Ads, Mails, Campaigns: The A-Z of Performance Marketing by Noel Capacho of 27zero

Noel, it's great to have you on EdTech Mentor! Let's begin with your role as Lead Performance Marketing at 27zero. But we both know that your work goes beyond what people typically associate with performance marketing. You oversee every detail of turning branding and marketing plans into reality for our clients.

To start, what’s the biggest challenge in coordinating multiple channels, campaigns, and the sheer volume of work required to make a brand successful—whether that’s through awareness or other key factors?

The biggest challenge is ensuring everything is aligned from the ground up. When a campaign is created and approved, the structure is in place. But once execution begins, adjustments are often needed—maybe we add something, remove something, or swap a format. Unexpected changes happen. Keeping that foundational alignment is crucial.

The hardest part? Consolidation. Managing numerous platforms simultaneously to keep a campaign structured and effective is no small task.

Got it. Let’s go deeper into campaign coordination. Before execution, one of the most critical aspects is audience targeting. What tools does LinkedIn Ads offer for defining and refining target audiences in the education sector? How precise can we get with targeting, especially for ads?

You can be very precise or very broad—it depends on how you set it up.

LinkedIn Ads allows you to create audiences based on various characteristics. One of the most used features is interest-based targeting. If you clearly define the interests of your target audience, you can narrow them down using attributes such as location, job titles, company affiliations, industry, demographic details like age, and general content consumption patterns within LinkedIn.

For even more precision, LinkedIn offers contact list uploads. This allows you to target individuals directly. There are two types of lists you can upload:

1. Contact Lists: These contain users' email addresses, names, last names, and company details. LinkedIn cross-references this information to create a custom audience based on matching profiles.
2. Company Lists: These contain company names, domains, locations, and industries. LinkedIn then finds matching companies in its database, forming a target audience based on employees within those companies.

The key difference? Company lists target all employees within a selected organization, while contact lists target specific individuals. The choice depends on the campaign objective—whether you want broad company-based targeting or a precise, individual-focused approach.

That’s great. In education, this works really well. Interest-based targeting is useful, but attributes like institutions, job roles, and geography are even more powerful. Plus, LinkedIn’s Audience Match tool is a game changer—it allows us to find either lookalike audiences or specific individuals within organizations.

In higher education, this segmentation works exceptionally well. Universities and institutions are clearly defined segments, and roles within them are fairly standardized, making LinkedIn an ideal platform for EdTech targeting.

Exactly. Another advantage of LinkedIn Ads is the flexibility to combine conditions. For example, you can target English-speaking professionals in the U.S. and Australia with specific job titles in a particular industry. This level of refinement helps ensure campaigns reach the right people.

That makes sense. Understanding the audience is the foundation of everything we do at 27zero.

Could you share a major lesson we’ve learned over the years about audience segmentation—without naming any specific clients?

One key takeaway is that audience structuring should be done in collaboration with the client. While we have great tools to refine segmentation, the client’s insights are invaluable in identifying the most relevant roles and attributes. Instead of assuming, it’s always better to align with the client’s needs and continuously refine our approach.

Right, and audience understanding evolves over time. It’s not a one-time setup—it requires ongoing refinement and adjustments based on performance.

Absolutely. Audience targeting also depends on the campaign’s goal, which may change over time.

Good point! Let’s talk about LinkedIn Ads campaign objectives. What are the different ad options available based on campaign goals?

LinkedIn Ads provides several campaign types:

1. Brand Awareness: Designed to maximize reach, ensuring your ads are seen by as many relevant people as possible. This builds brand recognition and keeps your company top of mind.
2. Engagement Campaigns: Focused on driving interactions with your organic content—likes, shares, saves, and comments. This helps boost engagement with company posts, LinkedIn newsletters, and other original content.
3. Website Traffic Campaigns: Aimed at directing users to a website or landing page, ensuring the audience is more likely to visit and engage with your content.
4. Follower Growth Campaigns: Uses display ads across LinkedIn to encourage people to follow your company page. These ads appear within the feed and on company profiles.

And between brand awareness and engagement, which do you prefer?

Both have value, but I lean towards engagement campaigns. They provide multiple benefits—not just increasing interactions with organic content but also growing followers, reaching target audiences, and driving traffic to company websites.

Brand awareness campaigns ensure the right people see your message, but engagement campaigns foster deeper interaction and long-term audience connection.

Exactly. Another important point is how organic and paid content complement each other on LinkedIn. As you mentioned, organic content reaches my network and contacts, and its visibility increases as more people react or share it. But paid ads enhance exposure by directly targeting the profiles we want to engage with. It’s an ideal combination.

