The do’s and don’ts of a successful charity Christmas campaign

Do warm up your audiences early
Don’t wait until December to get started

Starting early is essential for both impact and efficiency. With competition for attention and ad space peaking in November and December, campaigns that launch too late often face higher costs and reduced reach.

We found campaigns that went live in October or even late September outperformed late-starters last year. Earlier campaigns benefited from lower ad costs, longer warm-up phases, and more room to test.

Soft-launching engagement or brand activity in Q3 or early Q4 helps build warm audiences that you can effectively retarget during the main donation push. It also gives you time to test messaging, optimise creatives, and nurture supporter journeys across channels.

Do include a multi-phase campaign approach
Don’t go out cold with a big donation ask

Think about how you can phase awareness, engagement, and conversion over time. Campaigns with multiple touchpoints often cut through better than a single ask.

Festive engagement tools are a great way to bring people in. For example, Help for Heroes’ Christmas campaign invites supporters to send a message of support to a veteran experiencing isolation and loneliness. Once submitted, users are encouraged to sign up to hear more from the charity, helping to build their email list ahead of future campaigns or asks.

Campaigns like these are warm, shareable, and offer supporters a meaningful way to connect without immediately being asked for a donation.

An additional bonus - AI tools can’t scrape interactive engagement tools in the same way as a content-focused landing page, so you’ll drive more traffic to your site, because people can’t take action through an AI overview.

Do refresh creatives, make them festive and accessible
Don’t use overly polished or outdated visuals

It may sound obvious, but seasonal visuals and messaging perform better in Christmas campaigns. Even simple touches like wintery imagery or ad copy that references “Winter” or “Season” help drive results. Our A/B tests show clear wins for Christmas-specific creative, and strong typography performed best for Refugee Council’s festive creatives.

Audiences respond to authenticity and relevance over brand-heavy creatives. Tangible examples of how specific donation amounts are used also help to make the ask more compelling. We often see language such as “donate £20 to fund a care package” outperforming more generic messages.

An example of this is Action for Children’s Secret Santa campaign, which provides donors with a clear, visual representation of how their donation is being used. Like £20 to fund a trip to the pantomime or £40 for warm winter clothes. These simple, specific giving options make the campaign feel tangible, urgent, and personal.

In addition, accessibility should be a key consideration to include your entire audience. Think about colour contrast, font choice, and text placement. Avoid placing text over busy images, use clear labels on buttons, and keep language simple. This helps to ensure your content reaches everyone. For more guidance, check out our blog on how to make your social media creatives more accessible.

Do test your campaign and stay flexible
Don’t overlook community channels and forums

The best-performing campaigns are ready to pivot when things aren’t working. Be ready to test creative, messaging and channels - and act on the data quickly.

For example, we pivoted budgets for an International Aid client when their Performance Max campaign drove 171% higher ROAS (return on ad spend) than search, previously their top performer.

Channels like Nextdoor or local community channels can punch above their weight at Christmas. For example, we have found that Nextdoor can deliver a cheaper CPM (cost per mille) than other channels at Christmas.

Finally, you know your audience better than anyone. Scope out the best environments to reach them in a less saturated space, even if that means breaking the norm of standard Meta and Search campaigns. If your audience hangs out on Reddit or a niche forum, go to them. Don’t wait for them to come to you.

Do connect your offline and online strategy
Don’t forget to connect the dots across channels

Your audiences don’t think in channels - they experience your campaign as a whole. To maximise impact, your offline and online activity should feel joined up, consistent, and mutually reinforcing.

If you're running TV, radio, mail, or OOH (out of home), make sure your paid ads have the same look and feel. Use custom URLs and tracking links to link offline actions to online journeys. You can even geo-target ads around OOH placements or mail drops to amplify impact.

The more joined-up your campaign is, the more efficient and effective it becomes.

Do make the most of smaller budgets with strong targeting
Don’t waste ad spend during peak periods

Use data from previous campaigns to find what drives value, and reflect on the learnings you’ve gained throughout the year. Christmas is not the time to cast the net too wide and enter expensive auctions. This is especially important for charities with smaller budgets competing during a crowded season.

If you don’t have learnings, now is the time to start running test campaigns to gain insights and build remarketing audiences.

Do build long-term journeys beyond Christmas
Don’t forget to stay in touch with supporters

It’s important to build a relationship with your supporters to drive income beyond the festive season. Supporters are 400% more likely to give again if thanked within 48 hours.

Email is a brilliant channel to deliver rich, multi-touch narratives that explain why your nonprofit needs their support. Campaigns like value exchange show how lead generation, followed by a strong email journey, can turn seasonal interest into long-term support.

Our work with the Internet Society shows the impact of a well-planned email journey. After using value-led Meta ads to grow their list, we used insights from user research and storytelling workshops that focused on real-world impact to outline how digital rights, internet shutdowns, and online privacy affect people in underserved communities. We helped them design automated email sequences that gradually introduced new supporters to the mission and built toward a donation ask. The first welcome email achieved a 9% click-through rate, well above benchmarks, and helped lay the foundation for a 573% increase in donations.

Final thoughts

Christmas campaigns can deliver meaningful income and engagement, but they need to be planned with care, creativity, and your audiences in mind to avoid wasting budget during the most competitive time of year. Start early, test and optimise, and create journeys that go beyond a single ask.

Book your free Christmas campaign audit

We’re offering a free audit of last year’s Christmas campaign for up to five charities, available on a first‑come, first‑served basis. If you’d like tailored recommendations to help make this year’s campaign even stronger, book your spot now.