Written by Erika Alonso July 29, 2016 5 minute read

Conversation with Cat Liguori and Andrea Gunn

Cat Liguori is the International Ad Campaign Coordinator at The Humane League (THL). Andrea Gunn is the Managing Director, who helps oversee THL’s ads program.

The following is a summary of a conversation that took place on March 2, 2016 as part of our investigation of online ads. Cat and Andrea spoke with Jacy Reese, ACE Research Associate.

Overview of Online Ads

Cat spends 15–20 hours per week on online ads, which appear in either the Facebook news feed or sidebar. Clicking the ads sends users to a landing page where they are given more information on the why and how of veg eating. The goal is to have as many people as possible click on ads and optimize the “cost per conversion,” the spending necessary to have one person click to order a veg starter guide.

THL launches new ads at the beginning of each month. Throughout the month, ads are reviewed and the poorest-performing ones are stopped. Cat manages the ads in Hindi, Russian, and Mandarin languages, which are funded by VegFund. About $350,000 per year is spent on Hindi ($180,000), Russian ($48,000), and Mandarin ($120,000) ads. VegFund chose to fund these particular languages because they believe these languages are spoken in areas where population and consumption of animal products is increasing.

THL also spends about $180,000 per year on English ads, which is also funded by earmarked money from VegFund. THL uses its own funds ($150,000) to run some ads in Spanish. Funding for Spanish ads has increased by $100,000 this year, and unrestricted donations to THL go to either Spanish and English ads.

Cat and Andrea communicate every other week. Additional external resources THL uses are “What Came Before” created by Nick Cooney and Bruce Friedrich and Mercy For Animals’ (MFA) Veg Starter guides. They also make use of MFA email series for users who sign up. Collaboration between MFA and THL has been very important with online ads.

For the landing page video, MFA recently found that “What Cody Saw” outperforms “What Came Before,” so THL will be transitioning their ads to use that video.

Skills Needed to Run Ads

To run ads, THL needs people who are organized, know Excel and Facebook, and have general computer skills. It is also important to be passionate about the work. Anyone can learn the specific skills with enough time. It’s important to have a mindset of constantly experimenting and improving the ads. Familiarity with culture can help, but the important thing is to experiment and be willing to test your assumptions and intuitions in order to know what really works.

Audience

The audience is different for different campaigns in different regions. They vary demographics between gender, age, and special interests. They have found different demographics to be more receptive to the ads in different regions.

Evidence of Effectiveness for Online Ads

THL is glad that MFA’s study was finished recently, and Cat and Andrea are looking forward to more studies. They didn’t feel the MFA study really changed their views on the matter due to the low statistical power. Another useful study is this one, which showed that, at least in some domains, online ads could have a majority of their impact through impressions rather than ad-clicks. This has led to THL putting more of a pro-veg message in the ads that show up on Facebook in addition to the information on the landing page.

Online ads seem effective because of the large number of people that can be reached for low costs, and there is some evidence that people do change their diets because of the ads, based on the number of people who click to order a veg starter guide on the landing page . Additionally, data collection and optimization is relatively easy for online ads compared to other forms of outreach, which can lead to increased cost-effectiveness.

The weaknesses of online ads include the lack of direct evidence of dietary change, but this could be resolved with future studies. Also, running online ads doesn’t seem to do as much to build a grassroots network of animal advocates compared to other forms of outreach and community events.

Follow-up

After the call, THL sent ACE the following data for their Spanish-language online ads program, including information on both the standard ads (usually sending users to a website like www.whosagainstanimalcruelty.org in the relevant language) and the new Vegetarian Starter Guide ads (usually sending users to www.chooseveg.com/vsg-landing):

Spanish Video Ads (Dec-Feb)

Cost Per Veg Starter Guide (Cost Per Conversion) $0.55
Cost Per Click (all clicks) $0.02
Cost Per Click (link clicks) $0.02
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $0.19
Click Through Rate (all clicks) 1.24%
Click Through Rate (link clicks) 0.94%

Spanish Veg Starter Guide Ads (Jan-Feb)

Cost Per Veg Starter Guide (Cost Per Conversion) $0.09
Cost Per Click (all Clicks) $0.01
Cost Per Click (link clicks) $0.03
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $0.33
Click Through Rate (all Clicks) 2.22%
Click Through Rate (link clicks) 1.10%

In another follow-up email, THL gave us the following information for their international campaigns:

“Here is data for the other campaigns. In January we experienced tracking pixel issues in the Russian campaign and the ads were paused into the month of February. The tracking pixel issue may have impacted the reliability of January data, so I have included Russian campaign data for March-April. Please note that this data may be a misleading when comparing it to the other campaigns due to it being more recent. The last few months we’ve seen a significant drop in the cost per conversion for both the Russian and Hindi campaigns (in March-April the cost per conversion for the Hindi campaign was $3.37). Historically, the Latin American campaign has been the least expensive, followed by Hindi, then Mandarin, and the Russian campaign has been the most expensive.”

Hindi Campaign (Dec-Feb)
Targeted Hindi speakers in India and Pakistan (newer ads do not target Pakistan)

Cost Per Veg Starter Guide (Cost Per Conversion) $7.08
Cost Per Click (all clicks) $0.05
Cost Per Click (link clicks) $0.10
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $0.59
Click Through Rate (all clicks) 1.13%
Click Through Rate (link clicks) 0.57%

Mandarin Campaign (Dec-Feb)
Targeted Mandarin speakers in China, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia (newer ads do not target Indonesia)

Cost Per Veg Starter Guide (Cost Per Conversion) $7.68
Cost Per Click (all clicks) $0.11
Cost Per Click (link clicks) $0.16
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $0.82
Click Through Rate (all clicks) 0.77%
Click Through Rate (link clicks) 0.51%

Russian Campaign (March-April)
Targeted Russian speakers in Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova, Norway, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

Cost Per Veg Starter Guide (Cost Per Conversion) $3.79
Cost Per Click (all clicks) $0.02
Cost Per Click (link clicks) $0.03
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) $0.35
Click Through Rate (all clicks) 1.52%
Click Through Rate (link clicks) 1.36%

Filed Under: Interviews & Conversations Tagged With: intervention conversations

About Erika Alonso

Erika is ACE's Project Manager and has been with ACE since 2014. Her work includes researching effective messaging for animal advocacy groups, and how to engage activists through digital media.