87. Some Personal News (SPN)
CFO x CMO: Learning a foreign language
A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers. I’m thrilled to have you as readers and truly appreciate your feedback and support.
In this week’s SPN:
Where do the opportunities lie in ever-changing AdTech
How to think small and win big with micro-actions
Why speaking the language of the CFO is our responsibility
How donor cohorts are a vehicle for predictability
Jobs & Opps
Let’s dig in!
If there’s one thing CFOs love it’s predictable revenue. Implement Fundraise Up and reduce cancellations of recurring plans. By providing donors with alternatives to canceling you’ll see a reduction in cancellations.
We saved thousands of dollars from donors about to cancel because they could find where to cancel with ease (sounds counter-intuitive) and adjust their plan, instead of canceling it outright.
Donor. Experience. Matters.
Game-changer? It was for me.
Seismic Shifts in AdTech
The hot topic in adtech is Attention. Is it just me that thinks common sense can replace this?
Bigger, more prominent formats is good sense.
Video rather than animated GIFs is good sense.
Maybe attention can give you a quality score for media placements but doesn’t a good buying brief mitigate against the poor placements that attention metrics weed out?
Well, yes and no. Attention as a measurement of a campaign is BS. Yet, attention as a catalyst for data-informed creative, and a reason to ensure media and creative aren’t baked in silo’s, is increasingly necessary.
Advertising is going through the most incredible change, which is directly impacting how effectively (and efficiently) we’re able to build brand and engage prospective, current and future donors.
It matters to big and small nonprofit Orgs, traditional media companies and tech giants, agencies and other tech providers, and now even to non-media consumer companies that are starting advertising businesses (e.g. see SPN 69 for a deep dive into Retail Media Networks and why Orgs should be experimenting there).
Combined with the rise of ad-free streaming it’s more challenging than ever to reach audiences who can pay to avoid ads, which then prompts important socioeconomic questions about who has to see them.
This sea change that we’re experiencing as marketers, data analysts and digital fundraisers is becoming more significant by the week.
There’s more opportunity too. Orgs with big budgets have a plethora of data-tech-media options in which to test/invest their budgets. Though choice isn’t always best. And now smaller Orgs who previously had to take rejected remnant space from those higher up the food chain can get into the advertising ecosystem.
Nor will Orgs have to spend a million dollars on a TV campaign to attract eyeballs. The technology to create a video ad, maybe with the help of generative AI, and hyper-targeting it on a budget of a few thousand dollars is now readily available. Is the playing field leveling in the competition for attention? From a creative standpoint, quite possibly.
A “long read” (and excellent) FT piece last week looked at the business of advertising and opened with a story of how each Publicis employee started this year with a video message from the chief executive thanking them personally, by name and in their first language, for their hard work. Not dissimilar to how the Argentinian President delivered his Davos speech using HeyGen’s AI software.
Years ago I pitched similar tech to agencies - including many owned by Publicis. Take-up was OK but mainly for test campaigns. The point is that an 8 year lag between the tech being available and it getting adopted in the mainstream highlights the challenge for Agencies - do they have enough talent who really get tech? Few do. The end of the FT piece sums up the challenge:
Another consideration here is that Orgs don’t pay for the value that good Agencies create. They just pay day rates or dish out 3-month contracts, and that model encourages Agencies to be fat and slow. Hardly endearing when most of us value speed and agility.
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising obviously see the agency role as crucial and recently published a report that presents evidence and arguments for treating brand marketing as a sustained strategic investment in an Orgs long-term priorities, and not simply as a cost to manage.
Titled Marketing is an Investment the report looks to be a useful tool to persuade people to invest. Feels like a schoolboy error to decide to charge for it. But charge they did. I’d have sent it - for free - to every CEO.
Change requires a rethink of the CMO role. It necessitates a reinvigorated relationship with the CEO and adopting the same language as the CFO. More on this in today’s third post below. To future-proof an Org in 2024 we need to actively seek to bring in new talent with new skills, not just encourage but enable experimentation across the full funnel (new ad formats, different processes, fresh hypotheses) and prepare for a shift toward smarter marketing ROI paradigms.
At the time of writing this, the front page of the Guardian website has a 468 x 60 banner for TV licensing floating in the middle of white space about the masthead. It’s served by Doubleclick, earning the Guardian cents and probably part of a buy across thousands of websites, with programmatic showing it wherever someone thought to be in the target audiences shows up. The adtech industry can surely do better than this!
