Charities see ad campaign effectiveness plummet

The analysis by the DMA’s Intelligent Marketing Databank, which is based on data from 135 charity campaigns and more than 1,000 cross-channel campaigns, found that effectiveness in charity campaigning had fallen considerably since 2019.

Charity campaign effectiveness peaked at 3.4 effects per campaign in 2019 but fell to 2.3 effects by 2021 and dropping below the cross-sector average.

A decline in response effectiveness has prompted the overall effectiveness decline in 2021, with the average number of response effects halving from 2.6 per campaign in 2020 to 1.3 in 2021.

Despite this large decline in 2021, a typical charity campaign generated 2.9 effects per campaign over a five-year average, which exceeded the cross-sector five-year average ( 2.7 effects).

Direct mail is the most effective channel at driving immediate response for charities (three effects), while television was deemed the best all-rounder due to its immediacy and above-average response and brand effects.

Tim Bond, director of insight at the DMA, said: “Declining response effectiveness in a challenging market, where households budgets are under more pressure than ever, has inevitably played its part with the decline in total campaign effects generated.

“Charity chief marketing officers need to be armed with the data-driven insight to inform the role of marketing in building charity brands, while at the same time striving to measure and attribute campaign success more accurately at a time when budgets are under greater scrutiny than ever.”