Acquisition Hits Where They Ain’t 

“Wee Willie” Keller was one of baseball’s first stars. He still holds the record for best season batting average for a lefty, set in (this is not a typo) 1897, despite weighing 140 pounds soaking wet. How did it do it? He said his goal was to “hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

As new donor acquisition gets tougher and tougher, you probably feel like your typical new donor acquisition program has been exhausted, with the same prospects appearing year after year on these lists. Acquisition numbers look especially challenging when compared to the COVID-bubble highs.

So, what can we take from Wee Willie? Where can we go where others aren’t going? (We’re assuming here that you are already modeling to get your acquisition audiences; if not, let us fix that for you ASAP.)

Finding those who fall through the cracks. Ensemble modeling sounds like it might not be helpful in finding new donors. After all, it means combining all your models together to get the best of the best learnings.

However, think of a donor who is second tier in every model. They are not quite the best possible donor according to likely average gift or likely response rate or value per piece. But if they are second in all those categories, they likely are going to be a better donor than someone who is first tier one model and dead last in all the rest. Think of the person who models high on a response rate model because they give a shiny new nickel to every organization who sends them a piece of mail. You’d rather have the person who is a solid, if not spectacular, all-around performer.

With not enough organizations using this tactic, we’re finding great success for causes. A poverty alleviation organization saw the need for new acquisition sources. We worked with them on ensemble modeling. The results showed a 22% increase in response rates and a 25% increase in average gift over other acquisition models.

Investing heavily in those who deserve it. Ensemble modeling also helps you identify the best of the best of the best. Since some of these donors can and do give substantial gifts, it is worth more than a simple mail piece to attract their gift.

Recently, a nonprofit organization challenged us to improve the acquisition and increase the upgrades of mid-level donors. To tackle this, we curated audiences and targeted them with connected TV (CTV) to drive viewers to a form with higher ask strings. SimioJourney identified prospects most likely to upgrade to mid-level giving. An acquisition model was also developed based on the profiles of current mid-level donors.

After testing the updated acquisition model, the three-month pilot program generated a 3.32 return on ad spend (ROAS) and over a thousand total gifts, including more than 50 four-figure gifts. This mid-level CTV program is now an evergreen campaign due to the tremendous success of the pilot test.

Bring your own data to the party. One of the massive advantages of SimioCloud is the sheer amount of data – literally thousands of data points on over 100 million donors, including transactions, behaviors, attitudes, and demographics. But now over 400 organizations are successfully using SimioCloud. What can you do to go even beyond that advantage?

You gain an advantage when you bring your own first-party data to the party—things that other organizations don’t know and can’t replicate. For example, one study found the most predictive variable for whether someone would become a member of a charity wasn’t frequency or amount of previous donations — those were significant, but third and fourth on the list. It wasn’t disposable income — that was second.

It was whether the person had opted in to receive communications.

That’s something you know for a donor and no one else does.

It’s great to enhance your data with every variable you can – each one adds something to the data stew. But this type of secret ingredient can get your models to surpass even other very good ones.

With strategic, data-driven approaches, you can optimize your campaign and enhance your models to ensure you target the appropriate audience while considering costs, flexing more investment to those who deserve it and away from those who don’t.