Raising Over $400,000 For Christspiracy Film

Background information

PBN Digital was approached by the Christspiracy team ahead of the documentary’s kickstarter fundraiser. Christspiracy is the sequel to documentaries Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, and follows daring filmmakers Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters as they expose how religious leaders are turning a blind eye to animal exploitation—despite compassion being the one core principle in all world religions. This was extremely relevant to PBN Digital, which as an ethical agency, has had lots of similar case studies and a related specifically engaged audience (via Plant Based News) poised to hear about this groundbreaking documentary. We were approached by Christspiracy to become their dedicated marketing partner in order to raise their target of $300,000.

RESULTS
The pre-roll ad received a staggering 1,506,762 views and has been shared widely.

Background information

PBN Digital was approached by the Christspiracy team ahead of the documentary’s kickstarter fundraiser. Christspiracy is the sequel to documentaries Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy, and follows daring filmmakers Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters as they expose how religious leaders are turning a blind eye to animal exploitation—despite compassion being the one core principle in all world religions. This was extremely relevant to PBN Digital, which as an ethical agency, has had lots of similar case studies and a related specifically engaged audience (via Plant Based News) poised to hear about this groundbreaking documentary. We were approached by Christspiracy to become their dedicated marketing partner in order to raise their target of $300,000.

Return of Investment

Our Production

How PBN Digital executed

PBN Digital has lots of experience supporting fundraisers specifically leveraging paid Meta ads. For example, a recent case study with La Vie™ walks through how we raised over €2 million for them using. However, the meta ad budget from Christspiracy was less than $35,000, meaning we had to think outside of the box. We developed a creative omni-channel marketing strategy including Plant Based News organic activations, advice on Christspiracy’s own email activity along with whitelisted meta ads through the PBN ad account. Our specifically tailored marketing plan included:

LEAD CAMPAIGN TO CREATE HYPE

Prior to the fundraise launch date, we collected leads via a dedicated landing page. The dedicated landing page contained information that was aimed to build up hype about the film, including trailers. The aim was to give people the opportunity to get ‘early access’ and hear the news about the film fundraiser launch first. We tested multiple interest groups such as those related to conscious living topics such as ‘vegan’ as well as more specific search terms such as those related to Netflix and Kickstarter. We achieved a cost per click (CPC) of £0.06 and cost per lead (CPL) of £0.78. What this meant was that for every £0.78 invested, we achieved a warm lead for the campaign. These leads were then marketed to by the Christspiracy team. 

FULL FUNNEL APPROACH

We used paid ads to target a variety of interest groups, as mentioned above. This constituted our ‘top of funnel’ strategy not just for leads but also for the conversion campaign once the Kickstarter began. We also targeted the Plant Based News audience as we know this group would be highly engaged. Prior interviews on the Plant Based News platform with the director Kip Andersen about Cowspiracy for example proved this. Put simply, we knew our audience would love the idea of this campaign, which was confirmed when they generated the lowest CPLs. Furthermore, Christspiracy gave us access to various other audiences including the ‘What the Health’ and ‘Cowspiracy’ audiences, which they had access to. 

WORLDWIDE FOCUS

We targeted multiple English first countries such as the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We experimented with ads in Germany and Spain but these did not perform as well as the others, so we quickly reduced and then eliminated budgets here. Our Director of Ad Ops and her team were in the ad account every day making optimisations and providing reports back to Christspiracy. We effectively became an extension of the Christspiracy core team, involved in daily communications and weekly meetings. 

CREDIBLE CREATIVES

Our creative team were given access to the film early, and we immediately came up with short cut downs as teaser clips for ads, which the Christspiracy team approved. The Christspracy team also gave us access to pre-edited trailers, which we adapted. We worked with the Christspiracy team to develop angles for ads and articles on plantbasednews.org. For example, we produced credible journalistic ads such as: ‘Christspiracy Directors Turn Down Netflix In Stunning Move’, which was a similar headline to an article we did, and proved highly successful. This is because whitelisted ads from our news platform allow us to easily provide our stamp of approval in a credible way. 

POWER OF WHITELISTING

It was a no brainer for us to whitelist the Plant Based News ad account, which regularly sees dramatically increased advertising efficiency and conversion rates. As such, it was not a surprise that we immediately saw impressive results in both the lead and conversion campaigns before and during the Kickstarter campaign, respectively. With an impressive average CTR of 8.81% and an average CPC of £0.20, we managed to drive over £106,828.09 with an average contribution value of £132.23 resulting in a 5.65 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It’s important to note that we did see a drop in performance between the Black Friday and Cyber Monday periods as consumer behavior drastically changes during this period, and is more geared toward finding exciting discounts on products. In light of this, we had reduced budgets during this period. Nonetheless we saw an immediate bounce back after this.

ADVANTAGE+ CAMPAIGNS

Advantage+ campaigns had  recently been launched by Meta. These rely on Meta’s ability to use data with it’s AI driven Machine Learning capabilities in order to target winning audiences and find winning ads if the campaign is set up correctly and fed properly with assets. The best creative was a video our founder Klaus recorded about the upcoming Christspiracy fundraiser with a staggering 40.14 ROAS.

