Driving Fundraising Participation & Donations Through Multi-Strand Paid Media
Balancing brand awareness, campaign sign-ups and donation intent across Facebook and Search under tight tracking and policy constraints.
BBC Children in Need asked us to support its 2020 fundraising activity with paid media across four strands: Act Your Age, Duck Race, Storytelling, and a Defensive Paid Search test. The campaign aimed to increase fundraiser sign-ups and donations while reaching new supporters. Working against limited conversion tracking and strict platform policies, we used creative and audience experimentation, optimised to proxy goals, and flexed budget between strands based on live performance.
What we did
Audience Strategy & Targeting
Creative Testing and Optimisation
Channel Planning and Budget Reallocation
Defensive Brand Search Testing via Google Grant
The results
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More than forecasted clicks for Act Your Age
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More than forecasted clicks for Duck Race
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Duck Race link clicks came from non-fans (new audiences)
The challenge
The 2020 campaign operated in a tough environment: limited optimisation signals due to a lack of conversion tracking, no clear Facebook objective for optimising towards FB Donate, and platform ad policies restricting age-related messaging. Longer approvals also affected creative agility, especially around sensitive content. In addition, we needed to protect CiN branded keywords on the main fundraising night, without knowing how aggressive competitor bidding would be.
Our approach
The impact
The campaign delivered strong traffic outcomes and demonstrably expanded reach to new audiences, particularly through Duck Race. Insights from the Defensive Search Test also clarified the level and timing of competitor brand bidding, helping shape a more efficient protection approach for future fundraising periods.
