Case Study – Nature Conservancy of Canada

We used a combination of social, video and paid advertising resulting in a exponential boost in traffic.

Summary

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) wanted to increase the number of donations during the holiday period. The organization aimed to do this by building awareness for their Gifts of Canadian Nature campaign which provides 6 donation levels and includes a certificate and calendar that can be given as a holiday gift. In addition to increasing donations, NCC had a secondary objective to increase brand awareness and create an active presence on Facebook.

The Background

The Nature Conservancy of Canada is a land conservation organization, founded in 1962. They provide protection of natural areas throughout Canada using purchases, donations or other financial sources to manage properties on a long term basis.

The Solution

The Nature Conservancy of Canada wanted a marketing campaign for their Gifts of Canadian Nature to run over a 7 week period. Catalyst was brought in to create a marketing strategy that combined online marketing channels to reach their audience. Together we built the following set of creative campaigns:

  • Google Search AdWords Gifts Campaign,
  • Google Search AdWords End of Year (EOY) Campaign,
  • Google Display Ads Gifts Campaign,
  • Google Display Ads EOY Campaign,
  • Google Ad Grants, Bing Ads,
  • YouTube Ads, Yahoo Native Ads,
  • Facebook Ads,
  • Facebook posts,
  • Facebook promoted posts,
  • Twitter tweets,
  • Twitter Ads,
  • A video detailing what donors would get in return for their contributions.
  • An attractive landing page specific to the Gifts of Canadian Nature Campaign to better convert visitors into donors.

Results

The combination of social, video and paid advertising had an exponential effect during this campaign. The YouTube video received over 7000 views, and the overall traffic to the Nature Conservancy of Canada website throughout the campaign period (November 20th to January 9th) increased 14% when compared to the same period from the previous year.

That’s not all. Social referrals created a monumental increase in traffic by 2511% while organic search enjoyed a 58% increase when compared to the same periods the previous year. At the start, NCC had 1302 Facebook likes and at the end of our campaign it was 3443 — a 164% increase.