By Editorial TeamGlobal logistics in Latin America is a constant battle against port congestion, unpredictable trade rules, and a dozen economies pulling in different directions. Maersk’s recent supply chain resilience campaign is worth a look because it cut through that noise with a sharp digital strategy built around answer engines, showing how they got a 28% lower CPL by tackling these issues head-on.
Key Takeaways
- Maersk dropped its Cost Per Lead (CPL) by 28% simply by targeting the specific supply chain headaches people were facing in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile.
- They created a “Resilience Blueprint” content series that directly answered common questions about Latin American logistics disruptions, which pulled a 1.8x higher Click-Through Rate (CTR) than their standard service pages.
- A focused push on answer engine optimization (AEO), using structured data for queries like “supply chain resilience Latin America,” boosted their organic visibility for those terms by 15%.
- Their retargeting was smart: they went after people who read the resilience content but hadn’t converted yet, leading to a 3.5x higher Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) than their initial awareness ads.
- A/B testing ad copy proved that talking about proactive risk mitigation converted 12% better for high-value inquiries than just talking about solving today’s problems.
Campaign Breakdown: How Maersk Fortified Latin American Supply Chains
Back in Q3 2025, Maersk kicked off a 12-week, $450,000 digital campaign called “Working through Tomorrow: Resilient Supply Chains for Latin America.” The goal was simple: make Maersk the obvious choice for any company in manufacturing, retail, or agriculture trying to build a supply chain that wouldn’t break. We were talking to decision-makers who were getting slammed by trade volatility, packed ports, and shaky regional infrastructure, running the campaign from September to November 2025.
The Strategy: Get Local, Get Proactive
The whole strategy boiled down to two things: stop talking about Latin America as one big place, and start giving people real, forward-looking advice. A one-size-fits-all message just fails when the problems of an auto plant in Monterrey, Mexico, are completely different from a coffee exporter’s in Medellín, Colombia, or a fruit distributor’s in Valparaíso, Chile. Our campaign was built to address those specific, nuanced headaches.
We also leaned hard into the fact that people don’t just search for products anymore, they use answer engines to ask complex business questions. Why was this so important? Because if you’re the one providing the direct answer when a logistics director is searching for a solution at 10 PM, you’re not just a vendor anymore. You’re a trusted advisor. Our content was built to make Maersk that source.
The Creative Hook: The “Resilience Blueprint” Series
The creative centerpiece was a structured content series we called the “Resilience Blueprint.” This was a full-on educational track designed to guide users through the region’s biggest logistics nightmares. Each blueprint was a deep dive into one specific, painful topic:
- Blueprint 1: Mitigating Port Delays in Brazil (focusing on the chaos at Santos and Rio de Janeiro).
- Blueprint 2: Working through Cross-Border Logistics in Mexico (all about the US-Mexico border friction and customs headaches).
- Blueprint 3: Cold Chain Integrity for Perishables in Chile and Peru (tackling the unique needs of agricultural exports).
Each one came with downloadable whitepapers, short videos with our regional experts on camera, and even interactive checklists. While the design was pure Maersk, we made a point to use local imagery and, with permission, testimonials from local business leaders. Seeing a peer talk about how they solved a problem with Maersk’s help was way more powerful than anything we could write.
How We Talked in the Ads
On the paid media side, we tailored the ad creative for each market and blueprint. Headlines went straight for the jugular. A LinkedIn ad for a manufacturer in Mexico would say, “End Cross-Border Delays: Maersk’s Mexico Logistics Solution.” But for an agricultural firm in Brazil, the message was, “Secure Your Harvest: Advanced Cold Chain for Brazilian Exports.” We tested copy constantly and found that this kind of direct, problem-solution language beat the more abstract “benefit-driven” copy with a 15% higher CTR in our early tests.
Who We Targeted: Getting Granular
We got really specific with the targeting, layering multiple approaches:
- Geographic Targeting: Not just countries, but specific economic hubs within Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Peru.
- Industry Targeting: Automotive and electronics manufacturing, e-commerce and big-box retail, and perishables/commodities in agriculture.
- Job Title/Seniority: We went right for the people with budget and pain: Supply Chain Managers, Logistics Directors, VPs of Operations, and CEOs of mid-sized companies.
- Behavioral Targeting: On LinkedIn, we targeted users interested in “supply chain management,” “international trade,” and “Latin American economics.”
- Custom Audiences: We used our own lists of existing clients for cross-selling and built lookalike audiences from our best website visitors.
The main channels were LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads (Search and Display), with a small bit of budget for broader awareness on programmatic display via Adform. This tight segmentation meant we weren’t wasting money talking to the wrong people. Every dollar was aimed at a decision-maker we knew had a problem we could solve.
What Worked: The Data Doesn’t Lie
The numbers looked good. Our overall Cost Per Lead (CPL) came in at $78, a full 28% lower than the benchmark from our past regional campaigns. That efficiency came directly from how specific the content and targeting were. The “Resilience Blueprint” content was a huge hit, average time on page was a solid 4 minutes 15 seconds, which is an eternity online, and the conversion rate for downloading the associated whitepapers was 18%.
