AxureHow we held Axure at 95 B2B SQLs/month across Google Ads and LinkedIn.

The challenge · Axure before Webotic

Axure is an American SaaS editor that has shipped UX/UI prototyping software since 2002, used by product, design and IT teams to build functional prototypes ahead of development. Across the previous decade the tool was progressively pressured by Figma on collaborative wireframing and by Sketch on UI design — both of which captured a meaningful share of the digital conversation around prototyping. The Axure acquisition account carried two structural warning signs. The first: paid CPA on Google Ads and LinkedIn had been drifting for 18 months. CPCs on the core money keywords ("prototyping tool", "wireframe software", "interactive prototype") had climbed an average of 35% under aggressive competitor bidding, and landing-to-trial conversion was stuck near 1.8%. The second signal was organic erosion: Axure ranked on the first page of Google US and EU for only 11 strategic prototyping keywords, against 60-plus for Figma. The brand still generated trial signups, but the cost-per-trial ratio had become untenable and organic was no longer compensating for paid. On the commercial side, the sales team was receiving unscored MQLs without enriched firmographic data, and the MQL-to-SQL conversion was capped at 14%. Most trial signups were students and freelancers — useful for volume, marginal on value. The brief from marketing leadership: rebuild a rig where every paid dollar surfaces a scorable enterprise lead, organic climbs back on the 35 core money keywords, and sales handoff filters non-fits upstream.

The approach · the multi-funnel architecture we chose

Webotic rejected two options the marketing director initially put on the table: (1) replicating Figma's massive content marketing play — too slow, too expensive, no payoff inside 12 months; (2) shifting 100% of the budget into LinkedIn Ads on a premium positioning — CPL too high for the target volume. The architecture we kept layers four channels with non-substitutable roles. High-intent Google Search covers 60% of the budget: Search Exact campaigns on the 80 transactional keywords ("axure alternative", "interactive prototype tool", "ux prototyping software enterprise"), tCPA bid strategies calibrated on real SQL cost — not trial cost. Landing pages were rebuilt by segment (individual designer, enterprise team, agency) with an enterprise-only form on the high-value segment. Google Ads Performance Max takes 10% to cover Google's in-market and intent signals. LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms takes 30%: targeting by function (Product Designer, UX Lead, Head of Design, Design System Manager), seniority (Manager, Director, VP) and company size (500+ employees). Native LinkedIn forms pre-fill the firmographic fields, which pushes form CPL to USD 18–32 on the enterprise target and lifts qualification rate to 38%. Tier-1 ABM covers 50 strategic accounts identified with sales: an outbound envelope (LinkedIn Sales Navigator + email + WhatsApp via the product team) paired with paid LinkedIn Matched Audiences and Meta Custom Audiences on the account list. On the international SEO side, we attacked the 35 core money keywords in EN, FR and DE with clean hreflang architecture, a Core Web Vitals audit (Axure went from LCP 3.8s to 1.9s), an information architecture rebuild, and a link-building campaign on flagship tech and UX publications.

The execution · D+0 to D+270

Months 1-2: full audit and baseline. Technical SEO audit (Ahrefs crawl, Screaming Frog, Core Web Vitals), Google Ads audit (account structure, search terms reports, ad quality, negatives), LinkedIn audit (audience size, frequency, formats in use), HubSpot audit (workflows, contact properties, scoring). Baseline tracking via GTM Server-Side hosted on Stape, event dedupe between browser pixel and server-side, Meta CAPI live, Google Ads Enhanced Conversions configured. Months 3-4: new Google Ads architecture launched with 12 Search Exact campaigns segmented by intent (competitor alternative, specific feature, enterprise segment), landing pages rebuilt by segment, A/B test on the enterprise form (5 fields vs 7 fields — 5 fields won at +28% conversion). LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms launched against 4 seniority audiences. Months 5-6: stabilisation. Paid CPA started dropping (−18% by end of month 5, −31% by end of month 6). Paid-sourced trial signups climbed to 320/month. BANT+ scoring in HubSpot filtered 65% of trials as non-fits for enterprise (students, freelancers, micro-teams) and concentrated sales effort on the remaining 35%. Months 7-9: cruising regime. The 35 SEO target keywords landed on page one of Google US and EU (12 in the top 3, 23 in the top 10), monthly organic traffic tripled, and organic started generating an autonomous trial volume. Sales handoff SLA dropped under 24 hours on hot SQLs (score > 80). Across the final quarter the account held a steady 95 B2B SQLs/month average, with weekly variance under 12%.

The results · 9-month numbers

Across the full engagement, Webotic delivered 855 B2B SQLs over 9 months (95/month average, with a linear ramp through months 1-4 then a stable regime in months 5-9 at 110-130 SQLs/month). Paid-sourced free-trial signups tripled, climbing from 110 to 330/month on average. Global paid CPA fell 45% versus the pre-Webotic baseline — a combined effect of better scoring (fewer non-fit leads purchased), higher landing quality (landing-to-trial conversion lifted from 1.8% to 3.1%), and tCPA bid optimisation calibrated on real SQL cost. On SEO, 35 strategic keywords landed on the first page of Google US and EU (12 in the top 3), organic traffic grew 520% on target prototyping queries, and organic delivered 38% of total trial volume in the final quarter. On the commercial side, MQL-to-SQL conversion climbed from 14% to 31% thanks to BANT+ scoring and automatic firmographic enrichment into HubSpot properties. Demo no-shows fell from 27% to 9%, driven by the sub-24-hour handoff and a multi-channel follow-up cadence (email + LinkedIn + personalised Meta retargeting). The SQL-to-closed-deal ratio is not publicly disclosable (NDA), but sits in the upper band of the enterprise B2B SaaS benchmark.

• 855 B2B SQLs over 9 months · 95/month average · 110-130/month in steady state.
• MQL→SQL rate: 14% → 31%, driven by BANT+ scoring and firmographic enrichment.
• Landing→trial conversion: 1.8% → 3.1% via per-persona landing segmentation.
• Demo no-show: 27% → 9%, on the back of sub-24h handoff and multi-channel cadence.