Noel, can you share your experience working with the creative team? We've talked about the technical side, particularly on LinkedIn—our go-to platform for EdTech—but how do you collaborate with the creative team? How do you assess the effectiveness of a post or an ad?

Before creating any piece—whether a post, video, or other format—we set clear guidelines for the creative team. First, we consider the formats and dimensions allowed by each platform, as well as character limits and other constraints. Knowing these specifications from the start ensures the content will perform well.

Once we define the campaign’s objectives and target audience, we communicate this information to the creative team so everyone is aligned. For example, if we’re using LinkedIn, we specify design requirements like 1920 x 1080 pixels for images, character limits for copy (90 characters for headlines, 250 for descriptions), and other formatting details.

Over time, we've tested various formats and identified what works best. Right now, short-form video reels are outperforming other formats—by about 40% more compared to static posts or carousels. LinkedIn even updated its platform recently to better showcase videos, reinforcing its focus on this format.

So, for video ads, we recommend keeping them under 30 seconds and ensuring the first five seconds capture the audience’s attention. That’s the key to engagement, whether for organic content or paid ads.

That makes perfect sense. We've focused a lot on LinkedIn, but let’s expand the discussion to other advertising platforms.

One major difference I’d like to highlight is between LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads—two very different approaches. Could you explain the fundamental difference in strategy when an EdTech company decides to advertise on LinkedIn versus Google?

It all comes down to objectives.

LinkedIn is designed for professionals, making it ideal for networking and targeted B2B engagement. If you're trying to connect with specific decision-makers, LinkedIn gives you direct access.

Google, on the other hand, is much broader. It reaches people actively searching for relevant topics related to our industry. So while LinkedIn helps you find the right people, Google helps you be found when people are already looking.

Both require careful budgeting, but Google Ads demands extra caution because of its high volume and broader focus.

Exactly. Google Ads reaches everyone, while LinkedIn Ads only target a specific subset based on job roles and professional interests.

That’s why keyword selection is critical in Google Ads. Unlike LinkedIn, where we directly define our audience, Google relies on search intent. We need to carefully choose which keywords to target and how to structure them.

For instance, Google allows broad match keywords, meaning your ad appears for any search that loosely includes the term. This can be dangerous, as it might bring in completely irrelevant traffic.

That’s extremely risky in our industry—there are countless exceptions and nuances that make broad matches a bad idea.

Exactly. Instead, exact match targeting ensures that ads only appear when users search for the exact phrase we specify. This significantly improves lead quality.

However, the best keyword strategy depends on the campaign goal. In B2B, exact match usually performs better, while in B2C, a broader approach can be more effective.

Right, and one of the biggest lessons in EdTech advertising is understanding search intent.

Let’s take LMS as an example (without mentioning specific brands). Many people searching for “LMS” are students or faculty looking for their institution’s system login—not potential buyers. So if an EdTech company targets that keyword, they’ll waste their budget on traffic that has no buying intent.

That’s why it’s crucial to analyze user intent before bidding on keywords. A term might seem relevant, but if the audience isn't in buying mode, it won’t generate conversions.

Noel, what’s the biggest watch-out for EdTech companies investing in Google Ads?

The biggest tip? Be extremely careful with keyword categorization.

As we just discussed, a keyword might seem relevant, but who is searching for it and why makes all the difference. We don’t just want a relevant audience—we need an audience with the right intent.

Also, everything in Google Ads must be perfectly aligned—keywords, ad structure, objectives, and landing pages. Google assigns a quality score to ads, and the higher the score, the better the ranking and visibility. If keywords, ad copy, and landing page content align perfectly, ads perform significantly better.

Absolutely. Now, switching back to LinkedIn Ads, what’s the biggest watch-out there?

Be precise with audience segmentation.

LinkedIn allows you to expand your audience to reach lookalike profiles, but this isn't always a good idea. If you create a carefully targeted audience, LinkedIn will ask, “Would you like to expand this to a broader, similar audience?” This can be risky.

For brand awareness campaigns, expanding the audience may work. But for highly targeted lead generation campaigns, it can dilute the quality of leads.

Another key detail: Be mindful of AND/OR conditions when building audiences. If used incorrectly, these can unintentionally split your audience, affecting targeting accuracy.

Lastly, LinkedIn also allows ads to be shown on partner sites, not just LinkedIn itself. While this can increase reach, it can also reduce precision. So it’s important to carefully evaluate when and how to use this feature.

