Move For Mental Health
Role: Google Ads Campaign Manager
Focus: Search, fundraising campaigns, conversion optimisation & GA4
Objective: Optimise a national fundraising campaign to increase active fundraisers and improve return on ad spend
Outcome: Reduced CPA to £27.94 per active fundraiser, with 71% of active fundraisers acquired after optimisation
£834.69 spend
10,164 impressions
529 clicks
5.20% click-through rate
14 active fundraisers
£27.94 cost per action
Helping more people fundraise for life-saving mental health support through a data-driven Google Ads strategy.
The challenge
Mental Health Innovations' Move for Mental Health campaign encouraged supporters to run, walk, cycle or move throughout May while raising money to help fund Shout's life-saving mental health support.
As a brand-new fundraising campaign, there was no historical Google Ads data to inform the strategy. The challenge was to build a campaign that could attract supporters with strong fundraising intent, while ensuring advertising spend resulted in active fundraisers rather than simply registrations.
The approach
With no historical campaign data, I built the campaign around two audiences: people actively looking to fundraise for a mental health charity, and runners searching for a new challenge.
After gathering sufficient data, it became clear that the 30km Challenge messaging resonated more strongly, achieving a 6.10% CTR compared with 4.56% for the broader fundraising campaign. I shifted the strategy accordingly, while refining keywords, adding negative keywords and continuously testing ad copy to improve performance.
Most importantly, I optimised for active fundraisers rather than registrations, ensuring decisions were driven by real fundraising impact rather than vanity metrics.
The impact
Across the Move for Mental Health campaign, Google Ads was the strongest performing channel.
The campaign finished with 30 registrations, of which 14 became active fundraisers.
Following the optimisation work, 10 of those 14 active fundraisers were acquired after the strategic changes were made, reducing the cost per active fundraiser to £27.94.
“Google Ads was the strongest performing channel. It brought in one of our top five fundraisers, underlining its value beyond volume alone.”
— Move For Mental Health Campaign Report 2026