Turning festive awareness into year-round fundraising

Helping Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust turn festive campaign awareness into donations, then extend that momentum into year-round fundraising.

Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) raises funds to support care at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, helping fund equipment, research, facilities and additional support for patients.

The charity approached Web Presence ahead of its busy festive fundraising period. Its “Help Your Hospital” campaign included a Direct Response TV advert encouraging viewers to donate online or by text, with a seasonal appeal supporting children spending Christmas in hospital.

Our objective was to help people move easily from seeing the advert to finding the campaign and making a donation. Beyond Christmas, ACT also wanted to reach more supporters and encourage participation in its fundraising events.

ACT had recently launched a new website that was not yet appearing prominently in organic search results for campaign-related searches, including “Addenbrooke’s toy”.

This created a gap between awareness and action. People could see the television advert and feel motivated to help, but struggle to find the relevant donation page when they searched online.

With the festive appeal already approaching its busiest period, ACT needed a way to improve search visibility quickly and capture the interest generated by its television campaign.

The wider challenge was to turn that seasonal activity into lasting value, supporting donations, awareness and fundraising participation throughout the year.

We developed an advertising approach that connected ACT’s television campaign with relevant online searches, while creating opportunities to reach additional supporters.

Search advertising aligned with the festive appeal

We built and optimised Google Ad Grants campaigns around relevant campaign phrases and the charity’s key fundraising themes.

The adverts directed people to the dedicated festive landing page, creating a clearer route from searching for the appeal to learning more and donating.

This helped ACT gain search visibility while its new website’s organic presence was still developing.

Additional reach through paid advertising

Alongside the grant-funded search campaigns, we supported paid advertising using the DRTV creative across Google’s display network.

This extended the campaign’s digital reach and provided another route for potential donors to discover the appeal.

Awareness and recruitment beyond Christmas

We also launched advertising for ACT’s wider initiatives and recruitment objectives, introducing the new website to more people and helping existing supporters reconnect with the charity.

As the festive appeal ended, we shifted the advertising focus towards year-round fundraising opportunities.

Encouraging participation in fundraising events

We developed search campaigns around events including the Cambridge Half Marathon and Dragon Boat Race, helping people discover opportunities to take part and raise money for ACT.

For the Cambridge Half Marathon, Google and Facebook advertising supported a campaign to fill the charity’s allocated places, connecting event participation with a clear fundraising commitment.

The festive advertising helped close the gap between television exposure and online discovery, making it easier for potential supporters to find ACT’s appeal and contribute.

The campaign also established a foundation for continued advertising across the charity’s fundraising calendar.

By connecting campaign awareness with clear opportunities to donate or participate, we helped ACT turn digital interest into practical support for its hospital fundraising.