How to Promote Your Donation Campaign Online

Although many free methods of advertising exist online, achieving organic reach through channels like social media is often challenging and heavily reliant on timing, post reach, and social algorithms. You can improve your results by increasing your reach through paid advertising.
Native ads are becoming extremely popular and are now arguably as valuable as conventional forms of marketing. While many nonprofits hesitantly jump on the paid advertising bandwagon, they are quickly becoming an indispensable tool. This is especially true when you’re targeting younger people.
Here are four ways to increase your donations through paid marketing.
1. Aiming Socially
With social advertising, you can find the exact people you want to reach based on demographics, keywords, behavior online, or interests. On Twitter, for instance, you can choose to only show an ad to those who are followers of nonprofit organizations similar to your own, or to those who have recently tweeted about issues related to your cause. Being hyper-specific is crucial — it’s better to reach 10 people who just might donate than 1,000 people who will scroll right by. For further information, check out this Facebook advertising guide.
You should explore these paid advertising networks:
- A highly targeted PPC ad is offered by Google Adwords
- You can reach top-of-funnel customers with Facebook ads; they work like display ads
- B2B marketing is done primarily on LinkedIn
- A less competitive alternative to Google Adwords is Bing
- Content that grabs your attention on StumbleUpon
2. Consequential Advertising
You can show a group of ads sequentially in a way that shows them in a certain order on different devices, even following them from one device to another. Ad fatigue is usually caused by seeing the same ads over and over again (a common cause). This risk is eliminated by an algorithm that detects which ads have already been viewed.
A sequential advertising strategy can be particularly beneficial for nonprofits wanting to build strong relationships with their audience. The storytelling structure of the program allows you to gradually increase awareness before urging action. Perfect for less well-known organizations. Let’s look at three ways you might do these using sequential ads:
- Introduce yourself and your organization.
- Provide more details about your campaign based on what the audience has already learned.
- The ad should summarize the campaign as well as the company, and have a clear call-to-action for the audience.
Facebook allows you to sequence your advertising using their Ads Manager. From the Ads Manager, you can create and select which ads you want to display at any given time. This channel is currently the only one that offers to a sequence.
3. Ads That Retarget Users
There is nothing spooky about visiting a website, only to discover that ads for that same website pop up when you leave the website after a few days, it was everywhere. We are reminded of our missed purchases with retargeting.
It can be challenging to reengage shoppers and donors who otherwise would have walked away from your online store and donated to your nonprofit. Simply going back a second time can sometimes be a good idea.
Audience segmentation is key to retargeting success. Retargeting becomes highly personalized when you can target users with relevant ad messages. If you are using AdRoll, Perfect Audience, or Chango, you can set up segments based on URLs in your retargeting platform. It is important to consider how to adapt your CTA depending on the action you want your audience to take, whether it is completing a donation, signing up for your newsletter, or purchasing a product they originally viewed.
4. Online Video Ads
Social platforms such as Facebook are prioritizing native video uploads over all other formats as video is increasingly being uploaded natively. Videos are a powerful medium for nonprofit storytelling and increasing donations, whether they are educational, direct appeals, behind-the-scenes looks, or reports of successful campaigns. You can target your videos by using various retargeting techniques.
They are not as expensive as normal ads on Facebook, and they are very similar to normal ads. In addition to the newsfeed, you can display a video advertisement in the right sidebar. From the Ads Manager, you will find this option. Your primary objective should be “get video views”. By tailoring your audience’s profile based on their age, location, gender, demographics, behaviors, and interests, you can increase your sales.
A Donor Campaign’s Anatomy
Adopting the following principles can help you create a successful donation advertisement:
- You need eye-catching visuals in your ads to compel your intended audience to act. A consistent theme on all social platforms is that visuals drive engagement, so good imagery is crucial. For example: Create collaterals like digital donation flyers, posters, or animated videos to get the attention of your profile door.
- It is best to engage the reader with a question since it encourages them to think for themselves versus pushing an agenda on them. In addition, one could adhere to a clear moral viewpoint that entails a clear moral code.
Additionally, people are more likely to share positive stories or inspirational ones than ones that are negative. Rather than guilting people into action, find an angle that will inspire them.
Your followers may ignore a post your first time around, so don’t boost it again. Promote popular or engaging posts instead.
- A lot of nonprofits fail to understand how many obstacles they place in front of their donors so that they do not complete the action they want them to. It’s best to direct people directly to your donation page rather than to your homepage if you want them to make a donation. Ensure that your CTA is clear, direct, and easy to understand.