A guide to paid advertising for charities

There are many benefits to paid advertising, and you can achieve a lot with a little. You don’t need to have a huge budget to run paid ads to see great results. 

The main benefits of paid advertising are that you can be extremely targeted in the audience you’re trying to reach, you can see results immediately, you can measure those results and optimise them if they aren’t quite achieving your goals. 

An overview of paid advertising for charities 

Here is a list of different paid advertising options, including any charity discounts or grants — if available. 

Social media advertising  

Every social media platform (apart from Bluesky and Mastodon) offers paid advertising to charities. However, not every platform offers advertising grants or credits to charities.  

Currently, Meta doesn’t offer charities any free ad credits on their platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp.  

LinkedIn offers charities who work in certain areas of focus, free ad credits through their LinkedIn Ad Grants program. 

X doesn’t offer any free ad credits or incentives to charities specifically. Any organisation that signs up to their ‘Verified Organisations’ programme will be given ad credits up to a certain value. However, in the UK, it costs £1,140 for Full Access or $200 a month for Basic Access. 

Display advertising 

These are image-based ads and banner ads across relevant third-party websites which could include news sites, fitness websites, recipe websites and more. For example, if you have a digital ad to try to recruit runners to sign up for a marathon, your ads may appear on sites such as Running World, Men’s Health or Women’s Fitness. These ads can be set up and managed through Google Display Network. 

Digital advertising  

There are so many opportunities to reach people through display ads — such as on digital screens in tube and train stations and at bus stops. Clear Channel is one company that does out of home (OOH) advertising and collaborates with charities. Contact them directly to find out how they can partner with you. 

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) 

Pay-per-click or PPC advertising is when you bid on certain keywords so that you appear at the top of the search results when someone searches for that keyword. You only pay if they click on your link. Charities can access up to £7,000 of free advertising on Google through Google Ad Grants.  

Microsoft, who own Bing, have currently paused their Ads for Social Impact programme however you can sign up to stay informed of updates. 

Video advertising 

YouTube offers a YouTube Non-profit Programme for UK charities, which offers certain features that are available to partners. However, it doesn’t offer any ad credits or grants.  

Audio advertising  

Charities can advertise on a number of audio platforms, such as Acast for podcasts or Spotify for music streaming and podcasts. You can create audio, image and text ad campaigns on these platforms. However, currently there are no charity discounts or grants for advertising on Acast or Spotify. 

How charities can ensure return on investment from paid advertising 

If you’re going to spend money on paid advertising, you need to ensure that you’re getting value for money and a return on your investment.  

Define who you want to reach 

When running paid ads, it’s important to define exactly who it is that you’re trying to reach. For example, you may need to reach people of a certain age group, sex or location for a health campaign. Some campaigns may require broad targeting but most need precise targeting to reach the target audience.  

Pick the right channels to reach your audience 

Once you’ve defined who your audience is, you need to choose the channels where you’ll find them. For example, if your target audience is 50 years or older then TikTok is probably not the best channel to try to reach that audience as that demographic makes up 3.1% of TikTok users worldwide, according to Statista.  

If budget allows, choose a wide range of platforms for your campaign — such as social media ads, PPC and display ads. 

Set goals for what you want to achieve  

It’s important to set clear goals for your campaign and that they are SMART goals — Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. 

Track, measure and optimise 

Once your goals are clearly defined, it’s easier to monitor your paid ads to see if they are on track to reaching your goals. If not, you need to optimise them to get them on track. This may mean narrowing your audience for better results, increasing your bid amount or changing your creative.