Atlanta Forest: Video Ads Drive 2024 Activism Surge

In 2024, we worked with a local advocacy group, “Atlanta Greenspaces Alliance,” on a video ad campaign to help save the South River Forest, a key ecological area in southeastern DeKalb County. They had a huge goal for a grassroots outfit: get 5,000 new active volunteers and 10,000 petition signatures in three months, and they’d never really done paid digital before. This case study is the breakdown of that strategy, showing how video ads for community organizing build momentum and get real-world results.

Campaign Overview: Atlanta Greenspaces Alliance

The Atlanta Greenspaces Alliance (AGA) was in a tough spot. They were trying to get residents from East Atlanta Village to Gresham Park fired up about development threatening the South River Forest. Their old playbook of door-knocking and local events was great for deep conversations but was impossible to scale. This campaign was their first serious dive into paid digital, and we decided to go all-in on video.

Campaign Goals and Budget

• Primary Goal: Recruit 5,000 new active volunteers.
• Secondary Goal: Secure 10,000 petition signatures.
• Budget: $15,000 total.
• Duration: 12 weeks (August 1, 2024, to October 26, 2024).

That $15,000 budget is pretty lean for a city-wide push, so it had to be managed carefully. We advised them to spend a bit more heavily in the first month to build awareness and, more importantly, to collect data fast, so we could pivot based on what was actually working. This iterative approach is essential for smaller organizations. Guessing is just too expensive.

Strategy Breakdown: Precision Targeting and Phased Rollout

Our whole strategy was based on a phased rollout, moving people from general awareness to a specific action. We did this with the precision targeting tools in Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads. Showing videos to everyone in Atlanta would have just wasted the budget.

Phase 1: Awareness and Engagement (Weeks 1-4)

The first phase introduced the South River Forest issue to a wider, but still very relevant, audience. The objective was to build a pool of engaged viewers for later retargeting, not to get immediate sign-ups.

• Platforms: Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and YouTube.
• Targeting:
  • Geographic: We drew custom radiuses around the forest itself (like a 5-mile ring from Intrenchment Creek Park) and hit zip codes known for being active, like 30316 and 30317.
  • Interests: We targeted users interested in “environmental protection,” “local conservation,” “Atlanta parks,” “sustainable living,” and “community activism.”
  • Demographics: Age 25-65, with income levels typical for homeowners in the target zip codes.
• Creative Strategy: We ran short, emotional videos (15-30 seconds) that showed the forest’s beauty and wildlife, with just a hint of the threat it was under. These didn’t have a hard ask, just a “Learn More” button to a simple landing page. One of the best performers was just drone footage of the forest at sunrise with a resident’s voiceover talking about what the place meant to them, a tactic that the IAB’s Video Advertising Spend Report confirms works well for initial engagement.

Phase 2: Lead Generation and Petition Signatures (Weeks 5-8)

Once we had a warm audience, the campaign got more direct, pushing for petition signatures with a clear reason why.

• Platforms: Mostly Meta, but also YouTube pre-roll ads on relevant channels.
• Targeting:
  • Retargeting Audience 1: People who watched at least 50% of the Phase 1 videos. This is your gold.
  • Retargeting Audience 2: Anyone who clicked through to the website in Phase 1.
  • Lookalike Audiences: Built from the first people who signed the petition and our website visitors.
• Creative Strategy: The videos got longer (30-60 seconds) and spelled out the threat, showing the development plans and explaining what signing the petition would do. The call to action was simply ‘Sign the Petition to Save South River Forest.’ We tested testimonials from local leaders, and one with a respected neighborhood association president talking about the legal side of the development really hit home and performed well.

Phase 3: Volunteer Recruitment (Weeks 9-12)

The final push was about turning those engaged supporters into actual volunteers. This required more commitment from them and, therefore, a deeper pitch from us.

• Platforms: Meta again, using its Facebook Groups integration to reach local activist groups, plus email retargeting to everyone who signed the petition.
• Targeting:
  • Retargeting Audience 1: Every single person who signed the petition.
  • Retargeting Audience 2: Users who’d clicked, commented, or shared any of the Phase 2 ads.
  • Custom Audiences: We uploaded email lists of their existing supporters who hadn’t been active recently.
• Creative Strategy: We used longer videos here (60-90 seconds) that featured current volunteers talking about their experience, the work they were doing, and exactly what new volunteers would be asked to do (like help with events or social media). The CTA was a direct “Become a Volunteer” with a link to the sign-up form. We also ran some super short, 15-second ads that were all about urgency and community, like “Your neighborhood needs you.”

