News & Info

Case Study: An Audience-First Approach That Transformed Acquisition Results

12/22/2025

The Challenge

A national service organization was mailing broadly — and paying for it. Rising costs meant they couldn’t afford to guess who might respond. They needed a smarter, audience-first way to focus their budget on people who were actually likely to join their mission.

What VeraData Did

• Built a predictive audience model using a $10 minimum gift history to determine which prospects were most likely to respond.
• Delivered 15,000 ranked names, prioritized from high potential to unlikely to respond.
• Mailed these audiences in two acquisition drops.

What We Learned (The Audience Story)

Audience-first targeting pays off. The names predicted to respond rose to the top in both mailings, and the lowest-ranked prospects made almost no impact — a clear split between strong and weak audiences.

DonorVision Insight
DonorVision names responded above average, but their gifts were smaller. This signals opportunities to refine donor quality and elevate higher-value prospects.

Cost-Saving Insight
Simply removing low-potential names unlocks real money. Even with the same creative and package, focusing on stronger audiences would have significantly improved results.

Results That Matter

First Mailing:

• High-potential donors responded more than 4x higher than the lowest group.
• Audience-first targeting delivered:
  • 18% higher response rate
  • 29% improvement in net revenue performance vs. baseline mailing.

Second Mailing:

• Stronger prospects again responded far better.
• Optimization delivered:
  • 11% higher response rate
  • 19% improvement in net revenue performance vs. baseline mailing.

What This Means for Fundraisers

Acquisition works best when it starts with the right people. Focusing on the strongest audiences delivers the biggest gains.

With a thoughtful audience strategy:

• You waste fewer dollars.
• You elevate donor quality.
• You build a stronger file.
• You get results that feel like a performance upgrade, not a budget increase.

What Comes Next

VeraData’s Donor Science team will:

• Rebuild the model with a $15 minimum gift level.
• Build a High Dollar Model for higher-value ask strategies.
• Continue optimizing by removing the lowest-performing groups.