Hello lovely readers. Having spent the last few weeks preparing a number of charity Facebook Christmas campaigns I have been researching and benchmarking. As a result, on this frosty, but sunny December afternoon I have for you a selection of charity ads currently live on Facebook, promoting the work of a selection of top UK charities by income as listed on the Charity Commission website. If you are interested in this kind of digest there will be monthly editions going forward. Please drop me a line if you wish to be added to the mailing list for this*.
This post covers the following charities:
- Save the Children
- The HALO Trust
- Barnardo’s
- National Trust
- OXFAM Great Britain
- British Heart Foundation
- Sightsavers
- The Salvation Army
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- Canal & River Trust
Save the children
Save the Children UK have a selection of campaigns live at the moment. The first one is a book subscription offer which can be purchased for yourself or as a gift. The ad lands you on the following dedicated landing page.
Next you have two campaigns – Harriet’s Story which is a one-ff / cash ask as well as a Christmas campaign asking for a monthly donation with the option to donate one-off as well. Both of these campaigns are using video in their creatives and the Donate now button. Harriet’s Story incorporates Black Friday into copy and the call-to-action (CTA).
Another variation on the monthly campaign (Become a monthly giver CTA) can also be spotted with the use of video and a different landing page variation.
The HALO Trust
The HALO Trust are running a campaign asking for donation which will be doubled with UK Aid matched donations. They have gone for a Carousel format which has been designed to look like one image sliced into sections. The ads land visitors on the start of their donation funnel aligned with the creative. They appear to be testing this landing page against this one.
Barnardo’s
Barnardo’s have a number of asks currently live on their Facebook channel including service marketing, fundraising, challenge events, brand and donation. The first one is a brand video creative landing on Shannon’s Story case study page with some generic calls to action at the bottom. There doesn’t seem to be any UTM tracking associated with the landing page URL, but perhaps there is another tagging system in place to help them track impact.
Next one is Donate Now CTA landing on the Donate funnel page. The content of which has not been aligned with the ask amount on the advert. There is a mix of video and static single image creatives in those campaigns.
Get Involved Campaign
Another campaign is asking supporters to Get Involved landing on the Get Involved section of the website.
Kidsmas Campaign
We then move on to the Kidsmas fundraise campaign with distinct branding and a dedicated landing page. This one uses UTM tags on the destination URL and is again a mix of video and static images creatives. Perhaps this is two stage approach of prospecting and retargeting, but cannot be sure as the copy is the same on all.
Believe in me Campaign
…and more creative executions and formats with awareness / brand focus landing visitors on the Believe in Me campaign page.
Challenge Events
The last two campaigns for Barnardo’s are focusing on challenge events: Bath Half and the Urban Summit. One of them (the latter) appears to be living on the main website and the other on a challenge events microsite. As with other the charity is testing video and static imagery.
National Trust
National Trust starts with Holiday bookings campaign with a discount offer and Book Now CTA button.
Another campaign also live on its channels is one promoting Fundraising testing a selection of varied creatives landing on a dedicated landing page.
Dedicate a donation Campaign
Interestingly they appear to be running a Dedicate a donation campaign solely on Instagram using animation creatives and landing traffic on a dedicated landing page.
Lastly, what appears to be a Member campaign (looking at the UTM tags and no CTA creative). The bitly link takes you to a what’s on page for existing members page.
OXFAM Great Britain
Oxfam appear to be testing two different donation routes / asks: Green Christmas and Climate emergency with dedicated landing pages, but both using the same video creative with different copy variants.
British Heart Foundation
The charity appears to be running three distinct campaigns. none of them overtly christmassy. They are the Weekly Flutter lottery, the Heart of Steel and the charity shops call for items donations. Oh, and I nearly missed the lone Christmas cards campaign.
The lottery campaign
The ❤️ Heart of Steel campaign
This appears to be the BHF’s in mem campaign where in exchange of donation the donor’s chosen name get engraved on a work of art.
BHF’s Shops
Finally the British Heart Foundation shops campaign which has a large number of creatives being tested.
Sightsavers
The charity Sightsavers appear to have 2 campaigns on at the moment.
GiveWell Partnership
Birthday Fundraiser
This one is a particularly interesting one as it’s linking to an interface starting the visitor on a journey to set up a fundraiser in Facebook without leaving the platform and is asking the supporter to donate their birthday.
The Salvation Army
The charity seems to be testing a generic donation campaign against the Christmas campaign. The latter is mainly using video / image animation creative which ranges from 5-12 seconds.
Macmillan Cancer Support
Macmillan are running six different campaigns.
Free Wills Campaign
Community Fundraising events Campaign
This campaign stands out with the use of copy overlay. It takes supporters to a dedicated area of the website.
Service marketing
Not dissimilarly to some of the other service marketing campaigns this one does not appear to use UTM tags for tracking, but again it perhaps uses a more sophisticated tracking system.
Specific support line campaign.
Get Involved – Fundraising Campaign
Sporting a variety of creatives and propositions.
Mystery campaign
Next up is an unorthodox approach to land supporters on a data form from a fairly generic creative. Would be interesting if supporters take to this approach or if they leave confused.
RNLI
…and last, but not least I’ve screen-grabbed the Perfect Storm appeal creative from Lifeboats as well as their Black Friday creative advertising the shop.
This concludes the December 2019 edition. If you have found it useful or if you would like to see other information about the campaigns, please let me know.