Transforming CARE’s paid search strategy in just three months
In Short:
With just three months to prepare for CARE’s most critical fundraising season, Delve Deeper rapidly overhauled the charity’s paid search strategy, transforming an underperforming program into a high-performing donation engine. Delve Deeper’s precision-driven approach led to record-breaking results, including a 35% YoY revenue increase and a 281% surge in donations during the final two days of the year.
The Challenge:
When Delve Deeper took over CARE’s paid search efforts on October 1, 2024, the agency had to make an immediate impact. The biggest fundraising window of the year—End-of-Year (EOY) giving—was just three months away. For most nonprofit advertisers, a successful EOY strategy is the result of many months of iterative optimizations and learnings. But for CARE, that time didn’t exist. The challenge was clear: Delve Deeper had to take over an underperforming paid search program, restructure it from the ground up, and turn it into a high-performing donation engine—all before the year ended.
Adding to the pressure, the digital fundraising landscape was more competitive than ever. Nonprofits and major brands flooded Google and Microsoft Ads in preparation for Giving Tuesday and the final days of December, driving cost-per-click (CPC) rates to record highs. Without immediate intervention, CARE risked spending more but getting less in return. There was no room for slow, incremental improvements—Delve Deeper had to act decisively, or CARE would miss its most profitable giving window of the year.
The Approach:
From the moment Delve Deeper took control of CARE’s paid search, the priority was to increase efficiency and scale impact—fast.
First, we identified inefficiencies in CARE’s existing campaigns. The budget was being spread too thinly across underperforming keywords and fragmented ad groups, limiting the ability to optimize effectively. We quickly restructured the account, pausing low-performing keywords and reallocating spend toward high-intent searches where donations were most likely to convert. This allowed the agency to stretch CARE’s budget further while increasing donation revenue.
From there, Delve Deeper focused on high-impact, high-speed optimizations.
Instead of making gradual adjustments, the agency rolled out major changes in three rapid phases. In October, they tackled immediate inefficiencies, cutting waste and improving bidding strategies.
By November, the focus shifted to building a Giving Tuesday strategy that would lay the foundation for EOY success: restructuring ad campaigns, launching urgency-driven messaging around 5x donation matches, and ensuring CARE’s search ads were capturing high-value donor intent.
In December, the team kept CARE’s budgets open during peak donation days and pushed for aggressive impression share in key campaigns. By the final two days of the year, CARE’s search ads were appearing at the top of the results page 75% of the time—nearly double the previous year’s visibility. More importantly, conversion rates surged as donors responded to the tailored messaging and optimized donor journeys on the website.
Summary:
Delve Deeper Results:
Despite starting so close to the end of the year, Delve Deeper’s overhaul of CARE’s paid search strategy delivered some of the strongest fundraising results in the organization’s history.