# Father’s Day a missed opportunity for charities, says research

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/06/16/fathers-day-missed-opportunity-charities-says-research/
- Published: 2017-06-16T09:00:02+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**Charities are missing out on donations by not digitally promoting ethical or alternative
gift programmes around key calendar events such as Father’s Day, according to research
from equimedia,**

 

While purchases of ethical gifts have seen a [19% increase over two years](https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/caf-uk-giving-web.pdf)
according to CAF – a keyword analysis of online charity campaigns by [equimedia](https://www.equimedia.co.uk/)
has shown no significant uplift from charitable organisations promoting their alternative
gift services.

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equimedia analysed Google search trends around peak annual gifting occasions, which
showed significant volume uplifts from searches among people seeking inspiration
and ideas for unusual gifts. At the same time, its analysis of paid search activity
on Google showed charities were not running digital campaigns to capitalise on these
occasions to promote their ethical gift programmes.

 

equimedia investigated a number of paid search alternative gifting keywords, as 
well as consumer search trends throughout the year for peak gifting occasions such
as Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. It discovered that
according to Google monthly averages for these search terms, an average of 33,000
searches per month are currently being conducted looking for Father’s Day gifts –
equal to the number of searches for online inspiration for Valentine’s Day. This
is only beaten annually by over 60,000 searches a month for Mother’s Day gift ideas.
Over 19,000 additional searches for ‘Father’s Day presents’ and ‘Father’s Day ideas’
a month are currently taking place.

 

Louise Burgess, COO and founder of equimedia, said:

 

> “With the dramatic increase in people taking up alternative gift options from 
> the UK’s charities, you would expect this to be an area where charities are seizing
> on the potential to not only promote their causes around key calendar events but
> to also get ahead of their fundraising targets for the year. It is astonishing
> that this analysis of Google search terms shows that this is not the case.
> “That charities are ignoring key moments throughout the year to engage when Google
> search data clearly shows that people are actively looking for unusual gifts for
> their loved ones, highlights a tremendous missed opportunity – and one which organisations
> could act on with very little financial outlay to deliver tremendous returns.”

 * **[Google changes to Ad Grants terms lift $2 bid cap & block most single-word keywords](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/12/14/google-changes-ad-grants-terms-lift-2-bid-cap-block-single-word-keywords/)**(
   14 December 2017)
 * **[Free Google and Facebook advertising workshops for charities](https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/05/10/free-google-facebook-advertising-workshops-charities/)**(
   10 May 2018)
 * **[Pay per click firm offers pro bono services to charity](https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/06/18/pay-per-click-firm-pro-bono-services-charity/)**(
   18 June 2018)

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