How ACA International Uses Audience Segmentation, Integrated Campaigns & Smarter Targeting to Drive Engagement

FEATURING: Conrad Magalis, Director of Marketing, ACA International

HOSTED BY: Alison Costello, President, Decibel Media

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION

For ACA International, better marketing starts with better structure.

In this episode of the Decibel Impact Series, ACA International’s Director of Marketing, Conrad, joins Decibel Media President Alison Costello to discuss how he is helping the organization shift from reactive marketing to a more proactive, integrated approach.

Using ACA International’s annual conference as a real-world example, Conrad shares how the team is defining audiences, coordinating channels and tailoring messages and offers to different segments. The conversation also explores what the data is showing, why paid search wasn’t delivering enough return for ACA’s niche B2B audience, how LinkedIn is performing differently, and the role automation and retargeting can play in moving prospects toward conversion.

READ THE CONVERSATION

Prefer to read? See the video transcript below.

02:28   From Reactive to Proactive Marketing

Conrad Magalis: We’re digital-first, and email is still our core channel. LinkedIn has also been growing rapidly.

When I joined ACA International, one of my priorities was creating more structure around our marketing: campaign plans, processes and objectives, so we could become less reactionary and more proactive about what we’re trying to accomplish.

05:15   Starting With Measurable Goals

Alison Costello: How are you measuring performance and structuring KPIs across your different priorities?

Conrad Magalis: For our annual conference, we have attendance goals, sponsorship revenue targets, room block goals and budgets for advertising.

We know what the objectives are from the beginning. From there, it becomes a matter of determining the right audiences, strategies, tactics and channels to reach those goals.

07:08   Segmenting the Audience

Conrad Magalis: We have several different sub-audiences within the campaign, and we build smaller integrated campaigns specifically for them.

We use email, social and promoted social content, direct mail and sales outreach. We’re coming at it from every angle, but everything rolls up into the larger conference goals.

10:39   Getting Ahead of the Goal

Conrad Magalis: In the past, a lot of registrations would come in during the final few weeks.

Now that we have campaign plans, a strategy and a timeline, we’re ahead of our attendance goals compared with previous years.

We have about six years of historical data to benchmark against, and we’re tracking toward our goal. That’s because we have a plan and we’re executing against it rather than being purely reactive.

13:01   Tailoring the Message & Offer

Conrad Magalis: We tailor the messaging to each audience.

For legal professionals, we can talk about continuing legal education credits. For the broader collections audience, the message may focus on hands-on training, networking and learning from peers.

For larger firms, the message changes again, bring your team, register early and save more.

15:50   Knowing When Paid Search Isn’t Working

Conrad Magalis: We used to work with an agency on pay-per-click and Google Ads, but ours is such a niche audience that we weren’t seeing enough ROI from conversions.

We had good engagement and good top-of-funnel metrics, but we weren’t getting enough new members to justify spending thousands of dollars a month.

So we pivoted.

18:05   Early Results From LinkedIn

Conrad Magalis: We shifted more toward LinkedIn advertising and used matched audiences from our database along with role- and interest-based targeting.

Within just a few hours of launching our early-bird campaign, the click-through rate was over 3%, which is fantastic for LinkedIn ads.

We were also already seeing people register.

20:36   Why Integration Matters

Conrad Magalis: It goes back to having an integrated campaign and knowing what we’re going to do and when we’re going to do it.

The timing, audience work and offer all have to work together.

21:20   Using Automation to Nudge Conversion

Alison Costello: What are you doing for people who have shown interest but haven’t converted?

Conrad Magalis: We’re using web tracking through our marketing automation platform.

If a known member visits the conference website but hasn’t registered, we can automatically follow up with messaging around the early-bird deadline. Registered attendees are excluded, so we’re targeting that communication specifically to people who still need that extra nudge.

23:12   Targeted Outreach to High-Value Audiences

Conrad Magalis: We’re also using highly targeted outreach for specific groups.

For example, we identified leaders at our top firms and sent communications specifically inviting them to bring their teams.

It’s about increasing engagement beyond one individual and using the right message for the audience we’re trying to reach.