Following our “Banned and Blocked” webinar on Meta advertising for digital fundraising, we’re diving deeper into the questions we didn’t have time to answer on the day. Simon Scriver sits down with Josh Leigh from Hynt to tackle the Meta challenges charities are facing right now – from realistic ad budgets and lead generation strategies to navigating Meta’s ever-changing restrictions on social issue content.
We cover:
- What budget do you really need? Why £500 won’t cut it for donor acquisition on Meta – and what a realistic starting budget looks like
- From lead to donation: How to turn guide downloads and lead form sign-ups into actual gifts, and why you should ask sooner than you think
- Finding your “why”: Using Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle to craft messaging that stops the scroll in 0.7 seconds
- Meta lead forms vs. landing pages: Which performs better and why Meta doesn’t want you leaving the platform
- Advantage+ targeting, social issue ad approvals, health content restrictions, and more — practical answers to the questions fundraisers submitted
Check out the full Banned & Blocked Webinar On-Demand
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And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.
Transcript
Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear? Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraisingeverywhere.com/podcast to subscribe.
Jade Cunnah: Now, on to today’s episode. Enjoy.
Simon Scriver: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere. Very happy to be here with you today. As we come out of a recent event, we just had our Banned and Blocked: How to Make Meta Keep Working for Your Digital Fundraising Event.
Simon Scriver: Uh, thank you to all of you who, uh, managed to get there live on the day, uh, when our friend Josh from Hint was giving us the latest on Meta, talking about how we make it work. I know there’s a lot of our community, a lot of our followers, a lot of our members, uh, who are really struggling to make this work or really just confused about what’s happening with Meta sometimes.
Simon Scriver: So we love getting Josh and the rest of the team in Hint to come in and share a bit. So that was a great session. Thank you for attending. Thank you for all your questions and, uh, I know a lot of you got so much out of it. But we didn’t get to all of the questions. There were some questions in there which we just didn’t have time to get to.
Simon Scriver: You know we have a fixed time with this. But a couple of questions as well that I think were coming up a few times that they may be worth diving a bit deeper into. So I have invited Josh from Hint back onto the podcast for me to really just put on the spot and throw some more questions out, if I may.
Simon Scriver: Um, so let me just welcome our guest today. Hello, Josh.
Josh Leigh: Hey, Simon. Yes, you may throw questions at me. I’m so excited.
Simon Scriver: And I, I mean, this is nothing, nothing unusual because whenever I see Josh, I seem to have lots of questions for him, and we end up going down lots of rabbit holes. But we are boxed into Meta today, and these are questions from our attendees.
Simon Scriver: And so as promised, we’re gonna try and get through as many of these as possible, uh, and just pick up where we left off if, if that’s okay with you, Josh. Let’s do it. Amazing. And we, we will- we won’t judge you on this, but I think if you do well answering the questions, I will find some sort of prize for you.
Simon Scriver: We’ll, we’ll figure out a little, uh, a pen and a checkbook, like blanky blanks. I was gonna say, I like cash. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Cold, hard cash. Perfectly. Probably a little wet, like I’ll take it.
Simon Scriver: Let’s get into this- Sorry, Simon, focus up. We’re gonna talk about Meta. Yes, we’re gonna talk about Meta. So this is a, a big- biggish question to start off with but this came from Gemma in the chat, but I think echoed a l- echoed a lot of what often comes up with Meta. Do you need a big budget for Meta ads to work?
Simon Scriver: What’s realistic on a 250 to 500 pound per, per campaign? Is this just for the big guys? Tell me, Josh.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. So this is a really interesting question. Facebook themselves, and Meta themselves, and Mark Zuckerberg, king of the lizard people, will go out and tell the public, “You can start with as little as $250, 250 pounds, 250 euro.”
Josh Leigh: They really push that message, and they try to position themselves as a bit of a mom-and-pop shop can advertise their high street coffee shop kind of energy. It’s a great message, and it’s something that could be effective in the right circumstances. But ultimately, we are finding that especially with all of the bans and blocks and restrictions that I talked about on the webinar, it is the case that you do need to pay a little more to play in these channels.
Josh Leigh: For a cash acquisition campaign or a regular giver acquisition campaign, we’re finding that you really need about 10,000 pounds or 10,000 euro to get started. The reason we say that is that you need to do a little bit of pre-engagement, so you need to make sure that you’re carving out some of your budget to build an engaged and aware audience, and then putting the rest into testing, learning, and optimizing what works creatively to make sure that you’re getting the best value for money out of the rest of your budget.
Jade Cunnah: Mm.
Multiple Speakers: 200
Josh Leigh: to 250 pounds, 500 pounds or any amount like that, that Gemma was talking about there, that’s really not enough to acquire donors. Bear in mind, for example, that if you were to run a cash acquisition campaign in other offline channels, you would be spending, let’s say, 50 to 100 pounds for a cash giver or, in face-to-face, 250 pounds or euros for a cash giver or for a regular giver.
Josh Leigh: So- Mm … these, these amounts of money, Facebook may give you the impression that you can start that low, but you really can’t. I talked a lot on the webinar about lead generation. This is where if you had a lead generation program and you were achieving about a, a, a one pound, 1 pound 50, one euro 50 cost per lead, you could add 500 pounds to it and get 500 more leads.
Josh Leigh: And off the back of 500 more leads, you might get five donors. Mm. So it’s not bad if you’ve got a program that’s running and optimized. But, but really, if you are looking to start out, you’re going to need much more budget than that. Mm. And I think it’s, I think it is just maybe a mis- I don’t know, a misadvertisement coming from Meta is part of it There’s very few other fundraising channels that you would start in with £500.
Josh Leigh: I think you need to really- Yeah … be saying, “Seriously, we’re going to invest in this as well.” There’s literally no other fundraising channel that you could start out with £500. Why would Meta be any different?
Simon Scriver: That, uh, that’s a really interesting way to put it ’cause I mean, obviously the motivation sells, but I’ve never heard anyone compare it like that.
