Major UK Charity's Flagship Event Hits 3x CTR Benchmark with Covatic's Audience Retargeting Technology

by ExchangeWire PressBox on 28th Aug 2025 in News

Octave, the premium, data-fuelled audio and video monetisation platform for the UK's advertisers, has partnered with Covatic to supercharge a major UK charity’s flagship fundraising event retargeting campaign.

By leveraging Covatic's newly launched Audience Retargeting solution, the partnership delivered highly targeted audio advertisements across 5.1 million impressions. The campaign strategically targeted 900,000 unique listeners with personalised audio messages, further retargeting 1.9 million display impressions to boost donor engagement and drive event sign-ups. The result? An exceptional 0.17% click-through rate, three times higher than the industry benchmark for display advertising.

Cross-Platform Sequential Engagement Drives Results

Covatic's innovative approach transforms how charities connect with potential supporters. Covatic's privacy-compliant solution enables strategic re-engagement of users across the entire digital ecosystem. By turning single ad exposures into a complete, data-driven conversion journey, Covatic delivers deeper insights and improved audience engagement. Using advanced cross-platform audience identification, the technology delivered strategic follow-up messages to users as they navigated different digital properties. This approach helps craft cohesive brand narratives, guiding potential supporters from initial awareness through to event registration.

The campaign generated valuable audience intelligence insights for the charity, revealing detailed demographic and socio-economic profiles of its most engaged supporters. Analysis of first-party data and socio-economic classification revealed that the charity's core audience comprises predominantly female supporters aged 35-44, with household incomes ranging from £20-60k, living in London and the North West, typically in flats or maisonettes valued between £250k-£500k, and characterised as couples without children who own their properties outright.

The insights extended beyond basic demographics, identifying three key socio-economic segments that demonstrate highest engagement with the fundraising event:

Executive wealth: high-income professionals successfully balancing careers and family
City sophisticates: younger urban professionals with disposable income for socialising
Student life: students and young people in shared accommodation

These audience insights will inform the Charity’s future campaign development and personalisation strategies, enabling more targeted messaging and improved donor engagement across all marketing channels.

“Audio advertising creates a unique intimacy between brands and their supporters that display formats alone can't achieve," said Hannah Riddoch, head of commercial data at Octave. "By combining this with intelligent multi-channel retargeting, we’re seeing exceptional performance. The audience insights generated through this approach provide this leading charity with an unprecedented understanding of their supporter journey across channels, which will be invaluable for shaping future campaigns."

Exceptional Performance Metrics Revealed

The campaign delivered remarkable results, reaching 900,000 unique listeners with 5.1 million total audio impressions and 1.9 million display retargeting impressions. Achieving an impressive 0.17% click-through rate, it significantly outperformed industry benchmarks for charity advertising. With programmatic advertising expected to reach USD$725bn (£536bn) globally by 2026, this performance demonstrates how charities can leverage advanced retargeting technology to maximise donor retention and event participation while competing effectively in an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

"We're proud to see how our Audience Retargeting solution delivered impressive results for this major UK charity’s event," said Tom McKay, director of client success and strategic growth at Covatic. "Traditional charity advertising often struggles with single-touchpoint limitations, where supporters see one ad and move on. This campaign demonstrated how cross-platform sequential engagement can transform that challenge. By re-engaging users who had previous exposure to the events messaging across multiple digital touchpoints, we helped transform initial interest into meaningful action, achieving that impressive 0.17% CTR while supporting a vital cause.”

Beyond delivering strong performance metrics, the campaign strategically repositioned the event as a premium charitable experience aligned with the lifestyle aspirations of urban professionals and affluent families. By targeting audiences with strong affinity for premium brands like M&S, H&M, and Airbnb, the initiative elevated the event’s brand positioning within the competitive charity fundraising landscape.

For a detailed explanation of how Covatic's Audience Retargeting technology works, read the full announcement on ExchangeWire.