How we ran video ads that drove 41% more pipeline in six weeks

I've made a Super Bowl commercial before. Rice Krispies, if you're curious. So when I told Josh we should invest in video ads, I had a pretty solid idea what good looked like.

What I didn't know was that I'd end up approving a campaign featuring marketers jumping out of bushes, lurking in bathtubs, and popping out of suitcases. Hiding in a suitcase, as it turns out, is a surprisingly effective way to make a point about targeted ads.

We also got two cease and desists along the way. Which, honestly, just means people were watching.

In this episode of This Meeting Could've Been a Podcast, Josh and I get into the three video ads every startup needs, why I handed a UK agency full-ish creative control without getting on a plane, how a yellow arrow nearly got us in trouble with DocuSign, and what happened when we put it all on Disney+.

What you’ll learn 

• The three-video framework every B2B startup needs in their library — and why the order matters
• Why we commissioned four commercials from a UK agency without crossing the Atlantic
• How to push for bold creative when your leadership wants to play it safe
• What happens when your animated explainer video survives a full company pivot
• Why the campaign that never mentioned Vector performed better than everything else
• The surround sound strategy that got us on Disney+, Hulu, and Peacock — and what the numbers looked like six weeks in

TOP THREE TAKEAWAYS

Takeaway 1: Not every buyer is ready for the demo. Build the ad for where they are

I think a lot of companies expect a single video to do everything. That's a lot to ask from one video.

So, we built three instead.

Each one focused on a different stage in the buyer journey.

Video 1: The awareness video

This one isn't about you.

Think about the problem your buyer is living with. Then tell that story in a way that makes them feel like someone finally gets it.

If someone can’t recognize themselves in the story, they're gone before you make your point.

For us, that meant a demand gen marketer hiding in bushes and climbing out of suitcases to show an ad to the one person she knew was in her target audience.

We barely mentioned the product — the problem got most of the screen time.

Video 2: The animated explainer video

Don't animate your product. Animate the idea behind it.

Our explainer featured little ghosties floating around, their sheets coming off one by one to reveal the real people underneath. It was a visual way of telling Vector’s story without leaning into a product tour nobody asked for.

Then we pivoted.

Instead of rebuilding the video from scratch, we re-recorded the voiceover and matched it to the existing animation.

The story changed, but the ghosties stayed.

Side note: a yellow arrow appeared on screen for about two frames. DocuSign noticed.‍

Video 3: The UI walkthrough video

A UI walkthrough does not a demo make.

We had about 90 seconds to explain Vector. That meant being ruthless about what made the cut.

Working with Mira, our product design lead, we mapped out the journey someone takes through the product. Build an audience. Preview it. Know who's clicking. Everything else got left on the cutting room floor.

We made it all the way to animation before Josh decided there was one thing he'd like to change.

There’s always one thing.

Ours happened to be a section Josh had already approved.

By the time a video is finished, something has usually changed. That's not a problem —  it’s just another Tuesday at the office.

Takeaway 2: The most expensive problem in B2B is being forgotten

Remember that ad you skipped five seconds after seeing it?

Neither do I.

Once you start looking at it that way, a marketer hiding in a bathtub doesn't seem quite so unreasonable.

Anyone can get a blog post to rank for a minute. The harder question is whether someone sees what you made and immediately thinks, "I need to send this to Bob."

That's where humor does a lot of the heavy lifting. Not because people want jokes from their software vendors. But because good humor often starts with a truth people recognize.

People share things that make them feel understood.

So, if your leadership thinks bold creative is the risk, remind them: it’s a lot cheaper than being forgettable.

‍Takeaway 3: This is the 4% you got into marketing for

The campaign concepts. The weird ideas. The videos that somehow end with a cease and desist.

Josh asked how many marketers get to spend their days doing work like this. The honest answer? Not many.

It's probably about 4% of what we do.

The other 96% is budgets, approvals, reporting, meetings, revisions, and explaining for the fifth time why the ghost needs a detective hat.

But that 4% is a huge reason why you put up with the other 96%.

More importantly, it's becoming harder to avoid.

When every company can build software, the things around the software start to matter a lot more.

In our case, the numbers agreed. In the first six weeks, the campaign drove 34% net new traffic, a 22% increase in demo requests, and a 41% increase in pipeline month over month.

Catch the full episode (and subscribe to This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast) on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.