Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:02.253)
Welcome to Simple Wins, the show where we talk to the architects behind the most successful B2B firms. We're currently in the middle of a massive project curating the 2026 B2B benchmark and we're looking for the high level strategies that actually work in today's market. And I knew I had to get Christian Downer on the mic to help us set that standard. Christian Downer is the founder of Dow Social and a B2B marketing strategist who helps B2B businesses
with niche audience use LinkedIn ads to generate consistent visibility, reputation, and revenue through practical, repeatable LinkedIn marketing systems. Christian, a big welcome to the show. So excited to have you here.
Kristian (00:46.274)
Hi, thanks for having me, Adam.
Adam O'Leary (00:48.535)
Absolutely. So I am so glad that you're here because as we build out this 2026 benchmark, we're finding that the most successful firms are making very specific choices about their structure. And I'd love to start there with you. When it comes to your business model, are you building a elite boutique where you stay small and go incredibly deep with just a few top tier clients? Or are you more of the scaling machine where you've built a system that delivers your high level results to as
many companies as possible.
Kristian (01:21.322)
That's a great question. It's one we've actually thought a lot about within the business and the traditional way we've built and grown has been that first option of that elite.
going deep with our clients to really understand them. We're actually in a phase now where we're with the product we have and the service we have, we're able to scale that out. So in the next 12 months, our goal is actually to make a transition from that first option to really pull out and work with more clients and bring the scalable LinkedIn ads model that we have to help them success and grow in 2026.
Adam O'Leary (01:56.802)
I love that and I think that is so important, especially going from that elite side of things and nailing down that systems to be able to scale. So I'm so excited to hear that you're doing that. And I guess, are you currently growing mostly through the authority where your content acts as a magnet that pulls your best clients to you or are you more of the strategic partner who knows exactly which doors to knock on to create a perfect match?
Kristian (02:20.856)
So we're again, I'm kind of giving you a hybrid answer. We're doing both is the approach. So the primary way we market ourselves is for leader style content and education really. Education content as we think the market we're in LinkedIn ads is one of the most misunderstood platforms exists in B2B marketing. So we're really running regular content webinars, publishing white papers and content out there to really educate our audience and make them understand that there's never been a
time to run LinkedIn ads and there is right now and I think LinkedIn ads are right now where meta ads were in 2012 and Google ads were you know back in the day when you could you they were a bit of a blue ocean you could scale them out and get there before your competitors didn't get great results and but we're also seeing that
with the traditional digital marketing agencies we work with. LinkedIn ads is actually a field that they don't necessarily have an in-house specialty or partner or someone that they can really lean on for expertise. So they might have someone that's conversant with using the technical backend of the platform or has maybe run a few before, but doesn't have that high level knowledge and that elite level expertise. So we're working with them to either close out those gaps internally for them, or we're partnering with them and we're working on
on large scale projects in detail for them. So we find both approaches are working great for us. And I think that we're going to continue to kind of really educate our audience, but also look to partner with people that understand the digital marketing landscape and where LinkedIn ads fit and just want that little bit of extra support delivering elite levels of quality and opportunity for their clients.
Adam O'Leary (04:08.279)
That's awesome. And I mean, that's, think the something that's very interesting that you're doing. And I like how you're almost like going ahead and installing a system into these larger companies. I think that's one of the coolest things because most companies totally have a misunderstanding when it comes to LinkedIn ads. So hearing you just go ahead and being able to help implement that system to help these companies go ahead and do it is definitely one of the reasons I wanted to have you on here. And as you scale, are you betting on more of elite talent, bringing in top tier minds to solve big problems?
or are you building a smart system using tack and automation to do the heavy lifting for you?
Kristian (04:43.598)
It's again, I feel I'm on repeat but we're hybrid again. It's I think that you have to bring in high quality people to to really fuel those those Automations and that tech so what we're finding is I've worked a lot and spoken a lot about AI within our industry and
The key bit where it falls down is if you don't have the right people with the keys to the engine, then it becomes generic and poor quite quickly. So we're building the high level expertise to kind of fuel the growth and the scale by using the technology and the tools to really kind of augment what we're doing rather than try and replace the value we're bringing to the table.
Adam O'Leary (05:32.012)
Love that that's awesome. And I guess a question that that kind of brings up to my mind then so if you were to have an extra 10 hours of executive focus this week and you had to pick one Would you put that time towards scaling your impacts bringing your experience to more top tier companies or perfecting the experience making the results for your current partners even more elite?
Kristian (05:55.566)
I think at the moment we'd be focused in on getting the message out to the new potential audience and really putting that time into creating more content, more experiences. In fact, I've just been playing around, vibe coding some tools just this afternoon where we can kind of use them to show people the possibility that running ads and working with us would deliver for them and helping them understand that journey. So yeah, if you gave me 10 much cherished hours on
to invest in the business, I would be putting them into those kind of education experience for potential clients.
Adam O'Leary (06:34.636)
That's a powerful choice. I mean, it really shows the level that you're playing at is the fact that you're at that point now where you've made your system so good that it's time just to bring in as many people as possible. this call, this show is called Simple Wins because the best experts usually have the simplest solution. What's your signature simple win? That one tweet you've seen work time and time again that as a listener that they could go ahead and execute this week.
