Christmas is nearly upon us.
Mariah is defrosting, the elves are limbering up, and Rudolph is hitting the gym. In the charity world, whispers about festive user journeys and gift boxes have long since begun.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Christmas. Many charities feel a real pressure to run online fundraising campaigns during this time, and understandably so – people are in a more giving spirit this time of the year than any other.
But that generosity comes with a catch. You’re competing at the noisiest time. The attention you want is the same attention that everyone is paying for – retail brands, event companies, hospitality businesses, and of course all those other charities.
And that attention comes at a price, with CPMs on most ad platforms higher now than in the rest of the year. It’s an expensive time of year to run campaigns.
Do charities still run Christmas campaigns?
Here’s a snapshot of how many Christmas-focused campaigns we’ve run on paid social channels compared to other campaign types.
We should mention that our clients, causes and campaigns change every year, so this isn’t a like-for-like comparison. Shifts in cause popularity, offers and the wider climate also cause natural fluctuations in the data.
Proportionally, the popularity of running Christmas cash appeals has been declining over the years. We’re now running fewer Christmas campaigns than other types.
That could indicate a few things:
- Fewer charities are running Christmas campaigns overall, as they are too expensive
- They are still running them, just in-house
- More charities are switching to more year-round acquisition strategies with less focus on Christmas.
A shift in how charities approach Christmas campaigns
We’re also seeing a shift in Christmas strategies.
Cash appeals were really popular back in 2019 and 2020, but in 2021 we started to see a shift towards other types of Christmas campaigns. Especially as Meta’s tracking changes and increased competition started to impact return on ad spend.
Our clients are testing more handraisers and in-memory campaigns. That means they’re exploring lower barrier and more emotionally compelling ways to acquire donors.
This may help them to side-step the cost of direct acquisition at Christmas, while still being timely and visible online overall.
The increase in shopping campaigns also makes a lot of sense – charities are leaning into gift-based propositions that are more in keeping with the commercial aspect at Christmas.
For example, we had great success with Parkinson’s UK promoting their Christmas shop, which had a great range and backing by the charity.
Let down by landing pages
Those higher acquisition costs from Christmas don’t just come from the higher cost of advertising or Meta’s restrictions – the drop off is often happening later in the journey.
Between 2022 to 2024, we found that ads needed to be delivered more often, because people were as much as three times less likely to convert on the landing page for a Christmas campaign versus a non-Christmas campaign.
So you could run an amazing Christmas campaign that brings droves of people to your website, only to be completely let down by the landing page.
That means that there are big gains to be made by optimising the post-click landing page journey.
How to stop your Christmas landing page killing your campaign
Here are specific ways to get more from your Christmas campaigns via your landing pages.
Improve the retention rate of the page
Check your cookie consent and strip back your landing page so it loads quickly. You’ll lose traffic for every additional second a user has to wait.
Optimise the landing page for phones
Make sure it loads quickly on data/4G and that it can be easily navigated using touch. It shouldn’t just look like a scaled down version of your desktop page.
Strip back your donation form to the bare minimum
Keep it simple. Reduce the need to scroll to get to the form, and delete any fields that collect unnecessary information.
Remove any navigation that isn’t mission critical
Now is not the time to distract prospective supporters with other asks, your blog, or an announcement from your CEO. Help them stay on track by removing obstacles that could take them off the page.
Use psychological techniques to push users towards ideal donation amounts
Tactics like circling the recommended amount, social proof pointing to the amount most people are most likely to give and showing it in a different colour will draw peoples’ eye.
Make it easier to donate
The second a user has to get out their wallet to enter their card number, you’ll lose people. Include Apple Pay, Google Pay and other one-click donate features.
Consider running a CRO or A/B test in the lead up to Christmas
Sustained testing of a landing page can help you identify and eliminate the elements that are creating friction and slowing users down.
True Christmas campaigns are all about Christmas
Is a film a Christmas film just because it takes place at Christmas?
One of our best Christmas campaigns was for a young persons’ cancer charity. While the world celebrated around them, children going through cancer treatment were hunkered down in hospital rooms, many across London.
Their families were shuttling in and out of the capital to be with them. It was hard to get time off work, transport costs were skyrocketing, and so were the costs of accommodation. Christmas was merely a backdrop to treatment and restless nights.
So we ran a fundraiser for a Christmas Grant, raising money to help parents pay for accommodation, replace lost wages, and cover train tickets or petrol
The campaign went incredibly well – not just because it tapped into the generosity of spirit, but it was a problem the charity and its supporters were uniquely placed to solve.
This felt like a genuine Christmas appeal, not just because it took place at Christmas, but because Christmas was baked into the concept.
Run a Christmas campaign that works for your charity
Christmas worked well for that charity because it fit in with its aims. So what does your charity want for Christmas?
Is brand saliency particularly important to you? Do you want to get in front of audiences so that they’re primed to donate to you later? Or maybe it’s simply about establishing visibility alongside competitors whose campaigns are already live.
The good news is that you don’t have to go live with a cash ask. There are loads of other options that might be more suitable for your charity, message and audience. Think of leaving a bauble in memory of someone, running a winter fuel allowance campaign, or a campaign about loneliness.
However you do it, make this year’s Christmas campaign one that makes Mariah glad she defrosted again.
