How to pick the best ads objective for your non profit campaign

The ads world can be quite a mirky, jargon-heavy world. And to make matters worse, the landscape is always changing, so what you had your head wrapped around 6 months ago might now be completely different, leaving you back to square one. If Ads Manager and everything to do with it makes your brain ache, I hear you.

I've had a few instances this week where I've seen confusion in non profits over ads objectives in particular, where there's clear goal behind the campaign but it isn't reflected by the objectives chosen during campaign build. So I thought this week's newsletter might be a good opportunity to clarify some objectives that you may want to use for your campaigns. Here are the most useful objectives for charity campaigns and why you should consider using them.

Post engagement. Choosing this objective tells Meta to find people from within your target audience who often like/comment on or share posts and show them your ads. Engaging in this way is a small ask of people, but it is still an ask - it's a bigger step than just passively consuming content. Engagement campaigns draw out those people who are likely to be interested enough in your ad to take a small action - it doesn't mean that they are going to immediate donate, but they will engage enough to start the process of getting to know you, which brings them one step closer to taking the action you ultimately want.

If you're thinking - but surely I should focus on awareness, I want as many eyes on my ads as possible, hold your horses and ask yourself this. Do I want 100,000 pairs of eyes on my ads who may or may not take in any of my content, or do I want 10,000 pairs of eyes on my ads who will take the time to read it and let me know how they feel about it, or even share it with their network? How much more impactful could retargeting those people be?

Video Views. Especially at the moment where the algorithms are prioritising video content, video can be a great asset for non profits to showcase their activities and the impact they have. Similar to the engagement objective, watching a short video is a really easy ask; less active than engagement but more active than any campaign where eyes on ads is the only goal. A campaign based around video views is useful for two reasons. 1) Video is a really great way to communicate a message and start someone on the journey of getting to know you by showing your charity's personality. 2) Meta gives you the option to retarget your video viewers by the percentage of the video they watched, so you can focus on those who were the most engaged and bring them further down into your funnel.

Traffic. For those charities with a high-converting website, getting people to that website is the number one goal, and if that's you, then traffic campaigns are your new best friend. These campaigns seek out people who tend to not just click on ads but to spend time engaging with the page behind the ad, which is what you want if your website is a high-converting asset.

Conversion. This sounds like the most complicated (and does take a bit more work to set up) but choosing this objective is actually a really good way of telling Meta what you want people to do so that it's really clear who it needs to find. This is for you if you want people to take a specific action on your website, like signing up for your newsletter or donating. This is the objective with the biggest ask so it will likely be one you use once you have an audience that is really familiar with you and warmed up to the idea of supporting you.

If you found this useful, I've built an infographic (much like a Cosmo quiz from the 90s) to help identify which objective you should use based on your goal. If you'd like a copy, just let me know at alex@socialclimer.london and I'll send it over to you.

How to target niche interest-based audiences no longer available on Meta

"My target audience is vegetarians but Meta no longer lets me target vegetarians; this will impact my donations, help!"

If you've been spending time in Meta Ads Manager, or heard the complaints of those that do, you'll know that Meta recently removed a load of targeting options. This was done for a good reason in that it removed the possibility of targeting people with ads based on their personal attributes. But what it means for charities is that they are now limited in some of the options they relied upon before.

Each individual non profit - as with all brands - has a specific type of person that would be interested in supporting them - their 'ideal supporter' whose aspirations can be fulfilled and pain points lessened by engagement with this specific charity. So if your ideal supporter is someone whose demographic is no longer covered by Meta targeting, take a breathe - there are still strategies you can implement to reach your people. Try these...

Go back to who you ideal supporter is. They aren't just vegetarians, or Christians, or readers of the Daily Telegraph. They are fully rounded people with busy lives, goals and frustrations, and they will have other things that they dedicate time and energy to other than shopping for pulses, going to church or doing the crossword. For instance - if your charity works with young children and you know that your key audiences are predominantly parents of young children, think about other things this demographic would be thinking about. Primary schools, activities for kids, children's clothing brands, family friendly recipes - all of these are targeting options available to test. Remember: the targeting you choose doesn't have to be exactly the same as what you do as a charity, but it needs to be relevant to the audience's life as a whole.

Test using lookalike audiences. Lookalikes allow you to show your ads to people who demonstrate similar behaviours to people who already engage with your brand. This could be your Instagram engagers, your website visitors, your Facebook page fans, your email list, your previous donor list and so on. If the people in those groups already have the characteristic or interest you used to target, so will the lookalikes, so this will help you spread that net to relevant people.

