--- title: "IRONSCALES Case Study | 2.3× Pipeline in 90 Days | VertoDigital" description: "How IRONSCALES rebuilt paid media on first-party data activation: 2.3× pipeline lift and 227% pipeline growth in 90 days, at the same cost per MQL." url: "https://vertodigital.com/case-studies/ironscales" image: "https://vertodigital.com/images/site/og-default.png" --- # 2.3× pipeline in 90 days. Rebuilt the campaign infrastructure on first-party data activation. The bid algorithm stopped optimizing for form-fills. Started optimizing for opportunities. 92% increase in MQLs for the same cost per MQL 2.3× increase in marketing-attributed pipeline 227% increase in marketing-sourced pipeline [Get Your Free Pipeline Assessment](https://vertodigital.com/assessment) [See similar work](https://vertodigital.com/industries/cybersecurity-marketing) The company ## About IRONSCALES. IRONSCALES is a self-learning email security platform that protects organizations from phishing, business email compromise, and account takeover at scale. The product sits inside the email security category - alongside Proofpoint, Mimecast, and Abnormal - and competes on AI-driven threat detection plus security awareness training built into the same platform. The buyer is the security buying committee: CISO, security architect, IT director. The sales motion is named-account driven, with significant inbound demand from buyers actively evaluating the email security category. At a glance Industry Cybersecurity · Email Security Engagement Inbound + Pipeline Intelligence Timeframe 90 days (initial pilot) The problem ## The problem. What the dashboards said Click-through rates healthy Lead volume trending up Spend-to-conversion ratio stable What the pipeline review said CRM conversion data didn't reconcile Bid algorithms training on form-fills Pipeline not moving proportionally IRONSCALES faced challenges growing their Marketing Qualified inbound leads and marketing-sourced pipeline. The campaign metrics looked healthy on paper. The pipeline review told a different story. The ad platforms were optimizing against form-fill data that didn't translate to opportunities. The team needed the bid algorithms to see deal outcomes - not lead-gen events. That meant rebuilding the data infrastructure underneath the paid program before any campaign work could move the pipeline number. The work ## What we built. Three components, deployed in 90 days. Each works on its own - but the system is what moved pipeline. Component 01 ### Server-side measurement foundation. Server-side GTM container deployed. Event taxonomy redesigned for B2B funnel logic, not e-commerce defaults. GA4 cleaned and rebuilt around real conversion events. Data piped to BigQuery for ownership and zero sampling. sGTM GA4 BigQuery Component 02 ### HubSpot offline conversion integration. Lead-to-CRM stitching verified end-to-end. HubSpot deal-stage events - MQL, SQL, Opportunity, Closed-Won - pushed to Google Ads via offline conversion uploads. Same event stream piped to LinkedIn Conversions API. Microsoft Advertising added for harvest-channel coverage. HubSpot Google Ads OC LinkedIn CAPI Component 03 ### Value-based bidding and audience refinement. Conversion values assigned per CRM stage. The bid algorithm started bidding harder on accounts that close, not contacts that convert. ICP audiences rebuilt against closed-won lookalikes - modeling what a real buyer looks like, not a high-volume form-filler. Value-based bidding Lookalike audiences The outcomes ## What changed in 90 days. 2.3× pipeline in 90 days. Marketing-attributed pipeline more than doubled in the first 90 days, driven by deeper-funnel signal feeding the bid algorithms. 92% more MQLs, same cost per MQL. MQL volume nearly doubled within 90 days while cost per MQL held flat. Same paid budget, twice the qualified pipeline input. 227% increase in marketing-sourced pipeline. Pipeline sourced from marketing tripled over the engagement window. The 1st-party data infrastructure made every campaign decision more accurate. ### What it meant for the team. The new campaign structure plus 1st-party data activation produced compounding pipeline growth - without raising paid media spend. Every new conversion fed back into the bid algorithm, sharpening targeting on accounts that actually close. The customer voice ## In their words. > “VertoDigital helped us achieve sizable MQL growth from paid channels in just 3 months. Their expertise in activating our first-party data infrastructure and attention to lead quality were invaluable in optimizing our paid investment.” Grant Ho CMO, IRONSCALES · Rating: 5/5 The services ## The services behind the work. The IRONSCALES program ran across the inbound stream, with the data layer built by the Pipeline Intelligence team. Data & Analytics ### Pipeline Intelligence Role on this engagement The data foundation. Server-side GTM, GA4 rebuild, BigQuery, and the HubSpot-to-ad-platforms offline conversion loop. [See the service](https://vertodigital.com/services/b2b-pipeline-intelligence-and-marketing-attribution) Inbound ### Paid Search Role on this engagement The harvest channel. Value-based bidding tied to deal-stage signals. The bid algorithm trained on opportunities, not lead-gen events. [See the service](https://vertodigital.com/services/inbound/b2b-and-saas-paid-search) Inbound ### LinkedIn Paid Social Role on this engagement The awareness layer. ICP audiences rebuilt against closed-won lookalikes. Bid algorithm trained via LinkedIn Conversions API. [See the service](https://vertodigital.com/services/inbound/b2b-and-saas-linkedin-advertising) Related work ## Related work. [See all case studies](https://vertodigital.com/case-studies) Safe Security Cybersecurity 900% increase in MQLs in Q1 Full-funnel paid restructure across Search and Social. 74% lower cost per MQL. 1,043% search impression share growth. [Read the case study](https://vertodigital.com/case-studies/safe-security) Cloudflare Cloud Security 60% increase in ROAS in 100 days Campaign restructure tied to lead-to-qualified-lead ratios with offline conversion tracking. 49% increase in qualified leads. [Read the case study](https://vertodigital.com/case-studies/cloudflare-self-serve) SnapLogic Data Infra 11× ROAS on opportunities Maximize Conversion Value with tROAS bidding. 11× ROAS on opportunities. 113% increase in opportunity volume. [Read the case study](https://vertodigital.com/case-studies/snaplogic-troas) Free · 5 business days · No commitment ## See whether your pipeline could move like this. The Pipeline Assessment is the same diagnostic we ran with IRONSCALES before the engagement. 5 business days. 30 minutes of your time. Yours to keep. [Get Your Free Pipeline Assessment](https://vertodigital.com/assessment)