Simon Scriver: It’s like, yeah, realistically you wouldn’t go out with like a TV campaign or a billboard campaign and say- “
Josh Leigh: I’ll take £500 of television please.” You’d get about three and a half seconds at 1:00 PM in the afternoon. One word. Yeah. You may have one
Simon Scriver: word at
Josh Leigh: 1:01 in the
Simon Scriver: afternoon. If you’re a small charity listening to this and you’re keen to do Meta or your, your, the powers that be are telling you to do Meta, what…
Simon Scriver: And you’re not at that budget level- Yeah … does it come back later when you have that budget? Now,
Josh Leigh: yeah, this is the thing. If you w- if you had, I mean, if you wanted to do email lead generation, like I said, and you’re a small charity, and you really just need to get some scores on the board and demonstrate success to unlock more budget- Mm
Josh Leigh: this is where we might say spend… I’ll be transparent. Our agency fees, you’d spend five or six grand on your agency to run the campaign for you, including creative and strategy. You could spend about another 5,000 on your media spend, and then you do need a welcome journey in place to make sure you’re, you’re getting the best value for money out of that five grand.
Josh Leigh: So overall, 10 grand total is kind of still the level you’re gonna end up at-
Multiple Speakers: Mm …
Josh Leigh: really. Yeah, I just wouldn’t… I just… If you don’t have the money to step into that space and do it properly, then you are wasting your money. If you just put £500 in- Mm-hmm … and see what happens, you’ve actually just wasted £500, rather than trying to build up a bit more of a, a nest egg to work with.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. We often find that, um, some charities we speak to are quite small. They wanna step into digital channels. What they’re kind of saying is they wanna start doing individual giving, and we have to remember that individual giving operates on a loss to acquire the donor- Sure … and you make all the money back through retention.
Josh Leigh: So if you spend sort of £100 on a, uh, £100 on a campaign, you’d only expect to get about 30 to 50 pounds back initially. The rest of that money comes back through retention and stewardship and, and development of that charity rela- or that, that donor relationship. So yeah. I- if you don’t have the money to spend a pound and, and lose most of it, then you don’t really have the money to invest in individual giving just yet, I think is a critical thing to remember as well.
Simon Scriver: Thank you, Josh. Um, that brings me… You mentioned lead gen there, which brings me nicely onto the next question. Helen has phrased this one, uh, in the chat. She said, “Once someone downloads a guide, how do you actually get to the donation ask?” And I think that echoes what a lot of people ask in terms of lead gen’s great, but what, what does work in terms of then getting them to actually hand over money?
Josh Leigh: Yeah. This is a really great point, and I think it’s something that maybe puts people off of lead generation, is that they maybe see it as purely focused on just filling the funnel, getting those email addresses, getting those telephone numbers. I’ll talk about email leads because I think that’s the kind of the core of what Helen’s asking.
Josh Leigh: But essentially, if you were to use… Oh, uh, sorry, she also mentioned downloadable guides. So if you were on the webinar, you would’ve seen some examples of downloadable guides. But just in case you weren’t, a downloadable guide is potentially like a, a guide that brings your work to life for a supporter and helps them maybe mobilize around your mission.
Josh Leigh: One example we’ve developed is a, uh, the home guide we call it. So a homelessness charity we worked with. Mm-hmm. They, uh, they wanted to attract a sort of a, a high-net-worth individual kind of standard value supporter or mid-value supporter. So we developed a guide called How to Make Your Home Feel Like a Home on the premise that their brand message is all about the importance of home.
Josh Leigh: It’s not about just homeless services or homeless outreach. It’s actually about giving everyone the right to a home. And so we developed a guide that you can download that helps you decorate your home. It tells you the right plant- Mm … to put in your bathroom, the kind of the lighting schemes you use in your living room.
Josh Leigh: It’s really, really cool. So once someone downloads this guide, let’s say they’ve seen a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad and, and they say, “Oh yeah, that’s a bit of me. I’ll take that.” They download the guide. They, or they click on the ad, they fill in their data. They are immediately either offered the guide at the point of sign-up, or they get a bounce-back email with the guide in it.
Josh Leigh: So immediately they get an email that says, “Here’s your home guide.” We then wanna be asking for a donation straight away. Back in the day, there was this idea that you shouldn’t ask. If you give a- get a donation from someone, don’t ask again for three more months. That’s just not the case anymore. We wanna be asking immediately for the first donation.
Josh Leigh: We actually do wanna be giving them more opportunities to give within the first few weeks as well. If people don’t wanna give, they won’t give. It’s fine. But if you give them that opportunity, some of them will, and we wanna make sure that we’re creating those opportunities. So yes, with fundraisers or other lead magnets, we do find that the, the, the biggest amount of donations or the largest amount of donations comes immediately at the point of sign-up.
Josh Leigh: So as, as they sign their action or sign the petition, as they download their guide, they will give you a gift straight away We find that the downloadable guides, to be transparent, can be hit and miss. So some of them work really well, some of them not so much. We shared a few examples in the webinar from Praxis, the migration charity, for example.
Josh Leigh: They get an incredibly strong donation on sign-up rate, so the percentage of people giving that donation straight away, and their average gift is quite solid as well. So they’re getting a big chunk of cash acquisition as soon as they give away the guide, and then those people go into an automated email welcome journey that has another opportunity to cash activate some of those other leads, and then people go into their ongoing journey as well.
Josh Leigh: So you really do need to be creating those opportunities more or less straight away and don’t ever think that you’re spamming or over-messaging, et cetera. Most charities are under-messaging- Mm … because they’re scared of over-messaging, and so they’re actually not really giving their supporters the opportunities to mobilize.
Josh Leigh: Your supporters wanna do good for your charity. They’ve, they’ve kinda demonstrated that by downloading the guide. True. So create that opportunity for them. Give them more ways to help.
