Many nonprofits tend to focus their ad dollars at the crucial end of the year when people are naturally more inclined to give. However, spreading your advertising budget across the year can set your year-end campaign up for optimal success.
In this episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast, Laura Hinrichsen, VP of Advertising, and Megan Morris, Director of Advertising, discuss the challenges of focusing solely on year-end advertising — and why a year-round ad strategy may be more effective. By hooking a prospect early, you can spend weeks or even months sharing your story with them. Then, when you ask for support at year-end, they’ll be more likely to act.
Our experts also share how a year-round ad spend can help you generate more leads and build your list. They wrap up with quick tips for navigating the presidential election.
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Transcription
Host: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Go Beyond Fundraising podcast. Today, we're going to be chatting about year-end and how you can best spend your precious, precious ad dollars at the end of the year, as well as think about some different ways to allocate your ad budget to make that year-end push as successful as possible.
Coming on today to discuss this topic are two ladies here at Allegiance Group + Pursuant, who I always really enjoy sitting down to chat with: Laura Hinrichsen and Megan Morris.
Laura, welcome back to the show. I think this is your second or third time on the podcast.
Laura Hinrichsen: Glad to be back.
Host: And then we are also joined today by Megan Morris. And Megan, you were recently promoted to director, so congrats on that promotion.
Megan Morris: Thank you so much. Happy to be here.
Host: We were chatting a little bit before we hit record today about this topic and about how so many nonprofits tend to focus most of their ad dollars at that crucial year-end time. But you believe there is a better and more optimized way to spread that ad budget across the year to set up your year-end campaigns with optimal success.
So, Laura, why don't we go to you first? Why do you think many nonprofits tend to focus their ad dollars primarily at year-end?
Laura Hinrichsen: It's primarily because that is the time of the calendar year, this fiscal year, when your return on ad spend is going to be higher. That's going to be true on any platform, no matter where it is at the funnel, because folks are generally in that mind frame of giving, particularly in that period from Thanksgiving through December 31. Across the clients and categories, the dozens we serve on the ad team here at Allegiance Group + Pursuant, we see the highest return on ad spend in that window uptime.
Host: Yeah. That makes total sense. It's when people are thinking about giving, so it's when people are most likely to be successful with those year-end campaigns.
Megan, I'd love to hear from you. What are some of the challenges or drawbacks of concentrating all those ad dollars solely in the last few months of the year?
Megan Morris: The biggest challenge is not creating momentum and a digital presence before that time. So, only running ads calendar year-end, you're very new to your audience, and you don't get to warm them up. They don't know who you are, and you don't get to tell them your story. There are many ways to build brand awareness and brand equity with your audiences leading up to calendar year-end that will make it an easier decision for them to donate to you versus other organizations.
Host: I love the context you shared. How does the competitive landscape for ad space change during the year-end season, and what does this typically mean for nonprofits that are trying to get their brand and their message in front of potential donors at the end of the year?
Megan Morris: Because most nonprofits focus their advertising budgets at year-end, there's a lot of noise. There's a lot of competition.
In paid search, we see a lifted cost per click. We see more expensive ad spend on all platforms. It makes it a little harder to cut through the noise, which makes spreading out your digital advertising budget throughout the year even more important. So, the competition is tough. You want to be the organization that people know about and that they are looking for before calendar year-end so that when they see your ad, they're ready to give.
Host: Laura, switching back over to you. So, thinking about this idea of spreading out your ad budget throughout the year, I would imagine there are a lot of nonprofit leaders who say, “Okay, great, but how much do I spend at different parts of the year? What are times of the year that I should be thinking about for allocating that budget? How much should I perhaps budget for different times of the year other than year-end?”
What are some recommendations you might give them when they are looking at their fundraising and marketing calendar?
Laura Hinrichsen: It's going to be a little bit different, of course, for every client, and in a lot of ways different depending on the category that you're in. For example, a lot of our clients in the food bank space see success doing campaigns just before the end of the school year, talking about summer hunger and the need that it puts on food banks and food pantries during that time of year.
In terms of other times of the year when it might make sense to advertise, that is something the clients across categories will look for. What are those other key windows or moments where clients are motivated to give?
For some of our clients in the faith-based category, they might also look to specific religious holidays. Many organizations have their version of a Giving Tuesday, such as an annual Giving Day. Those are generally spread out a lot of different times throughout the year. So, in deciding when else it makes sense to advertise, clients will look at those other priority times or moments, also keeping in mind when they might have a match that can be utilized.
That can be a considerable factor regarding when it makes sense to advertise and how successful that would be.
