Enhancing Unicef USA’s digital strategies to bring in 36,000 new donors
In Short:
We partnered with our long-standing client, Unicef USA (UUSA), to tackle declining donor engagement and revenue amid challenging economic conditions. By implementing audience-first, data-driven strategies and innovative paid media tactics, Delve Deeper successfully revitalized UUSA’s digital fundraising efforts, leading to significant increases in new-to-file donor acquisition and end-of-year (EOY) individual giving growth.
The Challenge:
Despite relatively few international emergencies in 2024, many charities, including Unicef USA, must still achieve fundraising goals. For charities, fewer emergencies means fewer new donors to the file, and higher reliance on existing individual donors giving more.
Broader economic factors, including reduced disposable income, a lasting aftershock from the 8% inflation in 2022, and increased competition for donor attention, necessitated a shift in strategy for most nonprofits.
This macro-economic and political environment was exacerbated, in the context of digital fundraising, by a decreased volume in search queries and media engagement, putting further pressure on Delve Deeper’s paid media fundraising efforts to drive more revenue, with the same advertising investments.
The Approach:
Delve Deeper developed a comprehensive paid media strategy to enhance UUSA’s fundraising initiatives.
At the heart of this strategy was the utilization of UUSA’s first-party data, which enabled a deeper understanding and engagement of both high-value donors and new audience segments. We focused on audiences with a high predicted average order value (AOV) and high predicted likelihood to donate at the end of the year.
Through advanced modeling, we were able to identify intent signals highly correlated with likelihood to donate, resulting in more personalized and effective paid media investments. Our data-driven targeting was augmented by a bigger weight put towards programmatic advertising and the exploration of new audience segments, including Safari users and Connected TV (CTV) viewers.
We intensified our proprietary Start, Stop, Continue process to aggressively manage advertising investments seven days a week starting in October, maintaining rigorous optimization standards through the end of the year.
As an example of one optimization tactic, in paid search, we completely restructured our Google Performance Max campaigns into tiers to train the algorithms and enhance control over machine-driven optimizations. In programmatic, we leveraged new cutting-edge technology including new algorithms in The Trade Desk.
Starting in October, we increased our investment in programmatic prospecting and expanded non-brand paid search audiences. We also experimented with additional media partners such as MSNBC and TheSkimm, significantly extending our reach and refining our messaging to both connect and convert new-to-file donors.
We employed agile marketing techniques, such as daily optimizations and rigorous A/B testing, to adapt and refine our campaign tactics and messaging in real time. This flexibility was especially critical during key fundraising times, such as Giving Tuesday and the EOY fundraising push, ensuring that our strategies were not only responsive but also highly impactful in a competitive fundraising landscape.
Summary:
Delve Deeper Results:
Delve Deeper’s comprehensive campaign strategies led to a significant boost in UUSA’s digital fundraising dollars.
The campaigns effectively increased the Average Order Value (AOV) and substantially raised total donor contributions.
These results not only addressed the immediate challenges faced by UUSA but also set the stage for sustained growth and continued success in future digital fundraising efforts, supported by continuous optimization and a robust audience-first advertising strategy.