It looks like The Trade Desk are taking steps to make it easier to avoid this insanity with a curated set of 500 quality publications. The tool, which is in beta, is intended to make it easy for buyers to target across only high-quality publishers. Smart adtech players also aren’t waiting around for any white smoke on cookies and instead are looking for fresh partnerships where the data is more usable.
So a partnership between Amazon and Reach, the UK’s largest publisher, to use “context” looks interesting. Context is much discussed but hasn’t been used that much - though some clever people did some great work on this a while back to deliver tailored ads based on context.
This partnership should be particularly interesting for Orgs with a product offering. It’s another example where Amazon is bringing more inventory into its orbit - with the potential to do more deals like the one they have with Facebook. Your Supporters are now able to shop Amazon’s Facebook and Instagram ads, and check out with Amazon without leaving the social media apps.
It’s a great move for Reach too - with lots of potential for growth if Amazon were to target their logged in users across Reach sites. Now they just need to sort the user experience. A familiar topic to SPN readers!
Pigeon Steps 🐦
In conversation with a smart SPN reader this week I was given a healthy reminder of the benefit of thinking in terms of micro-goals - those small steps or sets of actions that a donor takes to undergo a macro conversion.
I’ve tried to make this posts format pithy enough so it’s an easy, copy-paste-share to anybody pulling the campaign levers on your team.
So let’s break it down.We can agree that the end goal of any campaign is to move a person to some sort of action. If you’re launching an email campaign to get people to register for an online event, the way to analyze and improve that campaign isn’t by only looking at how close you came to the main goal.
What you need to be analyzing is the tons of micro-actions leading up to that point. This also provides the context you need in order to be effectively communicating success, learnings and optimizations internally.
Supporters don’t just magically end up on a confirmation page.
The subject line has to be compelling enough for them to open the email.
The opening line of the email has to make them want to read the rest of it.
The rest of the email copy needs to make them want to learn more.
The landing page needs to drive them to click the sign-up button.
The sign up page needs to be easy to navigate and reassuring enough that they give you their information.
The way to make any campaign perform better is to map out each of these micro-actions within a campaign and see if each one of them are doing their job.
The subject line has to be compelling enough for them to open the email: Measure Open Rates
The opening line of the email has to make them want to read the rest of it: Measure Time Spent Viewing Email
The rest of the email copy needs to make them want to learn more: Measure Click Through Rate (CTR)
The landing page needs to drive them to click the sign-up button: Measure Landing Page CTR
The sign up page needs to be easy and reassuring enough that they give you their information: Measure LP Conversion Rate
Campaigns are made up of great micro-actions with micro-goals built around them.
Focus energy on optimizing for those moments.
Pigeon steps. One step at a time.
Jobs & Opps
Obama Foundation: Senior Director Development, International
Christian Aid: Head of Public Fundraising
The Asia Foundation: Chief Comms Officer
National Geographic Society: VP, Ops
Save the Children International: Regional (European) Digital Hub Senior Project Manager
CFO x CMO Collaboration
In November, Snoop Dogg – somebody synonymous with smoking marijuana – tweeted that he’s “giving up smoke.” His announcement sent internet users into a tailspin. A few days later, the ruse was revealed as a brilliant tactic that seeded the launch of an advertising campaign promoting a new partnership between Snoop and Solo Stove – a fast-growing eCommerce brand behind a smokeless fire pit.
This sharp campaign was pulled off by The Martin Agency, capitalizing on precisely the right celebrity for a brand – and for a task. Yet, two months later, the CEO of Solo Stove resigned (read “was ousted”) over this exact campaign. The possibility of a CEO being fired over the marketing campaign kept in very high regard by a broader industry seems slim. Still, Solo Stove’s CFO statement made it abundantly clear:
It’s a perfect storm of CFO and CMO – played by the CEO in this case – not speaking the same language. And there are lessons here to be learned for us in Fundraising.
What went wrong with the Solo Stove campaign?
Reading the tea leaves, it seems the Marketing department was already scrutinized by the broader business to drive more sales and decided to run a high-profile branding campaign – but its impact was measured on immediate returns.
While many aspects of it are wrong, probably the main one is that Solo Stove is an outdoor product, and immediate sales in November (right before even the hottest areas of the US halt outdoor activities for the season) are very unlikely.
The marketing department ran a brand-building initiative, likely – hopefully – planning to follow on with the newly generated audiences until the early spring, reaping the rewards when the time comes and benefitting from an increased market share.