Host: Are there any instances where a nonprofit should have a reserve of ad dollars set aside for perhaps last-minute fundraising initiatives? I'm thinking primarily of nonprofits involved with crisis response or human service organizations. Is that something that you see in the industry?
Laura Hinrichsen: Many of our clients in those categories will have a reserve fund to take advantage of a particular crisis. A good example was a couple of years ago with things happening in Ukraine — a lot of organizations jumped on that immediately. So, clients that might fall into those categories will have a time-sensitive budget set aside, maybe with a little bit of a templated approach to creative so that they can act quickly and get that message out as soon as possible.
Host: Moving on to this idea about engagement and donor retention. Can you leverage year-round advertising to keep donors engaged even if you're not always asking for a gift in a campaign? Is there a flow to that communications calendar with advertising that you recommend that perhaps mirrors what's happening in direct mail or email, or is it focused higher up the funnel?
What are some of those messages that you see throughout the year that you can leverage to keep your donors engaged throughout the year to prime the pump for a successful year-end gift?
Laura Hinrichsen: We have a lot of clients that understand how important it is to stay top of mind and to let donors know of the importance that their donation makes outside of the time when we're just asking them for another donation or perhaps to upgrade their donation. What we see a lot of clients do is take on a light level of an evergreen, stewardship-type message, talking about the impact that their donation has.
In the healthcare space, it could be talking about advances in research or patient care or the amount of equipment your donation can buy for a patient who might need it. So, what we often see successful outside of those big tentpole fundraising is talking about the impact. And sometimes, it's a little more about just sharing their appreciation. Like, “We couldn't do this without you.”
We understand, of course, that not every organization has the budget to be active across a lot of ad platforms all year. So, everything that we're saying today is certainly customizable based on where that nonprofit is in its journey. Things can test and grow and scale as the organization's comfort level does and as the data suggests that we should.
Megan Morris: We typically don't recommend running ads that don't have a specific call to action, like prospecting at the top of the funnel. So, we wouldn't touch base like we do in direct mail and email and give them updates. We wouldn't spend money doing that because we already have their email. We would just email them with an impact report.
But we would spend money on prospecting audiences and working within the customer relationship management (CRM) platform to upgrade folks, as Laura said. And that's where we would focus our budget.
So, it's more about retaining donors by using first-party data and then upgrading current donors. But then everything else would be total prospecting.
Host: Let's move into strategic planning and execution. Megan, you mapped out about four or five recommendations for how a nonprofit might approach planning out or allocating their ad budget throughout the year. So, let's get right into that. How can they approach that strategically?
Megan Morris: The first step is reviewing your spend and your current scheduled campaigns. Look at the full fiscal year. Prioritize your matches of any relevant holidays that your organization celebrates or embraces. And then, of course, having that priority calendar year-end spend.
I would also look at any additional organizational goals that you have. Are you looking for brand awareness? Are you looking to grow your list? Is there anything else you want to achieve throughout the year that we can help you with through advertising?
I would map out the budget based on those priority matches and calendar year-end. Then, with the remaining dollars, allocate toward other efforts like evergreen fundraising ads, lead generation, and brand awareness. And then, ideally, within budget, you'll be able to build a digital presence and your digital prospecting retargeting pools — website visits, video views, things like that — so we can retarget those folks that calendar year-end. And you'll build that momentum throughout the year so that calendar year-end can be more successful.
Host: I'd love to drill down a little bit into this idea of list building and lead generation because I have a hunch that a lot of nonprofits probably focus a lot of their advertising efforts on trying to convert folks who are perhaps already on their email list to get them to make a gift, so converting someone from a subscriber to a donor. Laura, do you see lead generation being something that many nonprofits may need to prioritize, or am I totally off-base there?
Laura Hinrichsen: Many of them don't prioritize it, but as we look at overall industry trends, there aren’t many organizations out there that don't want newer, younger donors. And so, using paid lead generation efforts through advertising can be a great way to help grow your list. That way, we can continue to nurture those folks through additional ad campaigns or through your email list, your newsletter, or what have you to prime the pump and warm them up to be converted.
When we have a contact on file, that person is generally easier to convert than someone who might just be seeing a message out there for the first time. So, we see many clients find success by growing their list and then converting those folks to donors.
What's key to making a list-building or lead-gen effort successful in advertising is understanding what the hook is. What is the reason why someone would give you their contact information? For organizations in the public media or arts and entertainment space, it might be learning about concerts or events or the chance to buy those tickets earlier. For clients in the healthcare space, it might be learning about research announcements or innovation.
