103. Some Personal News

Jun 02, 2024

This version’s got all the goods! Apologies to some of you who received a random draft of SPN 102 early this morning.

A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers. I’m thrilled to have you as readers and truly appreciate your feedback and support.

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Game changer? It was for me.

In this week’s SPN:

How to maximize performance with better creative
By channel: YouTube, Snap, Programmatic, Native Ads, Podcasts, Meta
Jobs that took my fancy

Let’s dig in!

Maximizing Performance with Better Creative

I’ve seen tens of thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of pieces of creative that have been run via paid media across pretty much every channel. And by this stage the majority of it wasn’t created by a human hand.

Having spent over $100M in paid media myself, written the equivalent in creative briefs, vetted creative talent umpteen times, and then pumped out massive amounts of creative each week, I’ve developed a 6th sense about the creative formats that are working best right now on each paid channel.

And for today’s SPN, I wanted to outline exactly how I think about creative per channel.

But! This isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation.

Like anything I write about, this is through my lens of what I see working well… come up with your own hypothesis, test it, measure it. Things that have worked for me, may not work for you… and things that work for you, may not work for me.

Lastly, let’s note this is June2, 2024… if you open this email weeks from now this may be outdated.

Below I’ve taken a look at the following channels - YouTube, Snap, Programmatic, Native Ads, Podcasts - and then dug deeper into Meta.

YouTube

YouTube is still a sleeper ad platform. And YouTube videos are timeless. More Orgs should be spending media dollars here. It’s one of the only channels outside of Meta that has the potential for nonprofits to spend millions per month very efficiently. When I think about ads on YouTube, I immediately think about partnering with a native creator who understands the channel.

I’ve worked with a couple of amazing content creators who had pretty large followings on social/YouTube when we partnered with them. I wouldn’t make any specific demands for what they had to create because they already loved the Org, and they’d already built a following for a reason… they didn’t need to be told what to say. Most influencers, who genuinely love your Org and its mission, don’t.

With the videos made, we repurposed them and ran them as ads everywhere on YouTube and Meta. These videos alone drove hundreds of thousands in revenue.

If you do have product as part of your offering (or even swag), it may be interesting to explore YouTube’s recently announced native integration with Shopify. YouTube is well positioned to be a serious competitor in the social platform commerce arena and compete with the likes of TikTok and Facebook shops.

Not only is this going to be a game changer for content creators who will be able to make a ton of money through affiliate marketing, but for Orgs whose offering fits well into a YouTube format (UNICEF Market, Charity Water, Amnesty come to mind), this could become a sizeable channel of ongoing fundraising revenue.

Snap

I was recently at Snap’s Direct Response Summit in NYC and they shared what’s been working best for advertisers on the platform. The tips they gave brands were:

Fast cuts with trending animation.
Really catchy hooks and nailing the first second.
Optimize for very short ads 2-9 seconds.

Snap tends to skew younger but I think the ad inventory is really valuable here. The CPMs are competitive and people generally aren’t paying enough attention since they’re too focused on TikTok being the shiny new platform to run media on. Snap media is still underpriced today.

If you’re paying attention to creators, they’ve all been telling their audience to follow them on Snap lately. Everyone from YouTubers to Save the Children ambassador Jennifer Garner have been putting out hefty amounts of content on Snap. Snap is also paying creators handsomely to continue posting content (I met someone this weekend who makes $10k/day for posting on Snap). SO! This brings the people… and now that the people are there (read prospective donors), it’s time to bring the Orgs (advertisers) back!

Programmatic

From a creative standpoint when it comes to programmatic, you have to think about a few things.

Generally it only makes sense to run programmatic ads when coupled with another channel, usually Meta. This creates more of a reminder effect with the banner ad, where I think it’s most effective. I cannot remember the last banner ad I saw. That’s why I don’t think it makes sense to use for prospecting but for retargeting it’s got a higher chance at converting donors.

Almost every audience will discover your Org from Meta, TikTok or YouTube, and they’ll be reminded of it with programmatic banners on the open web.

When it comes to the creative, test having a “reminder” variant that essentially says something like “Don’t forget about X”.

The other thing to note about programmatic ads: Watch out for the attribution window. Setup your own reporting to verify your numbers and the channels’ incremental lift.

You might work with a platform that wants a 90 day attribution window, or that’s how they do their reporting. That means if a donor who sees the ad at some point on a website and within 90 days ends up converting, Criteo (or similar) will take attribution for that donation (when in reality they bought from a Meta ad or clicked an email or SMS link).

