# WaterAid's click-to-give site hits target 45 days early

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/07/08/wateraid039s-clicktogive-site-hits-target-45-days-early/
- Published: 2004-07-08T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Aquaplastics.org, the click-to-give online fundraising site for WaterAid, has 
reached its target 45 days ahead of schedule, raising ‚€150,000 for the charity.**

The click-to-give campaign encouraged the public to click once a day on the aquaplastics.
org Web site in order to help raise funds for WaterAid. For every click European
plastics industry body the Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME)
agreed to donate 10 cents.

For the second year running Ellipsis Media was appointed to design, build and maintain
the site. Tink Taylor, New Business Director at Ellipsis, explained: “The international
site, launched in April 2004 in six countries was set to run for three months with
the aim of achieving 1.5 million clicks and in the process raising ‚€150,000 to 
support WaterAid’s work.” The site reached its target faster than last year’s.

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The success of this year’s site can be attributed to a number of new and improved
features designed to heighten interest and ensure that visitors returned on a daily
basis. These included the introduction of an educational daily quiz that, if completed
correctly, generated a bonus click for the participant. The quiz was not only fun
for the participants but also allowed WaterAid and APME to communicate important
messages, facts and figures in an interesting way.

Emily Boyd-Carpenter, Corporate Fundraising Manager at WaterAid explained: “Ellipsis
used a content management system called dotEditor® which allowed Aquaplastics to
monitor where the clicks originated from. It was fantastic to see that so many of
the clicks were as a result of the quiz and it was undoubtedly a factor in the target
being reached so quickly.”

Another key factor was the international viral marketing campaign used to launch
and raise the profile of the site. The viral campaign was implemented using Ellipsis’
dotMailer® and involved e-mailing a database of 50,000 people. This database was
built by dotMailer following the 2003 ‘click-to-give’ campaign where many of WaterAid’s
2003 fund-raisers had opted in to receive further e-mails. DotMailer provided them
with details of the 2004 campaign in a graphical HTML e-mail.

WaterAid were then able to monitor the responses to the e-mail using the dotMailer’s
reporting tools. This allowed them to see exactly how many people were prompted 
to visit the site after viewing the launch e-mail.

Emily explained: “The view and forward rate of the viral marketing was outstanding,
especially from those supporters who signed up to our daily reminder feature that
automatically emailed those who opted in.”

A major issue which could have had a negative impact on the success of the campaign
was that of ‘do-gooders’ trying to override the site’s complex software by implementing
automated clicking programmes and generating fraudulent clicks. Ellipsis was well
aware of this potential issue and devised new anti-clicking detection software that
automatically detected and then discounted fraudulent clicks.

The content management system, dotEditor, also provided assistance in detecting 
the fraudulent clickers, via its real-time reporting tool. Users that were hammering
the server, attempting to try and crack the code were soon spotted in the real-time
click chart reports and subsequently blocked. These users soon gave up and accepted
defeat. Ellipsis said that the anti-clicking detection software combined with dotEditor“
proved to be extremely successful in beating off the ‘hackers’ whilst not preventing
the genuine fundraisers from donating.”

Tink Taylor added: “A key to the site’s success in establishing and maintaining 
donator’s interest was communication. Each and every visitor was kept constantly
updated on the total and amount raised on a daily basis, subsequently our visitors
recognised that they played an effective and essential role in raising funds for
the project. Ellipsis Media would like to thank each and every person that assisted
in helping www.aquaplastics.org.uk reach its target in such a short time and watch
this space for news on www.aquaplastics.org.uk 2005.”

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