Case Study: Locally-Targeted Ads Drive Donation Volume Growth

Client:  Non-profit organization providing support to low-income families seeking home ownership

Overview: The challenge presented was to grow our client’s donation volume and donation value within a limited ad spend budget in an intensely competitive market.  We knew could find gains with a data-driven approach,  and by both maximizing the efficiency of their media buy and selectively delivering ad impressions to audiences where conversion and ROI are highest.

Analysis of a rich historical data set for nationally-targeted campaigns, including ad network data, conversion data from third-party tracking tools, and donation records revealed strong correlations between audience locations and donations. We also found that donation volume increased during periods when our client was actively working in a local area and soon after their work in that area was complete.

To leverage efficiencies observed in different areas of the United States, campaigns were created to more easily optimize around audience performance trends at the local level. Campaigns were also created to target ad delivery to audiences in locations where our client was currently working, or soon would be, and resource needs were greatest. Ad creative focused on the core values of the non-profit and featured the location targeted by each campaign.

Results: In the nine months since implementing local audience targeting and optimization strategies, overall campaign profitability increased by 10%, cost-per-donation improved by 6%, and donation volume increased by 15%.