CHALLENGE
Stanford Medicine’s Health Futurists Emerging Leaders Program needed to grow applications and class registrations for its spring 2026 cohort by reaching a niche, senior audience of healthcare and life sciences leaders. With a limited budget and a crowded digital landscape, Stanford Medicine needed targeted paid campaigns to find clinicians, operators, researchers, and AI and ML leaders at the nation’s top health organizations, and efficient enough to convert their attention into program interest.
OBJECTIVE
Partnering with Stanford Medicine and its brand agency Monigle, Pierpont set out to drive applicants and registrations for the Health Futurists Emerging Leaders Program through a precisely targeted paid digital program. The goals: build and reach a high-value U.S. audience of senior healthcare and life sciences professionals; deliver website visits and program interest efficiently across multiple channels; and outperform industry benchmarks on engagement and cost. Pierpont owned paid digital strategy and execution while Monigle handled creative production.
SOLUTION
To efficiently reach a highly specialized audience, Pierpont developed a multi-channel paid media strategy spanning LinkedIn, Google Search and programmatic display. Each channel played a distinct role, from building awareness among healthcare leaders to capturing high-intent prospects actively searching for professional development opportunities. Working alongside Monigle, which produced visual creatives, Pierpont built the campaign architecture, targeting, tracking, and optimization.
Pierpont built a custom LinkedIn audience of approximately 240,000 healthcare and life sciences professionals across the United States. The strategy focused on reaching senior clinicians, healthcare operators, researchers, and AI leaders working at major organizations including pharmaceutical manufacturers, healthcare systems, and biotechnology companies. By layering job function, seniority, industry, and employer targeting, the team concentrated media spend on high-value decision-makers most likely to be interested in the program. Pierpont structured the program for both reach and conversion: two LinkedIn campaigns using static and animated creatives, two Google Search campaigns spanning branded and non-branded terms, and four display tactics covering behavioral, contextual, keyword, and lookalike targeting. The team layered in LinkedIn Insight Tag and UTM tracking, advised on the landing page, and continuously monitored and optimized performance across channels.
RESULTS
Facing the challenge of recruiting high-caliber healthcare and life sciences leaders for its Health Futurists Emerging Leaders Program, Stanford Medicine partnered with Pierpont to build a targeted digital recruitment engine. The campaign generated more than 13,900 qualified visits while exceeding engagement benchmarks across every paid channel, creating a scalable model for future enrollment cycles.
Despite a modest $12.2K media investment, the campaign generated more than 1.1 million impressions and nearly 14,000 visits from highly qualified healthcare and life sciences professionals. Across all channels, the program achieved a strong 3.54% click-through rate and an efficient blended cost per click of just $1.47, exceeding typical engagement benchmarks for healthcare and higher education marketing campaigns.which outperforms typical healthcare and higher education benchmarks.
Google Search was the standout channel, delivering a 7.53% CTR at just $0.71 per click, well above typical search benchmarks. LinkedIn reached the precise senior audience Pierpont built, while programmatic display drove efficient scale at a $0.37 CPC across nearly 963,000 impressions. Together, the channel mix balanced top-of-funnel awareness with high-intent conversion.
By combining precision audience targeting, search intent capture, and multi-channel optimization, Pierpont proved that even highly specialized professional education programs can efficiently reach and engage senior healthcare leaders at scale. The approach now provides a repeatable framework for future enrollment and demand-generation initiatives.
