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Measuring the effectiveness of online search ads on blood donor recruitment and donation
Duncan C McElfresh1, Jenn Bennett2, Kay Enriquez2
1Department of Health Policy, Center for Innovation to Implementation, Veterans Affairs Health Care, Palo Alto, California, USA.
Insights
Online ads offering rewards significantly boost first-time blood donations. While altruistic ads increase overall donations, promotional messages are key for recruiting new donors, ensuring a stable blood supply.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Health Services Research
- Digital Marketing
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted critical blood supply vulnerabilities.
- Online advertisements are increasingly used for blood donor recruitment.
- The effectiveness of different online ad strategies needs evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the impact of online search ads on blood donation rates.
- To compare the efficacy of altruistic versus promotional messaging in donor recruitment.
- To specifically evaluate the recruitment of first-time blood donors.
Main Methods:
- A campaign comparison experiment was conducted using a major search-ads platform.
- Two distinct ad messages were tested: 'Altruistic' and 'Promotion' (rewards-based).
- Donation outcomes were tracked and associated with ad performance metrics, compared against a 'Baseline' control group.
Main Results:
- Promotional ads significantly increased first-time blood donors compared to the baseline (24% vs. 12%).
- Altruistic ads led to a higher percentage of appointments resulting in donations (57% vs. 53%).
- Promotional ads also showed a higher percentage of first-time donors from appointments (12% vs. 8%).
Conclusions:
- A methodology was established to evaluate online search ad effectiveness for blood donation.
- Reward-based messaging is most effective for recruiting first-time blood donors.
- The developed methodology can be adapted by blood centers to optimize messaging for their communities.
Background:
Acutely highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the tenuousness of the blood supply continues to be a lynchpin of the most important medical procedures. Online advertisements have become a mainstay in donor recruitment. We set out to determine the effectiveness of online search ads and variations thereof on blood donations with an emphasis on first-time donors.
Study Design And Methods:
From September 01, 2022 through March 31, 2023, we performed a campaign comparison experiment through a major search-ads platform with two distinct messages: one altruistic ("Altruistic") and one with a prospect of rewards ("Promotion"). We developed a method to track donation outcomes and associated them with impressions, click-throughs, and conversions. We compared the performance of the Altruistic and Promotion arms to a control group that was not associated with any search-ads ("Baseline").
Results:
Analyzing 34,157 donations during the study period, the Promotion group, and not Altruistic, had a significant difference of first-time donors over Baseline (24% vs. 12%, p = 7e-6). We analyzed 49,305 appointments and discovered that appointments made from the Altruistic arm resulted in a significantly higher percentage of donations when compared to Baseline (57% vs. 53%, p = .009); however, the Promotion group had a higher percentage of donations from first-time donors when compared to Baseline (12% vs. 8%, p = .006).
Conclusion:
We developed a method for determining the effectiveness of online search ads on donation outcomes. Rewards/promotions messaging was most effective at recruiting first-time donors. Our methodology is generalizable to different blood centers to explore messaging effectiveness among their unique communities.
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