First-Time Advertiser Succeeds with Native Advertising [Case Study]

November 12, 2020
2 min

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 Database5%11%
Social Media Campaign37%6.4%
Clinician’s Brief E-Newsletter58%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.