Objective

Leverage the scale of Facebook to raise money for GOP political candidates.

Challenge

Facebook fundraising has been historically difficult to scale for congressional candidates. Candidates’ fundraising potential has been limited by the ability to efficiently identify and target potential donors with an effective message in a low-friction environment. Even with Facebook’s user-friendly platform and sophisticated delivery algorithms, candidates have struggled to scale Facebook ads in a cost-effective manner.

Most congressional candidates will also accept 50%-70% immediate fundraising ROAS (return on ad spend) with ad budgets that range from $5,000 – $15,000 per month. These metrics come with the expectation that these donors will donate at least two times, eventually increasing lifetime ROAS to make these campaigns profitable.

We knew we could do better, so we set out to increase Facebook fundraising by at least 10x while maintaining at least 100% immediate ROAS, thus accelerating both immediate and lifetime ROAS at a level that made Facebook a viable source of revenue.

Approach

We identified three key areas to scale fundraising: enhanced data, effective creative messaging, and flawless execution.

1. We first tapped into Strongbox’s data vault where we modeled donor audience cohorts to seed Facebook lookalike audiences.

2. Next, we used months of message testing on email and SMS to learn how best to build creative assets tailored to Facebook.

3. Finally, we executed fundraising campaigns in a test-and-learn methodology, using advanced techniques around objectives, bid types, audience exclusions, re-targeting, engagement strategy, and custom events.

Results