Call the audience out in your copy. The messaging in any campaign should be looking to create an emotional connection with the reader by telling a story. So it makes sense to reference the value(s) that connects your charity to their ideal supporter. For instance, if you're a non profit working to promote plant based eating, it would be very natural to include reference to your audience already being aware of the environmental benefits of cutting out meat, or a 'vegetarians unite!' type call to action, that would draw your ideal supporter to you.

As with everything; where there's a will, there's a way!

4 easily-fixable digital mistakes non profits make

Is your non profit leaving money on the table because of a missing part to your digital strategy? Here are the four most common mistakes in the digital world I see non profits making, and how to fix them...

• A clunky website. Especially if you're a smaller non profit it's easy to focus all your efforts on the cause and put less importance on your digital presence, which is completely understandable. But if your website is a slow, frustrating experience that requires a desktop to properly view and takes loads of clicks to find the donation area, then it doesn't matter how many people you manage to send there, the number of people who get exasperated and give up will be huge. Which is leaving money on the table that could go towards your cause.

How to fix it: if hiring a freelance designer is out of the question, investigate website platforms like Squarespace that work well on mobile pretty automatically and are straightforward to build on. Most importantly, review each journey a supporter would make on your site and see where you can reduce the number of clicks it takes to perform each action.

• Not dedicating attention to their socials. Now, let's acknowledge that social media takes time, a lot of effort and the perseverance to keep going even when it feels like the algorithm is personally targeting you. But regularly posting content that adds value for your ideal supporter and builds a community around you is invaluable for raising awareness around your cause. If you're running paid ads, an active community on your pages also puts you in a better position in the eyes of Meta, which can help extend your reach.

How to fix it: if you simply don't have time, consider outsourcing to an expert, or asking that expert to put together a content plan for you so you know what topics you need to be focusing on, which will cut out all the overwhelm at trying to think of what to say.

• Thinking that they are their own ideal supporter. I spoke with a non profit founder in her 60s last week who refused to have a presence for her charity on social media because she didn't think that anyone else her age spent time online (ironically, this conversation was on Facebook). It's a really easy trap to fall into - thinking I care about this cause, so other people like me will too, and my friends and I don't like this channel and especially don't like ads on this channel, so that means no one else does either. Except that you're not trying to attract you or your friends. Your ideal supporter will have a completely different set of interests, goals and aspirations driving their engagement with your cause - the key is getting to understand what they are, so you can be sure to deliver content they're interested in.

• Talking to everyone (and therefore no-one) on their socials. It's also easy to think, I just want donations, I'll talk to anyone who will listen, but look at this way: there are thousands and thousands of non profits out there. People wanting to donate or volunteer have endless choice. But something makes them choose the charities they donate to or volunteer with. Something about that charity meets a need they have, either in terms of shared values, or a specific interest/concern or a likeminded community. And they will, for the most part, have reached their conclusions on that charity based on the communications they have received from them, on social media and elsewhere, because those communications spoke to the goal/aspiration/interest of that person.

How to fix both of these: take some time to build a picture of who your ideal supporter is; what their values are, how they spend their time, what scares and inspires them, and what you offer that would make their lives better. Now, which channels do those people spend time on? This will make your content creation 100x easier because you'll know who you are talking to and what they care about. If this sounds overwhelming, drop me a message, I can help with this.

How to save time and effort by getting to know your 'ideal supporter'​

Do you know exactly who your 'ideal supporter' is? Where they are, both geographically and on which platform? What they like to do? Where they spend their time? What problems they encounter day-to-day? Why they would choose to support your non profit or sign up for your event or share your content, when they have a thousand other non profits they could focus on?

Getting to know who your people are is fundamental to planning your social content and ad campaigns for 2023, and will also feed into your blog content and event planning. It's really easy to get stuck in the mindset of 'I just want to raise money, so I'll talk to everyone and anyone', but if you can narrow down who is most likely to identify with your non profit and find engaging with you of value to them, you're halfway to figuring out where to best allocate your team's resources in terms of the types of content you should be creating, where its going and where your engagement efforts should be focused.

The bonus? This process will save you significant time too, because once you know exactly who you are talking to, every time you sit down to create content, or brief your team, you have a really clear idea of who you are talking to, the type of information they are interested in and the formats that work best for the channel you're working with. No more generic comms, no more blindly hoping for the best.

So, how do you do identify your people?

• Firstly, bear in mind that you may have more than one ideal supporter. You may have a mix of B2C and B2B, and sub-groups within each. That's perfectly fine - just go through the same process for each and then think about which channels those people hang out on so you know what type of content goes where.

• Get back to basics - give your avatar a name and use your existing organic social, paid ads and website data to figure out demographic information, like age, gender and location.

