Case study
Grammarly rewrites campaign performance with an audience-first marketing strategy
The goal: Expand reach, improve ROI, and fine-tune targeting for high-performance campaigns
Grammarly helps millions worldwide work with clarity and confidence. And when it comes to launching campaigns, the team is focused on performance and proving impact.
The Grammarly team knew that connecting with their target audiences required more than just strong messaging. They wanted a brand strategy built around reaching the people most likely to click “buy.”
To refine their strategy and get more from their advertising spend while adhering to cost per acquisition (CPA) targets, Grammarly needed crystal-clear insights into what was working and what wasn’t.
That meant digging into how ads were influencing search behavior, how many people were visiting their site, and how many were converting. Equally important was identifying the audiences worth the investment, as well as where to pull back for efficiency.
That’s where Microsoft Advertising came in...
The solution: A data-driven approach backed by deep audience insights
Grammarly set out to reach a unique audience: people who don’t just consume content, but create it, too. These “prosumers” are hybrid creators and decision-makers, often the hardest to reach throughout the ecosystem of working professionals.
Partnering with Microsoft Advertising enabled Grammarly to successfully tap into professional data across LinkedIn, Outlook, Bing, and more. This collaboration led to a brand strategy built on real-time insights and audience precision to connect with high-intent users in meaningful ways.
Working as a unified team, Grammarly and Microsoft crafted a strategy that leveraged the unique audience intelligence of Microsoft Advertising Platform with recurring lift studies.
"We’re always looking for new ways to incorporate data-driven learnings into our marketing program that can be operationalized at scale to drive sustained impact. When Microsoft Advertising offered recurring lift studies, we were excited about the meaningful, actionable insights that could directly inform and enhance our overall program."
— Alex Chang, Display Marketing Manager, Grammarly
From awareness and search to site traffic and conversions, these monthly studies provided Grammarly with a clear understanding of campaign impact across the funnel. They could understand how campaigns affected initial brand exposure, user interest, website engagement, and conversions.
Grammarly also collaborated with Microsoft’s insights and advertising engineering teams to analyze brand awareness reach, impressions, and clicks and provide feedback on platform tools to continue improving future lift studies.
With these real-time, AI-powered insights and professional audience data from Microsoft’s ecosystem—including LinkedIn, Outlook, and Edge/Bing users—the team created sharper targeting strategies, identified new growth areas, and reduced waste across underperforming segments.
Here’s how they were able to build campaigns with confidence...
- New custom persona groupings: Clustering Microsoft audience segments based on job function, seniority, industry, and behavioral signals ensured precise alignment with Grammarly’s ideal customer profiles.
- Performance tracking across persona groups: This identified the best-converting segments and adjusted spend for maximum ROI.
- A unique ecosystem: Activating Microsoft’s workday audiences drove awareness and qualified traffic from valuable, hard-to-reach decision-makers.
- Cross-channel synergy: Aligning Microsoft placements with Grammarly’s broader media mix reinforced brand messaging across the customer journey and boosted overall media efficiency.
- Weekly optimizations: Continuously refining their bid and audience lists helped Grammarly maintain cost efficiency and performance consistency, so CPA targets stayed on track while scaling reach across high-performing segments.
"Collaborating with Microsoft Advertising on lift studies has consistently helped us identify new opportunities for Grammarly. We draw on these study results to pinpoint the emerging audiences that we’re confident will have an incremental impact on our business, whether through increased page visits or conversions. This approach has allowed us to enhance our targeting strategy and lower our CPA by 23%."
— Alex Chang, Display Marketing Manager, Grammarly
Microsoft Advertising Platform highlights:
- Exclusive workday audiences
- Lift studies
- AI-powered audience segmentation
- Cross-channel campaign management
- Custom persona development
Results at a glance:
- 42% search lift
- 73% conversion lift
- 33% increase in site visits
- Lowered CPA by 23% YoY, meeting goals
The results: More searches, visits, and conversions without overspending
By focusing on the right audiences and adjusting regularly, Grammarly unlocked stronger performance across key channels, including higher search activity, site visits, and conversion lift. Thanks to Microsoft Advertising’s exclusive workday inventory, Grammarly outperformed category benchmarks in both awareness and conversion metrics—all while consistently meeting their CPA goals.
Even better? The team walked away with a proven framework for future campaigns. With alignment on KPIs, audience definitions, and creative strategy, Grammarly and their Microsoft Advertising partners ensured every media dollar was working harder, delivering more relevant messaging, and measurable results.
How you can achieve similar success
Ready to boost your own brand strategy? Here are a few tips from Grammarly:
- Build regular lift studies into your processes. Frequent measurement and reevaluation help you stay informed to make faster, smarter decisions.
- Partner closely with your account team. Collaborating on audience insights and tool feedback can lead to stronger outcomes and better campaigns.
- Tap into Microsoft’s audience ecosystem. Professional data across LinkedIn, Outlook, Bing, and more can help you reach the right people—especially in hard-to-reach B2B segments, or with prosumers who both create and consume content.
Connect with a Microsoft Advertising expert today to learn more.
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