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90 answers on how we work, what it costs and how each program runs.
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About PlanConversion
What does PlanConversion do?
PlanConversion is an enterprise demand generation agency. We run account-based marketing, Demandbase programs, B2B paid media, RevOps, conversion rate optimization, generative engine optimization (GEO), Claude implementation and website development as one program, reported on pipeline and ARR.
Who does PlanConversion work with?
Enterprise B2B companies in industrial technology, data and analytics software, and enterprise SaaS, with 6 to 12 month sales cycles and buying committees of 6 to 10 people. Clients include ABB Canada, KNIME and Nakisa.
Where is PlanConversion based?
Montreal, Quebec. We work with teams across Canada and the United States.
How much does PlanConversion cost?
Paid media retainers start at $2,550 per month. Demandbase programs run $25K to $60K per month. Integrated demand programs are scoped after a 30-minute call. All pricing is published on the pricing page.
How quickly will we see results?
The audit and experiment roadmap take the first 28 days. Campaigns launch in month two, and first opportunities typically appear within 60 to 90 days. Revenue follows your sales cycle.
Who actually does the work?
Senior specialists do the work, and founder Hojabr Sattari leads strategy on every engagement.
Pricing
Why month to month?
The work is managed weekly, and senior staffing, including founder Hojabr Sattari, stays the same from month 2 to month 24. You stay because the pipeline report justifies it, not because a contract says so. Prepaying 3 months saves 15% and prepaying 6 months saves 20%.
Do you offer a free ad account audit?
Yes. We review your Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft accounts against your CRM data and show where spend is leaking and what we would fix first. You keep the notes whether or not you hire us.
How does HubSpot or Salesforce attribution work in your model?
We connect UTMs, forms, offline conversions and campaign fields so every paid touch lands on the contact, account and opportunity in your CRM. Reporting shows meetings, opportunities and pipeline by channel and campaign, not just platform conversions.
What is included in the monthly ad spend band, and what is not?
The band is your total monthly media spend across the platforms we manage. The retainer covers strategy, management, testing, creative review and reporting. Media spend, platform licenses (for example Demandbase or 6sense) and net-new landing page builds beyond testing are not included.
What if we need ABM, CRO, marketing operations, website or GEO work?
Those programs are scoped separately or combined into an integrated demand engine with one team and one pipeline report. Tell us what needs to improve and we will send the right scope.
What landing page tooling do you build on?
Your existing stack where possible: HubSpot, Webflow, WordPress or a headless Next.js build, with VWO, Optimizely or GA4 experiments for testing. We avoid adding tools you have to maintain later.
Can we see examples of your work?
Yes. On the call we walk through relevant programs and reporting from similar enterprise engagements, under NDA where client details are confidential.
How fast do you launch?
The audit runs in the first two weeks and rebuilt campaigns typically launch within the first 30 days. Demandbase programs have controlled campaigns live by around week ten.
When do we see results?
Waste reduction and lead quality changes usually show in the first month. First opportunities typically appear within 60 to 90 days. Revenue follows your sales cycle, often 6 to 12 months for enterprise deals.
Who actually does the work?
Senior specialists, with founder Hojabr Sattari leading strategy and execution on every account. There is no hand-off to junior staff after the contract is signed.
When does in-house make sense?
When you already have senior paid media, marketing operations and analytics people with time to run weekly tests. Many clients use PlanConversion to build the system, then hand parts of it to an in-house team we help train.
Does ad spend run through you or direct to platforms?
Direct to platforms. You own the ad accounts and data, pay platforms on your own billing, and we never mark up media.
Account-based marketing
What ABM formats does PlanConversion run?
1:1 campaigns for named strategic deals, 1:few campaigns for clusters of accounts that share a pain point or trigger, controlled pilots for teams that want proof first, and a setup program for teams new to ABM.
How long until an ABM program shows results?
Campaigns launch in weeks 5 to 8. The first account-level read on meetings and opportunities comes in weeks 9 to 12. Revenue impact follows your sales cycle, typically 6 to 12 months for enterprise deals.
