needed. 

And you of course want quick loading times.

5. Brand mentions and links at $0 FTW.

Build quality backlinks & brand mentions for $0. 

Get featured in podcasts and articles, and make sure they link back to your website. 

Earn/trade top 3 placements & brand mentions from “Best X software” listicles for your category.

This gives you an insane boost in LLMs and the backlink helps classic organic search.

6. Speed is your advantage.

Quality matters, but speed is a competitive advantage. This is your superpower over the slow moving giants in your niche. 

7. Craft pages to convert. 

Design and UX backed by customer researched copy to resonate with ICPs makes a big difference. 

8. Great SEO is knowing good b2b marketing.

Leverage sales calls, CS calls, and customer research to make your content as relevant as possible to dream clients jobs to be done.

9. Keep improving. 

Publish fast, and revisit your content 3 months later to make improvements. 

10. B2B is an ecosystem.

Keep improving all your marketing efforts: YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit etc. all improvements in brand awareness will lead to more successful SEO. Ecosystem thinking is the b2b winner. 

___

We run this playbook for 35+ SaaS client right now at Breaking B2B.

grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO playbook & free video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

I GRILLED Adam Robinson on how he bootstrapped RB2B from 0-$6.7M in 2yrs with 3 FTEs. Here's my 7 biggest takeaways:

1. Use a proven concept and find the gap.

RB2B did not start from a blank page. Retention started as a feature inside another company. Nobody wanted the full product. Everybody wanted the feature. That feature became the company. The same thing happened again. While selling into the Shopify space Adam identified there was no person level website visitor identity for B2B. This was the gap to hit. We did the same  at Breaking B2B after constantly hearing B2B/SaaS marketers and founders get frustrated with vanity metrics and lack of pipeline from SEO.

2. Create for your market.

Adam posted content to reach eCom stores. About 25 percent of his posts were about his SaaS journey. Those posts got 10X better engagement. So the content changed. Only B2B SaaS. The engagement stayed high. The audience was clear. That audience needed a product.

3. Speak to prospects before building.

There were Zoom calls. A big waitlist. A lot of discovery before launch. The idea was simple. B2B needs person level visitor identity. Some people hated it. Some people said it was crazy. Some people said it was transformational.

4. Prove people will pay for it.

V1 of RB2B was super basic. People got a spreadsheet every day with personal emails of B2B visitors. That did not work. Then business emails. Slightly better. People still paid. If people pay for something basic, it's a clear signal to keep pushing forwards.

5. Change the experience, not the data.

The same data was sent in a new way. First, a fake Slack profile showing real people with headshots and LinkedIn URLs as they visit your site. People had never seen anything like it. It was a hit. Same information. New delivery.

6. Start on a no-brainer channel.

LinkedIn was already working for engagement with ICP and growing fast. That leverage made it worth building the product. An okay product plus huge awareness becomes a good business.

7. Say the same thing over and over.

Be known for something. In Adams case, Bootstrapped. Build in public. Radical transparency. Say the same few ideas in many ways. In my case, SaaS SEO and building in public. This is how RB2B got to $6.7M ARR in under two years.

PS. watch our full 34-minute masterclass: https://lnkd.in/eHdqi3uD

#1 on AI and organic search in 4 days for MONEY keywords. SEO/AEO doesn't need to take 12 months to drive pipeline & revenue:

First off, yes some super competitive terms can take 6-12 months.

But there's plenty of ways to drive inbounds 90 days from publishing content for your B2B/SaaS.

It all starts with customer research.

Knowing:

- crisp and expensive problems of your icp
- your icps motivations & jobs to be done
- what they hate most about your sector
- why they choose you over others
- why/when they move over to you
- competitors they evaluate
- your differentiators 

Then crafting an SEO/AEO strategy focused on dream clients ready to speak to sales.

AKA. 

Looking for your specific solution, comparing vendors, looking to move form the incumbent, needing an integration or struggling with a specific problem you solve.

- competitor content
- integration for X pages
- alternatives/pricing/reviews
- best software for [niche] listicles
- how to [job to be done] with your product

I break this down in my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO playbook & free video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

$5.34 = avg B2B Google ads CPC (per dreamdata research). SaaS CAC is up 60% last 5yrs. Outbound response rates are getting lower and lower...so what's the answer for sustainable growth?

THE PROBLEM W/ RELYING ON ADS & OUTBOUND

- Every month your CAC payback period extends
- You're essentially renting traffic instead of owning it
- When your next funding round gets delayed or doesn't happen, paid growth becomes unsustainable
- It’s essentially a ticking time bomb

SHOULD YOUR SAAS CONSIDER SEO/AEO?

