BUCKLE UP FOR A DATA DROP 🫳📈

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After a few recent conversations during lead generation optimization meetings, our professional services team started digging into a long-running hunch: Could shifts in supporter affiliation explain the dips in fundraising performance we sometimes see over the course of a challenge?

Spoiler: yes. And it also ties into something we’ve been talking about a lot lately—the “tiers of leads” hypothesis. If you missed our deep dive into how asking the right qualifying questions can boost your return by 42%, go give this a read first. This post picks up right where that one leaves off.

Let’s get into it.

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Working Through the “Tiers of Leads”

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When a Facebook fundraising challenge launches, it starts strong. We typically see:

• Lower cost per lead (CPL)
• High fundraising conversion
• Lots of mission-aligned, highly motivated supporters

Why? Because we’re hitting the Tier 1 audience: folks who already know the brand, care about the cause, and don’t need much convincing to get involved.

But as the campaign goes on, and we spend more to scale, we start to tap into Tier 2 and Tier 3 audiences. These people:

• May not know the organization
• Might not have a personal connection to the cause
• Often need more touches to convert—and may never fundraise at all

That shift is natural. It’s not bad to reach these net new people. In fact, it’s great for growing a nonprofit’s supporter base. But it also changes your acquisition costs and your performance expectations. So when we see the cost per lead creeping up, it’s often because we’ve worked through the tiers faster due to increased ad spend.

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Why Affiliation Data Matters

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So how does supporter affiliation tie into this?

We looked at several recent nonprofit challenges and found something consistent: when the share of leads from strongly affiliated groups (e.g., survivors, directly affected individuals) dropped, so did fundraising results. And when looser affiliations (e.g., general supporters or distant connections) rose, cost per lead often followed.

This gives us a new lens to evaluate challenges beyond just performance metrics:

• If CPL is rising, is the audience shifting?
• If fundraising drops, are we attracting less-affiliated leads?
• Is it time for a creative refresh or a spend adjustment?

We now have another early indicator to help nonprofits strike the right balance between scale and sustainability.

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What the Data Is Telling Us

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Let’s walk through a few examples to show how this plays out in real life:

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1. Nonprofit 1: Childhood Diabetes

💪 Strong Start, Quick Shift

• Started with a high volume of moms of children with diabetes and individuals with diabetes—our ideal Tier 1 leads.
• With such strong performance, we recommended increasing ad spend. This nonprofit has lofty topline revenue goals so we wanted to capitalize on this performance.
• As spend increased, that strong affiliation group dropped. The “Other” category (those least connected) rose.
• CPL grew, reducing the efficiency of the challenge. But, with focus on topline revenue and net new acquisition to fuel existing programs, the challenge was still a success.

Takeaway: Scaling fast tapped out the strong leads quickly, and we've now identified a spend threshold at which this nonprofit will likely strike a strong supporter-net new balance that will allow them to reach both revenue and acquisition goals.

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2. Nonprofit 2: Alzheimer's Disease

📈 Big Audience, Stable CPL

• With a massive total addressable audience of those affected by Alzheimer's Disease, this nonprofit easily sustained $50K+ in spend without exhausting highly connected audiences.
• CPL stayed relatively stable throughout.
• Performance aligned with spikes in “lost a loved one” leads—showing these emotional affiliations do still move the needle and are strong supporters for the organization to cultivate long term.

Takeaway: Some causes have the depth to sustain broader spend, but even then, spikes in high-affiliation segments can drive peak performance.

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3. Nonprofit 3: Trauma and Abuse Survivor Support

 💡Plateaued Performance Despite Steady CPL

• Challenge launched with strong performance from “survivor” leads.
• As the share of “supporter” leads grew and those who were directly affected, survivors, dropped, fundraising hit a wall—even though CPL remained flat.
• This nonprofit has struggled in the past with fundraising, and this analysis gave us the insight to determine that the sensitive nature of this nonprofit's mission seems to benefit from those who are closely impacted and more likely to take action on behalf of the nonprofit.

Takeaway: It’s not just about what you pay for a lead—it’s about who the lead is. Supporters may join the challenge, but that doesn’t mean they’ll fundraise. Especially when the mission is more sensitive, being mindful of the audiences can help you craft messaging that resonates and drives action for those less connected to the cause.

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4. Nonprofit 4: Parkinson's Disease

🔀 Creative + Audience Tweaks Changed the Game

• Initial cost per lead was strong, then rose slightly with budget shifts. New creative shifted the audience however and reduced cost per lead.
• This creative resonated with looser affiliations, not people with PD themselves or family/friends of those with PD, and while CPL stayed lower fundraising also fell off a bit.
• As the challenge continued, we applied an audience age cap (under 65) which correlated with a shift from personally affected leads to family connections—who ended up being better fundraisers.

Takeaway: While those that are personally affected can be amazing supporter base, they may not always be the strongest fundraising group. Testing creative and targeting strategies helped rebalance performance with an audience that was both closely affected AND had a strong network to donate.

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So, What Should Nonprofits Do With This?

The data supports what many of us have suspected:

✅ Not all leads are created equal
✅ Affiliation strength directly impacts acquisition costs and fundraising outcomes
✅ Audience shifts are a normal part of campaign evolution—but they need to be managed intentionally

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Here’s how we're planning to use this insight moving forward:

• Monitor affiliation data weekly. This will let us get ahead of any potential shifts before the lagging indicators like fundraising or costs point to a problem.
• Get ahead of CPL shifts. If we see the strongest affiliations dropping, we'll know to creative or re-evaluate spend before results slide. And on the flip side, we'll be able to understand how a creative shift is impacting audience.
• Set realistic goals. This data will allow us to understand how much of each nonprofit's audience is truly Tier 1—and plan for budget and revenue goals accordingly.
• Identify clear goals for each challenge. Whether the goal is topline revenue, a specific return or efficiency, or a specific audience of net new folks to fuel other programs, identifying these goals early with the nonprofit will help us optimize effectively.

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Final Thought

Every lead matters—but some matter more. And now, we have a better way to see it coming. If you haven’t already, revisit the blog on supporter affiliation questions to learn how to spot (and nurture!) those high-value leads early in the journey.

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Ready to go deeper on how to segment your leads by affiliation and optimize your challenge performance? Let’s talk.

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