Do you need Demandbase or 6sense to run ABM?
No. We run ABM on LinkedIn, Google, programmatic and your CRM. If you own Demandbase or 6sense, we operate it as part of the program: PlanConversion is a Demandbase partner and has implemented 6sense for 5+ large enterprises.
How is ABM success measured?
By account: engaged buying-group members, meetings, opportunities created, pipeline value and closed revenue, reported from your CRM rather than ad platforms.
Demandbase programs
How is this different from Demandbase customer success?
Your Demandbase CSM supports the platform. PlanConversion operates the program: account strategy, campaigns, sales plays and pipeline reporting.
How fast does a Demandbase program get running?
You get a diagnostic in the first two weeks. Controlled campaigns are usually live by week ten.
Is there a long contract?
No. The pilot is three months. Later months depend on results.
How much does a Demandbase agency cost?
PlanConversion Demandbase programs are fixed monthly fees: $25K for a core pilot, $40K for a full program and $60K for enterprise scale. Media spend is separate.
Paid media
What should a B2B paid media report show?
Spend by segment and account tier, target accounts reached and engaged, landing page conversion by offer, and the meetings, opportunities and pipeline tied to paid traffic. Also what wasted budget.
Does ad spend run through PlanConversion?
No. You pay ad platforms directly and keep ownership of your accounts. Our fee is a flat retainer based on spend band.
Do you offer a free audit?
Yes. We review your ad accounts and CRM context to find wasted spend and the highest-priority fixes before you commit.
Is there a long-term contract?
No. Retainers are month to month, with 15% off for 3 months prepaid or 20% off for 6 months prepaid.
RevOps and marketing operations
Which CRMs do you work with?
HubSpot and Salesforce, plus GA4, GTM, LinkedIn, Google Ads, Demandbase and 6sense integrations.
How long does it take to get full-funnel attribution?
The 90-day plan fixes the data foundation in month one, builds the system in month two and runs reporting in month three. In one enterprise engagement attribution was live in 14 days.
Do you replace our marketing ops team?
No. We work alongside them, document every rule and hand off so your team can run it.
Conversion rate optimization
How long until the first test goes live?
Usually within three weeks of kickoff. A full cycle then runs four to five weeks, depending on traffic and the sample-size threshold.
Who runs the tests?
Senior operators design hypotheses, review variants and own the readout, with founder-led oversight. Design, copy, development, QA and analytics are all included.
Do you do website personalization?
Yes. We personalize headlines, proof, offers and CTAs by industry, account tier, buying role and traffic source, using campaign data, first-party data and Demandbase or 6sense signals, and test each experience against a control.
How much traffic do we need for CRO?
A few thousand visitors per month on paid landing pages or the demo flow. With less, we fix funnel structure first.
Will tests disrupt our paid campaigns?
No. Campaigns keep running against the same URLs while variants are measured.
What happens if a test loses?
The finding is documented and shapes the next hypothesis. Losing tests still tell you what buyers do not value.
What lift should we expect?
It depends on traffic, baseline conversion and offer. We size a realistic range for your funnel in the diagnostic, before any test runs, and measure every result against sales-accepted demos. Results depend on traffic, offer and sales follow-up.
Generative engine optimization
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
SEO competes for clicks in search results using keywords and links. GEO competes for mentions, citations and recommendations inside AI-generated answers, using clear facts, proof, structured pages and consistent third-party sources.
Which AI engines does GEO cover?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Claude.
How do you measure GEO results?
Share of answer for a fixed set of buyer questions, citation count and accuracy, competitor presence and how each engine describes you, tracked monthly.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. AI engines lean on pages that are already crawlable, fast and well structured. GEO builds on technical SEO and changes what the content says and how it is sourced.
Where should an enterprise start with GEO?
With a diagnostic: a fixed set of buyer questions run across engines, so you know where you appear, who wins instead and which pages and sources to fix first.
Claude implementation
What can Claude do for a B2B marketing team?