INNOVATIVE ORGANIC ACTIVATIONS

Plant Based News boasts over 3.6 million core supporters, and as such it was crucial to engage this audience. We had done various interviews with the directors of Christspiracy before, as part of the release of their previous film Cowspiracy for example, so we knew our audience wanted to hear about this new Christspiracy film.We crafted multiple organic activations. For example, the campaign started with a youtube live titled: ‘Is There a Spiritual Way To Kill An Animal? Christspiracy Documentary Q&A’ which received over 500 kickstarter links. We also put out a variety of articles on our website, including one article titled: ‘Christspiracy: The New Documentary From The Co-Creator Of ‘Cowspiracy’ which achieved 19,493 unique visitors on our website plantbasednews.org as well as hundreds of thousands of impressions across social media. Some of the content pieces that did well were street interviews from PBN Founder Klaus Mitchell asking: “is there a spiritual way to kill an animal”. Klaus’ experience in 2023 asking COP28 delegates “what is more effective to save the fish: cutting out plastic straws or stopping eating fish?” was an example of a viral video he conducted that stood him in good stead for this Christspiracy campaign which was at times equally divisive. Of all the social posts, the most viral was a repackaged documentary trailer clip, which included a super titled: ‘Are you ready for Christspiracy?’. This led to 1.62 million views, 37,652 likes, 6,741 comments and a staggering 11,828 shares. But the question remained, how could we translate this engagement and interest into eyeballs on the Kickstarter page, and ultimately investments, especially in light of the fact that instagram is notorious for making it hard for users to leave their platform. As a result, we decided to integrate a chat marketing service on this post (as well as others). Our caption included: ‘Comment below with the word 'christspiracy' and we will DM you a link to the article where you can find out more!’ This innovative approach spurred users to comment ‘Christspiracy’. It led to 2,387 people receiving links, with 1,862 clicking through the fundraiser page. Our paid ads team collaborated heavily with our social media team to make sure the most successful posts, including the one mentioned above with 1.62 million views. A Meta audience with this video as well as other videos was set up to target users who watched it. This is a good example of the synergy effects between organic posts and paid media. Other synergy effects explored were those between the whitelisting PBN ad account and the Christspiracy ad account. We initially provided guidance to Christspiracy until we were quickly promoted to manage their ad account. Usually the strategy we find that works best is when the PBN ad account focuses on top of funnel (as well as marketing to the PBN audience), then the client account remarkets to those that have already clicked on the landing page to give the user the final push over the line to convert.

The Performance

  • Coin Total raised $433,747
  • User Number of investors 3,488
  • Percent % overfunded 144%
  • User Leads 6,236
  • Coin CPL £0.76
  • Coin Investments revenue £106,828.09
  • User ROAS 5.65x
  • Eye Number of posts 5
  • User Total estimated reach 2,053,348
  • Eye Automation Runs 2,387
  • Click Number of clicks 1,862
  • User Reach 208,210
  • Like Number of likes 7,766
  • Comments Number of comments 653
  • Play Plays 1.6 million
  • Like Number of likes 37,652
  • Comments Number of comments 6,741
  • Play Number of articles 3
  • User Estimated reach across platform
  • User Unique visitors 26,0406 (needs updating)
  • Impressions Impressions from social shares approx 1.2 million
  • Email-open Number of emails 3
  • Percent Open rate Avg ~38%
  • Email-open Total Opens 124,595
  • Click Total Clicks to target page 1,608
Meta
Google
User
Coin
Fire
Email-open
Play
Youtube
Waves
Twitter
Save
Apple
Circles
Clock
Cloud
Comments
Eye
Facebook
Ground
Eyes
Like
Impressions
Instagram
Signal
Click
Song
Music
Percent
Plenka
Podkova

Our Production

PBN Digital has lots of experience supporting fundraisers specifically leveraging paid Meta ads. For example, a recent case study with La Vie™ walks through how we raised over €2 million for them using. However, the meta ad budget from Christspiracy was less than $35,000, meaning we had to think outside of the box. We developed a creative omni-channel marketing strategy including Plant Based News organic activations, advice on Christspiracy’s own email activity along with whitelisted meta ads through the PBN ad account. Our specifically tailored marketing plan included:

LEAD CAMPAIGN TO CREATE HYPE

Prior to the fundraise launch date, we collected leads via a dedicated landing page. The dedicated landing page contained information that was aimed to build up hype about the film, including trailers. The aim was to give people the opportunity to get ‘early access’ and hear the news about the film fundraiser launch first. We tested multiple interest groups such as those related to conscious living topics such as ‘vegan’ as well as more specific search terms such as those related to Netflix and Kickstarter. We achieved a cost per click (CPC) of £0.06 and cost per lead (CPL) of £0.78. What this meant was that for every £0.78 invested, we achieved a warm lead for the campaign. These leads were then marketed to by the Christspiracy team. 

FULL FUNNEL APPROACH

We used paid ads to target a variety of interest groups, as mentioned above. This constituted our ‘top of funnel’ strategy not just for leads but also for the conversion campaign once the Kickstarter began. We also targeted the Plant Based News audience as we know this group would be highly engaged. Prior interviews on the Plant Based News platform with the director Kip Andersen about Cowspiracy for example proved this. Put simply, we knew our audience would love the idea of this campaign, which was confirmed when they generated the lowest CPLs. Furthermore, Christspiracy gave us access to various other audiences including the ‘What the Health’ and ‘Cowspiracy’ audiences, which they had access to. 

WORLDWIDE FOCUS

We targeted multiple English first countries such as the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We experimented with ads in Germany and Spain but these did not perform as well as the others, so we quickly reduced and then eliminated budgets here. Our Director of Ad Ops and her team were in the ad account every day making optimisations and providing reports back to Christspiracy. We effectively became an extension of the Christspiracy core team, involved in daily communications and weekly meetings. 

CREDIBLE CREATIVES

Our creative team were given access to the film early, and we immediately came up with short cut downs as teaser clips for ads, which the Christspiracy team approved. The Christspracy team also gave us access to pre-edited trailers, which we adapted. We worked with the Christspiracy team to develop angles for ads and articles on plantbasednews.org. For example, we produced credible journalistic ads such as: ‘Christspiracy Directors Turn Down Netflix In Stunning Move’, which was a similar headline to an article we did, and proved highly successful. This is because whitelisted ads from our news platform allow us to easily provide our stamp of approval in a credible way. 

POWER OF WHITELISTING

It was a no brainer for us to whitelist the Plant Based News ad account, which regularly sees dramatically increased advertising efficiency and conversion rates. As such, it was not a surprise that we immediately saw impressive results in both the lead and conversion campaigns before and during the Kickstarter campaign, respectively. With an impressive average CTR of 8.81% and an average CPC of £0.20, we managed to drive over £106,828.09 with an average contribution value of £132.23 resulting in a 5.65 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It’s important to note that we did see a drop in performance between the Black Friday and Cyber Monday periods as consumer behavior drastically changes during this period, and is more geared toward finding exciting discounts on products. In light of this, we had reduced budgets during this period. Nonetheless we saw an immediate bounce back after this.