Simon Scriver: It’s a funny mindset shift, isn’t it? ‘Cause I know so often we shy away from asking them for something ’cause it’s like, well, they’ve downloaded the guide.
Simon Scriver: They’ve already done something.
Josh Leigh: Mm.
Simon Scriver: We wouldn’t like to keep asking them. We don’t wanna… But it’s actually like that’s as warm as they’re ever gonna be, isn’t it? But-
Josh Leigh: It’s
Simon Scriver: the
Josh Leigh: warmest point in their relationship. Absolutely. I will even… Quick anecdote. I, I follow a lot of commercial marketing. I, I look at what, I have to say, what Domino’s is doing or what, like, uh, I eat a lot of Domino’s.
Josh Leigh: It’s not healthy. This is a cry for help. But I, I watch a lot of what commercial brands are doing in their communications, and a pizza shop has just opened around the corner from our office the Hint office here in London, and they’ve been emailing me every day with a voucher code. I haven’t bought a pizza yet- Mm
Josh Leigh: but I’m probably gonna buy one every day because th- that’s what I want is I wanna be told every day that there’s a pizza shop around the corner. Yeah, yeah. I don’t mind at all because I really, really like pizza. I don’t know if you know, like I’m a huge fan of pizza. It’s one of my favorite things. It’s my hobby and my passion.
Josh Leigh: If you actually care about something, you do wanna hear about it, and I don’t know how we’ve fallen out of s- I don’t know. We’ve kinda lost touch with that in the charity sector. We’re talking about some of the most important things in the world. Mm. Like, we’re talking about rights or children or education or things that people actually do passionately care about- Mm
Josh Leigh: but we’re not telling them enough ways they can actually help make a difference in that space. People want to make a difference, otherwise they wouldn’t be giving to charity.
Simon Scriver: And they’re seeing the problem every day. You know, they’re seeing the challenge every day. Mm. That it’s weighing on them every day.
Simon Scriver: And it’s like this opportunity to help and to do something about it, that’s not something they’re seeing every day- No … and left in, in front of them. Uh,
Josh Leigh: yeah. Exactly. Exactly. We- it’s the old, uh, you might have heard the itch and scratch in fundraising. Mm-hmm. You wanna create an itch and offer the scratch.
Josh Leigh: If you do nothing but create itches or the world creates the itch for you and you’re not there to offer the scratch, you’re not really fulfilling your mission as a charity, which is to make sure that your donor is empowered and active and, and giving them those opportunities. As fundraisers, the most important person in the room for us is our donor and our supporter.
Jade Cunnah: Yeah.
Josh Leigh: The services side of your organization, they, their most important person is your beneficiary. But as fundraisers, we need to remember that the most important person for us is the donor and the pe- the people that have chosen- Mm-hmm … to support the cause that we work for and, and kind of made it clear that they wanna do more.
Josh Leigh: We need to give them more.
Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. The world is very itchy at the moment. But, uh, you share some great examples in your webinars and actually when you spoke at our Dublin example, I saw that home that home mailing that you did. The hung
Josh Leigh: guys. Yeah. Uh,
Simon Scriver: but there just to remind people, um, Josh’s session that he’s just done, uh, we’ll link into it in the description.
Simon Scriver: You can go back and watch back and again, there’s some examples there, and Hint are always sharing fantastic examples, I highly recommend following Josh. Linked in the description. Josh, one last big question before we go into the rapid fire round. Um, but this bigger question, when framing the why, should we talk about our own impact or what our supporters have made possible?
Simon Scriver: That’s from Molly.
Josh Leigh: Oh my God, Molly, this is a really tricky question. Let me just think for a second.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Josh Leigh: I’ve only had a… I’ve only
Simon Scriver: had two coffees. I’ve seen the work of
Josh Leigh: some incredible- I know.
Simon Scriver: This is- … wonderful supporters have made possible.
Josh Leigh: This is speaking to my soul. Let me set the scene and give you some context on what Molly’s question means.
Josh Leigh: So in the webinar, I talk a lot about something called Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. It’s a, it’s a theory from a book written by a guy named Simon Sinek. It’s called The Golden Circle. It applies to organizations, but especially to charities. And it’s three concentric circles that has a why in the middle, how, and then what on the furthest out kind of edges of the circle.
Josh Leigh: And the way that we interpret it, the way that we apply it to charitable work, is that most charities you speak to can explain to you what they do. If they can’t, that’s a problem. We exist to, to do services. That’s your what, what you do. And there are a lot of other charities doing the same what as you, unfortunately.
Josh Leigh: Like, that’s the what. The what could be that you are putting food into food banks, or you are delivering aid to Gaza, or you are offering vaccines to children, or you are housing homeless people, et cetera, et cetera. The how, that middle circle, this is a little more nuanced. This is… This might be your USP.
Josh Leigh: You might be doing it in a different way to the next charity and the next charity. Your how could be different. So for example, the what. We get food into Gaza to give to children. The how. Well, we have special access. We’ve got a red cross on the side of the truck. That means we get special access. I’ll give you three guesses as to which charity that might be.
Josh Leigh: The why is the middle of the circle, and this is where we find a lot of charities really fall down. And when I say fall down, I have spoken to board members, CEOs, directors, everything. It’s some major charities, small charities. And you say, “Why do you exist?” And they keep telling you what they do and how they do it, and they think that’s their reason to exist.
Josh Leigh: And it’s really surprising how even some CEOs the, the, the very job spec of a CEO is to understand why your organization, your charity exists, and pursue that mission. The why is usually starts with because. Because… We distribute aid in Gaza. We do it by driving in in trucks that we have special access to the region because no child should die of starvation in an active conflict zone.
Josh Leigh: Of all the things they should die for, die of, starvation is not one of them. Yeah. It’s abhorrent to think that a child would die of starvation while bombs are raining down around them. That’s the because, and that, that’s the why. It should get, like, the, the hair on the back of your neck standing up when you think about it.
