Fundraising best practices leading up to election day

During this election cycle*, campaigns, committees and organisations may use Meta technologies to reach their fundraising goals. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads are critical touchpoints to reach existing and potential donors. Here are some ways to utilise our platforms to reach your fundraising goals:

Reach new donors and strengthen your existing community of donors

• Building a strong relationship with donors is a critical part of the fundraising process for any candidate. During an election season, you want to meet people where they already are. Meta technologies are a powerful way of communicating with potential donors and voters.
• If you are looking at running ads to support your fundraising effort, make sure that you're authorised to run ads about social issues, elections or politics.

Audiences

• To reach new donors:
  • Upload a custom audience to target your supporters that have not yet given to your campaign. For example, these could be people that have visited your website, subscribed to your email or SMS list, or are volunteers on the campaign. This will help remind and reinforce supporters why giving is critical to your campaign.
  • Run a custom engagement audience campaign, which will target people who have interacted with your content across Meta technologies.
  • Utilise our Lookalike Audiences feature. A lookalike audience may help your ads reach new people who are likely to be interested in your campaign or organisation because they share similar characteristics to your existing supporters.
• Strengthen existing donor relationships:
  • Upload a custom audience of your existing donors, both high and small dollar donor bases, to re-target with fundraising calls to action.
    • Consider targeting different fundraising levels with different calls to action to move donors through the pipeline of giving.
    • Also consider segmenting based on how they became a donor to your campaign. For example, if they gave via SMS, acknowledge their initial place of giving.
  • Similarly, to reach new donors, run a custom engagement audience campaign, which will target people who have interacted with your content.

Tactics

• Implement the Conversions API into your strategy. Conversions API helps advertisers use their own marketing data to optimise ad targeting, decrease cost per action and more accurately measure campaign performance.
• Install the Meta pixel on your website to track your site visitors and to create an audience of people who have visited your site.
• Let ads work for you:
  • Advantage+ campaign budget automatically manages your campaign budget across ad sets to get you the overall best results.
  • Advantage+ placements help you find a wider audience, and allow our delivery system to make the most of your budget. It places your ads on all placements available for your settings on Facebook and Instagram.

Goals

• Fundraising ads should constantly be running, but consider ramping up in rapid response moments.
  • Be prepared for rapid response moments with pre-made graphic or video templates that will ensure that you're ready to run ads more quickly.
  • Consider boosting an organic post with a strong fundraising call to action in rapid response moments.
• Communicating fundraising goals is important, but we also encourage you to use our tools to nurture your relationships with small and high dollar donors.
• Share important updates, whether that is a video update from the campaign trail, or a powerful article about the work that your candidate is doing, without a fundraising call to action on the post.
• Utilise Meta's organic tools, such as Facebook and Instagram Live, or Facebook and Instagram Reels, to expand your reach and tap into new audiences.

For any questions, contact Meta Support Pros, our dedicated support team for Government, Politics and Non-profits.

*Candidates and political organisations are responsible for complying with the applicable electoral laws in their jurisdiction. Please consult your political activities counsel with any questions specific to your jurisdiction.