B2B paid ads that break the mold: TV spots, long-form video, and incentivized demos

Jul 29, 2026 · Exit Five
🎧 PodShort 32 min squeezed to 3 AI SprinklerAS Marketing Automation New
Episode artwork
Alexander Goodwin
Director of Demand Generation at Fingerprint
Hoomann
Senior Director of Marketing at Statutory
Jake Newby
Director of Growth Marketing at Lendio
Anthony Blatner
Managing Director at Spearwork Social
Dylan
Associate Director of Demand Gen at Pathview
Kenna
Performance Marketing at EasyLlama
Shlomo
Creative Director at Onboard.com
Exit Five
32 min squeezed to 3
Full episode from Exit Five
Quotable Moments

If anyone tells you can programmatically do television for the rest of your life, they're full of it. Don't listen to an online video company pretending to be a TV company. You can probably get started with some of them and probably see some return, but that's not going to scale. Relationships matter.

HoomannSenior Director of Marketing at Statutory
05:20

It doesn't really matter if you don't show up on the first search result in Google.

DylanAssociate Director of Demand Gen at Pathview
19:55

I'm leaving you. You found something better. It's Bob. Hi Bob. I knew it. What makes it better than me? It's beautiful, smart, popular. And unlike you, it's not wasting my time.

ShlomoCreative Director at Onboard.com
24:40
Key Insights
  • B2B ads on platforms like LinkedIn often become ineffective because they are too corporate and repetitive, leading to ad fatigue among target audiences who are exposed to similar messaging multiple times.
  • Television advertising can be a low-risk, high-impact channel for B2B companies, driving both top-of-funnel demand and direct response, especially when repurposing existing video content and leveraging digital targeting capabilities.
  • Long-form video content (e.g., 9-minute explainer videos) on platforms like LinkedIn can be highly effective for B2B, allowing for a comprehensive pitch and driving significant demo conversions, despite appearing 'ugly' by traditional ad metrics.
  • Out-of-home (OOH) campaigns, while traditionally hard to measure, can be effectively tracked using deep, data-driven insights and control/test markets, leading to measurable lifts in brand perception and engagement.
  • Incentivized demos are the fastest and most direct way to convert ad spend into pipeline for B2B companies, despite potential internal resistance, by offering a small 'sweetener' to prospects to get them on a call.
  • Google's AI Overviews are significantly impacting paid search performance, pushing traditional ads further down the page and requiring marketers to adapt by adjusting budgets and exploring new AI-driven ad platforms like ChatGPT ads.
  • Creative techniques like 'personification' (treating a product or concept as a human character) can make B2B ads for 'boring' tech products more engaging and memorable, leading to significantly lower costs per lead.
  • The future of marketing involves AI assistants directly connected to platforms like Nack, automating the creation of brand-compliant emails and landing pages from simple prompts, significantly streamlining the last mile of content creation.
Metrics Mentioned
  • 60% increase in activated sign-ups (Achieved within the first month by Fingerprint using their 'scroll-stopping' ad playbook.)
  • $20,000 ad spend (Generated 2 million impressions and nearly $200,000 in pipeline for Statutory's TV ad.)
  • 5 demos from $450 spend (Generated by Lendio's 10-minute long-form video ad targeting specific champion and economic buyer titles.)
  • 30 video completions (Achieved by Lendio's long-form video ad from high-value prospects.)
  • 60% lower cost per booked demo (Achieved by Lendio's long-form video ad compared to their account average.)
  • 244 million impressions (Achieved by SurveyMonkey's out-of-home campaign in Chicago and Boston.)
  • 7% increase in web traffic (Observed by SurveyMonkey during an OOH campaign over Easter, typically a seasonal dip.)
  • $100,000 ad spend (Generated almost $4 million in pipeline for an enterprise SaaS company using incentivized demo ads.)
  • 45x pipeline to spend ratio (Achieved by an HR company's competitor conquesting campaign using incentivized demos.)
  • 77% conversion rate from meetings to trials (Achieved by a new AI product launch using incentivized demos.)
  • 900% increase in ChatGPT ad experiment budget (Implemented by Dylan's team after just four weeks of positive results, shifting budget from Google Ads.)
  • 80% cheaper leads (Achieved by Shlomo's personification ad for a tech product compared to usual.)
  • 50% cheaper cost per thousand views (CPM) (Achieved by Shlomo's personification ad.)

RevBots.ai View:

  • AI Sprinkler teams will bolt on these experimental ad tactics without integrating them into core GTM systems.
  • The incentivized demo approach is pure ARM: replacing manual outreach with performance-based ad conversions.
  • Tab Hoppers lack the budget for TV tests; SaaS Hoarders will buy standalone video tools without connecting to CRM.
  • Personification ads work because they bypass the AI Sprinkler trap of generic, corporate messaging fatigue.
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