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- 5 Insights on demo placement from 13k demos
5 Insights on demo placement from 13k demos
100 CMOs surveyed, B2B event landing page, 3x Meta ads case study, 9148 blogs analysis & more...
Okerosi Davis
March 02, 2025 • Letter: 13 minutes
To Marketers,
Okerosi here with Product Weekly.
In this newsletter, I share proven insights I have gathered this week across; product marketing, B2B ad creatives & SaaS growth playbooks from the top 5% minds in the space.
In this week’s roundup:
- Where to place demos
- 100 CMOs surveyed
- Social media traffic
Weekly Letter
Analysis from 13,000 demo sessions on placement
I came across a LinkedIn post from Madhav Bhandari, the current Head of Marketing at Storylane, on demo placement. Earlier on, I had seen and even written about Navattic’s awareness on their report, now published on ‘ State of the Interactive Demo 2025 ‘.
The above visual is indicative that the best fold to place your demo is ‘Above fold ‘ both on desktop and mobile devices.
The first page fold has 36% click-through rate (CTR), 22% for the second fold, and it drastically drops to 5% on the third fold.
The data is crystal clear: demos placed above the fold crush it with engagement, while anything below the second fold might as well be invisible (we're talking sub-10% click-through rates).
Demo placement analysis from 13k sessions
As per Madhav’s post, there are three core locations where a demo will give the most outcome in any website. Here is the excerpt from both the article on Storylane and Madhav’s post.
1. Homepage: Keep it quick (8-12 steps max) and focus on the "wow" factor. Think of it as your elevator pitch - you want prospects thinking "tell me more," not checking their watch.
2. Product Pages: This is where you can get into the meat of specific features. But here's the trick - don't try to show everything. Pick your strongest features and nail those demos. I've seen too many product demos that try to be encyclopedias.
3. Product Tour Pages: Perfect for tech-heavy products where you need to show multiple features. Just don't dump everything on one page - break it up using something like a gallery layout to keep it digestible.
Storylane alternative Navattic’s report indicates that the most popular page to place demo is the Demo Centers (where you organize and show multiple demos by use case, persona, or features on one page) at 46.6%.
Product tour page - 19.9%
Product/solution - 18.5%
Direct demo link - 8.9%
Homepage - 7.5%
My advice is to start with a killer homepage demo above the fold. That's your best shot at capturing attention right out of the gate. Then expand to product pages once you've got that dialed in.
Expert Webinar
9 Proven growth strategies from a 90 min webinar
Nathan Latka compiled a 90-minute webinar (watch on YouTube) on nine proven growth strategies in B2B SaaS. I have covered many of them in the previous issues; free tools, LinkedIn ads, Affiliate programs, email marketing, and many others.
The difference now is that Nathan shared a mix of old and new example case studies. For instance, $200m exit from Wingfy executing on the affiliate program.
The above visual is a reviews template from vFairs, CEO Muhammad Younas shared a similar example on how they obtained 1,000+ G2 reviews. Below is the presentation slide from the video event.
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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an analysis from 100 CTOs on how they do their vendor selection, and researching on review sites (20%) was among the top destinations they check and third in what they engage with first. This makes sense why you should invest in ranking top on review sites; G2, Capterra, and more.
Proven Framework
How CMOs buy software in 2025 (100 surveyed)
Peep Laja & team surveyed 100 CMOs to understand their vendor selections and the insights are something. For one, I consider myself a marketer, and having worked with some exec marketing leadership, the insights hit home for me as well. From Peep’s LinkedIn posts, here is a summary from him;
If I could sum up the 'How CMOs buy software in 2025' research study by Wynter, this quote would be it:
"No sales pitch beats a happy customer shouting your name in their group chat."
In the days where backchannel research rules, the way to control the narrative is to actually deliver.
How CMOs buy software
55% of CMOs prefer buying via demos more than any other purchase method as they see it as an overwhelmingly added value in the sales process.
The demo is a convenient way for getting stakeholders up to speed when they are comparing the final three in their shortlist.
The second category prefers rep-assisted purchase at 28%, followed by regular self-service at 18%. It’s essential to note the purchasing committee is at 5 on average and can go up to 12 depending on the company.
Engagement touchpoints for CMOs before purchase
100% of buyers visited the vendor's website.
84% of buyers did a demo with the vendor.
73% read reviews.
54% are following the vendor on social media, or at least checked it out during due diligence.
46% engaged with an interactive demo or used some interactive tool on the vendor's website.
