[ Industry case study — Paid Media ]
First paid campaign beats sign-up goal by 124%
Directive launched dbt's first-ever paid media program across Google, LinkedIn and Reddit to drive Coalesce conference sign-ups.
Original project by Directive ↗Industry reference — not a NexSum Labs engagement.
- Client
- dbt Labs
- Industry
- Data / developer tools
- Services
- Paid search, Paid social, Display & video, Benchmark goal-setting
- Year
- 2025
The client
dbt is an open-source command-line tool that helps analysts and engineers transform data in their warehouses. It pioneered analytics engineering and supports a community of more than 25,000 data practitioners.
The challenge
dbt had never invested in paid media and relied on word of mouth and referrals for pipeline. It wanted to reach a large untapped audience, starting with sign-ups for its annual Coalesce conference. With no historical paid data, there was no baseline for setting realistic goals. Google Ads alone was unlikely to deliver enough impressions in the tech space.
The solution
01Custom benchmarks without history
Directive combined its own client benchmarks by industry, broad industry standards and dbt's organic conversion rates to set goals that were both realistic and ambitious.
02Cross-medium Google campaign
The campaign optimised for event sign-ups rather than leads and spanned search, video and display to reach impression saturation and lift conversion rate.
03Volume play on LinkedIn and Reddit
Instead of a narrow LinkedIn approach, every LinkedIn ad type was used to saturate the platform, while relevant subreddits such as r/bigdata reached qualified data audiences.
The results
dbt's first paid campaign beat projected sign-up volume by 124% and came in 55% under the projected cost per sign-up. Conversion rates ran 94% above projections. The program gave dbt a working baseline and momentum for future paid demand generation.
Tools & stack
Original project by Directive ↗ — published by the delivering agency, included here as an industry reference.
[ More industry examples ]
More from paid media.
[ Next step ]
Want this kind of result? Let's scope it.
contact@nexsumlabs.tech — we reply within one business dayNext case study — Wizz Air