Is LinkedIn an underrated or overrated marketing channel?

B2B marketers struggle with dark funnel attribution challenges. Chris Golec, CEO of Channel99 and former Demandbase founder, explains how 70% of website traffic gets misclassified as "direct" when it actually comes from identifiable marketing channels. The discussion covers view-through attribution methodologies that reveal 3x more visitor sources, account-based tracking using network IPs and user agents, and AI-powered decision engines that analyze marketing spend efficiency across channels like LinkedIn organic social and display advertising. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and joining me today is Chris Golec, the former founder of Demand Base and the current founder and CEO of Channel 99, a company that is solving marketing attribution challenges by revealing the source of three times the website visitors compared to your industry standards. And today, Chris is going to explain how to illuminate the dark funnel problem that is costing you millions in misattributed revenue. Underrated or overrated, is LinkedIn an underrated or overrated marketing channel?

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  It's underrated, but I would also caveat that it also depends on who is your customer. Because there might be certain industries that aren't active on LinkedIn and it may not make sense, but let the numbers speak for themselves.

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  All right, so let's pivot it down or click in and B2B marketing, LinkedIn. You're saying underrated. Why?

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  Because a lot of people don't consider all the engagement that's being driven from LinkedIn because it's all sitting in the direct bucket. Back to the very first question. And they don't realize that their number one channel for driving or influencing pipeline is organic social and they just don't know it.

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  I'm glad you said organic social because when you post on LinkedIn, you tend to get some organic reach. There's also the tools where you can do thought leadership ads and sponsored posts and all sorts of other fun tools to get your content there. Is LinkedIn primarily an organic growth channel? Or do you think that's what makes it effective? Or can you use the promotional tools to help get your content out there just as effectively?

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  Well, I think, yeah, I think it's a combination of both. Right? One of the things that we kind of discovered was, you know, a lot of CMOs and executives will do thought leadership content and they care a lot more about pipeline influence than they do about comments and thumbs ups and likes. That's usually what they're getting. And when you can show that, gosh, it really had a huge impact on pipeline last quarter. You can't tie it to the member level, but you can tie it at the account level.

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  All right. That wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Chris Golec, the CEO and founder of Channel 99 for joining us. If you'd like to contact Chris, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com, or you can visit his company's website at channel99.com. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iHearEverything.com.