Draft consistent decks, campaign copy, landing pages and emails from approved facts, research competitors and accounts, and check output for claims, tone and brand compliance.
Does our data stay private?
Implementations use Claude business plans and connectors you control. We scope data access with your IT and legal teams before connecting anything.
AI adoption and process optimization
What is AI adoption for a marketing team?
Moving from scattered individual AI use to shared, governed workflows where AI handles defined steps (research, drafting, QA, reporting) inside the processes your team already runs, with clear review points.
Which processes should we automate first?
High-volume, rules-based steps with clear inputs: campaign briefs, account research, content QA, weekly reporting summaries and lead follow-up drafts. Start with two or three and measure before expanding.
How do you measure the return on AI adoption?
Against a baseline set before rollout: cycle time per process, hours returned per role, output volume, first-pass approval rate and adoption by team.
How is this different from Claude implementation?
Claude implementation sets up the knowledge, agents and skills. AI adoption and process optimization starts with how work flows across the team, redesigns the process, and then applies AI and automation where it changes speed and cost.
Website development
What platforms do you build on?
Next.js and headless CMS stacks, as well as your existing CMS when a rebuild is not justified.
Do you handle SEO and GEO in the build?
Yes. Every build ships with technical SEO, structured data, an XML sitemap and llms.txt, and pages written to answer buyer questions directly.
Audit, market research and competitive strategy
What is a marketing and competitor audit?
A structured review of your current marketing and the market around it: how you are found, how you convert, how buyers compare options and how competitors present themselves. The output is a ranked list of gaps and a plan, not a long report nobody uses.
Is this only for large companies?
No. Enterprise teams use it before budget cycles and launches. Business owners and startup founders use it as a starting point, to see where visibility is cheapest to win before spending on ads or hiring an agency.
What do you need from us?
Read-only access to analytics, search console and ad accounts where they exist, a list of known competitors and a conversation with someone who talks to customers. We ask for no access beyond what the work needs.
Why would the plan be hard for competitors to copy?
It comes from your own data, your buyers’ language and a specific read of the gaps competitors leave open, not from a generic template. Copying the tactics without the insight rarely works.
Can we run the plan ourselves?
Yes. The plan is written so your team or another partner can execute it. If you want help, we run the programs that fit, from paid media to ABM, as one team.
1:few ABM campaigns
How many accounts are in a 1:few segment?
Usually 10 to 50 accounts that share a problem worth a dedicated message. Smaller segments behave like 1:1, larger ones like 1:many.
When is 1:few better than 1:1?
When several accounts share the same buying problem and no single deal justifies dedicated assets on its own.
1:1 ABM campaigns
What deal size justifies 1:1 ABM?
Typically strategic enterprise deals where the contract value is many times the cost of the dedicated assets and media.
How does 1:1 ABM work with sales?
The account executive co-owns the plan. Marketing builds the assets and signals; sales runs the conversations, and both review the account weekly.
ABM pilot
How long does an ABM pilot run?
Long enough to see account movement for your sales cycle, usually one quarter. The timeline is set in the first step.
What happens after the pilot?
You get a readout with a clear recommendation: scale to a full program, adjust the segments or offer, or stop.
New to ABM
Do we need an ABM platform to start?
No. Most teams start with LinkedIn, their CRM and a clean account list. Platforms like Demandbase add value once the basics work.
What is the most common ABM mistake?
Starting with too many accounts and no agreement with sales. The system is the product: rules, tracking and follow-up come before spend.
6sense implementation
Has PlanConversion implemented 6sense before?
Yes. PlanConversion has implemented 6sense for at least five large enterprises, covering integrations, segments, intent, orchestrations, sales activation and reporting.
Do you work with both 6sense and Demandbase?
Yes. PlanConversion is a Demandbase partner and has implemented 6sense for 5+ large enterprises, so recommendations are based on your data, stack and team rather than one platform.
How long does a 6sense implementation take?
It depends on integrations and data quality. Plan for a structured rollout: integration and configuration first, then activation with sales, then optimization against pipeline.
