CHALLENGE
Partners in Health (PIH) aimed to boost awareness of their initiatives and capture a new generation of supporters and donors by integrating digital, broadcast, print, and streaming media — including the Netflix release of the documentary, Bending the Arc. This included identifying, engaging, and ultimately converting donors. Of particular interest was the acquisition of new donors and collecting and building a strong email list to enable ongoing donor engagement and fundraising.
DELVE was tasked with developing a captivating digital media strategy to reach and involve new audiences with an emphasis on acquisition of Millennials and re-activating older, lapsed and existing donors.
APPROACH
Full-Funnel Campaign Strategy
Because the customer journey is not linear, DELVE developed a multi-touch, full-funnel strategy to drive awareness and engagement along each step of the journey:
- Brand Awareness: Identify new high-potential audiences based on strategic niche targeting. Leverage Bending the Arc support to reach new audiences to build PIH brand support. Expose and inspire new PIH audiences to the brand’s mission with the goal of heightening their interest in supporting PIH goals.
- Email Acquisition: Prospect potential new supporters based on key triggers to acquire new email leads to maintain a strong email list for future fundraising opportunities in H2 and EOY. Continue to engage new PIH audiences, motivating them to learn more about the brand by becoming a supporter (e.g. email acquisition).
- Fundraising: Convert new and current PIH supporters (but not yet donors) to both single and sustained monthly donations, through retargeting users with compelling copy and imagery. Compel current, lapsed and likely donors to convert to single and/or monthly sustained donors.
Multi-Channel Media Strategy
DELVE applied its data-driven media experience to integrate multiple advertising channels to support the full-funnel strategy:
- SEM: testing and optimization of search ads aligned to intent for conversion.
- Paid social/display/video: testing and optimization of ad creative including copy balance, messaging, carousel images, and CTAs.
- Programmatic display: testing and optimization of image subject matter, emotion, settings, messaging, and CTAs.
- Programmatic video: testing and optimization of video spots (:06, :15, :30 seconds), imagery and topics (e.g. COVID, social justice, advocacy), and CTAs.
Dynamic Creative Optimization
DELVE developed multiple dynamic banner templates, allowing for seamless testing of different images and copy and the flexibility to update messaging and imagery without fully developing new assets. In addition to image and copy testing, this approach uses machine learning to automatically optimize towards the top performing copy and imagery combinations. This allows for efficient media spend, prioritizing top performing assets to see the strongest results.
In the first several months of the campaign, three CTAs for Fundraising stage campaigns were tested and the conversion rate for the top performer was 2X higher than the next best CTA, while CTR was 30% higher. This same approach was applied to all elements of the ads, including headline, copy and images.
RESULTS
Overall, DELVE drove a robust omni-channel paid media strategy which exceeded goals and drove approximately 81% more digital revenue YoY during H1 2021.
Through strategic targeting and media approaches, DELVE delivered a 1: 1.8 ROAS and increased digital revenue by 52% in just two months via the Bending the Arc media channel.
Awareness
- Awareness efforts across all channels provided a high-quality enrichment of prospects pool during H1 period.
- Most of the potential donors encountered PIH for the first time (98% programmatic, 89% SEM, 48% social) and spent considerable time learning about the organization.
Acquisition
- Acquired email leads served for enablement of fundraising efforts and maintained a strong list of prospective new donors for fundraising opportunities.
- 87% of all digital media sign ups were delivered with the lowest CPA.
Fundraising
- Through improved brand awareness and a solid pool of prospects, fundraising efforts drove record-breaking revenue, especially during EOY – ~ 70% of total digital media H1 revenue. This includes growth in donations of a 25-34 age cohort, a historically underperforming age group for PIH.
- Applying best targeting tactics and relevant messaging (including 3X match) across all channels, ensured the success and incremental revenue in H1 FY21.
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