Driving Donations for Sefaria’s ‘Giving Tuesday’ Initiatives

Overview

Sefaria is a non-profit organization dedicated to building a digital library of Jewish texts and making them freely accessible to people around the world. Founded in 2011, Sefaria’s mission is to open up Jewish knowledge by providing a comprehensive, interconnected collection of texts, including Torah, Talmud, commentaries, Midrash, and more, all available in an open-source format. The platform is used by students, scholars, rabbis, and anyone interested in exploring Jewish tradition and texts.

Their core mission is the dedication to democratizing access to Jewish texts, enabling individuals to engage with these resources at every level of learning. With materials available in both Hebrew and English, Sefaria bridges the gap between traditional Jewish study and modern learners across the globe. Its mission goes beyond merely providing resources; it seeks to make Jewish knowledge accessible, interactive, and relevant in today’s world.
Sefaria serves a diverse audience, which includes:

• Jewish Students and Educators of all levels, from beginners to scholars
• Rabbis and Religious Leaders
• Jewish Community Members
• Non-Jewish Individuals curious about Jewish culture, history, and traditions

Challenges

Maximizing the day's success while maintaining a balanced approach to budget management was key. Giving Tuesday marked the launch of our End-of-Year donation campaign, requiring careful oversight to ensure we didn’t exceed our monthly budget. Early in the day, we experienced significant success, and when we increased our spending, we remained mindful of our overall budget to sustain momentum throughout the campaign.

Goals

Sefaria’s Giving Tuesday Campaign is a prominent annual fundraising initiative aimed at driving donations and supporting ongoing development and operational costs. Sefaria uses digital marketing strategies, such as Black Friday and Giving Tuesday campaigns, to boost awareness and encourage contributions for their vital work in preserving and sharing Jewish knowledge.

Platforms Leveraged

Google Ads

Meta Ads

Strategy

Black Friday/Cyber Monday
For the Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BF/CM) period, Sefaria launched three distinct campaigns: Black Friday, Hanukkah, and Giving Tuesday. The Hanukkah campaign mirrored the Black Friday sale in terms of offers but was designed with tailored messaging and creative, although the targeting remained consistent. We recommended starting the Black Friday campaign earlier, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, to leverage early consumer behavior and allow time for the learning phase. This early start was supported by research showing benefits to pre-Black Friday marketing.

The client requested an equal 50/50 budget split between Google and Meta for the BF/CM and Giving Tuesday campaigns. However, as Meta consistently outperformed Google due to limited search volume for relevant terms, we shifted the budget allocation to favor Meta. We focused on retargeting previous users and Jewish audiences, those most likely to purchase or donate based on prior interactions with Sefaria.

Key Learnings -Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Meta significantly outperformed Google across all metrics, validating our decision to adjust the budget in favor of Meta. The campaign provided valuable insights, including the importance of early launches, tailored messaging, and flexible budget allocations. The results demonstrated the potential for even stronger performance with refined targeting and budget strategies.

Giving Tuesday
Building on the BF/CM campaign, we allocated a higher share of the budget to Meta for the Giving Tuesday campaign. Meta’s strong performance during the BF/CM period guided this decision. The primary goal for this campaign was to drive donations, with a focus on users likely to engage based on their prior behavior on Sefaria’s platform.

Key Learnings - Giving Tuesday

The Giving Tuesday campaign was successful, but it revealed that the budget allocation could have been more aggressive to capitalize on the momentum of the day. The budget increase during the day was slightly conservative, and future campaigns will benefit from a more proactive, front-loaded budgeting approach to maximize impact during peak moments like Giving Tuesday.

Results

Both the BF/CM and Giving Tuesday campaigns were a success, bringing in significant sales and donation increases compared to typical non-seasonal periods. 

• BF/CM Sales - Up 7% YoY
• Giving Tuesday Overall ROAS - 6.98
• Giving Tuesday Facebook ROAS - 9.17
• Giving Tuesday CPA - Down 51% YoY

Meta’s Performance: Meta outperformed Google across both campaigns, confirming that platform allocation should be guided by performance data rather than static budget splits.

Early Campaign Launches and Tailored Messaging: Starting campaigns earlier and tailoring messaging for specific audience segments significantly contributed to strong results.

Budgeting Strategies: While the current budgeting strategy proved effective, a more aggressive and front-loaded approach to budget allocation could enhance results in future campaigns.

Learning for Future Campaigns: The campaigns provided crucial insights into platform preferences, audience behavior, and budget allocation strategies, laying a strong foundation for ongoing and future digital marketing efforts.