Maersk APAC: 28% Lead Growth in 2026 Logistics

Operating in the Asia Pacific region is a logistical nightmare, you’re dealing with everything from Singapore’s hyper-efficient ports to island nations with minimal infrastructure, all while trying to keep up with a dozen different customs regimes. For most businesses, getting true regional logistics control and complete shipment visibility feels impossible. We’re breaking down Maersk APAC’s “Connected Supply Chain” campaign to show how their digital strategy cut through these problems and actually drove new business for their integrated solutions.

Campaign Overview: Maersk APAC’s “Connected Supply Chain”

Launched in Q2 2025, the “Connected Supply Chain” campaign had one big job: prove Maersk was more than just a big blue ship. It needed to show the value of its full supply chain management suite, including its warehousing, customs clearance services, landside transportation options, and digital visibility platforms. We were targeting logistics managers, supply chain directors, and procurement heads in manufacturing, retail, and e-commerce, specifically focusing on key markets like Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, and India. The campaign ran for six months, from April to September 2025, on a $1.2 million budget.

Strategic Pillars and Objectives

Our strategy was built around educating prospects on the ‘how’, showing them the tech in action, and building trust. Just throwing a list of services at logistics directors in APAC wasn’t going to work. They needed to see exactly how an integrated solution would fix their specific, real-world headaches. The main objectives were:

1. Increase brand awareness for Maersk’s integrated logistics capabilities in APAC by 20%.
2. Generate 5,000 qualified leads for integrated logistics services.
3. Achieve a 10% conversion rate from qualified leads to initial consultations.
4. Improve website engagement metrics, specifically time on solution pages, by 15%.

The goals were tough, especially aiming for 5,000 qualified leads in a market where enterprise sales cycles can drag on for months. Our entire content and targeting plan was built from the ground up to hit those numbers.

Creative Approach: Storytelling Through Data and Case Studies

We ditched the typical corporate stock photos of ships and containers for real stories backed by hard data. We developed a series of short video testimonials with actual Maersk clients in APAC talking about how the service changed their business, like a Singapore-based electronics manufacturer who explained how real-time tracking cut their inventory holding costs by 15%. It’s credible because it’s real.

Our main lead-gen engine was gated, long-form content, including detailed whitepapers on practical topics like “Working through Customs Regulations in Southeast Asia” and “Using AI for Predictive Logistics in E-commerce.” For social media and display ads, we used infographics to quickly explain the flow of goods and data in a connected supply chain. They made a complex topic easy to grasp in a few seconds.

While the visuals stayed within Maersk’s brand guidelines, they had a faster, more digital-first feel. We used motion graphics in video ads to show data streams and cargo moving in sync, which visually explained the whole “connected” idea without having to spell it out.

Targeting Strategy: Precision Across a Diverse Region

Our targeting approach layered professional, company, and behavioral data to get incredibly specific. We used LinkedIn Campaign Manager to go straight for job titles like “Supply Chain Manager” and “Head of Operations” at companies with over 250 employees in manufacturing, retail, and e-commerce. We didn’t just target countries. We zeroed in on economic zones like Singapore’s Jurong Island, India’s Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, and Vietnam’s Binh Duong Province.

On the Google Ads side, we bought high-intent keywords for specific services, such as “integrated logistics solutions APAC” and “customs brokerage services Vietnam.” We also created custom intent audiences in the Google Display Network to hit people who had recently been searching for Maersk’s competitors or reading up on industry trends.

We dedicated a full 30% of the budget to retargeting because that’s where the real conversions happen. This meant going after people who had visited solution pages but left, downloaded one whitepaper but didn’t come back, or attended a Maersk webinar. The ads they saw were more direct, with CTAs like “Speak to an Expert” or “Get a Personalized Quote.”

What Worked: Personalization and Problem-Solving Content

The single biggest win was the personalization of the content. We created distinct ad sets and landing pages for our four main sub-regions (Southeast Asia, India, Australia/New Zealand, North Asia), with messaging that spoke to local problems. A campaign targeting Vietnamese manufacturers, for example, highlighted Maersk’s expertise in working through the Complete and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), while an Australian campaign focused on cold chain logistics for their agricultural exports.

