Oqton

The client 

Originating in San Francisco in 2017, Oqton is a software company solving today’s manufacturing challenges by combining state-of-the-art AI, cloud, simulation, and the best in CADCAM technology for additive manufacturing, 3D scanning and dental lab production. 

Oqton has a global presence across EMEA, NOAM and APAC, with over 300 employees across these regions, and partnered with Hallam in 2022 to work towards ambitious growth targets. 

The challenge 

Oqton challenged Hallam to help them hit their targets through digital expansion for their three core verticals: Geomagic, Dental and Additive Manufacturing. Oqton came on board as a relatively unknown name after being acquired by a well-known brand (3D Systems). 

When Oqton came on board in 2022 they were only running limited Google Ads activity, targeting only the UK and US, and solely focusing on a single vertical in their business. 

In order to grow their three core verticals, Hallam’s integrated retainer required a huge increase in Paid Media, both in budgets and in the breadth of platforms, an integrated approach with SEO and Digital PR, plus Data & Insights and Technical support throughout.

Our understanding of their complex SaaS business, and the three different verticals, had to be thorough in order to make decisions effectively. Each part of the business had a different search strategy, different territories of focus and different language challenges which we had to stay on top of. 

For digital activity, our 2023 objectives were:

• Generate 1544% increase in leads tracked from digital activity YoY
• Increase Share of Search up from 2% of the overall competitor share
• Improve lead quality through a joined up approach with CRM system

What we did 

We held in-depth immersion sessions hosted in our London offices with the three vertical managers, who helped us to better understand all the nuances of their product and the behaviours and needs of their target market. 

This helped us form our keyword strategy as well as the content and copy we wanted to advertise with, which led to the development of industry specific landing pages and creative assets which we utilised across our paid media activity. 

Each target industry vertical had its own budgets and a strategy that focused on both brand building and activation across various ad platforms. Using other platforms meant we could leverage video, whitepapers, webinars and other forms of content to nurture users through to the point of requesting a demo for the software itself. 

We allocated roughly 50% of Oqton’s budget to Search activity to capture the high intent leads, with the other 50% in other platforms to nurture those leads through the funnel to the point of enquiry. In order to achieve the client’s goals, we knew they needed a multi-channel strategy with Search campaigns at the heart to capture the leads once users were at the point of enquiry, ready for a product demo.

To do this, we ran activity across:

• Google Search
• Microsoft Search
• Meta
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Programmatic Display
• Capterra

Using the insights gained through the target audience research, our creative team put together assets to better represent what Oqton offered:

Throughout 2023, we needed to pivot away from activity we just didn’t deem to be working or adding value for Oqton. For example, after a testing period, we could see that their target market was not within Meta as the product is too complex and specialist, so we pivoted that ad spend into Search. This proactive ‘test and learn’ approach was seen throughout several different challenges.

For example, internationally, we had the challenge of understanding the nuances to search behaviour in different regions and the impact of that on our strategy. For example, South Koreans don’t really use Bing as a Search Engine, so our Microsoft Search strategy had to pivot elsewhere for this region. 

On a global level, we always had the challenge of having to increase the awareness and lead volumes per vertical whilst also increasing the awareness of Oqton’s brand overall which is little known in the wider industry. There was no assigned budget from the client to do this, and so we had to allocate budget from each vertical to give the overall brand some budget in Search and Paid Social. 

We also addressed a streamlining strategy during one QBR as we believed the budget was being stretched too thin across verticals, platforms and territories and streamlining increased lead volume significantly.

The results 

After establishing a partnership with Hallam in 2022, Oqton’s business growth in 2023 was huge. Ultimately, we captured a 1092% increase in leads from digital which was an amazing effort considering we were starting with minimal foundations and lack of tracking at times.

Year on year, Oqton saw a 22% increase in leads generated for the business globally plus the quality of their leads grew significantly with a 28% increase in qualified leads and 33% increase in opportunities.

The efficiencies proven by our integrated approach can be seen directly in the Google Ads 2023 figures where we captured the lower funnel high intent leads:

• Spend up 244% YoY
• Conversion volume up 3180% YoY
• CPA down 89% YoY

Although we had to utilise the majority of Oqton’s retainer and budget for lower funnel vertical-focused activity, we saw small gains in their overall Share of Search too, rising from 2.07% to 2.23%. We know from putting the CRM properly in place with the help of our Data & Insights team that 80% of all of Oqton’s leads to the business in 2023 were from digital activity which is brilliant in justifying Oqton’s overall investment with Hallam for that period.

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