National Park Foundation
The New York Times Paid Editorial Campaign
The Challenge
NPF needed to introduce its mission and urgency to a new, high-potential audience—and do it in a way that felt true to the organization’s voice, donor promise, and the moment parks needed support.
This wasn’t a single-message assignment. It was a cross-functional effort spanning multiple stakeholders, teams, and donor perspectives, with one central requirement: tell the right story, for the right audience, at the right moment—and align everyone behind it.
What I did
Led story strategy and alignment across stakeholders
Clarified the core narrative: what the audience needed to understand, feel, and do.
Coordinated inputs across internal teams and the NYT partner to ensure the story reflected organizational priorities and donor realities.
Shaped messaging for a premium, credibility-driven environment—where tone, trust, and timing matter as much as reach.
Built the measurement foundation (supporting, not leading)
Established a KPI model across awareness, engagement, and conversion signals.
Defined the efficiency/ROI framework (CPM, cost-per-engagement, cost-per-email, cost-per-donation; revenue vs. spend) to complete at end of flight.
The Results
Sustained lift in interest for NPF-owned channels
Direct traffic to nationalparks.org averaged +34% sessions vs. pre-campaign baseline during Month 1.
Engagement rate increased by ~4.9 points vs. baseline.
Paid post engagement exceeded NYT benchmarks (and improved over time)
Engaged time improved from 0:38 → 0:40 (benchmark: 0:36).
Scroll depth improved from 28% → 30% (benchmark: 27%).
Outbound CTR to NPF improved from 1.84% → 2.11% (benchmark: 1.84%).
Trackable traffic increased period-over-period
Sessions to NPF properties attributable to NYT placements grew 28% from Period 1 to Period 2 (1,874 → 2,391).
Video ad units drove the majority of attributable sessions (83% of Month 1 total), while article referral traffic showed stronger engagement.