Both of those insights are really valuable. With LinkedIn Ads, you don’t want to go too small and make no impact, but you also don’t want to go so big that you’re wasting money. The same applies to Google Ads—too small, and it’s ineffective; too broad, and you’re burning cash.

These platforms, of course, are more than happy to provide ways for you to burn through your budget as quickly as possible. That’s where expertise and experience make all the difference.

LinkedIn also limits audience size—you can’t run ads if your audience is smaller than 400 people.

So there’s a minimum threshold to even launch a campaign. Similarly, in Google Ads, some keywords don’t have enough exact-match traffic, which creates a delicate balancing act that keeps evolving.

We’ve covered a lot about social media ads and pay-per-click campaigns like Google Ads. Now, let’s dive into one of your strongest specialties—marketing operations, specifically with HubSpot.

Why would you recommend HubSpot for marketing operations? What do you like most about it? And maybe, what’s something you don’t like?

HubSpot is incredibly comprehensive—it’s the Ferrari of Ferraris. It’s built to consolidate everything seamlessly.

It has modules for managing databases—contacts, companies, and deals—so you can track the entire customer journey in one place. But beyond that, it integrates directly with domains, websites, and ad platforms like LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads, pulling all performance analytics into a single dashboard.

HubSpot generates detailed reports, merging contact engagement, campaign performance, and website traffic. You can see if a prospect visited your site, what they viewed, how long they stayed, whether they opened your emails, where they spent the most time in an email, or if they clicked on an ad. It provides complete attribution tracking.

Another major strength is automation—HubSpot continuously adds AI-powered automation features, chatbot integrations, and workflow optimizations. The email marketing workflows, in particular, are incredibly powerful. You can build complex, conditional workflows for large-scale email campaigns with automated triggers for follow-ups.

Since we’re talking about email marketing, what’s the biggest watch-out in HubSpot? What’s something that absolutely needs to be done before launching an email campaign?

Contact lists—hands down.

Yes, email design is important, but before launching any campaign, your contact list must be optimized. HubSpot is extremely strict about domain reputation, and high bounce rates can get your email marketing permanently disabled on the platform.

To avoid this, always clean and verify your contact list before sending emails. There are tools to check bounce rates—use them. Remove invalid addresses before launching a campaign. This will improve deliverability and open rates and help maintain your domain’s reputation.

Right, and in our experience, there’s always that one sales leader who wants to upload 50,000 contacts all at once.

Exactly, and that’s another issue with HubSpot—it enforces email-sending limits based on your license.

For example, if you have 5,000 contacts but your license allows only 1,000 email sends per campaign, you’ll need to carefully select who gets the emails. You can’t just blast emails to the full list.

And I was referring specifically to third-party data. Some people think they can just upload a massive contact list and hit send—but that’s a huge mistake.

That’s exactly what causes high bounce rates—and once that happens, you’re in trouble.

And once HubSpot penalizes you, it’s nearly impossible to recover.

Correct. You’ll be flagged and forced to prove that every contact in your list opted in before you’re allowed to send emails again.

Now, let’s talk about HubSpot’s automation features. One of the most interesting is Drip Campaigns—sequences of automated emails that nurture leads over time. How does this benefit customer journeys?

It depends on the strategy, but one of the biggest advantages is automated follow-ups.

For example:

• If a recipient doesn’t open an email, we can automatically resend it with a different subject line.
• If they open but don’t click, we can send a new email with a different approach to encourage engagement.
• If they open and click, we can move them into a more sales-oriented sequence with targeted content based on their interest.

This allows us to personalize outreach and optimize for higher engagement and conversions.

Exactly! And I always get confused between email sequences and automated campaigns—but at the end of the day, HubSpot offers flexibility based on what you need.

Now, let’s talk about A/B testing. We use this a lot—how does it work in HubSpot, and what have we learned from it?

HubSpot’s A/B testing splits the email audience into two groups and sends different versions of the email to each.

It helps us determine:

• Which subject line generates more opens
• Which CTA drives more clicks
• Which email format or layout performs better

By combining insights from both test groups, we can refine our approach and create a stronger, higher-performing email for the final send.

And that’s often a debate within 27zero—one person might think a certain CTA or design is better, but real data always tells the truth.

Exactly! Data-driven decisions always win.

Alright—what’s hardest about using HubSpot? What don’t you like about it?

That’s a tough question! But if I had to pick something, workflow automation can be overly complex.

HubSpot’s automation system gives a ton of options, which is great—but it also means you need to be extremely detail-oriented when setting up workflows.

Every conditional trigger and action needs to be perfectly aligned, or the automation won’t function correctly.

That makes sense—it’s almost like programming. You’re building conditional logic and mapping out processes step by step within the tool.