Make sure you keep a beady eye on this because in my experience programmatic over-attributes.

Native Ads

Native ad platforms like Taboola help you tap into thousands of publishers getting hundreds of millions of page views outside of your standard social platforms. These are sites like CNBC, Bloomberg, Vogue, etc. who have ad space that you can tap into on their sites.

If you haven’t tried running ads with Taboola yet, I recommend trying it out. There’s only a couple of variables to success with Taboola, which makes it an easy channel to always have on.

For context, you’ve probably seen or clicked on Taboola ads without realizing it. They’re at the bottom of publisher sites (Yahoo!, NBC, etc.) and act as a content recommendation widget. The psychology here is similar to upselling someone to monthly pledge after they’ve donated - they’re in the mindset. In this case, it’s “upselling” them into another piece of content (aka yours) after they’ve finished reading something else.

Because of this juxtaposition below the content they just read, the CTR on Taboola is often high, especially when you figure out which specific publishers work best for you. In addition, the headline in the creative acts as a shoutout to your relevant/target audience, helping CVR on top of the already mentioned CTR above.

On the creative side, there are two variables to focus on: copy and the image.

The image is tiny but has a high impact on the creative's performance. The headline does, too. There’s plenty of easy guides available online outlining how to repurpose your FB ads for Taboola. I’ve always been inspired when checking out the top-performing native ad units on Ad Beat.

Podcast Ads

When it comes to podcast ads, the number one creative format is host-read ads.

You could record a commercial and run it through a podcast ad platform like Spotify where it can be programmatically run on various shows based on your targeting parameters, or you can go directly to a show and do a sponsorship deal to get the host to read the ad on your behalf.

Host-read ads drive a higher ROAS for the partnership. Imagine getting (whoever known name in your mission’s sector) to read an ad for an impactful program you’re operating vs just running a random audio commercial on Spotify podcasts without a known host. And of course the ad can be localized - both host and message. You’re not just buying the time, you’re also getting the co-sign and influence.

When you find the right podcast x Org brand match, podcast ads are still underpriced. In the same way featuring an influencer in your commercial can be valuable, getting a known host to read your ad has a similar effect with the right partnership.

Creative on Meta

On Meta, there are a few things that are working right now.

Enriched catalog ads
Celebrity/influencer led creative where there’s a known Org involved (this works even better when it’s whitelisted from their account)
Bright and bold static ads with a clear CTA to donate
Advertorials and listicles
Lo-fi iPhone selfie style creative with a good hook and impact story
Quick cut videos with fun or on-trend animation
Screenshots/wildcards as creative

And here’s a bit on each.

1. Enriched catalog ads

I’ve been beating the drum on enriched catalog ads recently. Why? Because they might be the best creative format on Meta today. And for those of you who think mid-major donors aren’t scrolling Meta platforms you’re missing a very large opportunity.

Just think about it. Most of the time when you’re shopping online, do you want to see a polished video ad that tells you an abstract story about an Org or lifestyle or do you simply want to see the exact product and so you can purchase and move on with your day?

Similarly I don’t think it’s necessarily an either/or question for fund raising (it’s more about using both as tools in your toolkit) but I do think that donor ad fatigue is driving a percentage of prospects to prefer the hyper-simplistic creative format that catalog ads offer on Meta and other platforms right now.

In general, catalog ads help remove the fluff and friction from your ad creative in order to make a more straightforward pitch and donation ask. But you need to have some form of product.

It’s generally a no frills and no fluff creative style but there’s one big caveat here. I greatly prefer “enriched” catalog ads for a reason. Basic catalog ads typically pull in your product image from your product library on a simple white background. These look pretty low-effort/lazy and they don’t actually stop me in the feed.

What you have to do instead is use a tool like Socioh to enrich your catalog ads with more design and accents to make them actually pop. It’s when you combine the catalog ad format with other creative best practices like having a bright, on-brand background color, large text and unique fonts, and a super clear CTA, that the needle moves.

So catalog ads by themselves aren’t my favorite. But enriched and on-brand catalog ads have been some of the top performing (on a CPM & CPA basis) creative that I’ve seen on Meta this year.

2. Influencer Led Content

As many great marketers know, one of the oldest tricks in the book to increase engagement is to feature a known creator or celebrity in your ad. By partnering with them, you’re able to associate their brand and credibility with your Org and mission, to instantly build trust and interest with a broader set of donors.

