Campaign Objectives

The RCMP Foundation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police‘s charitable arm, sought registrants for its first-ever online horse auction. Those same registrants were also welcome to participate in a sister event, an in-person horse auction: “See inside the RCMP Foundation’s horse auction” from CBC News.

The Plan

In advance of the campaign launch, the RCMP Foundation developed English and French landing pages announcing details for each auctions, and encouraging visitors to register to bid on any of the 30+ magnificent Hanovarian horses available for sale.

Where digital fit

In addition to securing traditional media coverage including PR and advertising in horse industry magazines, see examples below:

• Ottawa Citizen: “Musical Ride-bred horses slated for largest-ever RCMP Foundation auction“
• Horse Canada: “RCMP Foundation to auction off up to 40 Hanoverians“
• Horse Journals: “RCMP Foundation Auctions 36 Horses from the Musical Ride Breeding Program“

and publishing organic social media content and distributing email newsletters, the RCMP Foundation approved a paid media advertising buy on Facebook.

While researching potential audiences to target on Facebook, Online Authority oversaw the technical implementation needed for a Facebook advertising campaign as undertaken by the RCMP Foundation’s agency:

• Configuring the client’s Facebook Business Manager Account and ad account; and
• Ensuring installation of the RCMP Foundation’s Facebook Pixel in its content management system.

Following that, in the client’s Facebook Ad account, Online Authority created targeted Website Custom Audiences (WCA) based on past buyer lists and website visitors. Online Authority also developed necessary naming conventions for Google Analytics UTM tracking codes to track the impact of email efforts vs the Facebook ad buy.

In its research, Online Authority identified 65 possible target audiences within Facebook for review and approval by the client. Those were narrowed to 23 optimal choices for launch. Online Authority created each as unique Facebook Ad Sets in order to monitor the performance of each audience against one another.

As the landing page continue to evolve, Online Authority finalized the paid media creative, including copy treatment, and the campaign was activated. Below are three sample placements of the creative that ran, and some of the response generated:

Campaign Results

All 23 ad sets launched simultaneously and performance of each was monitored on a daily basis. Within one week, the ad sets were narrowed to the top performers.

By the number of auction registrants, the approach proved so successful that the campaign was paused at the two-week of a planned six-week campaign. The best news for this fundraising effort? Further, all horses were sold with revenue targets exceeded.

If you are interested in learning more about Facebook advertising, contact Online Authority today.