Getting started in advertising can be daunting, which makes every beginner’s success story worthy of a closer look. See how this first-time advertiser drove results with native advertising in the Clinician’s Brief e-newsletter.
Case Study
An advertiser decided to put Brief Media’s ad placement head to head with a paid social campaign to evaluate which channel produced the lowest cost per lead (CPL). The advertiser’s plan was to evaluate the success of a single ad unit before embarking on a larger digital program.
For the CPL comparison, they utilized their small in-house database generated from attendance at 2 veterinary conferences and newsletter opt-ins gathered from their website.
They used an e-book as the lead magnet and promoted it through the in-house database, a series of social media ads (over the course of a month), and Brief Media’s e-newsletter.
Campaign Goals
This campaign had several goals:
- Generate brand awareness
- Convert top-of-funnel prospects into leads in the database
- Determine highest performing channel (ie, in-house database vs social media vs Brief Media e-newsletter)
- Evaluate social media ROI compared to Brief Media performance
Campaign Details
- Lead Magnet: In-depth e-book on a non-clinical veterinary topic
- Messaging: Playful and fun, designed to grab attention
- Advertising Vehicle: Sponsored content spot in daily e-newsletter
Campaign Results
The playful messaging and high-value lead magnet attracted significant attention from the e-newsletter placement. Not only did Brief Media’s native advertising spot drive more pageviews, its conversion rate was more than 100% higher than the competing channels.
We broke out the total pageviews and lead conversions into percentages to show each channel’s contribution to the campaign.
| % of Total Pageviews | % of Total Lead Conversions | |
| In-House Database | 5% | 11% |
| Social Media Campaign | 37% | 6.4% |
| Clinician’s Brief E-Newsletter | 58% | 22.6% |
Cost Per Lead
Compared to paid social media advertisements, the CPL was 13.17% less with Brief Media. This decrease can be attributed to Brief Media’s highly engaged audience, which converts at a significantly higher rate when compared to other channels.
Bonus Benefit
On the e-book landing page, the advertiser added a pop-up opt-in, inviting visitors to subscribe to their e-newsletter. This increased newsletter opt-ins by 62%!
Overall, this test case increased the advertiser’s total database size by 18.8%. After seeing these early results, the advertiser felt very confident about running a larger and more comprehensive digital program.