Journalism Growth Lab

Journalism Growth Lab

A boutique customer acquisition agency for publishers who want to grow their audience or revenue online

Grow Your Audience. Build Your Business.

  • We help publishers find the larger, often untapped, audience they deserve.
  • We also work to keep readers coming back, and then guide those readers toward becoming paying customers.
  • We do this using paid advertising on digital platforms (our unique approach is based on experimentation and research)—long story short, we figure out what works on these platforms so that you don't have to.

Our Unique Approach

  • Our team is small by design. We’re passionate about the work we do. We work only with publishers (and only a few at a time).
  • We do everything the old school way—by hand. Nothing is cookie cutter and we think of our job as figuring out which paid tactics and platforms work best for each client.
  • Most uniquely, we are a multi-platform and full-funnel agency—we design campaigns that utilize several advertising platforms to drive results at the top, middle, and bottom of the customer acquisition funnel.

Results

  • More than a dozen digital publishers—both upstarts and established brands—trust us to manage their digital advertising budget and grow their business.
  • Publishers come to us when they need a creative partner on their team—an extra pair of hands that can dig in, solve technical issues, pitch ideas, develop effective ads, and deliver ROI across platforms.
  • In 2020, we helped publishers invest more than $100,000 in lead acquisition and customer conversion campaigns. Clients keep working with us because we drive results.

Case Study

Newsletter Growth for a Small Publisher

  • Step 1: Made simple improvements to the publisher's website that resulted in a 775% increase in email newsletter subscriptions.
  • Step 2: Ran paid digital advertising to drive new traffic to the publication; within seven months the number of people subscribing to the newsletter had increased by another 400%.
  • Outcome: Over 18 months, we grew the publisher’s newsletter audience by more than 4000% with a cost per subscriber below the industry average.

Case Study

Customer Growth for a Mid-Sized Publisher

  • Step 1: Ran lead generation and website traffic campaigns that resulted in 10,000 new email newsletter subscribers.
  • Step 2: Implemented strategic targeting and re-targeting campaigns to drive paid subscriptions.
  • Outcome: In four months we converted 2500 casual readers into paying subscribers at a cost low enough to deliver short-term ROI. Additional revenue was generated through a voluntary donation option during the check-out process.

Clients

Ad Platform Expertise

Team

Phillip is a veteran publishing consultant and entrepeneurial coach. His passion is helping newsrooms to make more money, helping news startups grow their audience, and helping journalists succeed as entrepreneurs.

Emily is an experienced campaign manager. She works with publishers looking for creative ways to reach new audiences and build organic connections through engaging content and conversations.

Contact Us

Please feel free to drop Phillip a note on LinkedIn.