£3.5m raised through full-funnel donation strategy for humanitarian organisation

The challenge

As part of their annual seasonal calendar, this charity came to Impression to support a peak-period campaign involving multiple donation products and markets, enabling them to deliver much-needed humanitarian work across the world.

The stakes were high as competition was intensifying with both established and emerging organisations heavily increasing their media budgets. Audiences were also evolving into new media environments, which meant a need to diversify investment. In spite of all this, expectations for year-on-year growth remained firmly in place.

They needed to drive both revenue and efficiency, increase visibility across digital channels, and reach new audiences, all within a short, high-pressure giving window. Without performance gains, there was a real risk of falling behind competitors who had ramped up their media investment and diversified strategies.

Our objectives were to:

1

Increase total campaign revenue by 30% YoY

2

Deliver £3.5M in donation revenue

The strategy

We delivered an integrated campaign across Paid Search, Paid Social, Programmatic Display, YouTube, SEO, CRO, and CRM. The focus was on simplifying execution and amplifying what worked, particularly building a plan that was agile enough to respond to demand signals as the campaign was live.

Our budget was planned in line with expected donation behaviour, but deliberately flexible to allow for real-time optimisation as needed to capitalise on fluctuations in donor demand.

The campaign was managed in close collaboration with the client team. Shared dashboards, daily check-ins, performance reviews and optimisations, and joint planning sessions enabled swift feedback loops and transparent decision-making throughout.

1

Media and budget planning focused on

‣ Consolidating campaigns to reduce duplication and improve budget pacing across key formats and keywords
Rebalancing investment toward higher-potential activity, including non-brand search and upper-funnel social and display channels
‣ Structuring campaign phasing to align with audience intent across the giving window (e.g. early prospecting, mid-funnel reinforcement, and end-of-campaign urgency), and flexibility in driving conversions against specific campaign appeals and donation types.

2

SEO, on-site and CRM tactics included

‣ Updating and refining priority landing pages ahead of peak giving moments
‣ Redesigning and delivering personalised content through emails to improve engagement and drive revenue throughout the campaign window

Results

Total campaign revenue increased by 30% YoY, in line with our ambitious target of £3.5m at a Blended ROAS across paid media of 3.2x. As part of this, we also delivered a 39% YoY increase in revenue during the most critical days of the campaign period.

Optimised organic pages delivered +396% increase in revenue YoY.

Our client increased online market share versus the very competitive category by 6% YoY in the critical donation behaviour period.

Crucially, our increased donation revenue enabled the charity to deliver even more important work for those in the most need. Over 300k people in 24 countries were supported as a result of this vital humanitarian work.