The City Club of Cleveland

The City Club of Cleveland is an organization dedicated to promoting free speech and debate. Founded in 1912, this organization is one of the nation's oldest continuous independent free speech promoters, and holds weekly forums to promote community voices to inspire “conversations of consequence to help democracy thrive.” 

The City Club came to Data Genomix with three main goals: increase awareness of programming, support ticket purchases to their forums, and take advantage of the Google Ad Grant. While the organization’s history was rich- it wanted to transform its advertising efforts which were rooted in the past, and not only modernize its outreach, but also ensure that they were forward-thinking and taking advantage of emerging platforms.

In order to increase brand awareness and support forum attendance, the Data Genomix team launched targeted ads on Meta, both Facebook, and Instagram, with engaging creative developed by DG’s graphic design team. These campaigns resulted in an average cost per click (CPC) that was 71% lower than Facebook’s average, and an average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) that was 24% lower than Facebook’s average. 

In addition to the social ad campaigns, Data Genomix took the initiative to apply for the Google Ad Grant on behalf of the City Club, to get ‘free’ Search Engine Marketing (SEM) ads to further support the organization. This grant provides qualifying nonprofit organizations with up to $10,000 of in-kind advertising every month for SEM ads. Since receiving this funding, Data Genomix has optimized the ads to a 12% click-through rate (CTR), meaning that more than 1-in-10 people who see ad content click to the website, giving the City Club access to a new advertising channel at no cost to the organization.

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