I’ve seen CPCs drop by 50% (and your CPM will drop too) because your engagement goes up with a celebrity face. One thing that the best digital fundraising programs share in common is low CPMs. It gives them more shots on goal, and the celebrity face does exactly that.

3. Bright and Bold Statics

I like running static ads because the CPMs are typically much cheaper than video (about ⅔ cheaper). They’re also easy to make… get a designer to make you a few templates in Figma, and now just swap out small details or copy, and you have a new creative to test.

With static ads, you just need to feature your outcome front and center, and have a bright background with big block text and a clear CTA to solve/contribute to something. You can also do donor testimonial static ads or program/impact comparison chart static ads that work really well.

If you count carousels in the static ad category, these are great too.

In general, my advice is not to overthink it. Orgs should test dozens and dozens of static concepts every quarter and frankly make, run, and test as many as you can. Static ads will typically be evergreen bread and butter for paid social and they perform quickly whether it’s evergreen ad creative, or campaign specific creative.

These ads are never the most cutting edge but they work. You should have at least 5-20 good templates for static ads in Figma that you can leverage at any time for messaging tests, match campaigns, or new Program/Corporate collabs.

4. Advertorials & listicles

As with any “sales” cycle, there’s usually a consideration period between someone’s first click and final purchase. Donors definitely want to click your ad, but they also want to learn more before they actually decide to give your Org money. This is why advertorials and listicles work so well as creative formats on Meta. You can teach them about your Programs through your landing page, or you can send someone to a third party publisher site where they can read a short story or a “10 reasons why” listicle that ends with a CTA to donate.

When you send someone directly to your LP it feels more like an explicit donation interaction. When you send someone to a third party publisher site to read a donor testimonial or a “10 reasons why” post, it feels more organic and native and less transactional.

This is exactly why it ends up generating more fund raising dollars. Quite honestly I’ve done this 100+ times and I’m always surprised by how well it performs. If you aren’t running advertorials or listicles in your media mix, you should definitely try it to see if they can improve your CPA.

Advertorials are only a good idea if you’re asking for a high average donation (AOV) otherwise they aren’t a good idea or use of your time. Ask for monthly pledge donation and lock in north of $500 a year.

5. Lofi iPhone selfie style creative with a good hook and story

High production value videos for lower AOV donations rarely makes sense anymore. The mega trend toward unfiltered, uncut, story driven content is only accelerating. It exploded with UGC in 2017-2021 and now there are creators gaining massive followings with no fancy editing work or creative at all.

Raw, iPhone-style, creative is converting very well and more Org’s should lean into it. These could be raw reviews from visits/events/brand experiences, raw Program/in the field staff story ads shot on iPhones etc. If you haven’t tested lo-fi ad creative yet, you should.

Don’t make this all your creative, but test it. It might finds its way in front of pockets of people that you wouldn’t have otherwise expected, due to the way you speak about the product or its benefits in a more unfiltered way/format.

6. High-production value creative for high-AOV luxury brands

The only place where I don’t see the lofi ad creative working is in the high-AOV, high end luxury space. Obviously Dior or Canali can’t run selfie style videos. Luxury fashion and luxury brands still need luxury creative. This means studio shoots, playing with 3D CGI animation, and high-end video and photo.

Anything that has a $500-1000+ AOV is typically selling the brand perception as much as they’re selling the actual product. There’s inspo here for how to approach major donor fundraising. And I’ve a testing program as long as my arm for this. My hypothesis is luxury creative for luxury level AOV for the win.

7. Quick cut videos with fun or on-trend animation

On the other side of Lofi content is what’s being called “The Beastification” of content. It’s not Hollywood level production but it’s inspired by the quick cuts and transitions of some of Mr. Beast’s most viral videos. These creatives work especially well on Snap but also work on Meta too.

8. Screenshots/wildcards as creative

The last thing I’ll mention for Meta is the concept of screenshots or “wildcards” as creative. I’m really liking the screenshot style or the screenshot of a text message or a notes app or a picture of a sign that has your ad copy on it. Just something a little out of the blue and a little bit more creative to stop you in the feed.

These formats work because they are unique and catch your attention. Anytime you can think outside the box and make something really new and fun, you have a chance at breaking through.

That’s all for today!

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Now onto the interesting stuff!