Every year, the State of Alaska Department of Revenue distributes a payment to Alaskan residents called the Permanent Fund Dividend. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a state-owned corporation established in 1976 that is funded by revenue generated through oil drilling on the North Slope. It’s a big deal, with an average of $1,600 paid our per resident, per year, once applications have closed.
The Marketing Challenge
The State of Alaska wanted a campaign for the 2019 filing season that educated the state’s residents about changes to the application process and promoted the online application system. The government also wanted to let the public know about opportunities to participate in the University of Alaska College Savings Program, known as Pick.Click.Give, and a new Education Raffle. The goal for this campaign was to reach as many Alaskan residents as possible.
How We Got Results
In the past, the PFD had used radio spots and a saturation mailer, but they were open to other ideas. Our strategy was to minimize the radio and mailer budget, pulling it over into digital advertising on Facebook and Google display advertising. With almost 80% of Alaskans using Facebook, we wanted to reach our target audience where they spent the most of their time. That said, we kept the mailer for older demographics and those communities that did not have easy access to the internet.
Our Facebook ads achieved a relevance score of 10/10 (except one, which had a score of 9/10), indicating that they were perfect for our target audience. In total, they received 493,980 impressions and had a reach of 138,846 people, with 14,319 link clicks at a budget of $3,000. The average cost per link click (CPC) was $0.21, 87.8% lower than the national average of $1.72. The average click through rate (CTR) was 2.9%, which is 322.2% higher than the national average of 0.9%. Our PSA-style video ad was particularly impressive, accounting for 155,101 of the impressions.
On the Google side, we achieved 940,057 impressions and 8,508 clicks on a budget of $3,186.51. The average CPC was $0.37, which is 41.3% less than the national average for Google Ads at $0.63. Meanwhile, the average CTR was 0.91%, which is 197.8% higher than the national average.
More than 300,000 Alaskans applied online as a result of our marketing efforts, which means we were successful in our goal of educating as many people as possible about the new process.
“The PFD was absolutely pleased with how we took a multifaceted message and broke it down into three clear points. Each one, ‘File it Faster,’ ‘Get it Sooner,’ and ‘Take it Further,’ focused on an aspect of the PFD’s key messaging, tying it all together using repeat grammatical structure under the primary message, ‘What’s New with the PFD?’ to maximize impact.”
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