Case Study: How To Scale Your Podcast Advertising Campaign
About Lumen
Lumen is a health tech company that offers the world’s first portable metabolism tracker. By analyzing CO₂ levels in a user’s breath, Lumen provides real-time insights into whether the body is burning fats or carbohydrates for energy, enabling personalized nutrition plans.
Podcast advertising is now THE core channel for Lumen both in ROI and in scale. The challenge was turning a niche, science-backed product into a mass-market success—without overspending on inefficient placements.
This case study breaks down the measurable strategies Lumen and ADOPTER used to scale its podcast ad campaign into a top 100 brand in podcasting in its first year.
The Challenges
Despite having a differentiated product, Lumen faced three core hurdles in the podcast space:
- Consumer Education Gap – The concept of breath-based metabolism tracking wasn’t widely understood, requiring hosts to convey complex science without losing listener engagement.
- Scaling Without Overspending – Lumen needed a way to ramp up ad spend while keeping customer acquisition costs (CAC) in check.
- Finding the Right Audience – Lumen had its foot in the biohacking/alternative health space, but in order to go big you need mass market appeal.
Lumen’s approach was data-first, testing small before scaling big, and aggressively cutting underperforming placements to maintain efficiency.
Testing for High-Intent Audiences
Lumen didn’t rush into mass spending. Instead, they followed a data-driven testing framework to identify the best-performing placements.
- Start with what works: When Lumen came to ADOPTER, they were entrenched in the health/fitness space. It was important to build authority with podcasters in the genre to test the medium of podcasting against their other channels.
- Join the Zeitgeist: 2024 was a “Super Bowl” political year. Lumen leaned in on all sides of the conversation tapping into engaged audiences through networks like The Daily Wire and Crooked to capture highly engaged audience.
Key Learning: Seeing where influence is moving and being there before it hits leads to high ROI.
Scaling the Winners, Cutting the Losers
Once Lumen identified high-performing podcasts, they scaled methodically while maintaining cost efficiency. They did this in three key areas:
- Doubling down on networks with proven results. Instead of testing brand-new shows blindly, Lumen expanded within high-performing podcast networks to secure volume discounts and cross-show audience retention.
- Automating performance monitoring. Using real-time attribution dashboards, Lumen paused underperforming campaigns before they burned excess budget, keeping CACs in 2024 below target while scaling monthly spending 10x through the year in 9 months.
- Negotiating premium placement deals. By becoming a top advertiser in select networks, Lumen locked in preferred pricing, keeping rates competitive even as spend increased. This led to unique deals like a live stream integration during the presidential debate from the Daily Wire or getting preferred placements on Pod Save America episodes.
Key Learning: The highest ROI didn’t come from testing more shows—it came from scaling the right ones and eliminating waste quickly.
The Results
- Ad spend scaled by 10x in 9 months while keeping CAC within profitable benchmarks.
- Network-level partnerships reduced overall ad rates by 20-25%, improving efficiency at scale–in 2024 Lumen’s average CPM was $15 across all buys, not including over-delivery.
- Podcasting is now Lumen’s #1 growth channel in both scale and performance.
"Adam, Angela, and the whole team at ADOPTER Media didn’t just help us scale—they helped us scale profitably. Podcast advertising is now a cornerstone of our marketing mix, and ADOPTER’s data-driven approach has been key to that success.”
— Ariel Burstein, Marketing Partnerships Manager @ Lumen
Key Takeaways
For brands looking to scale podcast advertising, this case study supports the following key takeaways:
- Start with niche, high-intent audiences before expanding. A broad approach might drive impressions, but conversions come from trusted communities and targeted show selection.
- Direct results are achievable and measurable–promo codes are not gone, but they are supplemented by pixel data, UTM attribution and PPS data.
- Negotiate network-level deals once you identify winners. Scaling with trusted partners beats constantly testing new, unproven placements.
- Use content integrations for deeper engagement. Hosts delivering long-form storytelling about your product can outperform standard ad slots.
Conclusion
Lumen’s success isn’t just about increasing spend—it was about spending smarter. By taking advantage of the political boom year, ADOPTER’s relationships with top news/politics networks, and a strong measurement philosophy they transformed podcast advertising from an experimental channel into a scalable, profitable growth driver beyond their initial target demographics.
Looking to scale podcast advertising profitably?
Reach out to ADOPTER Media—we specialize in turning podcast advertising into a high-ROI channel for brands that want to grow.