How a webinar turned a question into 566 leads for Descartes

Descartes builds the digital booking and quoting platforms that are reshaping how freight moves. They wanted to reach the forwarders wrestling with exactly that shift — and turn their interest into leads its sales team could act on. The target was 300. The idea was to earn them by hosting the conversation the industry was already having.

Digitisation was the question on every forwarder's mind, and few had a clear answer. So rather than run an ad campaign at that audience, The Loadstar convened the debate: an expert panel, a genuinely useful discussion, and a six-week campaign to fill the room. Descartes didn't interrupt the conversation, it sponsored the one people wanted to join.

We built the event worth attending

The free-to-attend webinar — Freight forwarding post-digitisation: how to succeed — brought together a panel of industry leaders to work through what forwarders actually need to do to future-proof their businesses. Real expertise, not a sales pitch, which is what made the invitation worth accepting.

We filled the room

A six-week campaign across The Loadstar's channels — homepage placements, the daily newsletter, editorial and social — drove 601,233 ad impressions and put the webinar in front of the 200,000+ professionals who read the site over the period. It pulled 9,872 visits to the registration page and converted them at a 5.73% click-to-sign-up rate.

We handed over the leads

The campaign delivered 566 registrations — nearly double the 300 target — every one an opted-in lead passed straight to the Descartes sales team. And because the session was recorded and promoted on demand long after the live date, it kept generating leads well beyond the campaign window.

The webinar didn't just hit its number — it beat it by 88%, built Descartes' authority on the one topic its buyers cared about most, and left behind an asset that kept working all year.

Why it worked

• Host the conversation, don't interrupt it. Forwarders gave their details to join a debate they genuinely wanted in on — a far warmer lead than any ad click, and 88% over target.
• Reach and relevance together. 600,000+ impressions in front of a specialist audience meant the room filled with the exact people Descartes sells to, not a general crowd.
• The asset keeps earning. Recorded once and promoted on demand, the webinar carried on generating leads long after the six weeks ended — value that outlived the campaign.

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