Platform rebuild
Is a full rebuild always needed?
No. Scope depends on the initial diagnostic. Many accounts need targeted fixes rather than a full rebuild.
ABM strategy
What comes out of ABM strategy work?
Fit criteria, exclusions, account tiers, a sales-approved target list and messaging rules by tier, persona and stage.
Campaign execution
How are Demandbase campaigns optimized?
Against account movement: engagement, meetings, opportunities and pipeline by tier and segment, reviewed weekly with sales.
Sales alignment
How often should sales and marketing review accounts?
Weekly for active tiers, biweekly for the rest. The review covers priority accounts, response, pipeline movement, blockers and next plays.
Attribution and reporting
Can you prove Demandbase ROI before renewal?
If the CRM data supports it, yes: the executive readout shows spend, account movement, influenced pipeline and revenue for the renewal discussion.
Headless architecture
Is headless right for every B2B site?
No. It pays off when marketing publishes often, needs many page types or the current CMS slows the team down. Otherwise we improve the existing CMS.
A/B testing program
How long until the first test goes live?
Usually within three weeks of kickoff. A full cycle then runs four to five weeks, depending on traffic and the sample-size threshold.
Do we have enough traffic for A/B testing?
Yes, if paid landing pages and the demo flow get a few thousand visitors a month. With less, we test bolder changes or fix funnel structure first. Our free A/B test calculator shows the duration for your numbers.
Will testing disrupt our paid campaigns?
No. Campaigns keep running against the same URLs while variants are served and measured.
Who runs the tests?
Senior operators design hypotheses, review variants and own the readout, with founder-led oversight.
What happens when a test loses?
The finding is documented and shapes the next hypothesis. Losing tests still tell you what buyers do not value.
Website personalization
What is B2B website personalization?
Changing what a visitor sees, such as the headline, proof, offer or call to action, based on who they are: industry, company, buying role, funnel stage or traffic source.
What data do you use to personalize?
Campaign parameters such as UTMs, first-party data stored with consent, CRM data, and account identification from Demandbase or 6sense where available.
How do you know personalization works?
Every personalized experience runs against a holdout control, and we report conversion and pipeline by segment against that control.
Is personalization compliant with privacy laws?
Yes, when it is built on consent. We respect Quebec’s Law 25, CASL and GDPR choices and use account-level data rather than personal profiles where possible.
Industrial technology and manufacturing
How do you measure marketing when distributors close the sale?
We track demand through to the partner channel with source fields, partner-level reporting and offline conversions, so marketing gets credit for distributor-closed pipeline.
Does LinkedIn work for engineers?
Yes, when targeted by job function, skills and account lists, and paired with technical offers rather than generic brand messages.
Data and analytics software
How do you connect free users to enterprise pipeline?
By rolling product and community activity up to accounts in the CRM, then triggering ABM and sales plays when usage and fit cross agreed thresholds.
Enterprise SaaS
How do you show progress before revenue closes?
With leading indicators agreed upfront: engaged accounts, buying-committee coverage, meetings, opportunity creation and stage movement.
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)? A guide for enterprise B2B
How long does GEO take to show results?
Engines that browse the live web, such as Perplexity and ChatGPT search, can reflect page changes within weeks. Model knowledge changes more slowly, which is why third-party sources matter.
Should we block AI crawlers?
For marketing pages, usually not. If assistants cannot read your site, they rely on third parties to describe you.
What is llms.txt?
A plain-text summary of a site written for language models, listing key pages and facts. It is cheap to publish and helps assistants find the right pages.
How much does a Demandbase agency cost?
Is the Demandbase license included?
No. The license is contracted with Demandbase directly. Agency fees cover strategy, operation, campaigns and reporting.
Is there a long contract?
The pilot has a 3-month minimum. Later months depend on results.
How to run an ABM pilot that leadership can act on
How big should an ABM pilot budget be?
Large enough to reach the buying group in every pilot account several times over the quarter. Spreading a small budget across too many accounts is the most common reason pilots fail.