- Build assets that generate pipeline and mindshare month after month without the rising ads costs
- Unlike ads, your organic rankings and AI visibility can compound and get stronger over time
- You're not competing in expensive bidding wars with better-funded competitors
- Creates a sustainable foundation that doesn't disappear when budgets get tight
- Your buyers aren't stupid: they place trust in organic results 
- Builds brand and mindshare

TAP INTO THE 5% OF MARKET READY TO BUY

- While 95% of your market isn't ready to purchase, around 5% is actively searching for solutions right now
- These prospects are typing your competitors' names looking for alternatives
- They're searching for industry-specific solutions in your exact niche
- They're comparing vendors and ready to book demos - if they can find you first

GROW BRAND SHARE OF VOICE

- When prospects consistently see you at the top of AI & search results, it helps position you as the category leader
- This brand authority creates a multiplier effect across everything you do
Helps you stay top of mind
- Increases brand recall
- Results in higher conversions across all your other marketing channels
- People are more likely to click your ads when they recognize your brand from organic search
- Sales cycles shorten because prospects already trust you before the first sales call
- Most importantly for founders/mktg & rev leaders - this sustainable organic growth makes raising funding easier when investors see you're not dependent on paid acquisition

BUT DOESN'T SEO TAKE 12 MONTHS MIN?

- With the right strategy, many of our clients at Breaking B2B see qualified leads within 90 days of publishing content
- We've helped clients rank clients top of AI and organic search fast as 30 days for MONEY keywords
- Every month you wait is a month your competitors eat your lunch

PS. grab my 90 days to revenue SEO playbook and video course: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

A SaaS marketing leader asked me how long it takes to get results with SEO. Here’s my exact reply (and I didn't say "it depends): 

___

There's massive bottlenecks to SEO, and they can be on the agency side or the contractor side, and they can also be on the client side.

And the crux of good SEO, at least in my opinion, is working out, starting with a strategy like in your case, what you've told me about the problems you solve, that could be a good in.

Let's work out what a target client actually searches for when they need your solution, rather than messing around with the 95% that aren't in buying mode.

Let's focus on those 5% that are actively searching for a solution like yours, and what are they specifically looking for.

And it might be that there's not tons of volume, but they're low-volume searches, but they're very specific, and they're likely to attract decent leads.

So we want to start there. Now, I don't know how competitive waitlist-based terms would be. I know for a fact anything [redacted their industry type] is hard, but the more specific the better.

So the more we can narrow down to your niche, the better. What can also work well, like if you're trying to rank for [industry + offer] terms, you're looking like six months plus.

And specific listicles around your core niche and offers.

What will rank the fastest is going after competitors. So I don't know, like [competitor] alternatives 

Or [competitor] reviews, pricing or similar.

Like those are the quickest possible. Those can rank. We often see those ranked like top three organic within 30 days of publishing.

And those can drive demos because if you're telling me things like people are moving away from some of these because of the poor customer success, then why don't we create a piece of an article that evaluates the top 10 [competitor] alternatives.

Positions you as number one and doubles down on customer success and then leverages the G2 reviews on [competitor] for their listing.

So that kind of stuff can rank like 30 to 90 days from publishing and can drive demos.

Also gets solid visibility for your brand in AI search.

___

Try my free 90 days to revenue SEO video course & playbook below 👇

1st February 2024, 9PM. I'm heads down at my PC listening to D&B making a list of marketing leaders to cold call the next morning. This was the start of Breaking B2B: 

PC.
List.
Dialler.
Pen and paper.

Ripping 1-200 dials before lunch.

Sweating away with a tonne of rejection.

Getting maybe 1 appt and a couple follow ups and sign-ups for the Breaking B2B newsletter most days.

Leading with the problem we solve for SaaS around competitors outranking on Google/AI search when dream clients are hunting for your solution. Stealing mindshare, traffic and inbounds.

This is how we got our first couple clients.

Meanwhile I was...

Positing daily on LI.
Building partnerships.
Cranking our SEO engine.
Starting to take YouTube seriously.

Steadily getting clients.

Me and a team of trusted contractors.

Cold calling thankfully ended as year 2 started.

We ramped up inbound and demand efforts with LinkedIn ads.

Partnered with some niche industry founders to build their SEO/AEO in public.  

Now nearly all our sales calls mention a mix of:

LinkedIn.
SEO/AI search.
Seeing others share our results.
Watching our YouTube breakdowns.

Big focus this year is repeatable systems.

Going at least 5% above and beyond for every client, every week.

Striving to be at the top of our game for SaaS SEO/AEO.

Meeting more clients in person.

Still being the weirdest guy & memorable brand in our niche.

And helping team members hit their biz and personal goals.

Next rev milestone is $300k MRR (125k to go).

Cheers to all who’ve been involved so far. 

Onwards!

They followed the Breaking B2B newsletter for 3yrs before booking a call.

Prospects buy on their timeline, not ours.

We can only educate, entertain and keep top of mind for when timing is right :)

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