We have a lot of clients that have different premiums that someone might be willing to get, like a mug or a tote bag or a calendar or something of that nature.
Making sure that there's a relevant hook that would get someone to provide that information is one of the most essential aspects of a successful lead gen campaign.
Megan Morris: It also gives us the opportunity to reach out to younger audiences. With your current list, you have a limited pool of folks, and you want to start warming up those younger audiences to become donors in the future. So, this is a nice, light ask to get them in the door, and then you can shift to warming them up, as Laura stated. It's a good way to start building your next set of donors.
Host: As you both have been speaking, I've been thinking about some of my experiences, especially in November and December, and specifically with experiencing advertising from different nonprofits. And I cannot tell you how jarring it is to log on to my social media platform of choice and suddenly be inundated with ads from nonprofits that I've only interacted with a little in the past. And how grating, even, it can seem: “Oh, all of a sudden, you want my money and my attention?”
From an experience standpoint, I don't think it’s optimal for a lot of folks who haven't seen anything from you throughout the year to suddenly be inundated with ads from a lot of different nonprofits once that calendar ticks over to December.
Megan or Laura, do either of you have any initial thoughts there?
Megan Morris: That's exactly right. We want to be warming up our audiences and touching tables throughout the year so that they know they're important to us, especially folks within the CRM list and their first-party data. We don't want to just ask for money. It's definitely important.
It also gives an opportunity to let folks know who you are as an organization and give them more information about your goals, the work you do, and why you need them throughout the year.
Host: We are in an election year, and we've talked a bit about election year considerations in some other mediums like our blog and a few different places. But, Laura, we have some additional considerations this particular year-end season with the presidential election. We know it's going to cause some additional disruptions and considerations, specifically in how ads are approved and how much ads cost.
So, what are some things that you advise nonprofits to consider as we start to plan and think about those year-end campaigns?
Laura Hinrichsen: The best thing you can do is plan ahead. Facebook, to my knowledge, has yet to release any exact dates. Still, based on what they've done in presidential election years past, there will generally be a week to two weeks before the general election, where there will essentially be a ban on launching, uploading, or approving any new ads. That's across any category, not just those that might be political or fall into those particular categories. So, it is essential to plan ahead.
Clients across many categories are choosing to go dark in terms of launching any technical campaign near the election. They’re looking for things to slow down a bit because there'll be so much noise in the immediate days leading up to and likely the days after.
Core evergreen efforts should be fine staying on. But for any critical campaigns that clients would normally launch earlier in November, like Giving Tuesday or fiscal or calendar year-end efforts, many organizations are choosing to hold off on those big seasonal pushes until after the election.
There certainly will be a cost implication across any traditional or offline media channels. Any clients who rely on TV, radio, and things like that will have a significant amount of disruption. On the digital side, we will see some of that increased cost in competition that Megan mentioned earlier. That will likely change based on where in the country you are, if you're a battleground state, or if there's a key local race or a major issue that might flood the market. So, be mindful, plan ahead, and know that things that you do have out there during that time are probably going to cost you a little bit more.
I also caution clients to be careful of the language that is used. You know, some topics and organizations of different categories may be very tempted to try to talk about the election or candidates or particular issues. That's obviously up to every organization to choose what's right for them. The big thing is you will want to be incredibly careful about your language, particularly in social categories.
Meta, for example, can easily pick up on sensitivities and denote that your ad is part of the special ad category. If that happens, you will have extra permissions that your page and users of that ad account need. You will generally have a harder time getting ads approved. And many things in special ad categories will be very much restricted in terms of the targeting you can use. So, we recommend that you avoid tripping those triggers if you can.
But, of course, there are going to be some clients and organizations that truly are political or work within human rights, for example, or clients that touch certain sensitive issues like healthcare. Those very likely are automatically going to be triggered into those categories.
So, avoid it if you can, and just be mindful of the word choices that you're using and add copy across the board.
Host: There are so many more questions that we could go down a rabbit hole in that particular topic, but that is probably a podcast for another day. With just a few minutes left, Megan or Laura, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners today to put a bow on this conversation or give nonprofits something actionable to walk away with?
Laura Hinrichsen: Just be open to the conversation. If you have a trusted partner you're working with, whether us or another agency partner, be open to having that conversation and know that advertising isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. It can be customized based on your objectives, based on your budget, based on your market, based on your category. It's a lot more accessible than a lot of organizations might think that it is.
Megan Morris: It’s also an important addition to your omnichannel strategy and integration of your messaging moving throughout the year.