Your ad budget is hemorrhaging money right now (here's why)
Here's a familiar tragedy:
Marketing runs an ad campaign. They collect a pile of leads who downloaded a white paper. The leads get passed to sales. Sales "follows up."
And then... silence. No replies. No meetings. No deals.
Everyone blames the lead quality. But that's not the problem.
The problem is expecting someone who clicked an ad to immediately jump on a sales call. That's like asking someone to marry you because they smiled at you once in a coffee shop.
The painful gap between clicks and revenue
Let's be honest about what actually happened:
Your buyer clicked an ad. They filled out a form to get a PDF. That's it.
That doesn't mean they're ready to spend $50K. It means they wanted a downloadable resource.
But what does sales do with this lead? They have no choice but to go in cold:
"Hi, I see you downloaded our white paper. Want to book a meeting?"
Without proper context and follow-up strategy, even good leads fall flat. I've watched this happen at multiple companies, and it's painful every time.
Your buyer needs seven touches (not one ad and a cold call)
Research shows it takes seven or more touches to convert a lead.
That could be:
An ad on LinkedIn
A cold email
A blog post they read
A follow-up call
A nurture email
A webinar invitation
A retargeting ad with a specific CTA
None of this happens effectively when sales and marketing operate as separate departments with a handoff point.
Start with a shared targeting strategy
The process begins with sales and marketing developing a unified definition of:
Who your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) actually is
Which specific accounts you're targeting
What problems you solve for them
Sales brings real-world insights from customer conversations. Marketing brings platform knowledge and campaign expertise.
Together, they build matched audiences and run targeted campaigns—not to "everyone vaguely interested in software," but to specific people at specific companies that sales wants to reach.
Then marketing warms the accounts (not just collects form fills)
Over time, these accounts should start seeing:
LinkedIn ads with useful, relevant messaging
Invitations to topic-specific webinars
Promoted content that addresses their challenges
Email sequences with value-first approaches
We're talking actual value delivery:
"Here's how to solve this specific problem."
"Here's what our product can do for your situation."
"Here's what others in your industry are implementing."
Marketing's goal at this stage isn't to book a demo. It's to make sure that when sales reaches out, the buyer already knows who you are and why they should care.
Use data to identify the activity surge
This is where sophisticated CRM and ABM tools come into play.
When one of your target accounts starts showing higher engagement—visiting your site multiple times, clicking several ads, opening emails—that account gets flagged as "hot."
This is the critical handoff point. Not to toss leads over the wall, but to ramp up coordination.
Sales enters with context, not cold outreach
Once an account is properly warmed, sales begins personalized outreach:
Cold calls that aren't actually cold
LinkedIn messages that reference specific pain points
Emails that mention the exact content the prospect engaged with
At the same time, marketing increases ad frequency and relevance for that account. Retargeting gets more specific. Messaging shifts toward business outcomes. Webinars get tailored.
Now you're running a full-funnel, coordinated motion—not just disconnected tactics hoping for the best.
This is what performance marketing actually looks like
You shouldn't be crossing your fingers and hoping someone relevant clicks your ad.
You should be running ads connected to a sales motion where every interaction fits into a bigger strategy.
This only works when:
Sales and marketing agree on what a qualified lead looks like
Marketing knows exactly what signals to watch for
Both teams share the same data to prioritize next steps
Everyone understands their role in the conversion process
When that alignment happens, your ad budget creates opportunity, not just noise.
What we build at Edify
We don't just run ads or create content for clicks.
We build complete sales and marketing systems that actually work together:
Helping define your ICP and build target account lists
Creating content mapped to your funnel
Running campaigns that warm accounts before sales reaches out
Making sure both teams have visibility into what's working
If your ad budget isn't translating into closed deals, there's a coordination problem—not a lead quality problem.
Let's fix that: edifycontent.com/contact
