Atlassian Proved CTV Ads Can Drive Both Brand and Pipeline

How do you breathe new life into a well-established product that's been pigeonholed by market perception? That was the big question facing Atlassian as they set out to reintroduce Confluence, a key part of their product suite. Even though Confluence had long been part of Atlassian’s lineup, many still saw it as just a tool for developers, not as the versatile, collaborative platform it truly is.

Atlassian knew they needed a creative, eye-catching campaign to reach new audiences and reshape perceptions. So, how did they do it? By embracing innovation and launching their first-ever Connected TV (CTV) campaign on LinkedIn—blending bold storytelling with smart targeting to truly make an impact.

The Challenge: Breaking Out of the Developer Box

Confluence is a cornerstone of the Atlassian product suite. However, its brand perception had become siloed. Many users viewed it solely as a developer-focused wiki, overlooking its broader capabilities as a collaborative hub for teams across the entire business.

Atlassian’s marketing team faced a twofold challenge:

1. Shift perception: They needed to reintroduce Confluence to new buyer groups, including project managers and marketers, showcasing its versatility beyond technical teams.
2. Demonstrate Full-Funnel Impact: The campaign had to do double duty and deliver on both top-of-funnel awareness and bottom-funnel engagement, ultimately driving product sign-ups.

These needs required a strategy that could capture the attention of diverse decision-makers and prove value through measurable performance gains. Since 71% of B2B buyers are now Millennials and Gen Z—a demographic that values authentic, creative messaging—they knew a fresh approach was essential.

The Strategy: Where Television Meets Professional Targeting

To achieve these ambitious goals, Atlassian and its agency partners, Noble People and DEPT, constructed a full-funnel campaign that integrated a new, powerful channel: LinkedIn’s CTV Ads. This marked a significant first for the company and was viewed as a strategic test to gauge the channel's effectiveness.

Read the full Atlassian CTV success story here: https://business.linkedin.com/en-us/marketing-solutions/case-studies/atlassian-ctv

Why CTV Ads on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn’s CTV Ads offered a unique combination of benefits perfectly suited to Atlassian’s needs:

• The reach of television: CTV provides the high-impact, narrative-driven format on par with traditional TV advertising.
• The precision of LinkedIn: It allows for targeting based on LinkedIn’s rich professional data, ensuring the message reaches specific job titles, industries, and functions.

This blend enabled Atlassian to deliver a high-concept brand video to a broad but relevant professional audience, while also deploying persona-specific creative to marketers, project managers, and developers through other LinkedIn ad formats like Sponsored Content.

A Framework for Measurement

A critical component of this strategy was measurement. Atlassian worked with LinkedIn Marketing Partner Kantar to conduct a brand lift study, which allowed the team to isolate the impact of the CTV portion of the campaign. This structured approach was essential for validating the investment and understanding how brand awareness activities influenced demand generation.

The Results: When Brand and Performance Actually Work Together

The campaign’s performance exceeded expectations, delivering impressive gains across the marketing funnel and validating Atlassian's strategy of an integrated brand and demand campaign. 

Key Performance Metrics:

• +17% Lift in Aided Brand Awareness: This result was significantly higher than the 2% industry norm, demonstrating the campaign's effectiveness at reintroducing the Confluence brand.
• +8% Lift in Top-of-Mind Awareness: The campaign successfully placed Confluence at the forefront of the audience's consideration set.
• 120% Increase in Lower-Funnel Engagement: When users were exposed to LinkedIn’s CTV Ads before seeing website conversion campaigns, their click-through rates soared. This metric provides a direct link between top-funnel brand exposure and bottom-funnel action.
• 57% Incremental Reach: Based on LinkedIn’s internal data, a majority of the audience reached via CTV Ads was incremental to the reach achieved in LinkedIn's core feed environment.

But here's the kicker—this wasn't just about vanity metrics. The campaign proved something many of us have suspected but struggled to demonstrate: brand investment directly drives performance.

As Josh Warner, Atlassian's Media Planner, put it: "These results are statistically significant... to see the increase across the board, and then to see that help our bottom-funnel metrics — we had a 120% increase in lower funnel engagement while running with CTV. That's reason enough to continue."

The Bigger Picture: LinkedIn as the Full-Funnel Solution

Atlassian’s successful foray into LinkedIn’s CTV Ads has done more than just boost a single product. It has established a new blueprint for full-funnel marketing within the organization.

The clear, measurable success of the Confluence campaign provides a powerful internal case study. Other product teams are now looking to these results as they plan their own launches. Tracy Kim, Senior Strategist at Atlassian, sees clear potential for replication: "We have a lot of other campaigns with similar audiences where I feel like LinkedIn’s CTV Ads can be a great channel for us.”

By taking a strategic, measured approach, Atlassian proved that brand and demand are not opposing forces. Instead, when integrated thoughtfully, they create a powerful engine for growth. This campaign demonstrates that investing in top-of-funnel awareness can deliver tangible, significant returns on bottom-funnel performance.