Kristian (07:04.802)
So it would be that if you have a content team and you're creating high quality content and you're putting it onto LinkedIn organically, so you're not paying to distribute that content, build an audience of the companies of the top 10, 20 or 50 companies that you want to work with in the next three to six months. And...
use the Fort Leader ads to kind of, you like, the boosted content from your, either your company page or one of your, ideally one of your employees or your sales team's personal page and run.
a run an advert to that even if you're just spending 20 bucks a day on that that's gonna it's gonna give you targeted reach to your best content to the best people for you because where organically we might sit and go we've created this amazing bit of content we've invested time effort money to really hone our message and get it out there if it's not seen by the right people or we're gambling on the algorithm to show it to those people we're missing a simple win we're missing an opportunity to just push that out to the right people and
and then use the signals that they give us to move forward. And the beauty of this is that because we're already posting organically, you know what content works. Just take that content and kind of amplify it so it's reaching the right people, those people that...
almost to turn your question to you. It's like, if I could put your piece of content or that piece of organic content to one person and you knew they'd read it and absorb it, who would that be? We're gonna do that. And we're gonna make sure that you're unmissable and in your niche, you are that person that can't be missed and is being talked about and is absolutely nailing the messaging to the right people at the right time.
Adam O'Leary (08:54.952)
I love that. So what you're saying is basically you post a piece of content first, see which ones are performing the best, and then take the winning post and then run that as an ad, correct?
Kristian (09:04.258)
That's exactly right. So typically we encourage clients to think about split their presence into the different audiences and put those into kind of those content pillars and then assign individual budget for the best performing posts within each of those and each of those audiences. So that way they're hitting the right messages that's already resonating with their audience over and over over again. And what we love about LinkedIn ads is you've got the professional demographics.
analytics dashboard which will show you that you're if you're hitting those people or not.
Adam O'Leary (09:37.598)
love that and I love it when people call out fluff. So what would you say is the one golden rule in your industry that most people think is essential but you've proven is just a giant waste of time for a company?
Kristian (09:49.504)
I think that it's mainly that more impressions equals more revenue and that's not what we see with what we're doing. when you've got, sometimes we're looking at audiences of just a few thousand people and you're spending, and this misconception that spending high cost per click and high cost per million or CPM is bad. If it's the right people, we don't mind spending money to hit them or rather...
we're gonna find that needle with a haystack in the haystack and what we're doing is we're cheating and we're bringing a magnet.
Adam O'Leary (10:26.186)
That's awesome. That's genius, actually. So you're really saying to hone in on like thousand people basically and then just run ads only at those people. Is that what you're saying?
Kristian (10:36.618)
Essentially, smaller subs, yeah, small, only focusing on a small subset of people. So typically that audience, we want that to be less than 100,000. But yeah, 1000 might be too small, but we want it to be, depending on who you're trying to target, we want to make and how valuable they are not to be scared by the fact that
when you compare the cost per click, the CPM that you're going to get on LinkedIn ads to your Google ads or your Meta ads, because that's not a fair comparison because you're getting that laser targeting with LinkedIn. That means we know we're reaching the right people. So typically we say just for optimization, audiences of above 10,000 people give you a mean it's not too scary of a CPM, but ideally you want to keep it under in the UK we found 100,000 so that
we know that they're going to be the right people. Now there are always exceptions to those rules but that's a good sort of guide to get you started and change the way you're thinking about the way you approach your outreach and your impressions as well.
Adam O'Leary (11:46.055)
Absolutely, and if you could just imagine that you could snap your fingers and give your clients a massive competitive edge by December, what's that one transformation you'd love to see every single one of them achieve?
Kristian (11:58.132)
It would be to get them to train them or to link their marketing and their sales teams together, particularly when they're using their LinkedIn ads. So that thinking about the fact that marketing is still, despite the technological changes, human to human. And when we get engagement on LinkedIn, you get a like, a comment, even a profile view or a company page view. That person is no longer a cold.
lead. They're no longer, you're no longer, when you outreach to them, you're no longer feel like you're sending them a spammy message. They're now lukewarm. They now at least know who you are. So if you train your sales team how to understand those messages, how to find those, those people that have raised their hand and how to strategically speak to them, you're going to see consistent revenue over and over and over again. Because whereas if somebody likes your post on Meta, it might be seen as a little bit weird or a little bit incorrect to kind of message them and go, Hey, I saw you liked our Facebook
post in a DM, that's perfectly acceptable on LinkedIn and it allows you to build some rapport and some familiarity. if we can help everyone understand the hand raises that LinkedIn gives them and the opportunities it gives them and link sales to marketing and make them friends rather than opposing forces, then you're going to have a really successful 2026.
Adam O'Leary (13:19.879)
I love that. And where can people go to learn more about you? Because what you're saying here is fantastic. And seriously, everybody should be giving LinkedIn ads a try.
Kristian (13:29.548)
So the most obvious place is gonna be on LinkedIn under my name, Christian Downer. Find me, connect with me, send me a message. That's great. Or you can go to our website, downsocial.com, where we've got tons of resources. We've got a Fort Leader Ads Bootcamp coming up where we talk everyone through this kind of process in a simple kind of hour per week basis. And yeah, just stay in touch and find me on LinkedIn.
Adam O'Leary (13:59.035)
Amazing Christian, thank you so much for being on the show. Truly appreciate having you come out.
Kristian (14:03.116)
No, thanks for having us, Adam. It's been great.
Adam O'Leary (14:05.768)
Absolutely, you're the best and everyone listening, thank you so much for being here. Make sure to click on the link in the description and go give Christian a visit. Thank you so much and I will see you on the next episode. Ciao.
