How YouGov helped the NSPCC obtain their highest level of donations in 3 years

How YouGov helped the NSPCC obtain their highest level of donations in 3 years

Dan Campbell - December 1st, 2022

How YouGov helped the NSPCC obtain their highest level of donations in 3 years

The challenge

The NSPCC and OMD wanted to discover the most affluent audiences during lockdowns and beyond.

The solution

YouGov Audience Data was used to find and target specific affluent audiences.

The results

The NSPCC increased their donation value by 1000%, their highest total in 3 years.

Business challenge

While it has always been challenging for charities to successfully compete for their share of a limited amount of donations people give each year, it became even more challenging during the COVID pandemic. The shrinking economy during lockdowns led to overall tighter budgets for most, but some consumers remained unaffected.

NSPCC, the UK’s leading children’s charity, and their media agency OMD, were looking to find out who those unaffected, affluent consumers were, where to find them, and how to target them during lockdowns and beyond. By targeting those willing and able to donate, the charity wished to increase much needed donations.

Solution & approach

Having access to YouGov’s connected data meant that OMD was, for the first time, able to build, plan and activate against a single audience definition, ensuring:

• A deeper understanding of their target audience, using all 300k variables available in YouGov Profiles

• Creation of more tailored and effective communications that would be sure to resonate and affect behavior change

• Greater targeting accuracy between planning and execution with a direct connection between insight and the digital advertising ecosystem.

The key target audience for the campaign was the “Affluentials”, defined as those who have a minimum disposable income and were willing and able to donate to a good cause. Since YouGov Profiles data is updated weekly, this allowed the agency and the client to use a dynamic dataset for an audience that was constantly changing throughout these uncertain times.

Once the Affluential segments was defined, YouGov made the audience addressable through its partnership with Semasio, for OMD to use for targeting. The insight data and the addressable audience was updated every other week to ensure the freshest data were used and maintain maximum levels of accuracy to reduce wastage.

To further refine this already dynamic approach, OMD was able to tap into other YouGov audiences for more specific targeting, such as parents, teachers, and health care workers. Throughout the campaigns, the agency optimized on behavioral outcomes – who, where and when donations came from.

Business outcomes

From the start of the campaign in mid-2021, the Affluentials audience segment delivered the highest level of donations the NSPCC had seen in three years, despite cuts in budget. The targeting led to a 1,106% increase in average donation value.

Average donation value from legacy targeting delivered £7.50 on average, whereas the average donation from the YouGov-sourced Affluentials segment was a significantly increased £90.47.

Client Testimonial

“The affluential segmentation that we were able to build out using YouGov’s solution gave us a unique way to reach those in the best position to donate to the NSPCC during a key fundraising moment. It is now an integral part of our always-on outreach programme across display and continues to deliver extremely an strong ROAS for our client.”


Michael Loizou, Business Director, OMD

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