LockThreat’s Blueprint for High-Intent Pipeline Creation Begins and Ends with AdRoll

In B2B sales, success isn’t about getting as many leads as possible. It’s about finding the right leads at the right time and managing the process well while staying compliant.

At LockThreat, compliance is everything to my team. We operate a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform that helps companies comply with hundreds of compliance frameworks, including GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, NIST, and more. With our built-in automation and AI-powered workflows, our clients don’t have to manage everything manually.

LockThreat has grown fast, and we’ve had to be hyper-efficient with our processes and budget. Sales cycles in this space can be anywhere from six to eight months, sometimes even longer. The best way to be efficient with our time and resources is to find folks who are already on a buyer’s journey, so it’s a smoother, faster walk to a closed deal.

The struggle of reaching an in-market ICP

When I became LockThreat’s CMO, most of our marketing spend went to Google Search campaigns and the Google Display Network. Even though Google is a big name, using these solutions felt like the wild, wild west. I had two main concerns:

• Anybody could search for our specific terms, which meant that we sometimes paid to reach an audience that was far outside our ICP.
• Many of the leads we received weren’t even in market. These leads were educating themselves at a very high level, which meant we spent budget on irrelevant audiences.

We tried a few other tools, like LinkedIn Display Ads. That one was a bit more dialed in, but it still didn’t solve the big problem: None of these advertising platforms had the ability to know ahead of time who would see our ads.

Because of this, we were missing opportunities to connect with the right people. This process had a ripple effect on pipeline creation and slowed our B2B sales cycle. It also risked LockThreat’s ability to hit revenue targets and secure further investment.

The situation wasn’t ideal, but it was familiar. I’ve built a reliable MarTech stack so I can quickly build credibility when stepping into a new leadership role, and I had an ace up my sleeve. I want digital marketing to contribute to more than half of the pipeline, and for that, I turned to AdRoll.

Putting points on the board with AdRoll ABM

I’ve brought AdRoll into several companies in the past, primarily because the AI-powered platform lets any marketing team become super surgical with targeted ads.

There are a number of features and benefits that stand out:

• Account-Based Marketing (ABM): The platform encourages sales and marketing teams to join forces and adopt an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) approach. Marketing gets ads to a warm audience, then sales uses Targeted Account Lists (TALs) to dial into those accounts through emails and calls, even strengthening ties with current accounts.
• Seamless integrations: AdRoll connects with Bombora to find in-market accounts that match our ICP. It also integrates directly with LockThreat’s website and CRM, so I can uncover any hidden journeys. Where our CRM might categorize a lead as direct traffic, AdRoll shows us the initial ad interaction that actually sparked the interest weeks before. There’s also a LinkedIn integration, allowing us to take high-intent accounts identified by AdRoll and retarget them on LinkedIn, delivering specific assets via InMail to the exact roles we need.
• Full-funnel visibility: We have a complete overview, from a lead’s first interaction with an ad to subsequent website visits, to becoming a closed-won deal. While AdRoll initiates this journey by identifying the right accounts, it also allows us to continue educating leads as they’re shopping around. I can filter leads by intent, display specific advertisements based on their stage in their journey, and set criteria for how and when I want the sales team to follow up.
• Built-in analytics and reporting: Using these details, we can learn exactly how a lead becomes a customer. When did they see their first AdRoll ad? How did they first engage? What pages did they view on our website? AdRoll gives us all this data, so teams can plan their next steps accordingly.

While these features are great, the main reason I keep coming back is AdRoll’s phenomenal customer success team. They support teams well after onboarding, training staff, optimizing campaigns, and pushing teams to improve performance and cost efficiency. They’re the best team I’ve ever worked with.

Finding what works and making it better

When I engaged with AdRoll, I was confident it would make a big difference for LockThreat, and I was right.

Today, the vast majority of LockThreat’s marketing-contributed pipeline comes from AdRoll ads. We don’t have to spend months on category education for a cold audience. Instead, we meet customers further along their journeys, which shortens our sales cycle.

With AdRoll, my team and I manage almost all of our ad creation, targeting, and reporting in one place. We’ve limited our exposure to cold audiences by leveraging the platform’s intent engine to find leads with signs of being in-market. Doing so gives us more bandwidth to double down on leads looking for solutions like ours.

Apart from using LockThreat’s resources and ad budget much more efficiently, I know that our sales team is getting the best at-bats. They’re making more connections with people who already know what GRC is, are actively looking for a solution, and are often already familiar with our brand.

AdRoll ensures our sales team isn’t just swinging at air—they’re hitting high-intent pitches that drive revenue. We’re getting the most out of our key digital marketing channels and have a much better chance at reaching the customers who need us most.

Ready to thrive in B2B digital marketing?

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