Case Study: United Way End-of-Year Giving 2023
Project Details
When United Way of Summit and Medina launched their end-of-year giving campaign from November 1 to December 31, 2023, the goal was to maximize donations during the critical year-end fundraising period. I created a multi-platform paid strategy with a $4,473.58 budget spanning LinkedIn, Google Display, and YouTube. My focus was on audience segmentation, platform-specific creative, and cross-channel reach to engage donors across professional and consumer platforms.
Campaign Strategy
We built a three-pronged approach strategically allocating budget across platforms. The LinkedIn campaign ($2,000) targeted professional donors with 4 video and image assets, focusing on B2B engagement and corporate giving opportunities. The Google Display Network ($1,688.85) placed banner ads across websites and YouTube to build broad awareness with highly targeted local audiences. The YouTube video ads ($784.74) used 4 video assets showcasing United Way's impact, with skippable in-stream ads optimized for engagement and retention. Geographic targeting focused on Summit and Medina counties, with expanded visibility across Cuyahoga, Stark, and Portage counties.
Content
Results
LinkedIn performance:
113,403 impressions across 4 assets
1,262 clicks with 1.12% CTR (18% above LinkedIn's 0.95% engagement benchmark)
Top-performing asset: Valerie's video
Google Display Network:
4,897 clicks at $0.34 average CPC
Strong awareness building through banner placements
YouTube video ads:
1,081 clicks at $0.72 average CPC
94% audience retention at 5 seconds (skippable threshold)
Top-performing video: Imagination Library asset
7,809 views in Cuyahoga County, 2,569 in Summit County, 1,339 in Stark County
Geographic targeting insights:
Summit County: 671 clicks, 45,937 impressions, 1.46% CTR
Medina County: 112 clicks, 5,318 impressions, 2.11% CTR
Overall campaign impact:
7,240 website visits
729,760 total impressions
1.24% average CTR across platforms
Multi-channel strategy successfully engaging donors through professional and consumer touchpoints
Key learnings & optimization
This campaign revealed important insights for future paid strategies. LinkedIn targeting defaulted to all United States rather than local markets, reducing efficiency and highlighting the importance of platform-specific setup verification. Without conversion tracking on the donation landing page, we couldn't attribute specific gifts to paid channels, emphasizing the need for campaign-specific landing pages with UTM tracking.
For future campaigns, I identified opportunities to improve performance through refined keyword targeting in ad copy and descriptions, narrower audience segmentation based on donor behavior, dedicated campaign landing pages with compelling storytelling, and stronger copy testing to increase conversion rates beyond awareness metrics.