Charity Marketing Effectiveness Report 2023

05 Feb 2024

In the face of last year’s financial challenges, charity marketers had to get creative to drive donations from cash-strapped consumers — but just how did they do it?

Research indicated that the UK charity sector experienced its first income decline in eight years following the Covid-19 outbreak, with smaller charities being the most affected.

Our Charity Marketing Effectiveness Report 2023, in partnership with Sagacity, set out to discover the reasons behind this shift, and which strategies proved most successful.

Drawing on data from more than 158 charity campaigns, across 1,261 entries to the DMA Awards dating back to 2017, the DMA's Intelligent Marketing Databank provides invaluable insights into the effectiveness of charity marketing campaigns and how marketers are measuring their impact.

Some key findings were:

An increase in brand building and retention activity both go hand in hand, with pure retention campaigns increasing to 20% in 2022 from 5% a year prior. Where loyalty is waning, and new donors are increasingly hard to come by, retaining existing donors is crucial.

Using multiple channels effectively can improve charity marketing results. Just as brands use various channels to build awareness, charities should also employ a multi-channel approach for better response rates.

Charity marketing is still very important for charities to achieve their goals, with it successfully generating 1.3 response effects related to KPI’s like donations, leads, and sign-ups to charitable causes in 2022.