From 1 lead a month to 31

Digital Star became the full marketing department: fractional CMO, brand strategy, web development, HubSpot buildout, content, paid media, social, conference strategy, and sales enablement. We managed 10 channels simultaneously with a team of five contractors and delivered 12+ documented playbooks over 17 months.

The engagement produced a 275% increase in website conversions, 677% Google Ads ROAS, a 30x increase in lead velocity, 59 influenced pipeline opportunities, and the data infrastructure that supported a $20M Series A.

The starting point

When Digital Star began working with Functional Finance in April 2024, the company had a product that worked, customers who believed in it, and a CEO who could sell the vision in a room. The work ahead was a system to reach buyers who weren’t already in the room.

At that stage the website was a single page, and leads came in at about one a month. Brand, content, paid media, PR, social, conferences, sales materials, and the CRM setup were all still ahead.

Phase 1: Building the foundation

Before a single ad could run, campaign could launch, or lead could be captured, Functional Finance needed to know what it was saying, to whom, and why. Digital Star started with primary research and built every layer of the marketing stack from scratch.

Brand strategy & positioning

We conducted a full competitive audit against Functional Finance’s closest competitor, mapping site structure, content strategy, SEO performance, traffic sources, and keyword positioning. We documented where the competition was investing and where gaps existed that FF could own.

We mapped customer pain points by reviewing industry forums, Reddit discussions, and real conversations with MGAs, carriers, and wholesalers. That research identified nine core pain categories, from manual reconciliation bottlenecks to scaling challenges, each documented with real buyer language and solution-oriented messaging tied directly to FF’s capabilities.

From that research, we built the complete brand strategy: positioning, target audience definitions, competitive differentiation, messaging hierarchy, voice system, and brand guidelines. We wrote a copy library organized by theme (trust, efficiency, automation, compliance), giving the company one shared language for every channel.

And we made a bet. Rather than positioning FF as another tool in a crowded insurance automation space, we framed the company around a category it could own: Insurance FinOps. That category creation work (consistent language across every channel, every piece of content, every campaign) eventually led to FF holding the #1 Google AI Overview result for the term. Not a ranking. An AI-generated answer citing Functional Finance as the authority.

Website design & copy

Digital Star wrote every word of copy on the new website, planned the complete site architecture, consulted on visual design, and created the product screen visuals. The site was built to do three things: establish credibility in the first five seconds, speak directly to five distinct buyer personas (CFOs, operations managers, IT teams, channel partners, and insured parties), and convert visitors into qualified leads.

The information architecture included dedicated persona pages, product capability pages, a resource hub, and conversion paths optimized for each audience segment. Every page was written to address the specific objections and priorities of insurance buyers, not generic SaaS copy adapted to the vertical.

The 30-day proof point

Within 30 days of the website relaunch, before any paid media was deployed, the results made the case:

• 275%Conversion rate increase
• 340%Direct traffic increase
• $0Ad spend at time of measurement

This was the moment the narrative shifted inside the company. Lead volume, traffic sources, and conversion rates were now visible in real time, and the 30-day results gave leadership and investors early evidence that structured go-to-market execution was working. Every subsequent investment in paid media, content, and PR was made with the confidence that came from watching the numbers move before a dollar of ad spend was deployed.

CRM infrastructure & attribution

FF already had HubSpot, so we built out the full CRM infrastructure: custom lifecycle stages mapped to FF’s actual sales process, lead scoring models, deal stage definitions, automated workflows for lead routing and nurture, and complete attribution tracking integrated with Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and every social account.

The upgrade that mattered most was HubSpot’s Operations Hub, which connected advertising revenue data directly to the CRM. Before that upgrade, paid campaigns could only be optimized for form fills. After, every campaign could be measured by revenue impact. The Google Ads specialist could optimize for deals, not clicks. The LinkedIn campaigns could be evaluated by pipeline contribution, not impressions. This infrastructure decision is why we can report a 677% ROAS on Google Ads with confidence: the attribution system was built to produce that measurement.

New qualified leads triggered Slack notifications to the sales team within minutes of form submission. SQL definitions were standardized across marketing and sales. The time between form fill and first sales touch became a tracked metric with a target response time.

Phase 2: Scaling the engine

With brand, website, and CRM infrastructure in place, Digital Star launched the full multichannel engine. Every channel reinforced the others. PR coverage was promoted through paid LinkedIn. CEO thought leadership videos were boosted to targeted audiences, then retargeted against companies that engaged. Blog content driving organic traffic was repurposed as paid retargeting creative. Conference attendee lists were layered with seniority targeting. This wasn’t channel-by-channel execution. It was a single integrated system.

Google Ads

We ran high-intent search campaigns targeting insurance operations buyers, demand generation campaigns on YouTube and Display using the CEO’s video content, and retargeting campaigns with case studies and blog posts. The campaigns were structured to capture the limited search volume in insurance FinOps, a category so niche that broad-match waste would have destroyed the budget.