ADVANTAGE+ CAMPAIGNS

Advantage+ campaigns had  recently been launched by Meta. These rely on Meta’s ability to use data with it’s AI driven Machine Learning capabilities in order to target winning audiences and find winning ads if the campaign is set up correctly and fed properly with assets. The best creative was a video our founder Klaus recorded about the upcoming Christspiracy fundraiser with a staggering 40.14 ROAS.

INNOVATIVE ORGANIC ACTIVATIONS

Plant Based News boasts over 3.6 million core supporters, and as such it was crucial to engage this audience. We had done various interviews with the directors of Christspiracy before, as part of the release of their previous film Cowspiracy for example, so we knew our audience wanted to hear about this new Christspiracy film.We crafted multiple organic activations. For example, the campaign started with a youtube live titled: ‘Is There a Spiritual Way To Kill An Animal? Christspiracy Documentary Q&A’ which received over 500 kickstarter links. We also put out a variety of articles on our website, including one article titled: ‘Christspiracy: The New Documentary From The Co-Creator Of ‘Cowspiracy’ which achieved 19,493 unique visitors on our website plantbasednews.org as well as hundreds of thousands of impressions across social media. Some of the content pieces that did well were street interviews from PBN Founder Klaus Mitchell asking: “is there a spiritual way to kill an animal”. Klaus’ experience in 2023 asking COP28 delegates “what is more effective to save the fish: cutting out plastic straws or stopping eating fish?” was an example of a viral video he conducted that stood him in good stead for this Christspiracy campaign which was at times equally divisive. Of all the social posts, the most viral was a repackaged documentary trailer clip, which included a super titled: ‘Are you ready for Christspiracy?’. This led to 1.62 million views, 37,652 likes, 6,741 comments and a staggering 11,828 shares. But the question remained, how could we translate this engagement and interest into eyeballs on the Kickstarter page, and ultimately investments, especially in light of the fact that instagram is notorious for making it hard for users to leave their platform. As a result, we decided to integrate a chat marketing service on this post (as well as others). Our caption included: ‘Comment below with the word 'christspiracy' and we will DM you a link to the article where you can find out more!’ This innovative approach spurred users to comment ‘Christspiracy’. It led to 2,387 people receiving links, with 1,862 clicking through the fundraiser page. Our paid ads team collaborated heavily with our social media team to make sure the most successful posts, including the one mentioned above with 1.62 million views. A Meta audience with this video as well as other videos was set up to target users who watched it. This is a good example of the synergy effects between organic posts and paid media. Other synergy effects explored were those between the whitelisting PBN ad account and the Christspiracy ad account. We initially provided guidance to Christspiracy until we were quickly promoted to manage their ad account. Usually the strategy we find that works best is when the PBN ad account focuses on top of funnel (as well as marketing to the PBN audience), then the client account remarkets to those that have already clicked on the landing page to give the user the final push over the line to convert.

The Performance

  • Coin Total raised $433,747
  • User Number of investors 3,488
  • Percent % overfunded 144%
  • User Leads 6,236
  • Coin CPL £0.76
  • Coin Investments revenue £106,828.09
  • User ROAS 5.65x
  • Eye Number of posts 5
  • User Total estimated reach 2,053,348
  • Eye Automation Runs 2,387
  • Click Number of clicks 1,862
  • User Reach 208,210
  • Like Number of likes 7,766
  • Comments Number of comments 653
  • Play Plays 1.6 million
  • Like Number of likes 37,652
  • Comments Number of comments 6,741
  • Play Number of articles 3
  • User Estimated reach across platform
  • User Unique visitors 26,0406 (needs updating)
  • Impressions Impressions from social shares approx 1.2 million
  • Email-open Number of emails 3
  • Percent Open rate Avg ~38%
  • Email-open Total Opens 124,595
  • Click Total Clicks to target page 1,608
Meta
Google
User
Coin
Fire
Email-open
Play
Youtube
Waves
Twitter
Save
Apple
Circles
Clock
Cloud
Comments
Eye
Facebook
Ground
Eyes
Like
Impressions
Instagram
Signal
Click
Song
Music
Percent
Plenka
Podkova

Our Production

PBN Digital has lots of experience supporting fundraisers specifically leveraging paid Meta ads. For example, a recent case study with La Vie™ walks through how we raised over €2 million for them using. However, the meta ad budget from Christspiracy was less than $35,000, meaning we had to think outside of the box. We developed a creative omni-channel marketing strategy including Plant Based News organic activations, advice on Christspiracy’s own email activity along with whitelisted meta ads through the PBN ad account. Our specifically tailored marketing plan included:

LEAD CAMPAIGN TO CREATE HYPE

Prior to the fundraise launch date, we collected leads via a dedicated landing page. The dedicated landing page contained information that was aimed to build up hype about the film, including trailers. The aim was to give people the opportunity to get ‘early access’ and hear the news about the film fundraiser launch first. We tested multiple interest groups such as those related to conscious living topics such as ‘vegan’ as well as more specific search terms such as those related to Netflix and Kickstarter. We achieved a cost per click (CPC) of £0.06 and cost per lead (CPL) of £0.78. What this meant was that for every £0.78 invested, we achieved a warm lead for the campaign. These leads were then marketed to by the Christspiracy team. 

FULL FUNNEL APPROACH

We used paid ads to target a variety of interest groups, as mentioned above. This constituted our ‘top of funnel’ strategy not just for leads but also for the conversion campaign once the Kickstarter began. We also targeted the Plant Based News audience as we know this group would be highly engaged. Prior interviews on the Plant Based News platform with the director Kip Andersen about Cowspiracy for example proved this. Put simply, we knew our audience would love the idea of this campaign, which was confirmed when they generated the lowest CPLs. Furthermore, Christspiracy gave us access to various other audiences including the ‘What the Health’ and ‘Cowspiracy’ audiences, which they had access to. 