• Use that information to paint a picture of that person. Feel free to make assumptions - you won't know every detail of this fictional person's life but you can make some educated guesses. For instance, if you see that your social engagers are predominantly women aged 28-39 and the content they respond best to is arts and crafts activities for kids, there's a good chance that your key demographic is busy mums of young children and what they really want is activities to set up for their kids that will keep them still long enough to have a cuppa and send that work email in peace.

• The next step is arguably the most important. Put yourself in your avatar's shoes. What's their day like? How do they feel right now? What are the problems that bother them the most? How would they feel if these problems were eliminated?

You might think that as a non profit this isn't relevant because your focus is on telling the stories of the people you help, but this information will help you to provide content that engages your audience and keeps you front of mind, so it's so important.

Remember: your goal with all content is to help move your ideal supporter from feeling like their problem is unsurmountable to feeling like they've found a solution. In a non profit context, this isn't always about how supporting your charity will feel - although that has its place - but instead will be about providing related information that adds value, from news and developments in your niche to easy changes to make to improve an element of your avatar's life that will make all the difference.

Now keep that information front and centre on your desktop, and every time you plan any content look back at it to remind yourself of exactly who you are talking to.

3 resolutions to make for your digital marketing in 2023

I don't love a new years resolution but I do like the idea of heading into the new year with plans to build on things that worked well last year and the intention to be open to new opportunities and ideas. For me, that means being able to offer my clients digital strategy solutions alongside organic and paid social to help them increase awareness and bring in more donations in 2023.

If I could wish any intentions on non profit marketers and fundraisers this year it would be these:

• I will make my website and emails mobile-friendly. Approximately 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices*, and if you're driving traffic predominantly from your organic and paid social media this could be far more. If your website doesn't work brilliantly on mobile, you could be missing out on those people engaging with your site, finding out more about you and potentially becoming supporters. Similarly with email, if the user reading experience is clunky and they have to keep zooming in and out to read your content, people are quickly going to stop reading.

• I will get to know my ideal supporter. It's so easy to just think 'I'd love support from anyone'. But the people who support you will have characteristics and interests in common, and will likely share the same challenges and pain points. Painting a picture of who that ideal supporter is, where they are and what they are interested in can really help you nail down not only the type of content you put out but also how you target your paid advertising. It makes it much easier to write your social posts and ads if you have a specific person in mind that you understand in and out, as you can talk directly to their challenges and experiences.

• I will be open to testing new strategies. Testing is the name of the game in digital marketing - this means trying different messaging, creative formats, audiences and funnel iterations until you find the combination that works for you. It means that the first attempt might not hit the spot. Or the second. But one of the huge benefits of digital marketing is that everything you try brings you data that you can then use to make decisions on what you keep doing, what you tweak and what you scrap. So you're never failing; you're learning and you're adapting. Don’t take it personally, review what the data’s telling you and go again.

If you're thinking 'yup, sounds good, but I've no idea where to start!', drop me an email at alex@socialclimber.london and let's chat about how I can support you.

*https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/

3 paid ad tests to run in January

Not to add more to your plate in the run up to Christmas, but have you thought about what you'll be testing in January, when the big retailers stop throwing their budget at Christmas campaigns and we all have a bit more breathing space?

You can't move on social media in December for the big brand gifting Christmas campaigns and the charity Christmas campaigns and the Christmas party outfit Christmas campaigns. I very occasionally see photos of family Christmas trees and friends in the snow but it's pretty much all Christmas campaigns. Which is to be expected. It's a crazy, busy, wonderful time of year.

It's also a brilliant time to be planning your January paid ad campaigns and what you'll be testing, so that once the final mince pie has been eaten and you've mulled everything you can possibly mull, you can hit the ground running into the best two months for testing. Why? Because the big retailers throw their budget at Christmas and they don't do as much in the first few months of the year, which means that there's less competition in those months and ad costs drop. So your budget can go further.

Here are three things to think about testing in January/February 2023:

• New audiences - interest-based audiences and lookalikes of existing supporter or engager audiences are a great place to start here. For interest-based, always use your ideal supporter avatar as a starting point and delve into what that person is interested in. For instance, if you're an environmental non profit focusing on rainforest preservation, have you explored other interests around sustainability? If you're a children's charity have you explored interests in children's activities or schools? Remember that the interest doesn't need to be something you as a charity do, it should instead apply to the ideal supporter as a broader human being with interests in the same ballpark as what you do.

• New year, new you messaging - this is a massive cliche, but it's also a message that will be everywhere come January and a lot of people see the new year as an opportunity to put new habits in place. This includes donation habits and signing up for volunteering. It's a great time to give your audience an easy way to do both and to reinforce not only how this will help move your charity forward but also how they will benefit. Focus on the emotional connection - how will they feel if they join your supporter community? Although this is specific to the time of year, it's a great way to test different supporter-led messages that you can then tweak later in the year.

