5 nonprofit digital advertising mistakes and how to fix them

Funding sources are shifting, older generations are transferring their hard-earned wealth to their kids, and new technologies abound. How is your nonprofit expanding revenue streams and finding new supporters during these transitional times?

Nonprofit digital advertising is key to unlocking a brighter future for those you serve. And we imagine you think similarly, on account of you landing here. 

Expanding into digital channels requires time, experience, and budget – all three of which nonprofits often have a hard time finding. But without investment in digital, nonprofits are going to limit their growth. And they’ll be left running campaigns that are limited in reach and impact.

So how are you leveraging digital advertising as a nonprofit? And are you seeing the results you want? We’re going to jump into five of the most common mistakes nonprofits are making when it comes to digital advertising and offer a few ways around them.

Mistake #1: Targeting everyone (and their cousins)

When nonprofits first jump into the world of digital ads, they often serve their ads to every person they can. This feels like a good place to start – how about reaching everyone, right?

But we all know the problem of trying to make everyone happy; nobody ends up happy. 

And this is exactly the case when trying to advertise to everyone. Maybe everyone should care about your mission, but unfortunately that isn’t the reality. Focusing time and energy on the most promising audience segments is critical when building nonprofit advertising strategies.

Three audience-refining campaigns 

• CRM retargeting: These campaigns serve ads to people that you have email addresses for. So you know without a doubt who these people are and their relationship to your organization.
• Lookalike campaigns: You likely already have some campaigns that are performing well. By expanding those audiences with people who are similar, you can widen the range without losing the relevancy.
• Geofencing: Let’s say you know of a local nonprofit that does very similar work as yours. Now you can serve mobile ads to people who visit their events or locations, so that they now think of your organization when they think of the cause.

When finding new people for your organization, you’re never going to see the high click-through rates (CTRs) that you see when targeting highly engaged audiences. But by refining the audiences that you do serve these initial impressions to, you’ll build much healthier audiences that continue to learn more about your organization before jumping in!

Mistake #2: Did you say “hello” to your website guests?

Your website is your organization’s modern-day storefront. Potential supporters walk in, look around, and ask questions. And after that first visit, they often leave the website without making a donation or signing up to volunteer.

But just because they didn’t take that action during that first visit doesn’t mean it was a missed opportunity. The miss would come from not following up.

Nonprofit retargeting ads show ads to your website’s visitors. These people didn’t end up on your page by accident. So it’s important to follow up and say “hey, let’s get to know each other!”

To serve nonprofit retargeting ads, your organization will first need to set up a tracking pixel on your website. This allows you to start building an audience of people who are interested enough in your mission to visit your website. Then you can start serving them ads!

One of the highest converting digital ads out there are “cart abandon” or “donation abandonment” campaigns. This is where someone traveled all the way to your donation page but failed to give during that visit. They were so close — maybe their wallet was in another room — so it’s certainly worth a little nudge!

Mistake #3: What am I supposed to do here?

Words really matter, which is why it’s so important to have a strong call to action. If someone is confused about where an ad is going to take them, they likely aren’t going to click on it.

All of us want to know where we’re going. And having a clear CTA can create conviction in your audiences. And the opposite is true about a muddled one.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself when building out that CTA:

1. What verb am I asking them to do? Do I want them to donate, register, or join us?
2. Does the verb match the person? Are they at the right stage to be asked the question?
3. Have I A/B tested it? Do I know this is the best message for my audience?

Organizations that build their nonprofit advertising strategies with a growth mindset are going to find the most success. They’re never content with how things are, and they’re always going to test new ideas.

Mistake #4: Forgetting about the phones

It’s a little wild how much you can do with that phone in your pocket. And younger generations are spending a lot of time behind those screens. The Los Angeles Times estimates that Gen Z spends half of their waking hours in front of a screen! This is why you need to target your ads to meet them exactly where they are: in front of their phones.

Two steps to mobile-first success

1. Build all ad creatives with mobile in mind. This will depend on the platform used, but here’s a resource for display ads and another for Meta ads. All copy should be direct and catchy. And the visuals need to take those smaller screen sizes into account too. 
2. If someone clicks through the ad on their phone, will your page load fast on their phone? And is your website formatted for someone’s phone?

It’s important to remember that the ad is only the first step. A successful mobile-first approach takes into account the whole journey. It’s good if your ad is eye-catching on the phone, but it’s great if they click and have a positive experience the whole way through.

Mistake #5: Your guess is as good as mine

There’s a time when we all have to admit that we simply don’t know. But don’t let that be at the end of your digital advertising campaigns.

One of the biggest values of nonprofit digital advertising is the ability it gives you to fully track and measure results. If your organization doesn’t know how campaigns are performing, you ultimately don’t know if they’re worth the time or money.

Proper analysis always starts with your web pages containing the right code. If your website isn’t set up with the Super Pixel (or something like it), then there’s no way to retroactively know who visited your site, when they arrived, and how long they stayed.

But once the tracking code is there, it’s time to capitalize on it. Build a cadence for when you review the key stats like CTRs, conversion rates, and the return on ad spend (ROAS).

As you learn how your campaigns are performing and compare them with each other, you’ll begin to see what’s working and what isn’t. This is going to allow you to reallocate budget to the things that make an impact and save money on the things that don’t.

Taking one step at a time

If one of these five mistakes is something that you’ve witnessed firsthand, we hope you see a path forward for making it a thing of the past.

The future is going to be hybrid. But more and more, we’re all going to do our initial learning online, which is why it’s so important to leverage digital advertising at your nonprofit.

If you’re looking to take your nonprofit’s digital advertising campaigns to new heights, we’d love to strategize with you. So put some time on our team’s schedule so we can learn more about your organization and where you want to go!