DataDog's CMO found that cutting marketing spend by 4% generated 20% more qualified leads, with sales reporting they're substantially higher quality. The counterintuitive result suggests efficiency beats volume in driving conversions.
Just under 4% less
More than 20% increase
Something that I've been pondering on is, has the operating mode that we've been in the past couple of years, has it actually been counterproductive to getting deals done, or at least getting deals done efficiently? If you take a look at the first half of DataDog this year versus last year, you can see that we actually did spend just under 4% less in terms of marketing spend, while at the same time we got more than 20% more marketing qualified leads for our sales team. And it's not just that the composition of the leads changed also, but our sales team has consistently said that the leads that they're getting now are much, much better than what they used to get in the past. So there is a way, there is a way forward to keep on getting more top of funnel that turns into more deals, even if you're spending less.
