This time last year you might remember your Facebook feed was awash with videos. Lots and lots of videos of friends, family, and celebrities being shocked senseless by big ‘ole buckets of ice water—all in the name of good fun and a good cause, funding medical research for ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The Ice Bucket Challenge raised over $115 million for ALS, and got a lot of nonprofits excited about tapping into social media’s power to fuel fundraising campaigns. But there was one problem: despite the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge, social media channels don’t have a great track record when it comes to conversion rates for fundraising. And for years, nonprofits have struggled to generate ROI from last-touch interactions via social channels.
Enter some new donate options from Facebook. The social media giant is trying to solve the fundraising disconnect by releasing “Donate Now” buttons, which are available to nonprofit organizations in two formats*:
- “Donate Now” button on business pages directly to the left of the “Like Page” button
- Ad placements with “Donate Now” call-to-action (CTA) buttons
Before you celebrate and rush to set these up, here are a few important considerations to help you maximize the experience and drive conversions:
The prime real estate may not be where you think it is
Facebook is giving nonprofits the opportunity to add a “Donate Now” button on their cover photo, but this may be more of a gesture to nonprofits rather than a way for you to drive a significant lift in donations. Very little of an organization’s social engagement happens directly on its Facebook profile page because people spend the most time in their News Feeds. Make sure you try the ad placement with the “Donate Now” CTA option, too. Yes, that costs money, and we all wish the free option was the best option, but you often need to pay for results on Facebook, particularly since their News Feed algorithm changed a year ago.
You’re losing money if your forms aren’t mobile optimized
Nearly 40% of all Facebook users access Facebook only on mobile devices. Furthermore, mobile represents nearly 70% of Facebook’s advertising revenue. That said, we have found that mobile conversion rates on donations are lower than on desktop. Part of the problem is that many donation landing page experiences are not optimized for mobile devices. If you want to really take advantage of Facebook’s new “Donate Now” button, you need to make sure your donation pages are mobile optimized. That could entail a straightforward optimization, or it could require a new software solution that’s less rigid than the one you’re using. (For more on this topic and other best practices, check out our fundraising guide and of course, the BSD Tools platform.)
Conversions through video–it’s a thing! Try it out!
Facebook has become one of the first platforms to drive conversions and ROI directly from video with the release of call-to-action (CTA) buttons on video placements. We’ve recently tested CTAs on video placements and found that a video and CTA combo can drive conversions effectively, so we highly recommend giving this a try.
You’ll get nowhere if you’re asking the wrong people
The “Donate Now” button is only as powerful as its ability to reach the right audience—the audience most likely to click it. More than ever, Facebook’s granular targeting offers nonprofits the opportunity to hone in on supporters while not reaching users that are not likely to donate. Our pro tip is to set up custom retargeting audiences of previous donors and members of your email list overlaid with Facebook’s nonprofit donor segments and income targeting. By creating a more narrowly defined audience that is most likely to donate, you can maximize the usage of the new Donate Now button without wasting impressions.
*We couldn’t help putting in a disclaimer about the disclaimer that Facebook places on the “Donate Now” button, saying the charity is not endorsed by or affiliated with Facebook. We’re hoping Facebook will eventually remove this disclaimer as we expect it will drive down click-through rate, drive up cost per click, and ultimately cut into potential ROI.
As always, get out there and test, test, test, and please be in touch if we can help.