WORLDWIDE FOCUS

We targeted multiple English first countries such as the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We experimented with ads in Germany and Spain but these did not perform as well as the others, so we quickly reduced and then eliminated budgets here. Our Director of Ad Ops and her team were in the ad account every day making optimisations and providing reports back to Christspiracy. We effectively became an extension of the Christspiracy core team, involved in daily communications and weekly meetings. 

CREDIBLE CREATIVES

Our creative team were given access to the film early, and we immediately came up with short cut downs as teaser clips for ads, which the Christspiracy team approved. The Christspracy team also gave us access to pre-edited trailers, which we adapted. We worked with the Christspiracy team to develop angles for ads and articles on plantbasednews.org. For example, we produced credible journalistic ads such as: ‘Christspiracy Directors Turn Down Netflix In Stunning Move’, which was a similar headline to an article we did, and proved highly successful. This is because whitelisted ads from our news platform allow us to easily provide our stamp of approval in a credible way. 

POWER OF WHITELISTING

It was a no brainer for us to whitelist the Plant Based News ad account, which regularly sees dramatically increased advertising efficiency and conversion rates. As such, it was not a surprise that we immediately saw impressive results in both the lead and conversion campaigns before and during the Kickstarter campaign, respectively. With an impressive average CTR of 8.81% and an average CPC of £0.20, we managed to drive over £106,828.09 with an average contribution value of £132.23 resulting in a 5.65 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It’s important to note that we did see a drop in performance between the Black Friday and Cyber Monday periods as consumer behavior drastically changes during this period, and is more geared toward finding exciting discounts on products. In light of this, we had reduced budgets during this period. Nonetheless we saw an immediate bounce back after this.

ADVANTAGE+ CAMPAIGNS

Advantage+ campaigns had  recently been launched by Meta. These rely on Meta’s ability to use data with it’s AI driven Machine Learning capabilities in order to target winning audiences and find winning ads if the campaign is set up correctly and fed properly with assets. The best creative was a video our founder Klaus recorded about the upcoming Christspiracy fundraiser with a staggering 40.14 ROAS.

INNOVATIVE ORGANIC ACTIVATIONS

Plant Based News boasts over 3.6 million core supporters, and as such it was crucial to engage this audience. We had done various interviews with the directors of Christspiracy before, as part of the release of their previous film Cowspiracy for example, so we knew our audience wanted to hear about this new Christspiracy film.We crafted multiple organic activations. For example, the campaign started with a youtube live titled: ‘Is There a Spiritual Way To Kill An Animal? Christspiracy Documentary Q&A’ which received over 500 kickstarter links. We also put out a variety of articles on our website, including one article titled: ‘Christspiracy: The New Documentary From The Co-Creator Of ‘Cowspiracy’ which achieved 19,493 unique visitors on our website plantbasednews.org as well as hundreds of thousands of impressions across social media. Some of the content pieces that did well were street interviews from PBN Founder Klaus Mitchell asking: “is there a spiritual way to kill an animal”. Klaus’ experience in 2023 asking COP28 delegates “what is more effective to save the fish: cutting out plastic straws or stopping eating fish?” was an example of a viral video he conducted that stood him in good stead for this Christspiracy campaign which was at times equally divisive. Of all the social posts, the most viral was a repackaged documentary trailer clip, which included a super titled: ‘Are you ready for Christspiracy?’. This led to 1.62 million views, 37,652 likes, 6,741 comments and a staggering 11,828 shares. But the question remained, how could we translate this engagement and interest into eyeballs on the Kickstarter page, and ultimately investments, especially in light of the fact that instagram is notorious for making it hard for users to leave their platform. As a result, we decided to integrate a chat marketing service on this post (as well as others). Our caption included: ‘Comment below with the word 'christspiracy' and we will DM you a link to the article where you can find out more!’ This innovative approach spurred users to comment ‘Christspiracy’. It led to 2,387 people receiving links, with 1,862 clicking through the fundraiser page. Our paid ads team collaborated heavily with our social media team to make sure the most successful posts, including the one mentioned above with 1.62 million views. A Meta audience with this video as well as other videos was set up to target users who watched it. This is a good example of the synergy effects between organic posts and paid media. Other synergy effects explored were those between the whitelisting PBN ad account and the Christspiracy ad account. We initially provided guidance to Christspiracy until we were quickly promoted to manage their ad account. Usually the strategy we find that works best is when the PBN ad account focuses on top of funnel (as well as marketing to the PBN audience), then the client account remarkets to those that have already clicked on the landing page to give the user the final push over the line to convert.

The Performance

  • Coin Total raised $433,747
  • User Number of investors 3,488
  • Percent % overfunded 144%
  • User Leads 6,236
  • Coin CPL £0.76
  • Coin Investments revenue £106,828.09
  • User ROAS 5.65x
  • Eye Number of posts 5
  • User Total estimated reach 2,053,348
  • Eye Automation Runs 2,387
  • Click Number of clicks 1,862
  • User Reach 208,210
  • Like Number of likes 7,766
  • Comments Number of comments 653
  • Play Plays 1.6 million
  • Like Number of likes 37,652
  • Comments Number of comments 6,741
  • Play Number of articles 3
  • User Estimated reach across platform
  • User Unique visitors 26,0406 (needs updating)
  • Impressions Impressions from social shares approx 1.2 million
  • Email-open Number of emails 3
  • Percent Open rate Avg ~38%
  • Email-open Total Opens 124,595
  • Click Total Clicks to target page 1,608
Meta
Google
User
Coin
Fire
Email-open
Play
Youtube
Waves
Twitter
Save
Apple
Circles
Clock
Cloud
Comments
Eye
Facebook
Ground
Eyes
Like
Impressions
Instagram
Signal
Click
Song
Music
Percent
Plenka
Podkova

PBN Digital has lots of experience supporting fundraisers specifically leveraging paid Meta ads. For example, a recent case study with La Vie™ walks through how we raised over €2 million for them using. However, the meta ad budget from Christspiracy was less than $35,000, meaning we had to think outside of the box. We developed a creative omni-channel marketing strategy including Plant Based News organic activations, advice on Christspiracy’s own email activity along with whitelisted meta ads through the PBN ad account. Our specifically tailored marketing plan included:

LEAD CAMPAIGN TO CREATE HYPE

Prior to the fundraise launch date, we collected leads via a dedicated landing page. The dedicated landing page contained information that was aimed to build up hype about the film, including trailers. The aim was to give people the opportunity to get ‘early access’ and hear the news about the film fundraiser launch first. We tested multiple interest groups such as those related to conscious living topics such as ‘vegan’ as well as more specific search terms such as those related to Netflix and Kickstarter. We achieved a cost per click (CPC) of £0.06 and cost per lead (CPL) of £0.78. What this meant was that for every £0.78 invested, we achieved a warm lead for the campaign. These leads were then marketed to by the Christspiracy team. 

