About Sands
Sands is a UK charity supporting anyone touched by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby. As well as providing bereavement support, they fund vital research, train healthcare professionals, campaign to keep pregnancy and baby loss at the top of the political agenda and offer a safe and caring community for bereaved parents and families.
Launching appeals at sensitive times of year
Sands launched a Christmas cash appeal to bring in new donors and increase unrestricted income at a time when demand for their services remains high. Christmas is a particularly sensitive period for families affected by baby loss, making it both an important and challenging moment to ask for support.
The appeal followed a successful awareness campaign earlier in the year, which had built strong engagement with warm audiences. The challenge was converting that awareness into donations efficiently, while still reaching new supporters during a highly competitive fundraising period.
This was made harder by the Big Give campaign running at the same time, which dominated much of the Christmas fundraising landscape. Sands needed to run paid activity across Meta and search in a way that avoided direct competition with Big Give messaging, which was prioritised through organic channels.
A cross-channel campaign to both warm and cold audiences
We designed a cross-channel digital campaign deliberately focused on reaching people who were already aware of Sands’ work but had not yet donated, while continuing to reach new audiences during the Christmas period. The approach built on a successful awareness campaign earlier in the year, which had generated strong engagement with warm audiences.
On Meta, we prioritised warm audiences and retargeting activity to keep acquisition costs under control, alongside an allocation to lookalike audiences that had performed well in previous campaigns.
Messaging on Meta focused on urgency and the experience of baby loss at Christmas. We worked closely with Sands to test two core creative angles. The first centred on lived experience, using case studies from families affected by baby loss. The second focused on the role Sands plays in supporting people through bereavement, particularly during a period that can be especially difficult.
Alongside paid social, search played a key role in reaching people who were already considering a donation. We carried out keyword research around baby loss and charity donation searches, including relevant brand terms, and structured campaigns so Sands appeared when people were actively looking to give.
We implemented conversion tracking to measure both revenue and donations, allowing us to optimise based on money raised rather than volume alone. Early performance showed that search was raising more money than Meta, so we rebalanced spend across channels to generate more income from the same budget.
The campaign launched in early December, ahead of peak Christmas giving weeks. We held weekly performance reviews with the Sands team and made timely changes to budgets, targeting, and creative as results became clearer.
Money raised and valuable insights gained
The campaign performed well for Sands during a highly competitive Christmas period, bringing in new donors while staying within acquisition targets.
Search was particularly effective. It raised more money than expected, with a return on ad spend of over 50% higher than target. This shows how valuable search can be at Christmas when people are actively looking to give. Brand search performance reflected the impact of earlier awareness activity and the relevance of the appeal at this time of year.
Meta was harder to scale while the Big Give was running, but it continued to contribute. Although donation volumes were slightly lower than planned, CPA remained below target, allowing the channel to support the appeal without putting pressure on the overall budget.
Overall, the campaign clarified where paid activity works hardest for Sands at Christmas. It showed how search and paid social can sit alongside organic fundraising without competing with it, and how budgets can be shifted in response to what is raising more money. These learnings leave the team better placed to plan future Christmas appeals with confidence and focus.
“Platypus helped us to achieve strong learnings and insights for our Winter cash appeal, with a clear plan and recommendations to build on for future cash appeals“, said Vanessa Rhoden, Marketing and Campaigns Manager at Sands.
“It was particularly valuable to learn more about the impact of cross-channel integrated campaigns and see the impact each channel had on helping us grow our income.”