But honestly, I think the hardest part isn’t the implementation itself—it’s knowing exactly what you want to automate.

Sometimes, we realize automation isn’t even necessary for a particular process. Just because a feature exists doesn’t mean it’s always the right solution.

Absolutely. That’s why CRM specialists should always be involved when setting up automations.

Because HubSpot is the foundation of everything. If it’s not structured correctly, the entire marketing operation falls apart.

You’ve mentioned this before, and it’s worth discussing: HubSpot’s licensing model isn’t always easy to understand. I genuinely think they could improve how they structure their pricing tiers.

For us, it sometimes becomes a challenge with clients—not a problem, but definitely a hurdle—when we have to explain, “Your limit is here because of X, Y, and Z.” It’s not always easy for them to grasp. HubSpot has made this more complicated in recent years, and it’s an area where they could definitely improve.

Now, Noel, let’s talk about one of your most critical tasks at 27zero—Marketing Compass. What is it? What’s its purpose? And why do we use it?

Marketing Compass is our guiding report—it tells us where to focus. It’s a performance analysis tool that consolidates all the data from our marketing strategy and helps us determine where to adjust and optimize for the next month or quarter.

It’s highly structured and segmented by channels—website analytics, ad campaigns (LinkedIn, Google Ads, YouTube, etc.), and HubSpot data (deals, email marketing performance, and more).

Every month, we gather and analyze campaign performance:

• How many people did we reach?
• What was the cost per click?
• How many searches did we generate?
• How did Google and website traffic perform?
• How many leads filled out forms?
• Which email campaigns worked best?

By compiling this data month over month, we can spot trends, replicate successful tactics, and refine weak areas.

For example, let’s say in August we increased ad spend, but our CPC also went up. That tells us our next challenge is to lower CPC. Or, if our email open rate is great, but the click-through rate is too low, our focus becomes increasing engagement.

Marketing Compass is a data-driven roadmap—the numbers give us the insights, but our analysis gives them meaning.

It’s also a fantastic tool for interacting with clients and discussing strategy effectiveness at both a high level and in granular detail.

At its core, I see it as a way to simplify complex analytics and present a clear, consolidated view so our clients’ marketing teams and decision-makers can stay informed and make strategic decisions.

Absolutely. And it’s designed for anyone in the company to understand.

While it’s packed with marketing insights, even someone who hasn’t attended strategy meetings can open the report, walk through our explanations, and immediately grasp the impact and results.

The structure is divided by channels and tactics, but there’s also another key division—Top of the Funnel (TOFU), Middle of the Funnel (MOFU), and Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU).

That framework helps prioritize next steps based on the company’s needs—whether they’re a startup, a scale-up, or an established business. The focus varies significantly depending on their stage.

Exactly. That TOFU-MOFU-BOFU structure is the foundation of Marketing Compass. From there, we break it down further by channels. It’s a very comprehensive and well-organized system.

Now, Noel, let’s shift gears. What’s been your favorite campaign or client to work with? The one that stands out the most? Feel free to mention names.

Uplanner.

It was an incredibly creative campaign. But more than that, our collaboration with the client was seamless. We had strong alignment in terms of communication, strategy, and execution.

Everything clicked—we understood their goals, industry, and audience inside out. That made our campaigns more targeted, efficient, and impactful.

We also got to experiment with new formats—we launched video podcasts, expanded our social media content strategy, and integrated it with email marketing and Google Ads.

I also have great memories of working with Uplanner, for multiple reasons. But what you said is key—the workflow between our teams was fantastic.

We weren’t their entire marketing team, but we handled key strategy and execution elements that made everything run more smoothly for both sides.

Exactly. We understood their sector deeply, which made it easy to identify the right audience and messaging.

And the best part? They pushed us to experiment. They challenged us to try new approaches and formats, many of which we now leverage across multiple campaigns.

Absolutely—we maximized that experience.

Now, let me ask: What’s the most exciting trend or tactic you’ve been exploring lately? Something innovative that’s caught your attention?

AI-powered data analytics.

I’ve been reading and testing different AI-driven tools, and it’s fascinating. AI can automate tedious data analysis, speeding up production and freeing up time for strategic decision-making.

That said, I’m still cautious about how accurate AI-generated insights are. They can be useful for identifying patterns, but human oversight is still essential.

Still, AI for marketing analytics and decision-making is one of the most promising trends I’m tracking right now.

And that’s such a big part of your work—so it makes total sense.

Noel, this was a fantastic interview. We covered so many relevant and interesting topics.

Agreed, Laureano. Thank you!

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