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Case study

Reducing ActionAid UK’s cost per acquisition through value exchange adaptive SMS solution

The brief:

Long-term Cymba client ActionAid UK does some amazing work helping women and girls who live in poverty, and its long-established value exchange programme (valex) sees people receive a small item – such as a tote bag or period pouch – in exchange for a £3 SMS donation.

The challenge:

Around 50 per cent of people opt out of a fundraising call. However, ActionAid UK needs to capture their postal address to send goods. As the call centre couldn’t ask these people to support ActionAid UK in other ways, placing those calls became a very expensive exercise.

ActionAid text to give mobile screenshots

The solution:

We explored a number of options and arrived at a bespoke SMS service that sent a different message to supporters if they opted out of fundraising calls. This would trigger a different message providing the option of replying with postal details.

The outcome:

Within a month of the initial discussion, the solution went live, removing the costly calling agency charges and allowing ActionAid UK to achieve a lower cost per acquisition for its country-wide campaigns. It has also enabled the charity to focus call centre efforts on meaningful dialogue with supporters they could turn into long-term donors.

“Cymba’s solution has helped reduce our campaign costs massively and subsequently had a positive impact on the ROI for this campaign. Similarly, they regularly make recommendations for improvements to our campaigns and produce innovative solutions.”


Vicky Hayles, Acquisition Campaign Specialist, ActionAid UK

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