Should you care about… building brand awareness or chasing conversions?

The what

Think of advertising like fishing. Lower-funnel strategies (direct fundraising ads, search campaigns) are like casting a line exactly where you see fish jumping. Upper-funnel strategies (awareness campaigns, brand building) are more like creating conditions that draw fish to your part of the lake in the first place.

Nonprofits spent 72% of their digital advertising budgets on direct fundraising in 2024, with only a small fraction going to awareness campaigns. That split makes sense when you need immediate results. But here's the tension: you're competing for a shrinking pool of people who are ready to give right now, while ignoring those who aren't ready yet but might be in three months.

The why

Lower-funnel advertising works. Search ads consistently deliver the highest return at $2.23 for every dollar spent. When someone types "donate to disaster relief" into Google, showing up at that exact moment is incredibly effective.

But here's what doesn't show up in those metrics: where did that person first hear about you? The donor who searches for you today may have seen your social content three months ago, heard about you from a friend, or noticed your ads enough times that you felt familiar when it mattered.

Upper-funnel work is harder to measure and slower to pay off. You're building recognition with people who may not give for months. But organizations that skip this step find themselves stuck, endlessly bidding against competitors for the same small pool of ready-to-convert donors.

Should you care?

This isn't about choosing one over the other. It's about balance. If you pour everything into lower-funnel conversion, you're only harvesting — you’re never replanting.

Keep your lower-funnel efforts strong. But invest enough in upper-funnel awareness that you're constantly expanding the pool of people who know you exist and trust you enough to give when the time comes.

Your next major donor might not be searching for you today. But if they're not aware you exist, they'll never search for you at all.

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