How Infillion’s TrueGiving Educated Audiences on a Rare Disease

Since its inception in 1987, the Scleroderma Research Foundation (SRF) has grown to be the largest nonprofit investor in scleroderma research in the United States. 

But you may be wondering, what is scleroderma? It’s a relatively rare autoimmune disorder, affecting an estimated 300,000 Americans. The name scleroderma literally means “hard skin” because the inflammation triggers the body’s own immune system to make too much collagen, leading to the hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues. And medical research aimed at finding better treatments for people with scleroderma is both time-consuming and expensive. That’s why awareness campaigns that educate people about the disease are so vital to the important research the SRF conducts. 

Thanks to TrueGiving, Infillion’s corporate philanthropy arm dedicated to using our advertising expertise and resources in service of purpose-driven nonprofits and organizations, the SRF was able to tell its complex story – in a pro bono ad campaign that delivered over 900,000 impressions.

SRF was primarily concerned with raising awareness, driving clicks to the site, and reaching as many people as possible. So Infillion worked with the SRF team to put together a two-pronged media strategy, utilizing both our TrueX interactive video and NeXt performance ad units for maximum reach and impact. 

On the TrueX side, we used one of our best performing units, the Foundation Carousel unit, to get their message out there. 

In this experience, users first saw an explainer video about scleroderma playing in full screen on their device. From there, they expanded the side panel on the right hand side of the screen and could then click through the slides to learn more about scleroderma directly from the ad experience, before clicking out to site to take a deeper dive. 

On the NeXt side, we ran a combination of standard display and interstitial creatives along with three unique CTAs (Learn More, Get Involved, and Donate Now) to capture different audiences at every stage of the funnel. 

Altogether, this multi-product approach delivered. The TrueX experience drove a 2.7% CTR, an 8% lift in awareness, and a 14% lift in intent to take immediate action – a statistically significant lift. We were also able to show the SRF team a heat map of the engagement unit, showing when and where people were clicking in the unit, providing valuable insights for future ad campaigns they may run. 

On the NeXt side, we saw a strong programmatic CTR of 0.20% and provided SRF with insights about the devices, geographical areas, and CTAs that performed best, to further aid their future campaigns. 

Using our expertise and resources to support vital enterprises like the Scleroderma Research Foundation is what TrueGiving is all about, and the Infillion team is thrilled to have done what we can to keep their mission moving forward. 

Learn more about TrueGiving here.