Bible League Canada Decreases Cost Per Donor by 20% with Avid AI

Summary: Consolidating Siloed Data and the Donor Journey into a Single Platform

Bible League Canada (BLC) grew their digital marketing by 1,000% with Avid AI by…

• Consolidating Facebook and MailChimp data into one complete donor journey
• Executing clear messaging segmentation by donor journey
• Replacing manual data entry with automatic, real-time reporting

Key Takeaways: Optimized Facebook Ads that Outperform Facebook’s Native Platform

With Avid AI’s Pathways tool, the BLC was able to outperform Facebook’s native Advantage+ Campaign advertising platform. The results?

• Decreased the overall gross costs per donor by 20%
• Reduced Facebook cost per name by 11.4%
• Increased Facebook ad clicks by 63.9%

About Bible League Canada

Bible League Canada (BLC) is a Christian ministry that provides Bibles, ministry resources, and Christian education to believers worldwide through a network of more than 30,000 local Christian leaders in more than 50 countries. 

The ministry shifted their marketing strategy in 2023. Their goal? To reach their 50K subscribers and donors through Facebook and email marketing campaigns.

Challenge: Siloed and Incomplete Data Across Salesforce, MailChimp, and Facebook

During their first year of digital marketing, BLC saw a 1,000% increase in new digital donors. But then – they hit a roadblock. Siloed data made it impossible to achieve real insights or segment donor and non-donor audiences.

“We were able to reach our current and future donors with our main messaging before Avid AI, but Avid AI allowed us to integrate that information within the team, sharing it through different channels to optimize our results.”

   Jody M., Director of Marketing

Inability to Segment Donor Data Across Salesforce and MailChimp

The BLC’s email platform, MailChimp, made it nearly impossible to achieve basic donor segmentation. Donor data lived in Salesforce, which made building segments in MailChimp labor-intensive and impractical. Data needed to be manually exported and imported before each campaign email was accurate. Even segmenting email lists by donor and non-donor became an ordeal.

Thus – critical data points were siloed in various systems. As a result, BLC’s team could not automate vital donor cultivation and onboarding processes in email or social media ads.

Incomplete Facebook Data Hampered Performance

The BLC leaned heavily into Facebook advertising to grow and expand their donor base. Without an outside platform, the BLC was forced to rely on Facebook’s advertising pixel to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. 

But due to growing privacy concerns, Facebook’s native Advantage+ Campaign left a missing, truncated and incomplete picture of donor behavior. To achieve better lookalike targeting, donor and subscriber lists had to be manually imported into the platform.

Solution: Avid AI Unites Donor Data Into a Single Platform

With the release of Avid AI, the BLC could finally integrate the data from their CRM, CMS, and advertising campaigns. Once the ministry was able to consolidate their donor data into a single dashboard – with big results.

Decreased Facebook Cost Per Donor by 20%

With Avid AI, the BLC was able to build a fuller picture of their most successful donors. Rather than rely on Facebook’s traditional pixel data, they built lookalike audiences based on their best donors. With better, more informed targeting — and Avid AI’s first-party data – they decreased their gross cost per donor by 20%. 

The results didn’t stop there. With more targeted audiences, the BLC also reduced their cost per name by 11.4%. But most importantly? The BLC ministry was able to connect directly with an audience that cared about their mission.

Cultivate and Onboard Donors with Segmentation

Before Avid AI, donor segmentation was a labor-intensive and largely ineffective exercise. But by uniting Salesforce and MailChimp data, the BLC was able to properly target their messaging to their donor segments at the appropriate phase of the donor journey. 

Whether a donor was a lapsed donor, recurring donor, active donor, or even their giving level in the program, Avid AI empowered the ministry to message their appeals based on specific donor data.

For example, the BLC created an automated new donor email welcome series that could…

• Run 24/7 based on the date of a donor’s first gift to Bible League Canada.
• Cultivate new members to become recurring donors
• Remove recurring donors from the welcome series and adding them to a separate workflow, stewarding them as a new sustaining ministry partner.

Get Better Results with an Avid AI Trial

Sick of siloed donor data? It’s time to consolidate into one platform. Try our 30-day Avid AI trial to execute campaigns that make a difference – and see how you can achieve up to a 41% reduction in donor acquisition costs.