Advocacy Campaign Report
Week of December 12, 2022
Thank you for your interest in this pro-DRS advocacy campaign. This is the eighth weekly report for the 2022 Q4 advocacy campaign.
Some helpful keywords and terms to frame this information are below:
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Impressions: ad views; number of times the ads are displayed on device screens. Does not reflect unique number of people who saw the ads.
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CPM: Cost Per 1,000 Impressions - a primary advertising cost metric.
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CPC: Cost Per Click.
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CTR: Click-Through Rate - the rate at which people saw the ads and subsequently clicked on them.
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KPIs: Key Performance Indicators - these include the terms listed above and are basic gauges for measuring campaign progress.
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WoW: Week over Week - refers to changes in performance metrics from one week to the next.
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All currency is listed in U.S. dollars.
Executive Summary
Ad performance continued accelerating this week, to make it the strongest week overall, versus all other prior weeks. The ads drove a total of 1,901 site visits (5% increase WoW) at an average cost of $0.85 per site visit (4% decrease WoW):
This is despite seeing impressions drop by 10% and clicks decrease by 3%, even though weekly spending remained about equivalent. The steady upward trajectory of site visits driven by the ads is likely the result of continuous optimizations for the Meta and Twitter campaigns, as well as pausing the Reddit ads, while shifting the budget for them to Meta.
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Site traffic saw yet another modest 5% increase across all traffic sources combined. Although, there were notable spikes of direct visitors and those driven by organic search towards the end of the week. This coincided with the site being mentioned in a discussion about equity market structure reforms with U.S. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, which aired live to the public on Friday, December 16.
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View the discussion here, and skip ahead to the timestamp at 48:20 for the mention of DRSGME.org.
Meta Performance
(Facebook and Instagram)
Meta delivered 27% more site visits for the week with 157 total, and landed at the highest conversion rate of the campaign to date at 10.10%. Although, the cost per site visit rose by 15% to end at $4.18 average for the week:
Spending increased by 45% for the week, as a result of pausing the Reddit ads December 8th, in the prior week, and reallocating the budget for that to Meta. Although total impressions rose by just 6% the CPC rose by 20%, and clicks also increased by 20% to be the highest in any week of the campaign.
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CPM increased by 37%, but CTR increased by 14% to end at 2.59% for the week, also the highest for any week during the campaign.
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Site visits this week were 60% women (up from 56% in the week prior) and 39% men, with the remaining 1% unspecified. By age, 34% of all site visits were from users 65+, 32% from users 55-64, 23% from users 45-54, with the remaining 11% from users age 44 or younger.
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By country, French users again made up the majority of site visits from the Meta ads, at 76% for the week (up from 72% the prior week). Germany followed at 9%, with the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, and then Sweden.
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The only carousel ad (the interactive format with multiple images that can be swiped) which is still running in the Meta campaign, featured Crypto Padlock, Seedling, and Whisper. However, it was not performing as well as the other ads still running, so it was paused mid-week to allow the budget to be spent on the higher performing ads. The remaining ad variations still being delivered by Meta are now all single static images, featuring Grandma’s Recipe, Whisper, and Lady Yellow.
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For this week, Grandma’s Recipe delivered 71% of site visits from Meta, up from 64% in the prior week. This was followed by Lady Yellow, and Whisper delivering 15% each (see ad previews here).
Twitter Performance
Twitter saw a continuing trend this week in delivering the most site visits of any week during the campaign, with 1,744 total for the week (3% increase WoW) at a cost of $0.55 per site visit (3% decrease WoW):
This is despite total clicks decreasing by 3% and CTR decreasing by 7%. Total spending remained stable, while impressions increased by 5% and CPM decreased by 4%.
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More ads within specific ad groups were paused this week, and three ad groups were paused altogether due to showing lower performance than others. These ad groups were specifically targeting users in countries where English is spoken as the primary language (Australia, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, and United States), since users in countries where there is strong proficiency in English as a second language have shown more engagement with the Twitter ads.
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By country, Swedish users continue to make up the majority of people driven to the site by the Twitter ads, at 34% of the total for this week. Surprisingly, Norway delivered the second highest number of site visitors from Twitter, at 17% of the total. This was then followed by 16% from Denmark, 9% from Belgium, and 8% both from France and Finland.
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Showing a deviation from previous weeks, the ad featuring Ethel drove the most site visits at 16% of the week’s total. This was followed by Seedling at 14%, the carousel ad featuring Crypto Padlock, Seedling, and Whisper, at 13%, and the static Padlock Crypto ad at 12% (see ad previews here).
Site Activity
This week, the site saw a modest 5% increase in net weekly unique visitors across all traffic sources, and stable traffic trends continuing from the prior week, until Friday and Saturday, December 16-17. On these two days, there was a notable spike in new visitors versus the previous days, primarily from people visiting directly and through organic search.
New vs. returning unique visitors (all traffic sources):
The traffic spikes on these two dates correlate with the site being directly mentioned by stock market reform advocate Dave Lauer, of Urvin Finance and We The Investors, in a public discussion with U.S. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, which took place on Friday, December 16 (skip ahead to the 48:20 timestamp for mention of the site).
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All direct visitors increased by 21% WoW, though new (versus returning) direct visitors increased by 44%. Total site sessions from direct visitors also increased by 31% WoW.
Unique visitors, new only (split by traffic source):
Although visitors driven to the site by organic search did spike on December 16-17, the net total for the week from organic search decreased by 13% WoW.
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Unique return visitors from all sources increased by 17% WoW, with a 32% increase from the ads alone.
Unique visitors, returning only (split by traffic source):
Total unique visitors to all of the broker guides decreased by 25% WoW. Aside from views of the Webull guide returning to an equivalent baseline level seen prior to week seven, there were no notable changes observed in views of any particular broker guide this week:
Conclusion and Next Steps
Although performance for the ads this week didn’t lead to any dramatic changes in site activity, the increase in direct traffic, (also visitors driven by organic search on Friday and Saturday) is evidence of the additional impact on public awareness of the site from non-advertising sources.
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In conjunction with the existing paid advertising complementing overall awareness, the most encouraging takeaway from this week is that the traffic increase on those days was mostly due to visitors new to the site. This bolsters the argument to continue strengthening organic outreach efforts when and where possible, and to seize any opportunities for effective information sharing.
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This may not have occurred without the DRSGME team having previously connected with Dave Lauer over the importance of the DRS, and how Dave, his team, and the DRSGME efforts can work in parallel. With Dave working towards much needed market reform, and the DRSGME team raising awareness of the DRS, both are reaching individual investors so they can empower themselves through advocacy and education.
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This is the final full week of data for the campaign, which is set to end on Wednesday, December 21. The next and final report will encompass data for the entirety of the campaign, as well as greater insights gained for any future application.