The Google Ads specialist working on the account called the results “outstanding,” noting they outperformed internal platform conversion benchmarks by 4x.

$24,951 in. $168,900 in attributed conversion value out. In a market where most vendors struggle to generate inbound interest at all. Conversion value reflects CRM-attributed revenue and weighted opportunity value tied directly to Google Ads through HubSpot’s Operations Hub integration.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn was architected as a multi-layered funnel, not a single campaign. The strategy ran six distinct campaign types simultaneously: lead generation targeting FinOps leaders at insurance carriers and MGAs, boosted CEO thought leadership content, free consultation offers for engaged prospects, retargeting against website visitors, conference attendee targeting with hook videos, and top-of-funnel thought leadership engagement.

The CEO content boost campaign quietly became the most efficient pipeline driver in the entire account. $2,552 in spend generated 105 conversions at $24.31 each with a 38% form completion rate, and appeared in the attribution path of 7 customers and 30 influenced opportunities. That’s thought leadership paying for itself many times over.

Conference targeting campaigns tested four video variations against MGA and conference attendee lists layered with seniority filters. The winning variant converted at $18.09 per conversion and $0.39 cost per view, outperforming every other LinkedIn campaign type by cost efficiency.

• $8,675Total LinkedIn spend
• 234Total conversions
• $37Cost per conversion (benchmark: $75–150+)

LinkedIn pipeline attribution (HubSpot)

Because the CRM attribution system was built to track the full journey, we can show exactly where LinkedIn’s $8,675 in spend showed up in the pipeline:

LinkedIn’s own account strategist confirmed these results surpassed internal platform benchmarks. Creative was working at 2–4x above LinkedIn’s internal response rates.

Content, PR & thought leadership

The content strategy wasn’t a blog calendar. It was the fuel for every other channel. Blog posts drove organic traffic and became retargeting creative. The CEO’s thought leadership pieces were promoted to curated LinkedIn audiences. PR placements across four insurance industry publications were amplified through paid campaigns, turning earned media into controlled distribution.

The organic LinkedIn program ran at nearly 3x the SaaS industry average click-through rate, without any paid amplification on organic posts. We used LinkedIn’s Thought Leader Ad format to promote the CEO’s highest-performing personal content to targeted audiences of insurance decision-makers, creating a credibility loop: organic engagement validated the content, paid distribution expanded its reach, and retargeting captured the interest.

The PR program earned coverage in four insurance industry publications, establishing FF as a named player in a category it was actively defining. That coverage was then promoted through paid channels, compounding its impact well beyond organic reach.

Conference campaigns

Insurance industry conferences were a primary acquisition channel. We didn’t just support events. We built a repeatable system. Before each conference, brand awareness campaigns warmed target attendee lists on LinkedIn. During the event, meeting-focused campaigns drove booth traffic and demo requests. After, retargeting campaigns captured the engagement window.

The system produced qualified opportunities at a fraction of cold outreach costs. The approach of warming audiences before running meeting-focused campaigns during the event became the standard playbook for every conference on FF’s calendar.

What doesn’t show up in the numbers

At peak complexity, Digital Star was managing the complete marketing budget across two ad platforms, overseeing five contractor relationships (video production, PR distribution, graphic design, LinkedIn strategy, business development outreach), owning ten distinct marketing channels simultaneously (Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, organic social, website/SEO, content/blog, email, PR, conferences, ABM/outbound, sales enablement), and leading weekly executive meetings with reporting to the CEO and board.

This was not advisory work. Every campaign was built, launched, and optimized by Digital Star. Every piece of copy was written. Every contractor deliverable was reviewed. Every HubSpot workflow was configured. Every ad was created, targeted, and measured. The role functioned as a fully embedded senior marketing executive with direct operational responsibility for every channel and every dollar.

Before and after

From a single-page website to a multichannel demand engine producing measurable results across every stage of the funnel.

Results

• 30xLead velocity increase
• 677%Google Ads ROAS
• $168,900Google Ads conversion value
• 234LinkedIn conversions from $8,675
• 59LinkedIn influenced opportunities
• $37LinkedIn cost/conversion
• 275%Website conversion increase (30 days)
• #1Google AI Overview for Insurance FinOps
• ~3xOrganic LinkedIn CTR vs SaaS average
• $20MSeries A raised during engagement
• 12+Playbooks delivered
• 17Months, start to full handover

Total combined paid media spend across both platforms: approximately $33,600. Every result above came from under $34K in ad spend, one senior marketer, and a coordinated contractor team.

Added value

Beyond the campaign results, the engagement fundamentally changed how Functional Finance operates as a marketing organization. Every channel, system, and process was built with documentation and handover in mind, so when the company hired its first full-time marketer, they inherited a running operation. The brand infrastructure, CRM architecture, and paid media playbooks Digital Star built will continue generating pipeline and shaping how the company goes to market long after the engagement ended.

The operation didn’t stop when the engagement ended. It transferred. That’s the difference between a vendor and a fractional executive.