Blood & Plasma
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Community blood network · Multi-market
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Acquisition, media, measurement
New York Blood Center Enterprises is one of the largest blood center networks in the country. The donor base was shrinking, the funnel was leaking, and the category was in structural decline. ARSNL rebuilt the donor acquisition funnel with programmatic and first-party data — a single measurement system tying media to booked appointments — and turned it into a program that compounds.
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Client
New York Blood Center Enterprises
Markets
Multi-market community blood network
Scope
Programmatic, paid social, first-party data, booking funnel, measurement
Audience
First-time and repeat blood donors, with a youth donor focus
The brief
Blood donation in the U.S. has been in long-term decline. Youth donor participation has fallen the hardest. NYBCe needed a program that grew the donor base inside a category headwind — one that could acquire new donors at a cost that worked, bring lapsed donors back, and book them into appointments at centers and drives across multiple markets.
The legacy approach was awareness-led and channel-siloed. The funnel didn't connect to bookings. There was no portfolio view of CPA across markets.
What we did
We rebuilt the program around booked appointments as the only outcome that matters. Media, creative, and measurement were rewired to that outcome.
- Programmatic acquisition. Audience-based buying against in-market and lookalike donor profiles, with creative variants tuned to first-time vs. repeat donors and youth segments.
- First-party data. NYBCe's own donor data brought in to suppress active donors, re-engage lapsed donors, and seed lookalikes for net-new acquisition.
- Paid social. Meta and TikTok with creative aimed at youth donors and community drives.
- Booking funnel. Landing pages and the appointment flow optimized so the click became an appointment, not an abandoned cart.
- Unified measurement. One reporting view across markets, with CPA, channel contribution, and donor cohort outcomes that the network's leadership could act on.
Selected work
Creative · Campaign
Donor campaign creative.
Work that delivered 100,000+ bookings and 17% YoY growth in youth donors.
Web · Booking
Booking and scheduling flow.
Donor journey and scheduling flow tuned so the click becomes an appointment.
Media · Performance
Performance media.
Programmatic media at the lowest CPA in the category, run across donor segments.
The results
100,000+
Booked donor appointments over four years.
17% YoY
Youth donor growth in a category in structural decline.
Lowest
CPA on record for the network's donor acquisition program.
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Why it worked
The program worked because every dollar was measured against a booked appointment, not an impression. First-party data did the heavy lifting on suppression and re-engagement — the easiest donor to acquire is one who has donated before. Programmatic and paid social did the work of finding new donors, including the youth donors the category is losing fastest.
The same acquisition discipline now powers patient programs across the rest of our healthcare practice.
Next case
Barceló Hotels & Resorts
All work
What's next
Then let's plan to get there.
