How we generated $15M in pipeline and what I learned along the way

After Okta acquired Auth0, I joined the Global Campaigns team to lead integrated marketing efforts targeting Director+ roles in CTO and CISO organizations. Through these campaigns, we generated $15M in pipeline — and I learned some valuable lessons along the way.

In this post, I’ll break down what global integrated campaigns are, how they differ from the typical startup approach, the common challenges, and the organizing principles that make these campaigns successful.

What Are Global Integrated Campaigns?

In simple terms, global integrated campaigns are large-scale, multi-touch marketing efforts organized around a persona, theme, or both, and targeted at the most valuable geographies. These campaigns support regional marketing efforts and involve creating assets and offers for every stage of the buyer’s journey — from awareness to decision-making.

For startups, the idea of running global campaigns may seem out of reach. However, many of the challenges these campaigns address — such as ensuring consistent messaging and delivering the right content at the right time — are just as relevant to smaller companies. Integrated campaigns help you:

• Deliver the right content at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
• Maintain consistent messaging across touchpoints.
• Reuse content efficiently across regions and segments.
• Keep your brand top of mind for your prospects.

The Challenges of Running Integrated Campaigns

Integrated campaigns offer big benefits but come with some notable challenges:

• Complexity: The ideal integrated campaign plan often clashes with the reality of tight timelines and budgets.
• Decision Fatigue: Too many teams are involved, each with its own set of priorities, which can lead to conflicting goals.
• Over-Ambition: Campaigns often try to achieve too much at once, resulting in mediocrity across all objectives.

These challenges are real, but they can be managed. I’ll dive deeper into how to mitigate these in future sections, but for now, just remember that the key is designing campaigns that are simplified without being oversimplified.

The Organizing Principles of Global Campaigns

At Okta, we organized campaigns around our target persona first (e.g., CTOs, CISOs), with some vertical-specific focus depending on the situation. At another company, campaigns might be organized around use cases or pain points instead.

A well-executed global campaign brings the lofty ideas of product marketing down to earth by focusing on three critical factors: tangibility, topicality, and timeliness.

1. Tangibility

Campaigns must translate broad themes into actionable, specific marketing assets — your “bill of materials.” These assets include everything from whitepapers and webinars to product demos and case studies. At larger companies, product marketers often focus on internal documents that align sales and product teams. However, integrated campaigns require finalized external assets that speak directly to your target audience in language they understand.

2. Topicality

Your campaign needs to align with the current conversations happening within your industry. What are the hot topics in your audience’s professional circles? Is your message connected to trending challenges and technologies? To stay relevant, campaign marketers must bridge the gap between what’s being talked about today and how your product can solve those problems.

3. Timeliness

It’s not just about what you say, but when you say it. The right offer must be delivered at the right time in the buyer’s journey. To achieve this, you need to leverage audience segmentation and track the progression of prospects through the funnel, ensuring that every touchpoint adds value and moves them closer to a decision.

Setting Objectives and KPIs for Global Campaigns

Global integrated campaigns often focus on engaging prospects at each stage of the buyer’s journey:

1. Top of Funnel (TOFU): Awareness
2. Middle of Funnel (MOFU): Consideration
3. Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): Decision/Purchase

Your north star metric is typically pipeline generation, though this can come in many forms:

• Pipeline from net new customers.
• Pipeline expansion from existing customers.
• Channel partnership pipeline.

Different organizations may divide these responsibilities across specialized teams, such as Account-Based Marketing (ABM) or Customer Marketing. The common goal remains the same: to build a campaign engine that consistently delivers revenue results.

How Global Campaigns Support the Buyer’s Journey

A core responsibility of the global campaigns team is ensuring that prospects receive the right content at the right stage. To do this, your “bill of materials” needs to include assets like:

• TOFU: Blogs, social media posts, videos, and webinars that build awareness.
• MOFU: Whitepapers, ebooks, demos, and customer stories that drive consideration.
• BOFU: ROI calculators, in-depth case studies, and field events that help finalize the decision.

For example, content marketing at the top of the funnel (TOFU) is 80% focused on topics of general interest to your audience, while product marketing should be 80% focused on your product’s features and benefits.

Adapting Campaigns for Segments and Verticals

No campaign should be one-size-fits-all. When organizing around a persona, department, or use case, you’ll need to create specialized streams of content for different segments (e.g., SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise) and verticals (e.g., Financial Services, Healthcare, Public Sector).

However, this can quickly lead to high-dimensionality — the problem of having too many combinations of assets, personas, verticals, and funnel stages to manage efficiently. Solving for this challenge requires prioritization and focus.

Instead of trying to build campaigns that speak to all personas in all industries, focus on high-value clusters. For example:

• Campaign 1: Enterprise Segment, Financial Services, VP Engineering, Use Case A.
• Campaign 2: Mid-Market Segment, SaaS Startups, CTOs, Use Case B.
• Campaign 3: Public Sector, System Architects, Use Case C.

This approach allows you to concentrate on the areas where you’ll see the greatest return, while still maintaining flexibility to scale the campaign over time.

Key Takeaways

Designing and executing global integrated campaigns requires an understanding of the common challenges and pitfalls. The benefits of these campaigns — consistent messaging, the ability to support regional teams, and creating an outsized brand impression — are worth the effort.

By keeping your campaigns tangible, topical, and timely, and adapting them to high-value segments and verticals, you can create a marketing engine that drives real business outcomes. Whether you’re a startup or a larger enterprise, the principles of integrated campaigns can help you align marketing efforts with long-term growth.

That’s a summary of what I learned running global campaigns at Okta. Whether you’re a marketing leader at a growing startup or an established company, I hope these insights help guide your next campaign toward success.