6:1 ROI: the power of combined email + display campaigns
A natural dietary supplements brand was launching a new "immunity and vitality" range and needed to quickly build awareness while driving direct e-shop sales. Vertical Hero designed a campaign combining targeted CPC email and contextual CPM display on its wellness and cooking databases, complemented by retargeting on openers and clickers.
The challenge
The Vertical Hero approach
An acquisition plan combining CPC email in 3 waves over 8 weeks and contextual CPM display on health and nutrition pages across the network, complemented by targeted retargeting on openers and clickers.
CPC email in 3 editorial waves
Three send waves planned over 8 weeks on first-party wellness, cooking, and family databases — nutritionpratique.fr, cuisinecool.fr, bonappetitfr.fr, astucesfamille.fr. Each wave used a different editorial angle — winter immunity, daily energy, spring detox — with A/B tested subject lines and dedicated creatives to keep the message fresh and avoid creative fatigue.
Contextual CPM display on health and nutrition pages
Alongside the email sends, display formats (300x250 and mobile banner) ran contextually on health, nutrition, and recipe pages across our network. The objective: build brand presence among an affinity audience, create familiarity, and prime the ground for email-driven conversion.
Display retargeting on openers and clickers
Users who opened emails or clicked without converting were retargeted with contextual display across our wellness and cooking sites. This proprietary retargeting — cookie-free, powered by first-party data — re-exposed engaged profiles and guided them toward e-shop conversion.
Continuous optimization driven by sales data
By integrating the advertiser's conversion pixel, we optimized segments, creatives, and placements in real time based on actual revenue generated — not just clicks. This ROAS-driven optimization concentrated budgets on the most profitable combinations.
500,000
Affinity contacts reached across the full campaign
42,000
Qualified clicks to the e-shop
ROI 6:1
Revenue vs. ad spend
+35%
90-day repeat purchase rate vs. Meta Ads customers
Why Vertical Hero made the difference
Email + display synergy on a proprietary ecosystem
The campaign's strength lies in the complementarity of both levers within one ecosystem. CPC email drives engagement and qualified traffic, CPM display builds awareness and familiarity, retargeting on openers/clickers closes the conversion loop. Everything runs on our own properties — no third-party cookie dependency, no platform algorithm uncertainty.
Premium wellness audiences
Our nutrition, cooking, and wellness databases are filled with profiles genuinely committed to natural health — regular readers of our content, subscribers to our thematic newsletters. These audiences have incomparably higher receptivity to natural supplements than declarative or lookalike targeting on social platforms.
Superior long-term customer value
The most significant result isn't the immediate 6:1 ROI — it's the 90-day repeat purchase rate of customers acquired through Vertical Hero: 35% higher than Meta Ads customers. Customers acquired through affinity editorial content develop a trust-based relationship with the brand that translates into meaningfully higher loyalty and lifetime value.