FULL FUNNEL APPROACH

We used paid ads to target a variety of interest groups, as mentioned above. This constituted our ‘top of funnel’ strategy not just for leads but also for the conversion campaign once the Kickstarter began. We also targeted the Plant Based News audience as we know this group would be highly engaged. Prior interviews on the Plant Based News platform with the director Kip Andersen about Cowspiracy for example proved this. Put simply, we knew our audience would love the idea of this campaign, which was confirmed when they generated the lowest CPLs. Furthermore, Christspiracy gave us access to various other audiences including the ‘What the Health’ and ‘Cowspiracy’ audiences, which they had access to. 

WORLDWIDE FOCUS

We targeted multiple English first countries such as the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We experimented with ads in Germany and Spain but these did not perform as well as the others, so we quickly reduced and then eliminated budgets here. Our Director of Ad Ops and her team were in the ad account every day making optimisations and providing reports back to Christspiracy. We effectively became an extension of the Christspiracy core team, involved in daily communications and weekly meetings. 

CREDIBLE CREATIVES

Our creative team were given access to the film early, and we immediately came up with short cut downs as teaser clips for ads, which the Christspiracy team approved. The Christspracy team also gave us access to pre-edited trailers, which we adapted. We worked with the Christspiracy team to develop angles for ads and articles on plantbasednews.org. For example, we produced credible journalistic ads such as: ‘Christspiracy Directors Turn Down Netflix In Stunning Move’, which was a similar headline to an article we did, and proved highly successful. This is because whitelisted ads from our news platform allow us to easily provide our stamp of approval in a credible way. 

POWER OF WHITELISTING

It was a no brainer for us to whitelist the Plant Based News ad account, which regularly sees dramatically increased advertising efficiency and conversion rates. As such, it was not a surprise that we immediately saw impressive results in both the lead and conversion campaigns before and during the Kickstarter campaign, respectively. With an impressive average CTR of 8.81% and an average CPC of £0.20, we managed to drive over £106,828.09 with an average contribution value of £132.23 resulting in a 5.65 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). It’s important to note that we did see a drop in performance between the Black Friday and Cyber Monday periods as consumer behavior drastically changes during this period, and is more geared toward finding exciting discounts on products. In light of this, we had reduced budgets during this period. Nonetheless we saw an immediate bounce back after this.

ADVANTAGE+ CAMPAIGNS

Advantage+ campaigns had  recently been launched by Meta. These rely on Meta’s ability to use data with it’s AI driven Machine Learning capabilities in order to target winning audiences and find winning ads if the campaign is set up correctly and fed properly with assets. The best creative was a video our founder Klaus recorded about the upcoming Christspiracy fundraiser with a staggering 40.14 ROAS.

INNOVATIVE ORGANIC ACTIVATIONS

Plant Based News boasts over 3.6 million core supporters, and as such it was crucial to engage this audience. We had done various interviews with the directors of Christspiracy before, as part of the release of their previous film Cowspiracy for example, so we knew our audience wanted to hear about this new Christspiracy film.We crafted multiple organic activations. For example, the campaign started with a youtube live titled: ‘Is There a Spiritual Way To Kill An Animal? Christspiracy Documentary Q&A’ which received over 500 kickstarter links. We also put out a variety of articles on our website, including one article titled: ‘Christspiracy: The New Documentary From The Co-Creator Of ‘Cowspiracy’ which achieved 19,493 unique visitors on our website plantbasednews.org as well as hundreds of thousands of impressions across social media. Some of the content pieces that did well were street interviews from PBN Founder Klaus Mitchell asking: “is there a spiritual way to kill an animal”. Klaus’ experience in 2023 asking COP28 delegates “what is more effective to save the fish: cutting out plastic straws or stopping eating fish?” was an example of a viral video he conducted that stood him in good stead for this Christspiracy campaign which was at times equally divisive. Of all the social posts, the most viral was a repackaged documentary trailer clip, which included a super titled: ‘Are you ready for Christspiracy?’. This led to 1.62 million views, 37,652 likes, 6,741 comments and a staggering 11,828 shares. But the question remained, how could we translate this engagement and interest into eyeballs on the Kickstarter page, and ultimately investments, especially in light of the fact that instagram is notorious for making it hard for users to leave their platform. As a result, we decided to integrate a chat marketing service on this post (as well as others). Our caption included: ‘Comment below with the word 'christspiracy' and we will DM you a link to the article where you can find out more!’ This innovative approach spurred users to comment ‘Christspiracy’. It led to 2,387 people receiving links, with 1,862 clicking through the fundraiser page. Our paid ads team collaborated heavily with our social media team to make sure the most successful posts, including the one mentioned above with 1.62 million views. A Meta audience with this video as well as other videos was set up to target users who watched it. This is a good example of the synergy effects between organic posts and paid media. Other synergy effects explored were those between the whitelisting PBN ad account and the Christspiracy ad account. We initially provided guidance to Christspiracy until we were quickly promoted to manage their ad account. Usually the strategy we find that works best is when the PBN ad account focuses on top of funnel (as well as marketing to the PBN audience), then the client account remarkets to those that have already clicked on the landing page to give the user the final push over the line to convert.

CASE STUDIES

What our clients say

Kam Waters
,
Christspiracy Co-Director
Christspiracy

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN Digital have been integral to our message reaching the masses. From the earliest stages of crowdfunding to a world wide digital launch, they’ve walked alongside us partners with not only professionalism, but the most important ingredient—passion. Couldn’t have done it without them.”