Josh Leigh: And the reason we talk so much about the why in digital is because digital channels are so transient. They are so distracted. They’re so kind of, um, vo- uh, volatile, so there’s a lot of changes that happen. In my blocked, locked and banned webinar, you saw all of the changes that are happening that could turn on a dime.
Josh Leigh: So digital’s really a space where you’re speaking to people who have literally it’s about 0.7 seconds to get and hold some of the attention on Facebook, and it’s even less on Instagram. That’s the window of time you have to connect with someone and get them to stop scrolling because you’re not really competing with other charities.
Josh Leigh: You’re competing with dog photos, cat photos, unless you’re a dog or cat charity, uh, photos of their friends’ holidays, et cetera You’ve got 0.7 seconds to get someone’s attention while they’re scrolling at top speed, while they’re in the queue to buy a coffee, for example. You could … You don’t wanna go out with some highly theoretical, internal, boring message about your what and your how.
Josh Leigh: You wanna say, “No child should die of starvation in a conflict zone. Do you agree? If yes, add your name, join our mission, download this guide,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the, we lead with the why, especially in digital, because you really, you have to speak to someone, get them to care really quickly.
Josh Leigh: And if you don’t know why you exist, then how the hell is your supporter meant to engage with that? If they, if you can’t explain why your charity exists, because et cetera, et cetera, then, then why are you working there? Like, that’s my why. Why are you working there? Mm. The sentence should really start with because, and it, it’s kind of because no child should die of starvation.
Josh Leigh: It’s also why the donor feels good about themselves. I’m a good person because I agree that no child should die. They don’t say, “I’m a good person because I facilitate the distribution of aid in a conflict zone in Gaza with a red cross on the side of the truck.” No one. If anyone wakes up and says that- Yeah
Josh Leigh: there’s someone out there that does. Yeah. They … I’m not friends with those people. They need a hobby, okay? The why sparks that because. I’m a good person because I believe that no child should die of starvation. And those are the people we’re really trying to find and activate and mobilize and bring into your crowds.
Multiple Speakers: Yeah.
Josh Leigh: And so Molly’s question, when framing the why should we talk about our own impact or what our supporters have made possible? I think it’s a mix of both, but it really is that it’s more supporter-led. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the supporter or the potential supporter and really tap into what motivates them.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. Why should they support you? Why do you exist? That’s the why. The, the impact that Molly’s asking about, that almost feels like more of the how and the what. The what is we’ve distributed this much food in Gaza. The why is because we adamantly, fervently believe that no child should die of starvation just because that person wanted to bomb that person.
Josh Leigh: No child should be caught in the middle and go hungry. That’s- Yeah … that’s just a, that’s a human right, but it’s also just like a universal truth. It’s undeniable, and that’s the why. So it, I, I think Molly’s question’s really interesting because- Your impact is, is kind of more tangible, and it’s the what and the how.
Josh Leigh: But the crux of it is, why should the supporter support you and why do you exist, and why are they a good person if they support you? That’s the feeling we’re trying to give them.
Simon Scriver: Lovely. Thank you. That’s great. What was the name of the framework? It’s the Simon Sinek?
Josh Leigh: So it’s Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle.
Josh Leigh: I’d love to pretend I’ve read the book. Yeah. Uh, my co-founder, Sarah Crowhurst, I believe, has read the book. And when I say read, I think she’s done the audiobook. That’s where we’re at with- Yeah … the culture. Very nimble, very, like, audiobooks only vibes. Digital. You know, digital. Yeah. It’s very digital.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. I can’t- Yeah … stand Simon Sinek ’cause, like, uh, whenever anyone quotes him, I think they’re gonna say me, Simon Scriver, and it’s like I get my hopes up, and then they like- And it’s never you? So, no, sorry, Simon. You know what? If you said something wise, I would quote you, I promise. Well, I’m working on it.
Simon Scriver: All right, Josh. We’re getting into the rapid-fire questions now. Boom. Are you ready for these? I am ready. I
Josh Leigh: was born ready. There is no
Simon Scriver: prize, but you, you will be ejected if you get anything wrong. Um-
Josh Leigh: You know what? That’s fair. That’s totally fair. All
Simon Scriver: right. Here we go. Um, so these are questions that came from people in the chat that we maybe didn’t get, uh, answers to at, on the day ’cause we didn’t have time.
Simon Scriver: Um, or people have left with feedback as we’s, as we’ve come back. You know we’re always listening to you, gang. So Josh, tell me, how exactly are charities capturing audience data to contact people directly?
Josh Leigh: Meta lead forms. If you’re running lead generation, we recommend using the built-in Meta lead forms.
Josh Leigh: You can use your own landing page, but you might have, and probably will have, a lower opt-in rate. Potentially some other benefits, but we recommend Meta lead forms.
Simon Scriver: And, and I’m cheating here ’cause I’m slowing down the rapid fire, but why do they get, uh, better opt-in rates than the your-
Josh Leigh: So if you are on social media, you’re on social media to be on social media.
Josh Leigh: You’re not on social media looking for excuses to leave social media. So Meta invented the, the lead form literally, I think it was like 2017. Isn’t it weird that I know that? I think it was about 2017. They invented the lead form as a way of capturing data and consent on platform because they don’t want people leaving.
Josh Leigh: Mm-hmm. They measure success on dwell time. We don’t wanna drive people off to a landing page that may not even convert either, but people don’t wanna leave social media. Oh, this is res- speaking of responsive marketing, a couple of hours ago, The Guardian notification said Mark Zuckerberg’s just been busted in the Supreme Court in the US because the platform is addictive and they knew it.
Josh Leigh: So Instagram is intentionally invented to be addictive. Mm-hmm. Why would you try and lead someone to a landing page? Why not collect the data on platform knowing that people probably don’t wanna leave Instagram? Like, it’s engineered to be addictive. Lean into that. Don’t fight it. Mm-hmm.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Josh Leigh: Don’t fight it, guys.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. It’s, it’s a pretty… Can’t wait to get- Give
Josh Leigh: in.
