Case Study: Ad Council achieves 31% higher attention and 123% higher CTR for FinishYourDiploma.org with Outbrain's Onyx

Elevating education with attention for the Ad Council’s FinishYourDiploma.org initiative

The Ad Council, alongside the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, ran the FinishYourDiploma.org initiative to connect millions of U.S. adults who lack a high school equivalency with free adult education centers. The challenge was to raise awareness and drive meaningful engagement among hard-to-reach, lower-income and mobile audiences to help them discover pathways to better jobs and personal growth.

Using Onyx by Outbrain and Brand Studio, the campaign placed ads across premium, highly viewable publisher environments (news, sports, celebrity) and added custom experiences like pre-roll video and an interactive poll. The effort delivered strong outcomes: attention was 31% above the Adelaide benchmark, viewability hit 76%, CTR was 123% higher than benchmark, the poll drew 500+ positive responses, and a Lucid study showed notable lifts in brand awareness (up to +11% on mobile; +8.1% for < $20K households) and ad recall (+4.5%).

Ad Council

DJ Perera

Chief Media Officer