It’s no secret that digital marketing and fundraising are here to stay! If you’re a nonprofit leader trying to grow your organization, you know that you need to be leveraging online platforms. You likely already have a website, a Facebook page, and do at least some email marketing, but what about digital advertising?
As a nonprofit marketing agency that works with organizations in San Antonio and around the country, we’ve found that most nonprofits aren’t doing much in the way of digital advertising. Some assume it’s too expensive, while others have dabbled in it and found it too confusing and time consuming. Others don’t even know where to start when it comes to digital advertising.
Here are a few tips from our nonprofit marketing agency for organizations considering online advertising:
Apply for the Google Ad Grant
The very first thing you should do if you want to start reaching a larger audience through digital advertising is apply for the Google Ad Grant. This is a grant specifically for nonprofits that can provide you with up to $10,000 per month in advertising credits on Google! Most nonprofits will qualify, and those that do can use those credits to run free ads on Google. You can use these ads to bring people to your website who may have never found your nonprofit otherwise—including people from anywhere in the world!
Now, we’re not going to lie—running effective Google Ad campaigns takes some skill and knowledge, but if you dedicate yourself to this platform, you can really give your nonprofit a boost! If you don’t have the in-house personnel to effectively manage a Google Ad campaign, look into hiring a nonprofit marketing agency in San Antonio that offers Google Ad Grant management.
Try Out Advertising on Facebook
One of the easiest ways to dip your toe into the digital advertising pool is by running Meta Ads on Facebook. You can start with a very small amount of money and run a few ads to see what type of engagement you get and go from there.
The key to effective Meta Ads is targeting. Through targeting, you can help ensure that your ads are shown to the people who are most likely to click on them. Meta has its own Ads Manager that can develop targeting criteria for you, or you can manually select the characteristics of your ideal audience. You can target people based on demographics (age, gender, location), interests (hobbies, brands they follow), behaviors (device usage, purchasing behavior), and connections (people who already like your page).
One very easy way to choose who will see your ads is to have Meta create a “Lookalike Audience” for you. These are people who share traits with your existing supporters and would presumably be more likely than the average Facebook user to engage with your ads.
Test Different Ad Copy
Testing out different ad copy and different photos is a must in digital advertising. Even professional digital marketers do this through A/B testing. A/B testing is when you run two different ads with only one variable changed, such as the headline, photo, or call to action, to see which one is more effective. You might start by putting a small budget on each of the two ads, and then once you determine which one is performing better, add more fuel to the fire. Keep doing this (changing one variable at a time), until you come up with the most effective way to get the engagement you want.
Consider What Happens After Someone Clicks on Your Ad
Running great ads that people click on isn’t the end of the process when it comes to digital advertising. If you’re going to invest in ads–with Google, Meta, or any other platform–you need to consider what comes after that first click!
What does the landing page look like, and what type of information does it contain? Is it optimized for mobile? Does it have a clear call to action?
Many nonprofits choose to have their ads click through to their website’s homepage or their donation page, but it can often be beneficial to create landing pages specifically for people who click through from your ads. That way, you can tailor the information appropriately.
Say, for example, you run a local food bank, and you run ads asking for donations for your annual Thanksgiving food boxes. When someone clicks on the ad to learn more about how to donate, they could be taken to a page that talks specifically about your Thanksgiving food box program, answers some frequently asked questions about them (what they include, who they are given to, etc.), and gives clear instructions on how to donate to this program. Directing people to a targeted landing page like this, as opposed to a more general homepage or donation page, can dramatically increase your conversion rates.
Once a visitor takes the action you want them to take (makes a donation, provides their email address to receive further communications, etc.), what happens then? Donations should receive a prompt “thank you” along with their donation receipt. New subscribers should get a “welcome” email, or even a series of welcome emails over the next few days. Any follow-up communication should include a “next step” for people to get more involved with your organization.
I recently interviewed my friend and fellow nonprofit marketing expert, Caroline Griffin, about this very topic. Here’s what she had to say about creating a great user experience when running digital ads:
To ensure you are creating a great user experience from start to finish, it’s always a good idea to have someone outside of your organization (or, ideally, several people) complete the entire process—click on the ad, read through the landing page, complete the call to action, and receive the follow up—and then get their honest opinions about the experience. Ask them to answer these types of questions:
- Did the landing page correspond well to the ad? Did it have all the information you would expect to see? Did it display well on your device?
- Was it clear what action we wanted you to take, and was it easy to take that action?
- How was the follow up? Did you expect more, or was it too much?
Collecting this type of feedback can really help you dial in your landing pages. You want to ensure that people don’t click on your ads and then immediately “bounce” because your landing page is confusing, poorly designed, or just not what they were expecting.
Conclusion
Don’t worry too much if your first attempts at digital advertising aren’t wildly successful. Advertising can involve a lot of trial and error, but once you find what works, it can be a game changer for your organization!
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