The Key to a Successful Paid Media Campaign for Charities

Really understand your audience

Audiences interact with charities in different ways, so it is important to differentiate your offerings and how you communicate with the different personas that interact with your charity. For example, one-off donations are essential for those who want to support charities or key events but have limited disposable income. There are those more financially secure who would look for a longer-term commitment. 

This is just a small snippet into the types of audiences who want to engage with audiences, but it shows the difference in how you should target those users with long-term donations or membership opportunities. By also reflecting these messages in ad copy, you can target certain keywords with headlines that focus on the charitable support that would most likely suit that supporter. 

If you want to know more about how to understand your personas and drive donations, check out our head of CX’s blog on driving donations through CRO and knowing your audience. 

Make the most of free advertising through the Google Grant

UK charities or nonprofits may be eligible for up to an amazing $10,000 of Google Advertising credit for free advertising on Google’s paid search every month! Google wants to help you change the world with the fantastic work that charities and nonprofits are doing, so all you need to do is apply for the Google Grant here and start to plan how you can make the most of this budget to drive fundraising. 

Retargeting is power

There is a pool of users who have visited your website and either not converted or completed a one-off donation. This shows there is interest in your charity, and they want to hear from you. Make sure you stay top of mind and retarget them with relevant messaging, giving them clear reasons for why they should donate, why now and where their money goes. 

Using retargeting data, you can start to unpick and really understand who your audiences are and what they are interested in. Typically 92% of users who land on your site aren’t ready to complete a conversion; they have shown interest and intent by landing on your site. It is then, through a combination of retargeting and strong action-driving landing pages, you can help guide users through this process.  

Be in the right place at the right time

Charity support is often impacted by what is important to an individual, as well as what is relevant and what is happening in the world at a given time. 

Through programmatic advertising, you can target relevant news stories that relate to your charity, be sure to monitor negative keywords and always examine where your ads are showing to avoid wastage and irrelevant placements. Contextual ads have been found to be 2.2X more effective than standard display ads. It has been found that two-thirds of people are willing to donate online rather than in person, by being in a relevant placement can drive those users to donate. 

To conclude

I’ve worked with charities for almost five years, and in this time, I’ve learnt that there are many elements that can make or break a campaign, from celebrity endorsements or a global pandemic. I’ve found that the true key is to be authentic and transparent with your current and potential supports.

Showcasing where donors' money is spent and what impact it makes can make a big difference in how they feel about supporting your cause. 

If you’d like to speak to myself or a member of our paid team to discuss how we can support your charity’s paid media strategy, please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.