• New creative formats - if you've been putting off experimenting with Reel or Story ads, now's the time to take that leap and allocate some budget to testing how these work for you. These can be snippets of beneficiary interviews, service team stories or key stats pulled out in an eye-catching way, for instance. Remember that not every ad needs to ask for donations; these types of ads are brilliant for increasing your brand awareness with new audiences and starting people down that know-like-trust journey. You can use Reel or Story ads to build a pot of people that you can then retarget with follower, newsletter sign up or donation ads down the line, confident that you've already started familiarising them with what you do.

Think of January and February as your key testing months, where your budget goes further and you can be more experimental. The findings will inform your campaigns later in the year, so don’t miss out!

3 things to celebrate on your social media in the run up to Christmas

The nostalgia effect. Have you heard of it?

It's a phenomenon within marketing which says that connecting your brand, product or service with a positive memory or emotion from someone's past increases the likelihood of them considering spending money with you by 35%*. Have a think about what products make you feel nostalgic - even if they aren't the best quality, do you feel like you could be tempted to buy them again because they bring up feelings for you? For me, its Palmers's body lotion, which I used religiously through both my pregnancies and Pears soup (the orange one from the 90s), which was a permanent fixture at home when I was growing up.

How does this relate to non profit marketing you may ask. Well, nostalgia has the power to conjure up positive feelings and for your 2022 donors, volunteers and event supporters, it's important to keep those feelings front of mind if your goal is to keep that support coming in in 2023.

Now, non profit marketing needs to be sensitive in a way that product marketing doesn't always, but there are positive ways that you can call on nostalgia to conjure up feelings and memories within your supporter audience, to remind them of why they supported you this year and to keep you front of mind for next year.

So, in the run up to Christmas make sure your social media includes these posts:

• A look back at 2022 and what you achieved. It's been a tough year but acknowledging the people your non profit supported and the lives it changed is so important. Not just for you and your team, but to remind your audience of the 'why' at the centre of everything you do, and why it's important to them.

• A celebration of how much you raised or specific goals you reached. Reminding your donors that even small donations of time or money all add up and taking them back to their positive experiences with you not only keeps you front of mind, but helps re-ignite those positive feelings. This is a great one for your newsletter, and would make a cracking series of infographics on your socials.

• And, not so nostalgic but just as important - a teaser of what you have planned for 2023. Your supporters are going to be as crucial as always next year, maybe more. Giving them a sneak peak of what you have coming up next year helps them feel included and like they are going on the journey with you. This is especially helpful if you have specific events you will need support for coming up in the new year that they can start getting excited about.

Your audience's socials, much like yours I'm sure, are full of bad news at the moment. Bringing some positivity within that doesn't lessen the struggles you've faced or the mountain you have to climb next year. But it gives your audience a reminder of why what you do matters, and why they should continue supporting you in whatever way they can - and that's a brilliant thing.

5 places to find social post ideas when you're out of inspiration

You don't need me to tell you how overwhelming this time of year can feel. We're all juggling even more than usual, and add to that an economic crisis and everyone feeling squeezed and it's A LOT. The last thing you need is to spend time staring at a blank page wondering what you should be posting on social media about your charity right now.

If you have a strategy in place and two months' worth of content scheduled in advance, that's amazing. Keep on keeping on. But if you don't, this is for you. When the content well has run dry and your head is too full of everything else, here are 5 go-tos that will help you continue increasing awareness and bringing in donations, when you need inspiration:

• Beneficiary testimonials - these are your best way to communicate the life changing difference your work makes. Take a look at any interviews, recommendations or feedback forms you've got from previous beneficiaries and pull out the parts that help paint a before and after picture of what your support meant to them.

• Comments on existing posts - have a look back through your past posts and note down any comments that asked questions or raised points of discussion. Could you answer those questions in new posts? This is a really useful exercise because if one person is wondering enough to post their question, chances are more people are thinking the same. This also works well for negative comments - are there myths you could be dispelling?

• Repost your best performing posts, if they still relevant - or tweak slightly if details have changed. Remember only a tiny fraction of your followers will see each post, and even if the odd person remembers, no-one will think anything of it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every day when it's trundling along nicely.

• Reach out to your followers. A post acknowledging that people are struggling and asking how they are can be a lovely way to start conversations and show the humanity of your organisation. Not every post has to be all singing, all dancing to have impact.

• Tell your followers how they can support you. Do they all know about your newsletter? Do they all have the link to donate on your website? Most won't. Now's the time to remind them - remember to give them a reason to click that link by including either some details of what they will learn from the newsletter, or how they can help make a difference through donations.

If you found this useful, do please share with anyone else who might need some inspiration!