Pay-per-click legacies: NSPCC uses Facebook for legacy leads 0

In a competitive legacy market, some charities are thinking outside the box to get at potential legators. NSPCC turned to pay-per-click advertising on Facebook for a legacy campaign, and beat forecasts by 300 per cent.

The question on every fundraiser’s lips: how to make best use of online social networks?  While the benefits for brand engagement are clear, charities are increasingly looking to harness online networks to contribute more specifically to their fundraising targets.

In a UK first, NSPCC joined with direct marketing agency Whitewater to generate leads for the charity’s legacy programme on the most ubiquitous of social networks, Facebook.

Stephen George, development director for the NSPCC said: “A key outcome of our research with Whitewater was our decision to place strategic emphasis on maximising exposure of the message to generate enquiries and increase consideration rates. This has replaced the more narrow approach designed to get people to 'pledge' or take action before they feel comfortable to do so. Such a move has completely opened up our thinking on the target audience and liberated the team to try new routes to market, including digital. We are in new territory and it has really paid off.”

On Facebook, the demographic group that has seen the fastest growth in the past 12 months has been among women aged 50-plus: prime charity donor heartland. This group represented a strong fit with the NSPCC’s target audience for cold promotion of legacies and an opportunity to break away from the norm in the way they are engaged. The legacy advertising market has become very un-differentiated, typically small black and white press ads with coupons in national press, aimed at the most elderly audiences. Advertising on Facebook was nothing if not fresh.

The approach applied the pay per click (PPC) model, using simple banner ad creative. Importantly, it made best possible use of advertising on Facebook because it allowed tight targeting and live, real-time profiling of the prospects who clicked through. The language in Facebook users’ profiles was used for initial targeting: ads were only served to people whose profile interests were in line with the NSPCC targets. As the campaign progressed, based on the characteristics of those clicking through, the terms were optimised and some interesting alternative target groups were created.

Each ad was managed in the ‘Facebook Ads Manager’ on a daily basis to ensure a cost-effective click through for NSPCC. The clicks went through to a uniquely tailored landing page, which was tracked using Google Analytics.

The NSPCC’s objective was to generate 2,500 click-throughs and, from this to achieve 30 identified enquirers who downloaded or requested a legacy pack, or got in touch with the charity. Both targets were beaten by over 300 per cent. At the NSPCC’s current average legacy gift value, even if just one of these enquirers goes on to leave a gift in their will, the return on investment for this activity will be 6.4.

Richard Patterson, Whitewater’s head of digital said: “By applying insight and using Facebook’s sophisticated targeting, Whitewater and the NSPCC have proven that pay-per-click can work for legacies. We are committed to proving that the intelligent use of this and other digital environments can generate a very positive ROI across all areas of fundraising.”

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Pay-per-click legacies: NSPCC uses Facebook for legacy leads

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Organisation: National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)