That level of detail paid off immediately, delivering a 3.5% higher click-through rate (CTR) on the personalized ads. The conversion rate on those tailored landing pages also jumped 1.8 percentage points higher because we were addressing specific pain points. According to an eMarketer report on B2B personalization, this kind of tailored approach almost always beats broad campaigns.

The video testimonials also crushed it, getting an average view-through rate of 75% on LinkedIn for videos under 60 seconds. Showing real people solving real problems built a level of credibility that a product sheet never could.

What Didn’t Work as Expected: Initial Broad Targeting

In the first month, we went way too broad with our targeting, and it was a waste of money. We tried to build a big top-of-funnel audience by targeting vague segments like “logistics professionals” on LinkedIn without enough filters, which gave us a pathetic 0.8% CTR and a CPL that was 40% over our target. It was a clear lesson: for a technical B2B sale like this, spraying and praying just burns cash. We also learned that our super long-form content (over 2,000 words) wasn’t getting read all the way through, with completion rates falling off a cliff after about the 1,500-word mark.

Optimization Steps and Results

After that rough first month, we made some fast changes:

1. Refined Audience Segmentation: We narrowed our LinkedIn targeting to only hit decision-makers in our key industries and company sizes, and we aggressively expanded our negative keyword lists on Google to stop paying for irrelevant clicks.
2. A/B Testing CTAs: We ran constant tests on our calls-to-action and found that “Request a Demo” consistently beat “Learn More” for mid-funnel audiences, showing much stronger buying intent.
3. Content Pruning: We took the long-form content that was underperforming and chopped it up into shorter, more digestible blog posts and infographic series that people actually consumed.
4. Budget Reallocation: We pulled 20% of the budget from the broad awareness campaigns and funneled it directly into retargeting and bottom-of-funnel lead nurturing, where the conversion rates were much better.

Performance Metrics: A Closer Look

These optimizations made a huge difference over the rest of the campaign. Here’s how the numbers broke down:

The campaign pulled in 6,650 qualified leads in total, blowing past our goal of 5,000 by 33%. Our final CPL of $180 was a solid number for enterprise B2B lead gen in a tough market. We tracked leads through Maersk’s CRM to attribute closed deals, which gave us an estimated return on ad spend (ROAS) of 2.8x. That’s a strong return, especially when you factor in the long sales cycles for logistics contracts. A 2025 IAB B2B Digital Spend Report showed average ROAS in this space is between 2x and 5x, so we were right where we needed to be.

One interesting find was the quality of leads coming from the Microsoft Advertising’s LinkedIn Audience Network. While the volume wasn’t as high as direct LinkedIn campaigns, the prospects we got from that channel were noticeably more engaged during sales follow-up calls, proving it’s a good place to find high-intent contacts.

Learnings for Future Campaigns

So, what are the big takeaways from the “Connected Supply Chain” campaign? For any complex B2B service, precision targeting and personalized content aren’t just nice-to-haves. They’re the whole game. Generic messaging is just noise and a complete waste of budget. Second, the money is in the follow-up. Pouring resources into retargeting pays off, as our 15% conversion rate on those segments proved. You can’t just hope they’ll find their way back.

Finally, you have to live in the data and optimize constantly. We were always running A/B tests on things as small as CTA button text, and those tiny tweaks add up to big performance gains. The decision to shift 20% of the budget from broad awareness to targeted, lower-funnel activities after that first month was what really made the campaign a success. It’s proof that even a traditional giant in shipping can win with a sophisticated digital marketing playbook.

Selling logistics in a market as fragmented as Maersk’s APAC region demands more than just a good service list. It requires a marketing strategy that proves you understand the specific pains of each country and industry. The “Connected Supply Chain” campaign worked because it used precise targeting and personalized content to show, not just tell, how its integrated solutions could solve those problems, driving a huge volume of qualified leads and cementing its market leadership.