Simon Scriver: Can’t wait to see some of that sweet, sweet fine, Meta fine money.
Josh Leigh: It’s 17 billion, I wanna say. It was
Simon Scriver: huge.
Josh Leigh: Oh, that 15 billion makes that. Over in Dublin, yeah.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. All right, back to rapid que- here’s a question from Vicky. Uh, Vicky says, “Is a lead capture…”
Simon Scriver: Oh, wait. Uh, yeah. “Is a lead capture form better than a website link when running ads?” I mean, we’ve kind of-
Josh Leigh: I kind of answered that, but I’ll elaborate a little bit further. Yes, we do find that lead capture forms are better for the reasons I just said, so it’s more user-friendly, it’s more supporter friendly, it’s more platform friendly.
Josh Leigh: If you drive someone to a website link and have your own data capture there, there are some benefits to that I’ll just speak to. So you might… you will then have to do an email opt-in until email soft opt-in is implemented. Listen to my two podcasts on that topic. But, um, you’ll have to do an email s- email opt-in, so you’ll probably get between 30 and 50% email consent.
Josh Leigh: The way that we engineer the lead form on Meta, it can be set up to be 100% consent as long as you set it up correctly, so you wouldn’t even collect non-consented leads- Mm … on that platform. If they on your own, uh, checkout page and you’ve got a daisy chain of further actions set up, what that means is they, they take that action, immediately the next page is, “Brilliant.
Josh Leigh: Give us a donation.” Immediately the next one is, “Brilliant. Will you share it with a friend?” If you create that daisy chain in a platform where you own that chain and you manage that chain, it can perform better- However, even with the Meta lead forms, the minute you’ve collected someone’s email address, there is a donation ask we put at the end of the lead form, and it is incredibly effective.
Josh Leigh: We see about 0.5 to 1% of people, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re operating at these volumes, about 1% of people might give you a donation off the back of that, which could be hundreds of donors if you’re collecting tens of thousands of email addresses. Mm. Some of our donors, it gets up to about 3%.
Josh Leigh: So through testing and optimization, you can create a program that 3% of people will give you a donation straightaway- Yeah … even on a Meta lead form. That’s how intriguing that is.
Simon Scriver: Plus, they’re opting in, plus they’re, they’re-
Josh Leigh: Plus they’re opted in. Yeah. So you’re getting thousands and tens of thousands of email addresses.
Simon Scriver: Mm.
Josh Leigh: Y- you can build a relationship with those people- Yeah … off of Facebook, and that’s the benefit. It’s anything you do on Facebook that stays on Facebook is going to be blocked and banned by Mark Zuckerberg and his team of lizard people. This is the chance to get them off the platform, into your email file, into your telephone list, and go from there.
Simon Scriver: Okay. Speaking of, uh, GDPR, speaking of soft opt-in, we’ve run a few sessions recently. Those are in your library if anyone wants to go back and dive a bit deeper. But let me ask you this, Josh, if you know much about third-party data. Do Meta Facebook lead forms count as third-party data, or can charities treat that as their own, own data?
Simon Scriver: Who owns that
Josh Leigh: data? Who owns that data? So I don’t wanna speak out of turn, but I’m pretty sure as you said, we’ve done a few podcasts on this, and Camsin Overdonaldson of Fundraising Everywhere is also a regulation specialist, and I’m, I spoke with her on a recent podcast, and I’m pretty sure she said that Meta lead forms are not being considered third-party platforms because it is your own Facebook page.
Josh Leigh: The lead form is attached to your Facebook page. I mean, the same way that your website is your territory, your Facebook page is an owned territory. However- That I think I would prefer to double, double, triple-check. It will be in the podcast that’s coming out shortly where I spoke with Cam and had a follow-up and discussed this with her.
Josh Leigh: So the original ICO guidance was not clear on this when it came out in February. Mm. But the fundraising regulator has come out with additional guidance in July, and I think that’s where that question was answered. From memory, it was, yes, we are allowed to claim soft opt-in on meta lead forms, but please double-check me on that.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. And I will disclaimer, you know, with all legal things and data and GDPR you gotta, you have to check what your own organization’s policies are. You know, you have to seek legal advice. Our own causes, your own locations, your own phrasing, all these things have an impact on it Yeah … on how it, regulations are interpreted, so please do seek advice for your own organization.
Josh Leigh: And that’s it. Me and Simon are just good-looking guys. We’re not experts. No, yeah.
Simon Scriver: We’re
Josh Leigh: just two handsome
Simon Scriver: fellows. Worthless opinions. Amazing. Here’s a question from Helen. Custom specific audiences versus Meta’s Advantage+ automated targing, targeting. Which is better? The specific-
Josh Leigh: Good question, Helen.
Simon Scriver: Advantage+ malarkey.
Josh Leigh: The, the malarkey. Let me explain why the malarkey, but the malarkey is better. Just to give everyone a bit of context in case you’re not actively running Meta ad campaigns hands-on, Meta allows you… One of the beauty, one of the beautiful things about Meta and other digital platforms is you can target people in a way that you can’t target them offline.
Josh Leigh: So historically on Meta, you could type in, “I want to reach,” for example, “queer people and give them opportunities to donate to a queer charity.” They have been systema- systematically removing those targeting options and restricting the use of the platform by charities over the last, like, five to six years, which is a lot of what the Block, Block to Ban webinar is about.
Josh Leigh: Those restrictions are in place to protect queer people- Mm … so to make sure that the wrong side of Facebook can’t run ads saying queer people’s rights should be limited. So they’re, it, it’s to benefit the customer and the user, and in, in a way it is to help what charities are trying to achieve, which is to protect the beneficiaries and the service users.
Josh Leigh: However, those, those functions are being restricted. So creating custom or specific audiences in Meta is still technically possible. However, Meta will pop up and say, “This is a lovely suggestion. We like what you’re thinking. We’re gonna ignore it.” Mm. Meta will pop up and say, “We’ll factor that in. Thanks for sharing, but actually we’re gonna do our own thing.”
