Whether it’s a group of parents, friends, coworkers, students, or volunteers, SignUp is the easiest solution for coordinating successful events and activities – over 27 million people use SignUp.

Their simple, intuitive online SignUps and scheduling tools make it easy for people to join together and say YES to pitching in, signing up and showing up. No waiting for approvals and passwords, no software to install -- just free, easy scheduling and SignUp solutions for successful group participation and remarkable outcomes.

The Brief

Upon onboarding in 2021, SignUp was still monetizing email with their previous email monetization partner. SignUp’s priority was to implement web and mobile successfully, so changing their email solution was put on hold.

It wasn’t until 2022, after seeing minimal performance improvement through an alternate email monetization partner, that SignUp was ready for a new email monetization solution. They were looking for a solution that could provide the following:

  • High-Level of Ad Quality – SignUp was concerned with the quality of ads served on their emails. They wanted a solution that wouldn't negatively impact their UX.
  • Additional Revenue Source – SignUp saw ad revenue from email monetization as a bonus from their existing ad ops efforts.
  • Ops Management – They were looking for a solution that could handle the day-to-day management so they can focus on their key objectives.

“Freestar is an extension of our team, a partner, and a true advocate for our interests. Through all the changes, Freestar has been an advocate, not a vendor, for us. It’s a wonderful feeling, and honestly, head and shoulders above the competition.”

The Approach

Freestar is a one-stop shop for publishers looking for programmatic monetization including email monetization. We took over SignUp’s email monetization and switched their partnership to LiveIntent in 2022.

For SignUp, this saved them the time and energy of looking for a new email monetization solution. Through Freestar’s partnership with LiveIntent, SignUp was hands-off and let Freestar take care of it for them. Freestar handles email monetization from end-to-end including contracts to managing all ad quality and setting up the LiveConnect tag and ads.txt for publishers.

For email monetization, Freestar implemented:

  • Ad Layout – Freestar replicated the ad layout that was previously running on their emails but enabled multiple sizes using a single tag which opened up additional demand and resulted in higher revenue.
  • Ad Placement – SignUp wanted a seamless UX and used top and bottom banners.
  • LiveConnect Tag – Freestar enabled LiveIntent’s LiveConnect tag, which improves campaign performance, uses people-based marketing to increase conversion from your own emails, offers advanced reporting, and allows you to dynamically retarget various audiences.

 

 

The Results

SignUp.com was thrilled with Freestar and its partnership with LiveIntent to improve their email monetization performance. Since launching email in October 2022, SignUp.com has seen a 114% revenue lift in the first six months.

Our partnership with LiveIntent gives Freestar publishers all email reporting metrics within the Freestar dashboard, so publishers have full transparency into their ad operations. With the data in our dashboard, our team can analyze the data and manage any ad quality issues more efficiently. With LiveIntent, publishers can expect an average of 10-15% revenue increase. For SignUp, they were able to achieve double that minimum.