Design Pickle drives $1.8M in revenue with SMB-focused LinkedIn campaign

Challenge

• Design Pickle is a graphic design company with an innovative model: they offer subscription-based plans where users pay a flat rate for access to professional design services. It’s a handy way for businesses of all sizes to outsource or supplement this need while still maintaining a high standard of quality.
• As a self-funded startup looking to grow its reach and customer base, Design Pickle wanted to increase conversions — especially with its key audience of small- and mid-sized business (SMB) owners — in cost-efficient ways. Driving subscriptions of the premium “Pro” level plan was a top priority.

Solution

• The ability to target audiences based on business size and job title on LinkedIn made it possible for Design Pickle to zero in on the SMB owner persona by filtering functions like CEO, founder, and owner, while placing its Pro offering front-and-center in ad creatives. The campaigns on LinkedIn focused on reaching these individuals via text ads as well as retargeting website visitors via Message Ads.
• One critical component of Design Pickle’s strategy was refining the measurement approach to gain more clarity around purchase influence. “We put conversions in place that were leading indicators of a sale, not just a conversion that was a direct sale,” explains Dave Ball, the company’s Director of Acquisition.

Results

•  In the second half of 2019, Design Pickle’s campaign on LinkedIn drove 463 new signups, including 64 for the Pro plan. This yielded about $1.8 million in estimated revenue, with a cost efficiency that was 19% lower than competing ad platforms.
• This success carried over into the next year. “Our target for Q1 was 150 new signups and we hit that in the first week of March,” Ball says.