Josh Leigh: So even if you try and build specific audiences and feed in your custom audiences, Meta will only take it as a suggestion now, which is more or less Meta’s- Mm … Advantage+ function, which is broadly just targeting whoever it can find So here, this is where, uh, Hint has got a very specific campaign approach, strategy, creative development process that really leans into the best part- I am one of- it’s not the best parts of Meta.
Josh Leigh: Leans into the way Meta works, I was gonna say. Leans into the best parts. This isn’t the best part, but what works best on Meta is what we develop our entire campaigns around, and that’s the difference there. Mm-hmm. So to answer Helen’s question, Meta’s Advantage+ automated targeting malarkey is the best setting to be using.
Josh Leigh: And go ahead with that. That’s the way to go.
Simon Scriver: And just to flag, malarkey was my word. That’s taken a- Yeah. Apologies, Helen, for feeding that in. Uh, here’s a question from Sarah. “Do you have to declare ads as about social issues?” I don’t know why I’m doing air quoting ’cause people can’t see that. “Do you have to declare ads as about social issues and get Meta authorized to run them?”
Josh Leigh: Great question, Sarah. Yes. You do need to go through an approval process in the market that you’re advertising in, and that’s critical. You need to have, as the advertiser, the person running the campaign on Facebook and Instagram, you need to have a, an ID or a, like a, a driver’s license or a passport or a residence permit, a residence card in the market you’re advertising in.
Josh Leigh: And this, again, is to protect users on the platform to stop me, for example, running anti-LGBT ads in another country. It’s to stop kind of inter- foreign interference in, in political and social issues. So it’s a function that’s been put in place by Meta to make sure that the advertising individual, the person running the ads, has declared who they are and where they’re from and what their citizenship is- before they run ads in that country. It’s to protect the citizens and protect democracy. However, charities are considered political advertisers. We are considered social issues advertisers. You might hear that and say, “No, but I’m just a regional hospice in the middle of Ireland or something.” You are still operating around a political topic.
Josh Leigh: You’re operating around this idea that hospices should be fair funded and, and you’re doing a social service. Unfortunately, social issues and social services are considered political. So Meta will- uh, it’s, it’s a little bit case by case, and we really can’t predict it. Mm. But you can submit the campaign and run it.
Josh Leigh: You can try running it without the social issues tag, and Meta will decide if it is political or social. What we often find, though, is it’s better to just run it with the political- with the, the box ticked. Make sure that you do have approval to run the campaign with the box ticked. We, for example, at Hint, we run ads across European markets.
Josh Leigh: We’ve just gotten very good at understanding what could be framed as political and what isn’t political. So we’ve, we’ve kind of developed a bit of a Spidey sense as to what is gonna be approved or not. On top of that, it’s a case of just getting as much content into the system, and if some of it’s rejected, some of it’s rejected.
Josh Leigh: The rest is gonna run. It’s totally fine. But generally speaking, you should try and advertise in the market you’re in, and you should really be trying to use the, the, the decla- the declaration that you’re running social ads. It’ll just make it easier and smoother for you as well. But it is a bit of a weird thing to send your passport to Mark Zuckerberg’s lizard people.
Simon Scriver: I know, yeah. Who knows what’s gonna happen? Yeah, but that’s appreciated. I know a lot of people have been asking that, so thank you, Sarah, for vocalizing that. Uh, here’s a question from Lucy. “Are Meta’s health content restrictions different for conversion donation ads specifically? How do they view those?”
Josh Leigh: Yes, they are. Uh, great question, Lucy. Meta introduced a series of restrictions based on the different causes that your charity could be about in January this year. So in January this year, Meta introduced a new check that… hang on. This is a bit complicated, but your website is essentially what Meta’s checking.
Josh Leigh: So you will run ads on Facebook, and you’ll install what’s called a tracking pixel on your website. Meta will check the landing page, check the domain, check the website, and look for content about social issues or protected characteristics. So health content is only a part of that picture. Last year, uh, was it?
Josh Leigh: No, it wasn’t last year. It was the year before. Sorry. Time has ru-run out away from me. It’s okay. It wasn’t last year. It was the year before. In the December of 2024, I think it was, they said, “We’re only gonna apply it to health-related issues and health-related content.” Then we all went on holiday. We came back in January, and they said when we said health-related content, we actually meant health, and homelessness, and queer rights, and ladies’ rights, and this, and that, and the other, and whatever, and race, and religion, et cetera.”
Josh Leigh: Basically, all social issues, almost all social issues have been caught up in this restriction. And what it means is if your website features anything about any of these protected characteristics or social issues, Meta will restrict the use of your pixel tracker for pixel tracking. So it only affects conversion ads.
Josh Leigh: Donation ads are a type of conversion, but you might also be running, uh, registration ads for a calendar event, like a marathon or something. You might be running a campaign that says, I don’t know, “Register for something. Fill in this form. Download this thing.” Anything that has a d- a conversion happening on your website, Meta has essentially said, “We will restrict the ability for you to run those ads.”
Josh Leigh: We are finding it a very mixed bag. So we work with a huge national, what they call the National Osteoporosis Society, a huge national kind of medical space charity. They are 100% restricted. We find- we run the campaigns anyway. We find that we get no data fed back into Meta. We- it basically just said, “Computer says no.
Josh Leigh: It’s not gonna play.” Another one of my clients when it was first introduced, Scope, the disability charity in the UK, they were immediately affected as well. So it really is quite hit and miss. Some charities haven’t been affected, some charities are finding workarounds, but all that to say that yes, health related and other social issues related charities will have restrictions placed on their ability to run conversion ads because of this restriction on advertising around that content, and it’s based on the content on your website.
Josh Leigh: This is just one of the many reasons why under the Blocked and Banned webinar, we really talk about using Meta for lead generation. Get the contact data of that person on Meta, spend the money to keep them on Meta, get them to fill in a short form, give them a free download, or just get them to feel good for a second, and then have a conversation with them in channels where you actually can control the message, which is email and telephone, et cetera.
