LinkedIn Ads success story · Legal practice software company

How a legal software company earned 186% more return on ad spend by letting its customers tell the story.

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Smokeball Australia filmed a customer testimonial, cut it into short clips and had the customers post them on their own LinkedIn profiles. Promoted as Thought Leader Ads, the same videos were watched to the end far more often, at half the cost per view.

Business: Smokeball Australia
Market: Sydney, Australia
Goal: A brand campaign that law firms remember

Three colleagues in business suits reviewing and signing documents at a meeting table

The results.

Compared with a standard video ad campaign that used the same videos, posted by the brand.

186%increase in return on ad spend
8.7Xvideo completion rate
-50%cost per view

Two campaigns using identical videos: one run as Thought Leader Ads from the customers’ profiles, one as regular video ads from the company page. Self-reported by the advertiser and published by LinkedIn; results for other businesses will differ.

The challenge.

Smokeball makes practice management software for law firms. In a crowded legal technology market, the Australian team needed more than leads: it needed lawyers to think of Smokeball first when the time came to change systems.

LinkedIn was already central to its marketing, and written testimonials had worked before. The question was how to make a brand campaign that law firm owners would actually stop for, watch and remember.

LinkedIn illustration of two professionals in conversation, representing credibility built with Thought Leader Ads

What they did.

Thought Leader Ads · Customer video testimonials · Matched Audiences

Filmed a real customer: Smokeball produced a three-minute video with a law firm that uses its software, then cut it into 30-second clips, each about a different way the software made the firm more productive.
Let the customer post it: The firm’s owners posted the clips on their own LinkedIn profiles, and Smokeball promoted those posts as Thought Leader Ads. Prospects saw a peer speaking, not a vendor.
Aimed at the right firms: Matched Audiences put the clips in front of the law firms Smokeball wanted to win, at scale.
Made every format: Horizontal and vertical versions and several cutdowns kept the campaign fresh, and the same footage became blogs, written case studies and sales materials.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Peers beat vendors: A lawyer explaining why their firm runs better is more believable than any company claim. The ads felt like advice from a colleague, which is why people watched to the end.
Same video, different messenger: The test kept the creative identical and changed only who posted it. That isolates the value of the trusted voice, and the gap was large.
Short and specific: Each 30-second clip made one point. Prospects could pick up the message in the feed without committing to a long video.
One shoot, many assets: Reusing the footage across ads, blogs and sales materials spread the production cost across the whole marketing plan.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our linkedin ads management.

Find your best voices: We identify the clients, partners and leaders whose word your buyers trust, and make it easy for them to share.
Film once, cut many: One well-planned interview becomes a set of short clips, each answering one buyer question, in every shape LinkedIn uses.
Promote what people post: We turn those posts into Thought Leader Ads aimed at the accounts and job titles you sell to.
Reuse it everywhere: The same stories feed your website, email and sales follow-up, and we can run the strongest clips in our Facebook and Instagram ads and on YouTube too.