Kam Waters
Sarah
,
Social Media Manager
EatKinda

(5 of 5) Perfect!

Huge thanks for the collab! We have grown by over 24,000 followers - wow!

Sarah
Alejandra Mendoza
,
VP of Marketing
Purity Woods

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with the PBN team over the past couple of months. Their expertise and dedication to driving results have been nothing short of remarkable. The team’s ability to continuously produce creative, engaging, and targeted campaigns has helped us increase our brand visibility and contributed to a tangible uplift in our sales.”

Alejandra Mendoza
Charlie Trupo
,
Co-Founder
Trupo Treats

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"We've worked with Plant Based News in the past on advertorials for our product releases, and recently we began working with their ad team. The entire PB team has been incredible to work with and we couldn't recommend them enough."

Charlie Trupo
Valentina Marchu
,
Marketing Lead
La Vie

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Thank you PBN Digital for the amazing work! I feel really lucky that La Vie is supported by such incredible partners. Can’t wait to work on the next project together!”

Valentina Marchu
Jack Gove
,
CEO
Sex Brand

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"PBN have not only driven some amazing results but have gone above and beyond serving us as a client, especially in overcoming notoriously tough policy challenges with Meta. They're a pleasure to work with."

Jack Gove
Darrell Sawczuk
,
Senior Social Media Manager
Plant Based News

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It was a pleasure to work on this campaign. Animals are suffering at the hands of humans and we must seek to educate if we want to inspire change. This education surely must start with the information we present to the children in our society. Children love animals, and we cannot expect them to make compassionate choices to protect animals if they do not know where their 'food' comes from. The Peppa is Bacon campaign educates and inspires children to leave animals off of their plate, and gives parents the push they need to have these difficult conversations.”

Darrell Sawczuk
Dr. Guy Sandelowsky
,
Co-founder
Omni

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“We’ve worked with a few different digital marketing agencies and found most to be highly impersonal, unreliable, and lacking attention to detail. Not the case with the team at PBN! These guys are great communicators, highly knowledgeable and genuinely fun to work with. We felt like they were a natural extension of our team and I would recommend them to other businesses looking to test and grow their digital marketing activities. We found our weekly calls particularly helpful and were impressed with the complexity of the campaign management on Meta and Google given PBN were both whitelisting adverts for us but also managing our own ad account. Not much left to say other than, give them a go!”

Dr. Guy Sandelowsky
Naomi Hallum
,
CEO
Gen V

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“In PBN, not only did we have an ethical, like-minded team of people supporting our campaign; we also had experienced and passionate media professionals who cared just as much about fulfilling our goals as we did. Furthermore, Klaus and Robbie were a pleasure to work with – always keeping me informed, always sharing ideas, and always open to feedback. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them on future high-profile campaigns.”

Naomi Hallum
Phil Borsellino
,
President
End the Slaughter Age

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“We engaged with PBN’s Performance Marketing services to generate signatures for End The Slaughter Age. They launched 27 language campaigns. After finding the cheapest countries, they scaled 5 countries effectively. Together we achieved over 100,000 signatures. We are continuing to work with them and I highly recommend their services. They are agile, communicative and knowledgeable when it comes to ad ops.”

Phil Borsellino
Bernat Verdgris
,
Co-Founder
Heura

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN are a great partner. They are a very creative team and know how to engage with the community. They were extremely responsive and I would recommend working with them.”

Bernat Verdgris
Samuel Mangialavori
,
Marketing Manager
ZenB

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“The team at PBN has been a pleasure to work with. They are very much on the ball, very proactive and independent in their ways of working. PBN ran a Paid Social campaign which achieved a 30% better CPA compared to our current activity and showed us a different approach to this channel which sparked a lot of ideas internally. Highly recommended!”

Samuel Mangialavori
Michael Palm
,
Chief Marketing Officer
Complement

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"In just a couple short months after partnering with Plant-Based News we've seen a significant uptick in our overall paid social ROAS. Beyond the performance, with their stellar communication and congruent values, it really feels like they're an extension of our team. Hands down a huge win for us so far."

Michael Palm
Matthew Glover
,
Co-founder
VFC

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"It was great to have the support of PBN when our undercover footage was released. They interviewed me and shared the video across their network. The results were stunning, reaching over 3 million people on facebook. Thanks to everyone at PBN for amplifying the campaign."

Matthew Glover
Derel Sarno
,
Co-founder
Wicked kitchen

(5 of 5) Perfect!

Big fan of Robbie & Klaus and the whole PBN crew. We need mode companies that live their values and put as much heart into their work as Plant Based News does.

Derel Sarno
Vasu Read
,
Senior Content Manager
Nestlé Wunda Milk

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“We engaged with PBN’s advertising services when we entered the UK market. The innovative video they produced was fantastic. They posted organically on their platforms and through their Meta ad network successfully. We ran a fun giveaway too. We would recommend working with Robbie and the PBN team!”

Vasu Read
Michael Kalu
,
Cofounder
Milky Plant

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Working with PBN has been amazing. Our partnership really helped us streamline our marketing efforts and made it more efficient for us to acquire customers in a post iOS 14 world.”

Michael Kalu
Amy Taylor
,
Director
MILKED

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN were great to work with, quick to reply to any questions, friendly and helpful, and obviously passionate about the film and the issues it covers. We can't thank them enough for their support and assistance throughout the film's release.”

Amy Taylor
Tom Bursnall
,
Director
Miami Burger

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It has been a no-brainer for us to work with PBN when we want to push any big announcements. Their professionalism and collaborative approach is greatly appreciated - and they always offer advice when needed. Without question, their platform’s engagement stands out from other outlets in the space.”

Tom Bursnall
Dahlia Eisenberg
,
Founder
Vegpal

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Back in March, Plant Based News featured Vegpal and talked about the friendship feature on Vegpal. Since then, thousands have made their way to our community and have found meaningful and lifelong friendships!”

Dahlia Eisenberg
Damien Clarkson
,
Co-Founder
THE PACK

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Within hours of the promotion, we have had nearly 20 sales and over 1000 new followers on instagram, which is the most from a single activation. I really think the in-depth high quality production from start to finish had a great impact. Can't wait for all the work we are doing together in the future.”