Josh Leigh: Stop putting too much focus on trying to get Meta to convert because it’s increasingly just not working. You- you’ve had some great example, and you’ve been good enough to share so many of these examples where you’ve really made it work in terms of those lead gen campaigns and- … uh, and, and the constantly changing Meta rules, but just all the restrictions you, you seem to have found, you at Hint seem to have found a nice place where it’s, you do have a good understanding of, even if Facebook don’t seem to fully understand what they’re doing, it seems like you’re grasping it.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. I think that’s … we run, we work with a lot of clients. We work with a lot of clients in the UK, a lot in Ireland, and a lot kind of across Europe as well. Not, not as many across Europe, but we do work with a, a pan-European mix of charities. And I think we’ve just seen on the coal face what is working and what’s not working, and started to understand the nuance of literally, if you put the words “demand the government,” it will be rejected.
Josh Leigh: If you shift it into, “Children deserve better,” like, there’s other ways we can frame and position your messaging to make sure that we’re not stepping into that social issues or political territory. We find the word petition, if you just use it once, for example, is fine. If the ad’s all about petitions, you might not get through.
Josh Leigh: So- Right … it’s about trying to find that nuance of what works and what doesn’t, and we’ve got a lot of testing we’ve done across international markets to demonstrate that. All that to say, lead generation is just the safest spot to be- Yeah … ultimately. Yeah. Um- Like, yeah, it comes up so much in fundraising, but c- taking control, taking ownership of your, of your l- you know, so it’s not relying- Of your data
Simon Scriver: you know, you’re not relying on these algorithms. You’re not relying on, like, these bottlenecks. It’s, it’s- Yeah … control you’re working towards
Josh Leigh: absolutely.
Simon Scriver: Speaking of that, this, there’s a question here from Dan, and he says, “Is the funnel different for challenge event participant acquisition?” So when it comes to challenge event participants, is it different process?
Josh Leigh: Interesting question, Dan. I’m sorry, Dan, if that is your name.
Simon Scriver: It’s
Josh Leigh: all good. Uh, yeah. So there’s, the funnel we talked about was the marketing funnel. So awareness at the top, consideration in the middle, and conversion at the bottom. I will say- Okay … with challenge events and community events, we do tend to run conversion campaigns and direct people to register for the event straight away.
Josh Leigh: However, that registration is technically still a lead because, as you know, you do not activate 100% of your registrants for challenge events. Even if you activate them, they don’t always hit their income targets. But we tend to see about a 25% activation rate for someone to register for an event and then actually raise a single euro or a single pound- Mm
Josh Leigh: to be honest. So that’s their fundra- the activation rate. They may set up a fundraising page, they might have a JustGiving page, but they haven’t necessarily clocked any euro or pounds on it. So essentially, challenge event and community event fundraising is already adopting a bit of a lead generation model where you’re, you’re really just creating a prospecting pool and then getting y- through direct marketing.
Josh Leigh: So picking up the phone, WhatsApp groups, WhatsApp community, Facebook groups. You are then direct marketing them. You’re, you’re communicating with them and following up to get them to then become a donor. But originally, they’re just a registrant. They’re not necessarily financially active, and they may not even generate the income target you’ve set for them.
Josh Leigh: So yeah I would say that we’ve not necessarily bothered to do lead generation for challenge events because challenge events are inherently an application process- Yeah … or a registration process, which is lead generation. Some charities are adopting a more strict approach to their registration as well, so they’ll do like a, a almost lead gen- Well, it is lead generation.
Josh Leigh: I know that, um, Dementia UK, they spoke at the London- fundraising London, the fundraising IRL event that we did with Fundraising Everywhere. So we hosted it- Mm … with Nikki back in, I wanna say July, or June/July. We had, um, Dementia UK. We had Imogen Heath. Imogen… Oh gosh, I can’t remember her name. Sorry. God, I gotta remember her name.
Josh Leigh: But we had her come and speak about the London Marathon, the way they handle it. And, um, they’ve reached such a size of community challenge event program that they take a pre-application before registration for their challenge events. That is, that’s an example of lead generation. So they’re kind of giving the chance or they’re twisting it a little bit.
Josh Leigh: They’re getting the chance to review the quality of the lead before they give them the opportunity to donate, which is a really interesting way of looking at it. Uh, but yeah, all that to say that we don’t necessarily do that leads first model for, for challenge events because we find you can go directly in with a conversion ad or a registration ad- Mm
Josh Leigh: as well.
Simon Scriver: They’re in, they’re in quite a different place, aren’t they, from the sort of people?
Josh Leigh: Yeah.
Simon Scriver: All right, Josh, we’re coming to the end here. We’ve got one last question in this rapid fire. Um, so I really appreciate you, uh, answering all these so far. Of course. But this final question: Is it better to build an ad from scratch or to boost an existing post?
Josh Leigh: This is also a really good question, and I think I’ve said that about almost every question, but this one is really good. For context, when you post something organically to your Facebook or Instagram, you can boost it. What that does is take that exact post, that exact creative, and basically puts a budget behind it.
Josh Leigh: And when you put a budget behind content on paid social media, you then get much more control over the audience that you’re putting it in front of, the market you’re running it in, the location, the gender, age, et cetera, the demographics you’re trying to speak to. So it is good practice. If you do a piece of organic content and it performs well, consider boosting it to make sure it gets in front of even more people.
Josh Leigh: However, we actually do recommend to charities that they run an active, always-on, active engagement campaign. So take a share of budget, take a little bit of your budget, spread it out through the year. It could be as low as, let’s say, £20 or £30 or euro a day, and take your best-performing organic content and recreate it as an ad, and run it as an ad.
