Getting in front of the right audience
By allowing people to visually analyze and better understand their data, Tableau helps improve lives and businesses around the world. Organizations are advancing disease research, industrial efficiency, government spending, and more with the power of their data analysis software.

But to empower the world with data, Tableau needed to find ways to connect with people well positioned to leverage their data, and most social channels weren’t doing the job. “Even though other platforms could place our ads in front of large audiences, they couldn’t deliver the type of people who would actually care to see our message,” says James Carroll, Team Lead, Paid Social at Tableau. And when Tableau did get leads, they would often come from people interested in the content, not in their product. “They ended up just being noise for our sales team,” says Carroll.

Tableau knew they needed something that would put them in front of the right audience, and they found the perfect fit with LinkedIn Sponsored Content.

Targeting highly specific audiences
When Tableau initially started using LinkedIn Sponsored Content, they primarily targeted a large, general audience that included anyone who might use data in their daily workflow. This meant that very different roles – from interns to executives – were all bucketed into the same group.

But as Tableau became more aware of LinkedIn’s specific targeting capabilities, they began focusing on more specific segments. “An analyst uses data very differently from a business user,” says Carroll. “With targeting, we can deliver different campaign messaging and content based on how an audience interacts with data.”

As Tableau and their portfolio of products have grown, they’ve had to broaden their targeting to include director-level decision-makers – often across multiple departments – to influence the buying committee outside of IT. Luckily, LinkedIn’s B2B user base and multiple targeting options – including filters for industry, interests, title, and experience – make finding these new audiences easy. “There are just so many options for targeting,” says Carroll. “LinkedIn gives us the unique opportunity to target exactly who we want.”

Using LinkedIn, Tableau has moved beyond just targeting leads to really targeting businesses. Thanks to LinkedIn’s ability to target by company size, Tableau now can define their preferred mix of commercial and enterprise organizations. This gives the digital marketing team and Carroll the speed and flexibility to address the needs of Tableau’s sales organization.

Adding retargeting to the mix
Recently, Tableau began using LinkedIn’s new Matched Audiences targeting feature to retarget users who have visited Tableau.com. Initially, the team segmented users based on which pages they visited on the site. But they found greater success by retargeting all users who visit Tableau.com, and then layering on filters based on LinkedIn profile information – title, for instance. “The new approach has been a game changer,” says Carroll, “reducing our cost per lead by 30%.”

Driving top-quality leads
Tableau’s use of LinkedIn has grown year over year – thanks in large part to the high-quality leads the platform generates. Although they are already hitting a click-through rate of .68% in 2017 (200% above LinkedIn benchmarks), it’s really conversion that counts for Tableau. And with a conversion rate of more than 6% since 2016 – on average the highest in other advertising channels – it’s no wonder the Tableau team is thrilled. According to Tableau’s lead-scoring model, which grades leads on an A to D scale, more than 50% of the leads generated from LinkedIn are A-level. “The lead quality from Sponsored Content is higher than any other social platform we advertise on,” says Carroll.

As a company that thrives on data, Tableau knows a good trend when they see it. And with results like these, they’re predicting that LinkedIn will be a part of their marketing mix for years to come. “Priorities and budgets change. We partner with LinkedIn because they can change with us – and on a moment’s notice,” says Carroll. “No other platform provides that sort of flexibility while still guaranteeing quality.”