Heifer International Exceeds Online Donation Goals through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

PPC-driven donations increased as much as 400% during key months, while cost per donated dollar decreased 30%.

Heifer International does so much more than put food in the mouths of hungry people. Heifer helps people feed themselves. The goal of every Heifer project is sustainability - project partners achieving self-reliance. And year after year, as partner families "pass on the gift" of knowledge and one or more of their animals' offspring to others in need, they become links in a network of hope, dignity and self-reliance that helps hundreds of others care for themselves.

Sample Creative: Gift Giving Terms | Brand Terms |  Cause Terms | Donation Terms

Challenge
90octane has worked with nonprofit organization Heifer International since 2000, but in 2007, the team set aggressive goals for increasing the total of donated dollars generated online, while aiming to decrease the cost per donated dollar and maintain a strong click-through rate (CTR). An additional SEO objective of increasing visibility across top search engines was established to support overall efforts.

Solution
90octane and Heifer strategized an integrated, 12-month search engine marketing program including SEO, PPC and ongoing website analytics reporting. SEO tactics included increasing visibility for relevant terms and optimizing one new Web page per month. In addition, a Web 2.0 strategy was implemented to optimize images, videos and press releases for search engine exposure.

To support the PPC program, 90octane applied for and won a Google Grant™ on behalf of Heifer. The Google Grants program harnesses the power of the search engine’s flagship advertising product, Google AdWords, to assist non-profits reaching out to inform and engage their constituents online. Various program constraints required careful program management to ensure that Heifer received the best PPC visibility at the lowest possible cost.

Results
Online donations were never stronger than during the 2007 program. Both January and February (from 2006 to 2007), for example, saw over a 400% increase in PPC donations. While live, the Google Grants program generated 63% of the total PPC donations. CTR remained strong, and cost per donated dollar decreased 30% from 2006.

All Heifer terms found increased visibility, as top 30 listings increased 18.6%, top 10 increased 21.5% and #1 rankings increased 26.7%. 40% of the total visitors to Heifer came from an organic source in December 2007 (an increase of 98% since 2006). Visitors tended to view more pages and stay longer and were less likely to leave immediately. Visibility drastically increased across the top five search engines: AOL = 120.7% increase; Ask = 145.4% increase; Google = 91% increase; MSN = 43.5% increase; and Yahoo! = 18.2% increase.

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