Josh Leigh: And run it all through the year. So run this kind of campaign all through the year. This content should be more or less your best-performing organic content, but it should be evergreen and, and kind of not time-restricted. So if your best-performing post this year was, I don’t know on the hottest day of the year, you posted about it being hot, obviously that won’t work in winter.
Josh Leigh: But evergreen content that’s just sharing your story, it’s talking about your why. It’s kind of demonstrating a bit of your what and how, like who it is you work with. Sh- kind of giving the, giving the microphone to the storytellers, that’s the best content. It’s the best content for organic as well, but But really, you wanna take that content and, and set it up fresh as an ad and run it as an ad, fully set up as an ad, which gives you much more control over the targeting and the implementation of that.
Josh Leigh: So you can set it up in Meta and run it as an ad. When you’re setting up an ad in Meta, you can, when you get to that ad setup page, you can say, “Oh, no, I wanna use an existing bit of content,” and just pull in an organic post. But generally speaking, we do recommend setting it up fresh as an ad and treating it like an ad campaign that is about engagement, rather than kind of seeing it as just a tie-in to your organic program as well.
Josh Leigh: I think it’s, it’s conceptually and from a budget perspective, it’s just a stronger way to, to plan and deliver your content and run your program as well. That’s a very specific niche question, but I think that will be helpful to a few people. That’s for you.
Simon Scriver: I think it is helpful, yeah. And I think, um, it’s an interesting point just even just to make it easier to track results and to kind of compartmentalize-
Josh Leigh: Mm-hmm.
Simon Scriver: Yeah … sort of look through things. Yeah. So no, it’s a really nice practical question. And, um, it’s very hard during these, these sessions. You know, Josh, you always cover so much in them, and it’s great. But I do really appreciate you coming back to answer these questions that we didn’t get to. But I imagine even people listening to this, they’re still gonna have questions when they start talking about their own specific organization.
Simon Scriver: You know, all these niche examples. What- if people still have questions, what’s the best way to maybe find you or reach out to you? I know you float around the fundraising area hallways quite a lot, but where do you hang out online that we can, uh, we can ask questions of you?
Josh Leigh: Well, that’s just me lurking.
Josh Leigh: I’m always lurking. Don’t worry about me. Uh, very good. Yes, I’m always happy to answer questions. Actually, me and Simon were just chatting before this podcast recorder. A hint- We’re not just about running campaigns and helping you with your strategies. We’re really about building the skills and capacity and kind of confidence in digital for the entire industry.
Josh Leigh: Like, that’s our mission and that’s our goal. So we are more than happy to jump on little 15-minute calls here and there and have a chat about your blockers or your challenges or an opportunity or an idea you’ve got. Our goal isn’t just to make a ton of cash because we were good at digital advertising.
Josh Leigh: Our goal is actually to make sure that the entire fundraising industry gets better at digital, because this is the big opportunity and this is what’s happening right now, and it shouldn’t just be for the big guys. We wanna make sure the small to medium-sized charities get the chance to get this right as well.
Josh Leigh: So all that s- to be said you can find me at hynt.studio. Uh, that’s www.hynt.studio. We’re very trendy. We’ve got a .studio on end. And you can email me at josh@hynt.studio, H-Y-N-T dot studio. Check our website. There’s a contact form there if you wanna ask more questions. Email me directly if you wanna ask more questions.
Josh Leigh: Yeah. And what I’ll probably do is book in a 15-minute call because I just prefer to chat.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Josh Leigh: I really love to chat.
Simon Scriver: And such a pleasure to chat to y- you as well. Uh, yeah- Awesome … that’s hynt.studio, H-Y-N-T. Remember, they are very cool, very funky,
Josh Leigh: so- Very cool. Very funky.
Simon Scriver: Yes. H- Hynt. Very funky. But I’m so grateful, Josh.
Simon Scriver: You and Sarah are always so generous with your knowledge. You’ve spoken at a number of our sessions, uh, and conferences. You’re speaking, I think, uh, at the Individual Giving Conference coming up. Your session, um, the meta session, Banned and Blocked, that we just had. We will link to that in the description if anyone wants to go back and watch.
Simon Scriver: But for members who are listening, we also have the Digital Fundraising Fundamentals, which was developed by- Oh,
Josh Leigh: yes …
Simon Scriver: Hynt. And Josh and Sarah have been so great in terms of spelling out, uh, in a multi-module course basically everything you need to know about digital. Um, and they, they continue to do such great sessions diving deeper and deeper into all these other areas.
Simon Scriver: So I am so grateful for you guys always sharing. I learn so much from you, and I know our community benefits so much from you, Sarah, and the rest of the team. So Josh, I’m, I’m really grateful again. And thank you so much for putting this extra bit of time in for me so I can throw these questions at you.
Josh Leigh: No, happy to be here. Any time.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. And you, uh, you go away, you win the, uh, obviously the checkbook and pen- Yes … Fundraising Everywhere and, um- Very nice … Home Game. We’ve got the Home Fundraising Everywhere.
Josh Leigh: Darling. Yeah, so no cash? Just check and pen.
Simon Scriver: Uh,
Josh Leigh: well, we- Check and pen. Yeah. There’s no cash. Okay, cool.
Josh Leigh: I’ll keep an eye on post, uh, in case any cash
Simon Scriver: might
Josh Leigh: just
Simon Scriver: come in. We
Josh Leigh: can cover postage. Okay. Yeah. Cool.
Simon Scriver: Cash. Thank you, Josh. Uh, and thank you all for listening. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere. Thank you as always for being part of the community. Uh, and if you need anything from us, you can find us at fundraisingeverywhere.com.
Simon Scriver: Always very happy to hear from you. Any more questions, throw them across, and we will make sure to feature them, uh, in an upcoming session, conference or members workshop. So thank you everyone, and have a great rest of your day. And thank you once again, Josh.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you for listening to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. If you’re enjoying this podcast, why not share it with a fundraising friend? And if you’d like to give us a little like or subscribe, it really helps fundraisers like you find us.
Jade Cunnah: Thank you so much. See you next time. Bye