The Brief
Dementia UK wanted to drive 300 additional legacy prospects over the 23/24 financial year. The focus here was either requesting the Gift in Wills Guide, or arranging to draft a free will and include a gift to Dementia UK.
Knowing this was a huge potential area of donations for the charity, they had an acquisition budget of £65 per person. As Legacy campaigns are important to many charities, there’s a great deal of competition, so Dementia UK’s targeting for this campaign needed to be tightly optimised.
The Charity
One of the leading dementia and Alzheimer’s charities in the UK, Dementia UK are on a mission to ensure that every family facing dementia have the support of an Admiral Nurse – specialists trained to provide practical advice and emotional support to people with dementia and their loved ones. Legacy giving (donations from wills) is a critical source of fundraising they use to achieve this goal, procured from both their Gift in Wills Guide and their Free Will Writing service.
Our Approach
Challenged to secure 300 new legacy prospects in the 2023/24 financial year, we deployed a strategy focused on securing legacy leads through free wills and guide requests. On top of Google Paid Search, we introduced Search Ads 360 to optimise efforts across search engines. We also expanded their awareness activity via YouTube and Spotify, managing cost by repurposing creative.
Dementia UK were already using Paid Search on Google, targeting those looking for a free will service. We wanted to take this to the next level. We introduced Search Ads 360, Google’s premium Paid Search tool, and expanded into Microsoft Search Ads, which is particularly popular among older audiences.
We also retooled their strategy to focus on user actions that take place on Dementia UK’s site, such as booking Free Wills appointments, as opposed to directing to third party sites. This set up a stronger user journey and helped improve the conversion optimisation.
Lastly, after considering the entire funnel, we suggested adding awareness activity to further improve conversion rate at the bottom of the funnel.
Growing Paid Search
Introducing SA360 helped us maximise performance by permitting more advanced bid strategies. This utilises Google’s proprietary ‘Floodlight’ traffic system, which allows for tracking more data points across the user journey.
SA360 also allowed us to manage multiple search engines in one place. Bing was particularly well-suited to an older, more affluent demographic. We then managed the investment across the two channels according to performance.
New Channels
Moving beyond search, we grew the online reach of Dementia UK’s Legacy offering through YouTube and Spotify. With these channels, we were able to repurpose previously developed video and audio creatives in new ways.
We also aligned this awareness activity with Free Wills Month, a key time for Legacy acquisition.
Results
Our multichannel strategy substantially exceeded Dementia UK’s goal of securing 300 new legacy prospects, for a fraction of the cost they had allocated.
Results across the year were impressive, exceeding signup targets by 129% while achieving a 63% lower CPA than projected.
- Through implementing Search Ads 360, expanding to Microsoft Ads, and optimising the user journey to prioritise on-site actions, we delivered 689 signups at a £24 CPA. This was significantly below the £65 target, demonstrating the power of a full-funnel, data-led approach.
- As we moved into October’s Free Wills Month, we saw a 114% increase in our Paid Search sign-ups, validating our approach to align our activity to this key period.
“Uprise Up have been invaluable in helping us grow high-quality legacy prospects. Their strategic use of Search Ads 360, expansion into Microsoft Search Ads, and thoughtful awareness activity, created a stronger user journey and delivered top quality results. We’ve really valued their expertise and collaborative approach in such an important area of income for Dementia UK.”
Legacy & In Memory Manager at Dementia UK