LinkedIn Ads Case Study: How ERS Turned LinkedIn Content Into Leads & Grew Lead Volume by 164%
An experienced social ads team can enable your campaigns to perform their best by prioritizing data-driven decision-making with your marketing efforts, leading to overall business growth.
Education Resource Strategies (ERS)
Education Resource Strategies (ERS) is a national nonprofit organization that partners with school system leaders to transform how they use people, time, technology, and money so every student can thrive. Through research, tools, case studies, and hands-on partnerships, ERS helps education leaders make more strategic decisions about resources and improve outcomes for students.
- 20+ years in business
- Partnered with 100+ districts and states
- 5,000,000+ students & teachers served
The Challenge: Expanding the Impact of High-Value Content Through Paid Social
ERS regularly publishes research, tools, case studies, and practical resources for district and state education leaders. With a steady stream of new content to promote, the organization needed a paid media partner to take ownership of LinkedIn advertising and consistently get those resources in front of the right audiences.
Initially, the goal was primarily content amplification. As the program matured, ERS saw an opportunity for LinkedIn to support more than visibility. The channel also needed to generate leads, grow first-party audiences, and support business development.
Audience & Format Testing
We continuously tested audience segments, messaging, campaign objectives, and ad formats to understand how education leaders engaged with ERS content.
Lead Generation
We expanded beyond traffic-focused campaigns and introduced LinkedIn lead generation and document ads to turn high-value resources into first-party leads.
Business Development
We connected paid social activity to ERS’s broader marketing ecosystem, using acquired leads and first-party lists to support email nurturing, audience development, and paid workshop initiatives.
Our Approach: Turning Content Promotion Into a Full-Funnel LinkedIn Strategy
We built an evolving LinkedIn strategy designed to support both thought leadership and business development.
Early campaigns focused on driving traffic to ERS research, tools, and educational resources. As performance data accumulated, we expanded conversion tracking, tested new ad formats and audiences, and shifted more investment toward lead generation.
Audience & Format Testing
We tested audiences ranging from broad education-sector targeting to specific district and state education leadership segments, along with formats including carousel ads, single-image campaigns, video, conversation ads, and LinkedIn document ads.
As the strategy evolved, we also introduced first-party list targeting using existing district leader information and leads generated through previous campaigns.
Building a Lead Generation Engine
Document ads became a key part of the strategy because they aligned naturally with ERS’ existing content. Instead of using research reports and guides solely as traffic drivers, we used them as lead-generation assets that allowed education leaders to preview valuable content and submit their information to access the full resource.
Across the reporting period, LinkedIn generated 317 leads, with approximately 96% coming from document-led campaigns.
ERS’ Strategic Budget Reductions content became a standout evergreen lead-generation asset, generating 164 leads and accounting for more than half of all LinkedIn leads generated during the period.
Connecting Thought Leadership to Business Development
ERS incorporated acquired leads into its internal email workflows, giving the organization an opportunity to continue engaging education leaders beyond the initial LinkedIn interaction.
This became especially valuable as ERS promoted its Virtual Budget Workshops. Audiences generated through content such as Strategic Budget Reductions could be nurtured toward a closely related paid offering, connecting thought leadership with a more direct business development objective.
The strategy has continued to evolve through first-party list targeting, combining existing district leader data with audiences generated through paid campaigns.
Results: LinkedIn Evolves Into a Scalable Lead Generation and Audience-Building Channel
Over nearly two years, ERS’ LinkedIn campaigns generated 926,092 impressions, 5,984 clicks, 317 leads, and 378 tracked conversion actions.
As ERS expanded its investment and the role of paid social, annual lead volume increased 164%, growing from 77 leads in the first full year to 203 in the following 12-month period.
The strongest performance came from document-led campaigns, which generated approximately 96% of all LinkedIn leads. This demonstrated that ERS’ thought-leadership content could do more than build awareness. It could also serve as a reliable source of first-party leads and support future business development efforts.
Key Outcomes Include:
- Generated 317 LinkedIn Leads:
- ERS generated 317 first-party leads through LinkedIn, creating an audience that could continue to be engaged beyond the initial paid interaction.
- Identified a High-Performing Lead Generation Format:
- Approximately 96% of all LinkedIn leads came from document-led campaigns, demonstrating the effectiveness of pairing ERS’ existing thought-leadership content with native LinkedIn lead generation.
- Increased Annual Lead Volume by 164%:
- Lead volume grew from 77 in the first full year to 203 in the following 12-month period as the program expanded.
- Turned One Resource Into an Evergreen Lead Driver:
- ERS’ Strategic Budget Reductions campaign generated 164 leads, representing more than half of all LinkedIn leads generated during the reporting period.
- Built a First-Party Audience for Future Marketing:
- Leads generated through LinkedIn supported email nurturing, audience targeting, and business development initiatives such as ERS’ Virtual Budget Workshops.
ERS’s success demonstrates how a thoughtful paid social strategy can extend the value of existing content beyond impressions and clicks. Through continuous testing, audience refinement, and lead-generation optimization, Pure Visibility helped ERS turn LinkedIn into a channel that supports both thought leadership and measurable business growth.
Contact Pure Visibility today to build a smarter digital marketing strategy that delivers results.
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