Apollo.io: From Visibility to Incremental Value

Challenge

In November 2025, Apollo.io entered a new phase of growth acceleration with a clear objective: increase sign-up volume while maintaining cost efficiency. Brand campaigns were already a key acquisition lever. However, in a highly competitive SaaS environment, managing them effectively became increasingly complex.

From a growth perspective, the goal was simple: capture as many leads as possible through brand search. But a critical question emerged: how much of that traffic was actually driven by paid media, and how much would have been captured organically anyway? Without clear visibility into this distinction, optimizing investments becomes significantly more challenging.

This is where Apollo.io partnered with Primelis.

When a brand runs paid brand campaigns on Google, an invisible dynamic comes into play: part of the paid traffic would have clicked on the organic result anyway. This is what’s known as non-incrementality.

“When someone searches for your brand, they already intend to find you. If organic results can capture that click, paying for it doesn’t create additional value. The goal is to only pay for what is truly incremental.”

Kemar Sergeant, Brand Specialist, Primelis

Without a unified view of SEO and paid search, it becomes impossible to distinguish what is driven by advertising versus organic brand demand. Apollo.io was investing without a clear understanding of the true value of each dollar spent.

Approach

With Primelis Signal, Apollo.io adopted a fundamentally different approach. Rather than focusing solely on short-term savings, the objective shifted to maximizing the value generated by every investment, whether by reducing costs or capturing additional incremental traffic.

Automated bid optimization every 30 minutes

Signal continuously analyzes Google’s search results pages to assess competitive pressure in real time.

• When competition is low, CPCs decrease to avoid overpaying
• When an opportunity to capture additional traffic is identified, bids increase until reaching the optimal blended CTR threshold: the point where demand is maximized without unnecessary overspending

This approach adapts dynamically to each market.

In the U.S., where competition is highest, the priority is to maintain visibility while driving efficiency. In the UK and Australia, the strategy initially involved increasing bids to identify the maximum achievable blended CTR, before optimizing costs.

Deeper campaign restructuring

At the same time, Apollo.io reworked its campaign structure.

In India, excluding non-brand terms from brand campaigns (and vice versa) significantly improved performance visibility and enabled more accurate incrementality measurement.

“Campaign structure shapes data quality, and better data leads to better decisions. Without it, optimization has clear limits.”

Kemar Sergeant, Brand Specialist, Primelis

Phased international rollout

The solution was rolled out progressively across markets: North America first, followed by India, the UK, and Australia, and eventually expanding to nine countries, including Spain, France, Mexico, Brazil, and Germany.

This phased approach allowed teams to adapt optimizations to each market while continuously incorporating learnings.

In some markets, CPC reductions reached as much as -70% (Mexico) and -64% (Brazil).

Outcome

Across the initial markets and at scale, the results validate the impact of an incremental approach. Blended CTR reached high levels across multiple regions (18% in North America and around 31% in India and the UK), indicating that the combined organic + paid strategy is now capturing the maximum share of existing demand.

These gains are directly reflected in performance: a -43% reduction in blended CPC in North America, along with CPC decreases of up to -70% in newer markets such as Mexico.

What makes these results particularly significant is that they are not driven by a simple trade-off between cost and volume.

Thanks to Signal, Apollo.io was able to increase conversion rates (+14%) while simultaneously reducing cost per conversion, two objectives that typically move in opposite directions in traditional search strategies, resulting in over $1M in cumulative savings.

*Based on internal Primelis client data and performance tracking.

What’s next

With brand campaigns now optimized across nine markets, Apollo.io is preparing for the next phase: reallocating savings from brand search into broader acquisition levers (non-brand, top-of-funnel, and new markets).

“Primelis Signal delivered real value by driving incremental brand traffic and conversions at the lowest possible cost. It’s a clear win for improving overall brand campaign ROI.”

Kemar Sergeant, Brand Specialist, Primelis

The partnership continues with a clear ambition: extend the incremental approach across additional acquisition channels and further support Apollo.io’s global growth.