The CFO – who isn’t an enemy of Marketing but someone charged with ensuring the funds are being correctly distributed – got a significant expense on the immediate P&L with no revenue attributed to it. And acted in the company’s best interest. It seems like he persuaded the board to halt the campaign ASAP and let go a person who approved the ill expense.
There were no winners. The money had already been spent, the follow-on leading to the desired increase in sales remains unlikely at best, and the person has already been let go.
Lessons to be learned for Retail Donor Fundraisers
The Retail Donor/Mass Market/Individual Giving Marketing budget is usually a tiny part of the balance sheet, leaving little time for the finance department to dig deep into it. Decisions to keep, cut, or increase are made at face value – what is the expense, the revenue associated with the expense, and whether the latter is larger.
Fundraisers may very well be spending their days deep in Attribution tools and incrementality calculations but none of it matters if it’s not getting across the aisle to the Finance team – or if it’s not being correctly understood.
Beyond that, Marketing – and subsequently, mass market fundraising – is disproportionately visible to the entire Org compared to the budget spent on it. Everyone think they’re a marketer. Which means the marketing leader has to be “multilingual”.
Financial reporting requires predictability. Marketers and fundraisers should be framing their work and output accordingly. The P&L impact of hiring for a particular role or paying it forward to enter a committed corporate partnership is evident and predictable.
Donor cohorts are a vehicle for predictability - see bullet #4. Finance people – laddering up to the CFO – appreciate that predictability as they’re held accountable to accurately report what happened, forecast the future, set realistic goals, and hit them across both Spend and Revenue.
Alignment of objectives upfront is vital to avoid the broader Org judging the work of fundraisers against impossible-to-achieve KPIs, such as measuring brand-building campaigns on immediate donations. Achieving this alignment requires closer work with the Finance department before launching any campaign.
The best measurables for the finance department aren’t certain returns or ROI figures but a “scorecard” – simple yes/no answers to expectations set upfront. Nothing is wrong with a particular campaign driving a 0.5:1 return in the same fiscal quarter if that return was predicted upfront and delivered accurately. Bonus points if you can share learnings with the CFO for context and connect it to a broader strategy.
Marketers and Fundraisers are responsible for finding a common language with the CFO, and Donor Lifecycle comes to the rescue. Predictability and target setting require a framework that all departments can easily understand, and classic marketing ones miss the mark:
“Brand Awareness” or “Ad Recall” can barely be recognized as an Asset on the balance sheet, making the funnel useless in this context.
Channel breakdown is too granular for the finance department, and by-channel performance depends on the Brand vs. Direct Fundraising budget allocation within a given channel at a given time.
The common ground between the two universes is the Donor Lifecycle that I’ve shared before:
Donor Lifecycle operates in Cohorts – and cohorts are a vehicle for predictability. Target setting becomes exponentially easier if Fundraising teams can explain to their Finance counterparts that marketing expenses accrued in a particular quarter are expected to:
Drive 100,000 new First Targeted Website Visits in the same quarter
Those 100,000 Website Visits convert to First Donations at a general rate of 10% within the subsequent six months
The Average Donation Value for those is $50
Of the 10,000 first donations, 10% of donors will convert to monthly donations – at an average donation value of $25 per month and an average lifespan of 12 months.
Now, your finance team knows that they:
Shouldn’t expect any return from the investment in the current quarter
Should expect $500,000 over six months following the current quarter
Should expect $75,000 per quarter for four quarters after that
If the above ground rules are set, your fundraising campaigns – unlike the Solo Stove example above – can quickly become both a Marketing and Financial success.
That’s all for today!
Don’t hesitate to email with any questions. Thank you to those that do.
And huge thanks to this Quarter’s sponsor Fundraise Up for creating a new standard for online giving.
Now onto the fun stuff!
Interesting Reads from my Week
Since SPN #86 celebrated State Farm’s excellent pre-game campaign and use of TikTok before any Super Bowl Ads ratings were published, it was gratifying to see that State Farm received the accolade of #1 highest rated ad. For once, I called it.
How Sora Works (and what it means).
Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event?
This is a good article. Unfortunately it’s behind the Fortune paywall. If you haven’t looked at Fortune articles this month, then it should open for you. AI’s winners and losers have a clear precedent you’ve never thought about: the canal boom of the 18th century.
How Early-Adopter Companies Are Thinking About Apple Vision Pro.
How to Have Meetings That Do Not Suck.
How Do I Answer the Interview Question, “What’s Your Biggest Weakness.
Google’s Gemini Assistant Is a Frustrating and Fantastic Glimpse of the AI Future.
Just in Time: How to Be An Anthropologist in Business.