Politico will publish its list of top fundraisers from Q2. Will you be in it?
For some campaigns, their end-of-quarter push can account for more than one-third of their total fundraising in that quarter — for some, it’s even more.
That’s why end-of-quarter is make or break time for campaigns. No matter how ‘good’ of a district you’re running in, it’s fundraising excellence that truly separates top-tier candidates from the rest of the pack.
CDI Ads was the top buyer of political acquisition and fundraising advertising in 2020, placing more than $20 million in media. We dove into our data to reveal what made our most successful end-of-quarter campaigns exceptional.
Here are four checks you can do today to maximize your end-of-quarter success with ads:
1. Use Video: If there’s an undeniable king of creatives on Facebook, it’s video. Authentic, selfie-style video was our top driver of donations — which makes sense! Marketing data shows:
- Almost half of Facebook advertising earnings comes from mobile-first video ads.
- Compared to a static post, users will spend 5 times more on a post that contains a video. And don’t forget to add captions — they boost viewing times by up to 12%.
2. Have Clear Calls to Action: Ads with clear CTAs have substantially higher click-through rates compared to ads that did not.
Use direct action-oriented terms:
- Donate Now
- Take Action
- Chip In
But beware — Facebook penalizes engagement baiting in post text! So save those action-oriented phrases for images and find novel ways to identify motivation to click inside your post text.
3. Avoid the Learning Phase: Facebook uses machine learning to optimize the delivery of your campaign through a process it calls “the learning phase.”
What is the learning phase? During this period, Facebook is testing:
- Audiences
- Delivery times
- Placements
- Creatives
- And more
…all using your money. When an ad set reaches roughly 50 optimization events within a seven-day period, the learning phase ends, and the CPA stabilizes.
We found the best ways to avoid learning phase problems are to hold off on significant changes (which reset the learning phase), and limit your ad sets.
4. Use Look-a-Like Audiences: Custom audiences were by far the most productive source of donors for our campaigns. Facebook uses algorithms to create highly targeted audiences whose demographics and interests are similar to those of your existing page followers or of an upload list, like previous campaign donors. Letting Facebook identify targets you wouldn’t ordinarily reach with your regular ad targeting is an easy form of optimizing your media spend that anyone can do.
What end-of-quarter tactics will you focus on?
If you don’t know where to start or aren’t getting the results you think you deserve, let CDI Ads have a try! Email us at info@cdiads.com and we’re happy to design and launch end-of-quarter ads for your campaign