Damien Clarkson
Angel Nelson
,
Chief Creative Officer
Atlas Monroe

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Working with PBN was great. They generated a large volume of sales for us. They were very communicative and understood our brand from the outset. It’s a pleasure working with such a mission-aligned agency because you don’t need to waste time at the beginning talking about the purpose of what we’re trying to achieve.”

Angel Nelson
Johannes R. Fisslinger
,
Founder
Lifestyle Prescriptions® University

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It was a pleasure working with Plant Based News professionally and in terms of ROI. We achieved the set goals and will work with PBN again.”

Johannes R. Fisslinger
Charlie Trupo
,
Co-founder
Trupo Treats

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"We've worked with Plant Based News in the past on advertorials for our product releases, and recently we began working with their ad team to whitelist and manage our Facebook and Instagram ads. Within just a few months of working with their brilliant ad team and seeing much better results than we were getting on our own ad account, we decided to shift the majority of our ad spend to Plant Based News. The entire PBN team has been incredible to work with and we couldn't recommend them enough."

Charlie Trupo
Michael Palm
,
Chief Marketing Officer
Complement

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"In just a couple short months after partnering with Plant-Based News we've seen a significant uptick in our overall paid social ROAS. Beyond the performance, with their stellar communication and congruent values, it really feels like they're an extension of our team. Hands down a huge win for us so far."

Michael Palm
Tom Bursnall
,
Director
MIAMI BURGER

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It has been a no-brainer for us to work with PBN when we want to push any big announcements. Their professionalism and collaborative approach is greatly appreciated - and they always offer advice when needed. Without question, their platform’s engagement stands out from other outlets in the space.”

Tom Bursnall
Damien Clarkson
,
Co-Founder
THE PACK

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Within hours of the promotion, we have had nearly 20 sales and over 1000 new followers on instagram, which is the most from a single activation. I really think the in-depth high quality production of the piece from start to finish has had a great impact. Can't wait for all the work we are doing together in the future.”

Damien Clarkson
Nzinga Young
,
Short form content creator

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“I started working with Plant Based News in early 2021 after making reels that utilized trending sounds to reference common vegan issues. They grew in popularity and Robbie from PBN offered to repost some of my reels onto their IG page. PBN had just hit 1 million followers at the time and each repost of my content gained me 1000-3000 new followers per video in a 48 hour period. In the past year, I'd say they are responsible for at least 20% of my current followers. PBN was excellent about selecting videos that would work well for their audience, tagging creators early in the caption so their pages are easy to find, pinning the comment of the creator to bring more attention to their page, and adding the reel to their IG story to attract additional views. It's been a wonderful partnership and I'm forever grateful to PBN for their early support of my page.”

Nzinga Young
Jane Velez-Mitchell
,
Founder
UnchainedTV

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“We are so thrilled to be partnering with Plant Based News. As our official 2022 corporate sponsor, they are incredibly strategic and one of the most effective news media outlets out there. When they get involved in a campaign - it goes viral!”

Jane Velez-Mitchell
Matt Done
,
UK General Manager
Planted

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“When the decision was made to enter the UK market we were looking for a trusted media partner to help us drive mass awareness immediately and most importantly in an authentic and genuine way. This is why we were so pleased Plant Based News were open to a partnership. With their passion, expertise and drive to shift consumer behaviour, we are confident that we will be a collective force for good for many years to come.”

Matt Done
Sophie Armour
,
Communications Manager
Good Food Institute Europe

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Plant Based News were great to work with as we promoted a new job opportunity at GFI Europe. The team were able to deliver excellent creative work swiftly and helped reach our target audience.”

Sophie Armour
Joshua Saji
,
Co-Founder
OneFluent Inc.

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“The PBN team were phenomenal to work with on our follower growth contest that we did for one of our clients, The Very Good Food Company. The campaign results either met expectations or exceeded them and they were professional and on time with everything that was promised being pristine. They made it easy to take a vision and turn it into reality.”

Joshua Saji
Ali Tabrizi
,
Director
Seaspiracy

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"We've known about PBN's services for a while now, so when our film premiered on Netflix, we knew their campaigning skills were going to be valuable in launching a petition to protect the ocean. I reached out to the team, and in a matter of days we had launched a petition gaining hundreds of thousands of signatures from around the world. Without the help from the PBN team, we wouldnt have been able to take advantage of the unique opportunity we had.”

Ali Tabrizi
Daphne Tideman
,
Chief Growth Officer
Heights

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It was a pleasure to work with PBN. They are very collaborative and facilitated a campaign where we used their ad account to generate leads and sales. They were very responsive, full of ideas for creative and knew how to get the best out of the audience.”

Daphne Tideman
Juliet Gellately
,
Founder
Viva!

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN is always a delight to work with. They are very efficient, creative and understanding of the briefs we give them. The video advert they produced reached well over a million people, and the more recent social media COVID-19 ad was recently nominated for an award. They’ve also helped with cinema ads (before COVID of course!) and billboards - and plan to keep working with them for years to come!”

Juliet Gellately
Juliet Gellatley
,
Founder
Viva!

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN are always a delight to work with. They are very efficient, creative and understanding of the briefs we give them. The video advert they produced reached well over a million people, and the more recent social media COVID-19 ad was recently nominated for an award. They've also helped with cinema ads (before COVID of course!) and billboards - and we plan to keep working with them for years to come!”

Juliet Gellatley
Ocean Robbins
,
CEO and Co-Founder
Food Revolution Network

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It was great to work closely with PBN on our flagship campaign, the Food Revolution Summit. We would definitely recommend working with them.”

Ocean Robbins
Dorothy Ma
,
Director of PR & Comms
OmniFoods

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It has been a pleasure working with the PBN team - they took the time to really understand what we wanted to achieve as a new brand and have even been great supporters of ours beyond the campaign. The team is agile, creative, and collaborative in working with us and has delivered engaging, quality content time and time again.”