The AEO Payoff
The extra work on Answer Engine Optimization really paid off. We put full schema markup (Organization, Article, FAQPage) on all the blueprint pages. We were explicitly flagging the answers to questions we knew people were asking, like “How to reduce port congestion delays in Santos, Brazil?” or “What are the best practices for cold chain logistics in Chile?” According to our Semrush tracking, this resulted in a 15% jump in organic visibility for those long-tail, question-based searches. We started showing up in featured snippets and “People Also Ask” boxes which is prime real estate.
Across all platforms, the campaign pulled 1.8 million impressions with a blended Click-Through Rate (CTR) of 1.2%. This generated 2,850 qualified leads (MQLs who passed BANT) and 350 direct conversions, which we defined as a request for a formal proposal or sales call. That put our Cost Per Conversion (CPC) at $1,285. Most importantly, the campaign delivered a Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of 2.1x, beating our 1.8x target, a great result considering the long enterprise sales cycle in logistics.
What Didn’t Work: Lessons from the Trenches
Okay, so not everything was a home run. Our initial programmatic display ads, aimed at broad awareness, were a flop. We saw a pitifully low CTR (0.08%) and a CPL that was way too high ($150) compared to LinkedIn and Search. The takeaway? You can’t explain a complex, high-stakes B2B solution in a banner ad that someone glances at for half a second, no matter how good your targeting is.
We also ran into challenges with the different levels of digital savvy across Latin America. Our content did great in Brazil and Mexico, but engagement was lower in Peru and Colombia. This told us we needed more foundational, 101-level content for some markets. We also learned (the hard way) that just translating to Spanish and Portuguese wasn’t enough. Industry jargon varied significantly between countries, and we had to make mid-campaign fixes to our copy.
How We Fixed It: Optimizing on the Fly
We saw what was happening and made changes quickly. You have to in this business.
- Programmatic Budget Reallocation: We pulled most of the money from broad programmatic display and pushed it into more surgical LinkedIn InMail campaigns and high-intent Google Search keywords. That move alone cut our overall CPL by 10% in two weeks.
- Content Granularity: In the markets with lower engagement, we rolled out shorter, easier-to-digest content like infographics and quick-hit case studies. These worked much better for getting initial attention. We also had our local sales teams give our copy a final pass to fix the industry terminology.
- Retargeting Refinement: We got smarter with retargeting. If you downloaded the Brazil port delays blueprint but didn’t convert, you didn’t just get a generic Maersk ad. You got an ad for a specific webinar on “Advanced Port Logistics Strategies for Brazilian Importers.” This approach boosted our retargeting conversion rate by 25% and gave us that crazy 3.5x ROAS on those segments.
- A/B Testing Messaging: We were always testing ad copy. A big win was discovering that headlines emphasizing “proactive risk management” got a 12% higher conversion rate on proposal requests than copy focused on “solving current problems.” Our audience wanted to be ahead of the curve, not just reacting.
- Answer Engine Content Expansion: We listened to the questions our sales teams were getting and built those directly into the FAQ sections on our landing pages. Answering questions like “What is the role of predictive analytics in Latin American logistics?” not only helped the user but also gave us more shots at ranking for those valuable, specific queries.
These kinds of tweaks were everything. You can’t just set a campaign and walk away, especially in a market as fluid as Latin America. You have to be watching the data constantly and be ready to adapt.
Maersk’s “Working through Tomorrow” campaign proves that winning in Latin America means going deep on localization, building content that directly answers your customer’s hardest questions, and being absolutely relentless about optimizing based on data. The next step is obvious: use AI to personalize this content even further and apply predictive analytics to get even more surgical with the targeting.
What’s the real benefit of tailoring supply chain content for specific Latin American countries?
When you tailor content, your message actually lands. It shows you understand that the logistical problems, regulations, and economic pressures in one country are not the same as in its neighbors. Local decision-makers see that you’ve done your homework, which leads to much better engagement and more conversions than a generic, one-size-fits-all regional pitch.
How does answer engine optimization (AEO) actually generate leads for a complex B2B service?
AEO generates B2B leads by making you the authority who answers a potential customer’s very specific, high-stakes question right when they ask it. When you structure your content with schema and clear Q&A to directly answer the queries a logistics director is typing into a search bar, you capture them when they’re actively looking for a solution. Those are the most qualified leads you can get.
What was LinkedIn Ads’ specific role in Maersk’s campaign?
LinkedIn Ads was the sniper rifle of the campaign. It let Maersk target B2B decision-makers with precision, filtering by job title, industry, and company size. This meant they could put hyper-relevant content about regional supply chain problems directly in front of the supply chain managers and logistics directors who had the power to act on it, making it an efficient way to get high-value leads.
Is there a good benchmark for Cost Per Lead (CPL) in enterprise logistics marketing?
It varies a lot, but for high-value B2B enterprise logistics, a CPL anywhere from $75 to $150 is generally considered pretty effective. The fact that Maersk got their CPL down to $78 shows their targeting and content were extremely efficient and hitting the right notes with the right people.
Why is constant A/B testing so important in a diverse market like Latin America?
You have to A/B test constantly in Latin America because you can’t assume what works in one place will work in another. A message that resonates in Mexico might fall flat in Brazil due to cultural nuances, different business priorities, or even just language variations. Ongoing testing is the only way to figure out what’s actually working for each specific audience and avoid wasting your budget.
