Nearly 4× more new subscribers from ads for a national nonprofit
A national faith-based nonprofit was running ads on several platforms but couldn't tell which ones were bringing in new people. Fixing that changed where the money went.
The situation
The organization runs paid campaigns across Google, Meta and Amazon to grow its email list, and was in the middle of a full rebrand and a new website.
What was broken
Years of inconsistent link tagging meant a large share of sign-ups arrived with no source at all. Reports counted every form submission as a new subscriber, even when the person was already on the list. Nobody could say with confidence which ads were actually growing the list.
What we did
- Set one naming and tagging standard across every channel and email.
- Rebuilt reporting to count unique new subscribers, not just form submissions.
- Moved budget toward the campaigns bringing in people who were new to the list.
- Carried the new brand through every ad and landing page.
The results
From January through August 2026, ads brought in 26,208 new email subscribers, nearly four times the 6,643 from all of 2024. Three out of four people signing up from ads are now new to the list, up from two in five in 2023. And almost every lead now arrives tagged with where it came from, so budget decisions rest on real numbers.