Dorothy Ma
Derek Sarno
,
Co-founder
Wicked Kitchen

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Big fan of Robbie & Klaus and the whole PBN crew. We need more companies that live their values and put as much heart into their work as Plant Based News does.”

Derek Sarno
Giuseppe Federici
,
Content Creator

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It was enjoyable working with PBN on highlighting the new McPlant burger - the brief was clear and on the day I was accompanied by PBN co-founder Robbie Lockie, and the whole experience was enjoyable - one of my highlights as a vegan creator!”

Giuseppe Federici
Sean Dollinger
,
Founder
PlantX

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Plant Based News is the authority on plant-based living. Last year we created an awareness programme together and received thousands of new social followers. They are tremendous partners.”

Sean Dollinger
Vikas Garg
,
CEO
abillion

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Plant Based News is one of the most widely-read and trusted media companies promoting a plant-based future. They help keep me and millions of consumers and business leaders abreast of what’s happening in our sector. We have worked with them through sponsoring their end-of-year films as well as a new and ongoing content syndication partnership. They have, through both sponsored opportunities and editorial ones, for example their podcast, provided abillion a great platform through which to reach new audiences. We are very grateful for their support and have always enjoyed great success in our partnerships with PBN.”

Vikas Garg
James Wilkes
,
Producer
The Game Changers

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"When The Game Changers premiered in late 2019, it was important for us to maximise exposure for the film in those crucial weeks following the release. I reached out to the PBN team, and within days an interview was organised in their studio. They were very professional and left no stone unturned in the production process. I would definitely recommend working with Klaus, Robbie and the team."

James Wilkes
Sean Dollinger
,
Founder
PlantX

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Plant Based News is the authority on plant-based living. Last year we created an awareness programme together and received thousands of new social followers. They are tremendous partners.”

Sean Dollinger
Bernat Verdigris
,
Co-Founder
Heura

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN are a great partner. They are a very creative team and know how to engage with the community. They were extremely responsive and I would recommend working with them.”

Bernat Verdigris
Max Miller
,
CEO
Ready Burger

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Working with the team at Plant Based News over the past 3 months has proven to be a great success for our business. Creating unrivaled exposure to one of our key demographics, the team has seamlessly integrated with our PR agency and internal marketing team producing professional and highly relevant content at every stage. We will be partnering on a long term basis as our businesses grow.”

Max Miller
Jonathan Edwards
,
CEO
Nuzest USA

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"As a long time fan of Plant Based News I was excited to work with the PBN team. As well as great results it was a true partnership where they were truly open to looking at how we could maximize the opportunity of each campaign. They are very responsive, creative and clearly in the relationship for the long term which has been really refreshing.”

Jonathan Edwards
Jennifer Stojkovic
,
Founder
VEGAN WOMEN SUMMIT

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"The Plant Based News team provides an unparalleled opportunity to connect to high-intent, plant-based and plant-curious audiences. Our campaign was tremendously successful in expanding the reach of The Vegan Women Summit in both the US and Europe. I would recommend their branding work to any other company or organization looking to take their marketing to the next level."

Jennifer Stojkovic
Loui Blake
,
Founder
Erpingham House restaurant

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It is always hugely beneficial for our business to work with PBN. The service really is 360 from idea to creation, posting and reporting. The team stays in touch throughout and offers feedback and additional ideas. Overall, we would definitely recommend working with them again.”

Loui Blake
Jenny Miller, Executive Director
,
Centre For Nutrition Studies

(5 of 5) Perfect!

"We've developed a great partnership with Plant Based News. They generated over 10,000 email addresses for us when we wanted extra promotion for our online courses.”

Jenny Miller, Executive Director
Juliet Gellatley
,
Founder
Viva!

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“PBN are always a delight to work with. They are very efficient, creative and understanding of the briefs we give them. The video advert they produced reached well over a million people, and the more recent social media COVID-19 ad was recently nominated for an award. They've also helped with cinema ads (before COVID of course!) and billboards - and we plan to keep working with them for years to come!”

Juliet Gellatley
Toni Vernelli
,
Head of Communications and Marketing
Veganuary

(5 of 5) Perfect!

Veganuary is a UK non-profit organisation that encourages people to follow a vegan lifestyle for the month of January. Veganuary approached PBN to help maintain sign-ups throughout the entire year following their successful 2020 campaign. PBN agreed a monthly retainer for 6 months sharing several pieces of content on instagram, facebook, twitter, and the newsletter. “Working with Plant Based News to promote our content and stories has been really productive for us, driving traffic to our website and sign-ups to our 31-day vegan pledge. They are very professional and took the time to understand our objectives (sign-ups rather than just brand awareness) and to explain the type of content that they knew would perform well on their platforms. I highly recommend working with them!”

Toni Vernelli
Dotsie Bausch
,
Executive Director
Switch4Good

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Our relationship with Plant Based News has expanded our brand reach remarkably in the last year. The crew at PBN is sharp and they think outside the box, pushing buttons in people and in concepts that few have the courage to do and the results land on the champions podium every single time.”

Dotsie Bausch
Naomi Hallum
,
Managing Director
Million Dollar Vegan

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Working with PBN to share valuable information and news of our campaigns has not only been a very beneficial experience for us as an organization, but an effortless one as well. The PBN team stays in regular contact, to guide me on how we can effectively engage their wide audiences and get the best results out of our partnership. If you’re looking for a news platform that works to understand your organization, and that takes initiative in helping you to meet your objectives, then PBN is it.”

Naomi Hallum
Sophia Halberstam
,
Marketing Manager
THIS™

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“It has been fantastic partnering with Giuseppe, Robbie & the rest of the PBN team and they’ve been incredibly supportive of our brand. We’re really selective about whom we run competitions with and are very happy with the increase in brand awareness and engagement as a result of the PBN giveaway”

Sophia Halberstam
Lisa Harrison
,
Senior Brand Manager
Norseland Ltd

(5 of 5) Perfect!

“Our partnership with PBN has definitely been fundamental to the success of the product. It’s doing so well now I’m pulling any advertising for the next few months as we can’t keep up with demand!! Would love to work with you guys again next year – we may have another product by then too!”

Lisa Harrison
Kam Waters

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