33% remembered seeing vendor ads.
27% follow the founder or another executive on social media.
23% reported meeting someone from the company at a conference or a trade show.
11% reported subscribing to the vendor newsletter.
The big surprise?
Despite the AI and digital revolution, human touchpoints still matter. Over a third of buyers meet vendors at trade shows, and following executives on social remains a key trust signal.
When do CMOs get involved in the purchase process?
It’s evident, if you are selling an enterprise solution, the CMO gets involved directly in the procurement of the software. If the software is core for the marketing stack or a company’s strategic tech investment.
'Nobody gets fired for buying Salesforce'... but 38% of marketing leaders are buying from unknown vendors.
A key insight from the survey, as per this Peep’s LinkedIn post, is that to get in the 2025 CMO’s vendor shortlist, it’s essential to tick the following;
79% mentioned brand awareness is crucial to get on the shortlist, while 45% stated explicitly it’s a significant factor.
20% mentioned their existing risks to going with a new brand, hence giving incumbents an unfair advantage.
Brand awareness is a great, but still one foot in the door. Peep mentioned some underlying conditions worth mentioning;
• Must come through trusted peer referrals or communities (most important)
• Needs to pass security/compliance checks
• Often limited to smaller budget items first
• Required to offer easy trials/proof of concept
• Bring innovation where legacy players are weak
• Much better pricing than established players
Thought leader ads vs company video ads - $20k spent
Silvio Perez, Founder of AdConversion shared the results of a LinkedIn ads hypothesis he was testing; Are thought leader ads a better ad format for driving video consumption and engagement than standard video ads from a company page?
After running the experiment for 187 days and spending $20,061 with two setups;
• Control: Standard video ads (Brand Awareness objective)
• Test: Thought Leader video ads (Brand Awareness objective)
Here are the results:
• View rate was 49% higher with thought leader ads
• Cost per landing page click was 75% lower
• Engagement rate was 27% higher
• CPM was 42% lower
Thought Leader Ads outperformed standard company page ads across all major video engagement metrics. If you have the ability to run TL ads, do it. They consistently drive higher reach, lower costs, and better engagement.
3x Conversion rate with Meta Ads
Aishwarya Soni shared a case study on LinkedIn from a B2B project management software that cut their Cost Per Lead (CPL) by 45%.
Target audience: Mid-sized businesses to try free product demo
Job titles: CEOs, COOs, & Senior Project Managers
Audience targeting: used past demo sign-ups and customers to create lookalike audiences
Ad creative: created a carousel showcasing key features, including a testimonial in one of the carousel slides.
Call-to-action (CTA): ‘Book a demo’
Retargeting: Created a video showing customer success for those who visited the website but didn’t sign up.
Offer: added a time-sensitive offer; ‘ Sign up in the next 48 hours and get one month free’
The Results:-
3X higher conversion rate compared to previous campaigns.
Cost per lead (CPL) dropped by 45%.
$35,000 in pipeline revenue generated within three months.
Key Takeaways for B2B Marketers
✅ Precise targeting matters. Focus on decision-makers, exclude unqualified audiences.
✅ Carousel ads work well for SaaS. Showcasing multiple features increases engagement.
✅ Retargeting warm leads is essential. Use video, testimonials, and urgency to convert them.
B2B Creatives
Reddit ad creative (meme) breakdown
Letter Examples
Results from analyzing 9148 blogs to see what social sites drive referral traffic.
Lessons from hitting 1000 users
Yesterday we hit a big milestone. Amurex, our open-source AI assistant, just crossed 1000 users.
Amurex is built to be a personal executive assistant that handles meeting notes, emails, task management, and knowledge retrieval in one place.
How we got here:
Reddit and SEO drove organic traffic by targeting the right discussions and search queries.
Word of mouth helped early adopters spread the word, especially among productivity-focused communities. Word of mouth is still the most underrated form of Growth.
GitHub traction meant developers started contributing, improving the project rapidly.
Why people are using it:
Most AI workflow automation tools are locked behind expensive paywalls. Amurex is open-source, giving users full control with no restrictions and transparency of what we do with the data.
Biggest lesson:
ICP, wedges, mom tests, grandmom tests are overrated.
Ship fast, get feedback, and iterate. We launched quickly to validate demand, and the response confirmed we are onto something. Now we are doubling down on improvements.
How to design a B2B event landing page
That is all for this week.
Reply to this email; questions & feedback.
Let’s connect via LinkedIn - Okerosi