PrimePay Turns Original Research Into Their Best-Performing Content

First-party data to answer essential questions

PrimePay has a long history of helping companies across the country take care of their most important asset — their people. Built by HR professionals for HR professionals, more than 14,000 companies trust PrimePay as a leader in Human Capital Management to handle their payroll, benefits, and wider HR needs.

However, labor market shifts in recent years have highlighted the need for fresh insights into employee experience and what employers could do to enhance it. PrimePay knew that to lead the conversation around employee retention, they needed to bring new, data-backed insights to market that would offer value to HR leaders navigating constant change.

Beyond benefits: Reimagining HR with original research

PrimePay’s digital marketing efforts — led by Senior Director, Digital Marketing Dustin Slightham and Senior Content Marketing Manager Kate Super  — knew they needed fresh, proprietary insights on employee experience to guide HR leaders. Investing in original research would allow them to bring new perspectives to market and deliver solutions that truly resonate with their clients.

While they saw the value in original research, outsourcing to large research firms came with costs that didn’t align with their budget. Taking it on in-house wasn’t realistic either, given limited time, resources, and expertise.

Instead, the team looked to trusted partners. Having collaborated closely with Thrū Content on content strategy, they knew Thrū could deliver high-quality, original reports. When they learned Thrū was partnering with Redpoint Insights — experts in survey design, panel sourcing, and data analysis — they saw an opportunity to execute the research efficiently without stretching their team thin.

By leaning on partners already familiar with their goals, PrimePay was able to produce credible, data-driven insights—delivered on time and without the hefty price tag of traditional research consultancies.

From research to record-breaking reach

The project kicked off with an alignment session between PrimePay, Thrū Content, and Redpoint to nail down the key themes, target audience, and business objectives for the research. From the start, the focus wasn’t just on gathering data — but on ensuring the survey would uncover fresh, relevant insights PrimePay could turn into meaningful content.

Redpoint worked closely with PrimePay’s team to design a survey tailored for content marketing success—balancing thoughtful questions with strong narrative potential. Once finalized, Redpoint handled panel sourcing and survey distribution, targeting HR executives and directors at small to large businesses across the U.S.

After collecting responses, Redpoint provided an in-depth analysis, distilling the findings into clear, market-ready themes. Thrū Content then built on this foundation to develop two original research reports, ensuring PrimePay had engaging, data-driven content to fuel campaigns throughout the year.

The first report, “Current State of the Employee Experience,” was the company’s second-highest performing piece of content for the year and spawned other high-performing supporting content such as blogs, articles, and social media posts that each exceeded the company’s standard content metrics. 

PrimePay further used its proprietary research to create a second report, “The Role of Technology and Data in EX,” along with a webinar featuring multiple HR leaders responding to the data. Kate says that the event featuring insights, opinions, and actionable tips for attendees to address the findings the research revealed was one of PrimePay’s most-watched webinars.

Together, the reports generated nearly 1,600 downloads from organic and paid channels. The campaign achieved a 15% conversion rate from organic social — about 5% higher than industry benchmarks — and an overall conversion rate up to 3% above standard rates, all without a dedicated PR push.