How Platypus Digital helped Young Lives vs Cancer acquire donors via Facebook Ads

Young Lives vs Cancer (formerly CLIC Sargent) are an amazing charity. They support families facing cancer with everything from emotional support, financial assistance and campaigning to improve things for everyone.

We’ve been working with them since Christmas 2019, moving to being their retained search and paid social agency in 2020.

What was the challenge?

Young Lives vs Cancer wanted to diversify their income streams. As part of this, the individual giving team were tasked with increasing the volume of cash donations made on their website.

Many donors want to donate specifically to charities that work with young people. But Young Lives vs Cancer were more known at this point for community and challenge fundraising.

What did we do?

We identified that paid social media would be the most effective way to reach prospective audiences. We worked with the IG team to identify return on ad spend (ROAS) objectives for the team, and created an advertising and audience strategy to meet those objectives.

We launched the campaigns, and they are still running today. We regularly:

revisit the strategy to make sure it is still effective.
plan Facebook ads content with the IG team, based on their calendar of activity, adding any opportunities we spot.
run regular testing from the IG team’s suggestions and our own
hold results calls to update the team

What have we achieved?

So far, the paid social advertising campaigns have raised over £60,000 in single donations. This is from a combination of appeals, including our ‘always on’ campaign and time-limited appeals.

We now plan to scale this activity to include regular giving objectives, and increase the number of cash donors we get even further.

Matt Collins

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Matt Collins

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“I've worked with the Platypus team multiple times. They're the agency we always go back to because of their broad range of skills, consistently great team, good sense and pragmatism and the fact that hey are always a joy to work with."

Lynn RobertsAssistant Director - Digital & Innovation, Action for Children

"Platypus is the best search marketing agency I've worked with in over 20 years. No other agency has the level of paid search knowledge than they do."

Kim WatsonVersus Arthritis

“In a sometimes confusing and murky digital world, the guys at Platypus are a breath of fresh air. They know their stuff, they tell us it straight and really care about the work we do together. There’s a true sense of partnership between the Sightsavers and Platypus teams, which makes working together more productive and more enjoyable.”

Ella PierceDirector of fundraising, Sightsavers

"Platypus' social media review was incredibly useful for us. It helped us identify areas for improvement and provided practical recommendations that we could implement right away. The team's expertise and collaborative approach made the process smooth and very enjoyable!"

Sarah CooperCommunications Manager, Motor Insurance Bureau.

“The Platypus team were a dream to work with on this campaign. They clearly didn’t just use a boilerplate approach with us – they were flexible, adaptable, and quick to respond. What’s more, they are true Facebook Ads experts. It was the combination of their approach and expertise that made this campaign so successful. Thanks, Platypus!”

Joanna Sullivan, Head of Community & Events FundraisingDementia UK