“Pursuit were asked by XMA, one of Microsoft’s key UK channel partners, to plan and execute a lead generation campaign relating to Windows 7 end of support which occurs in January 2020. I was impressed how the Pursuit team delivered an insight-driven ‘Cost of Doing Nothing’ digital campaign for XMA and Microsoft within the challenging timeframe they had to deliver this within. Their proactiveness and attention to detail helped to ensure that this campaign was as effective as possible – and this has ultimately led to a strong return on investment for the Microsoft and XMA partnership.”
— Mike Tew
Devices Marketing Manager
Microsoft UKI

Pursuit's ‘Cost of Doing Nothing’ digital campaign for XMA and Microsoft




In November 2018, Pursuit Marketing partnered with XMA/Microsoft to promote Windows 7 End of Support, which is happening on January 14th 2020.

The campaign, which ran from December 10th 2018 to January 31st 2019, was built around one simple mission: to build awareness amongst SMB audiences of the advantages of upgrading Windows 7 devices to more modern devices running on Windows 10 Pro operating systems.

The campaign goals included:
  • Build and increase awareness amongst key audiences
  • Drive traffic to the information hosted on the campaign landing page
  • Generate leads for XMA to follow up, in other words encouraging businesses to upgrade their Microsoft devices through XMA
  • Total budget: £74,000
XMA and Microsoft had actually received a campaign proposal from another digital agency they had previously worked with, but felt that, the proposal simply wasn’t good enough. With the Microsoft proposal deadline looming in the distance, Helen Workman from XMA reached out to our Head of Digital, Jamie McCoy. Helen had previously worked with Pursuit Marketing during our social media campaigns for theEduStore, another XMA brand, and now she was checking how quickly we could pull together a brilliant campaign proposal.

The Problem

Due to the late notice, Pursuit only had 4 hours until Microsoft’s final deadline. In other words, it truly felt like it was five minutes to midnight here at Pursuit HQ.

Thankfully, we have a lot of talented heads here in our little agency. With a 4-hour turnaround, we pulled together a solid 21 page proposal outlining strategy, channel focus, budget split, activity schedule and estimated results. Without hesitation, Microsoft signed off our proposal.

The Pursuit Solution

At Pursuit, we take pride in the wide variety of digital talent that exists within our agency, and we’re convinced that it’s the combination of these perspectives and talents that makes our digital campaigns so unique. XMA and Microsoft quickly saw the benefits of our campaign plan, which included the following approaches:

  • Multi-channel approach to achieve Microsoft’s key objectives: reach, traffic and leads

  • Mix of paid search, social, display and bespoke content

  • Large focus on data - our database is one of the biggest in the UK, so we obviously use this to our client’s advantage. Additionally, our experience in the technology industry combined with thorough analysis of UK data allowed us to identify and focus on the most effective targeting

  • Technology stack. We have some pretty solid technology tools, as well. One of these, Lead Forensics, can be used to quickly identify visitors.

The Results

Our approach was highly reactive throughout the campaign, meaning that budget was reviewed and re-allocated daily based on performance. This gave us agility, and allowed us to instantly shift our focus to where our leads were. For example, we quickly discovered that one channel, Twitter, was mostly generating spam traffic. Our Marketing Manager quickly paused all Twitter activity, and allocated the budget to better-performing channels, such as Google display.

So, what else did we do to ensure that our campaign execution was top-of-the-class?

  • Daily optimisation of the campaign and each individual channel

  • A/B testing and regular optimisation of ad copy/creative to drive more conversions

  • Full tracking in order to accurately report to XMA and Microsoft

  • Use of Tempo to plan all work and to ensure that everyone in the team was kept in the loop regarding deadlines, workflow and optimisation

  • Weekly status updates to Microsoft and XMA. A visual way of viewing performance and making quick decisions on optimisation.

  • Monthly POE (proof of execution) report. Including detailed reports from each channel, detailed reasoning for all optimisation strategies, provided screenshots of campaign build, and ads insitu.

We’ve already mentioned how talented our team is, so it was only natural to include them on this specific campaign. Our Microsoft team consisted of Head of Digital, Marketing Manager, data analysts, content producers, designers and our dedicated schedule coordinator. In the 6 weeks the campaign lasted, we generated these amazing results:

  • 5,162 qualified leads - at a cost per lead of £10

  • 48,994 clicks to landing page

  • 10.5M impressions

In other words, we clearly achieved the brief. We generated awareness, drove the right traffic to the landing page and generated and impressive pipeline for XMA. Additionally, 66% of the leads identified worked in SMB, which highlights that we were able to target the desired audience. Both XMA and Microsoft were highly impressed by our reactive approach to the campaign performance and by the results we generated.

In fact, Microsoft were so impressed that they decided to re-invest £50K into the campaign, starting in spring 2019.

About Pursuit Marketing

Pursuit Marketing was founded in 2008 as a lead generation company. Specialising in the technology and B2B marketspace, Pursuit had a goal to help businesses close more deals, more effectively, more often. Since its launch eleven years ago, Pursuit Marketing has ensured a trajectory of growth through expanding continually within and on the back of industry and marketspace developments.