Thought Leader Playbook for SaaS Growth
Brand-led campaigns don’t build trust - people do! James Lloyd, Head of Strategy and Performance at Atlas Digital shares the Thought Leaders Playbook powering high-performing B2B campaigns. Learn why founder and executive-led content outperforms brand ads, how to structure narratives that convert and the technical checklist to launch, optimise and scale with confidence. This session is followed by an exclusive 10 minute Q&A for KiwiSaaS members.
What you’ll learn:
Why thought leader campaigns win
How to design your playbook: picking the right voices, narrative pillars, formats and CTAs
Technical setup: campaign structure, whitelisting, tagging and retargeting.
Brand-led campaigns don’t build trust - people do! In this session James Lloyd, Head of Strategy and Performance at Atlas Digital breaks down how B2B SaaS companies can leverage LinkedIn thought leader ads to drive significantly better engagement and conversions than traditional brand advertising. With over five years of experience working with 75+ tech companies across New Zealand and Australia, James shares the exact framework Atlas Digital uses to help clients turn founder and executive voices into high-performing growth channels.
Key themes:
What are thought leader ads? These are personal LinkedIn posts from individual profiles that are promoted through a company's ad account. Unlike traditional company page ads, they're nearly indistinguishable from organic content. The only giveaway is a small "promoted by [Company]" tag beneath the poster's job title. This native feel is their superpower. As James explains, "80% of B2B buyers prefer to buy from people over brands," and thought leader ads deliver exactly that human connection at scale.
The performance difference is striking: thought leader ads generate 1.6-1.7x higher engagement rates, 3x lower cost per click, and 4x lower cost per acquisition compared to traditional single-image ads. Across Atlas Digital's client portfolio, they're seeing 15-25% engagement rates with CPCs between $1-$3 NZD—remarkably efficient for LinkedIn advertising.
The Three-Layer Funnel Strategy: James introduces a structured approach that moves prospects from cold awareness to conversion through three distinct layers:
Cold Layer (70% of budget): Target cold prospects with content focused on market commentary, trends, and tactical frameworks. The goal isn't to sell, but to provide genuine value, build trust, and create remarketing audiences. "It's just sort of high level touchpoints, building trust and familiarity with the person, but also the brand," says James.
Remarketing Layer (20% of budget): Re-engage those who've interacted with cold content or visited your website. Here's where you can introduce your product, share how it addresses industry challenges, amplify customer success stories, and offer behind-the-scenes glimpses. The content becomes more product-centric while maintaining the authentic, personal voice.
Conversion Layer (5-10% of budget): Use LinkedIn conversation ads (in-mail messages) to follow up with those who engaged with remarketing content. These direct messages come from the same person whose content they engaged with, creating a personalised continuation of the relationship.Real-World Success: James highlights Australian sales proposal software company Quilla as a standout example. Their co-founder and CEO, Mark Tanner, was already active on LinkedIn, making implementation seamless. His best-performing organic posts were used in paid campaigns, supplementing them with content from other team members like their head of growth. One particularly effective post announced a product release, but opened with storytelling that drew readers in before introducing the feature. This combination of narrative and product information drove strong engagement from an already-warmed audience. The follow-up conversation ad was direct but appropriate given the context: "Hey, I'm Mark, I'm one of the founders of Quilla. I saw your team has been checking our product out... No pressure, but here's the link."
Thought leader ads have a shorter shelf life than traditional ads. "Once you've read through a thought leader post, you probably don't need to keep reading it and seeing it all the time," James explains. For this reason, pause underperformers quickly and continuously refresh with new content.
Key takeaways:
Start with organic signals: If content performs well organically on LinkedIn, it's a strong indicator it will perform when promoted. Use organic posting as your testing ground before investing ad spend.
Build a content creation process: Success requires a steady flow of posts that speak to different funnel stages. Work across teams (especially with product marketing) to capture product announcements, customer stories and industry insights that can be transformed into thought leader content.
Personalise the entire journey: The power of this approach lies in building a relationship with a specific person, not just a brand. Ensure conversation ad follow-ups come from the same person whose content someone engaged with earlier in the funnel.
Match budget to audience size: A minimum daily budget of $15 per campaign can work, but only if your audience is appropriately sized. Aim for meaningful penetration and frequency rather than spreading budget too thin across massive audiences.
Track everything religiously: Use UTM parameters and tracking links to measure performance in your CRM or analytics platform. This data proves the strategy works and helps identify which voices, topics, and formats drive the best results.
Watch the full discussion below to explore these insights in depth, including detailed campaign examples, technical setup walkthroughs, and James's responses to questions about budget allocation and content testing strategies.