Objectives
Find donors
Goals Engage with audience
Raise Awareness
Photo Credit
Provided by Direct Relief
Challenge
For several years running, Forbes has named Direct Relief among a select few organizations with a 100% efficiency rating for fundraising. Direct Relief strives for efficiency in its operations but faces a challenge familiar to many nonprofits. How do people find them? As a non-governmental organization that relies solely on private charitable contributions, how can it accomplish growth in donations with limited resources? How can it succeed when it spends only a fraction of what others do?
Story
At Direct Relief, Google for Nonprofits is answering these questions and more through a full complement of Google tools.
The organization powers search-engine marketing using Ad Grants and gains insight into donors and tracks how they interact with the website using Google Analytics. People can visually pinpoint Direct Relief’s global efforts on its site using Google Maps. The emotional and educational impact of video on the organization’s branded YouTube channel humanizes its message and extends brand awareness.
“By January 1 — the close of the peak year-end giving season — results showed a 44% year-over-year increase in the number of online donations, and a 40% increase in total dollars donated online.”
Impact
In the first three years of becoming a Google grantee in 2003, Direct Relief garnered an impressive 6,000% increase in website visitors. But Google saw even more potential, and worked hand-in-hand with Direct Relief to optimize online performance further.
The revised marketing plan consisted of eight campaign categories in paid search and remarketing, and approximately 150 newly created text ads that were launched the first week of December. By January 1— the close of the peak year-end giving season — results showed a 44% year-over-year increase in the number of online donations, and a 40% increase in total dollars donated online.
Overall site traffic increased by 84%. Remarketing ads resulted in a 2% lift in conversions. Brand paid search terms (those including some variation of “Direct Relief”) netted a 26% conversion rate.
Moving forward, Direct Relief plans to continue to refine its Ad Grants campaigns, as well as engage its audience more broadly through informative and compelling stories on Youtube.