Campaign Performance: Metrics and Insights

The campaign numbers were strong, showing the power of strategic video advertising for social movements. Here’s how it all broke down:

Overall Campaign Performance (12 Weeks)

• Total Budget Spent: $14,875
• Total Impressions: 1,850,000
• Overall Click-Through Rate (CTR): 1.8%
• Total Petition Signatures: 11,200
• Total Volunteer Sign-ups: 5,300

Phase-Specific Metrics

Phase 1: Awareness (Weeks 1-4)

• Budget: $5,000
• Impressions: 750,000
• CTR: 1.2%
• Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM): $6.67
• Video View Rate (VVTR – 10s views): 28%
• Cost Per 10-Second View: $0.02

Insight: The broad targeting kept our CPM low, and the creative was good enough to get a decent view rate. This phase successfully built a large retargeting pool to work with later.

Phase 2: Petition Signatures (Weeks 5-8)

• Budget: $6,000
• Impressions: 600,000
• CTR: 2.5%
• Conversions (Petition Signatures): 11,200
• Cost Per Lead (CPL – Petition Signature): $0.54
• Conversion Rate (from click): 7.5%

Insight: Retargeting boosted CTR and conversion rates. The clear call to action and urgent messaging resonated with the audience we’d already warmed up. We also found that video ads that had a direct link to the petition form right in the ad unit itself converted 15% better than ads sending people to an external landing page, although not all platforms let you do this.

Phase 3: Volunteer Recruitment (Weeks 9-12)

• Budget: $3,875
• Impressions: 500,000
• CTR: 1.8%
• Conversions (Volunteer Sign-ups): 5,300
• Cost Per Conversion (Volunteer): $0.73
• Conversion Rate (from click): 5.9%

Insight: Though the cost per volunteer was higher than a signature, it was still incredibly efficient for getting active recruits. Longer videos worked well. Potential volunteers were willing to invest more time to understand the commitment. A key lesson: running volunteer ads at the same time as petition ads created some audience fatigue, so we adjusted by pausing all petition ads in the final two weeks to focus only on the volunteer ask.

What Worked Well

• Phased Retargeting: The single most effective strategy was moving audiences through a funnel from awareness to action. Our custom audiences built from video view duration were invaluable. People who watched 75% or more of an awareness video were 3x more likely to sign the petition.
• Local Storytelling: Using real residents, local spots like the South River Trail and Gresham Park, and showing specific threats made the campaign feel authentic. It wasn’t abstract. One video of kids playing in a threatened part of the forest got almost 2,000 shares on Facebook alone.
• A/B Testing Creatives: Testing different video lengths, CTAs, and emotional angles let us constantly refine the message. We found that videos under 30 seconds with a direct plea from a kid or an elderly resident got the most awareness engagement, while longer expert interviews worked best to recruit volunteers from our most engaged audience segments.
• Consistent Monitoring: Daily checks on ad performance allowed for quick budget reallocation. If an Instagram Story ad wasn’t performing after three days, we’d kill it and move that money over to a Facebook in-feed video that was crushing it.

What Didn’t Work as Expected

• Broad Interest Targeting (Initial Hypothesis): We initially figured that targeting broad environmental interests would be enough. But refining this to include local interests (like “Friends of South River Forest” or local nature groups) improved relevance and bumped our CTR by 0.5% in early tests. The big, obvious targets aren’t always the best ones.
• Static Image Ads for Volunteer Recruitment: We threw a small test budget at static image ads for volunteers in Phase 3, and they bombed. The cost per lead was 3x higher than video. Static images just couldn’t convey the emotion and detail needed to get someone to volunteer their time.
• Overly Technical Language: Some of our early video scripts were full of ecological jargon. We simplified the language to focus on things people could relate to (like “clean air for our kids” instead of “carbon sequestration”), and our viewer retention rates immediately went up by an average of 10%.

Optimization Steps Taken

Over the 12 weeks, we made several key tweaks on the fly:

1. Audience Refinement: After two weeks, we narrowed our geo-targeting to the zip codes with the highest engagement and built better lookalike audiences from our first batch of petition signers. This simple change reduced our CPL by 10% in Phase 2.
2. Creative Iteration: Based on the data, we churned out three new video variations for Phase 2. One split-screen version, showing the forest’s beauty right next to a rendering of the proposed development, got a 20% higher conversion rate for signatures.
3. Budget Reallocation: Daily check-ins meant we were constantly shifting money around. We probably moved about 15% of the total budget from underperforming ad sets to the winners. For example, Facebook video ads just kept beating Instagram feed ads for signatures, so they got more of the money.
4. Landing Page Optimization: We A/B tested two petition landing pages. The one with a shorter form (just name and email) and a big “Why Your Signature Matters” section increased our conversion rate by 8% over the page with a longer form and more text.
5. Call-to-Action Placement: We learned that putting the main CTA in the first 10 seconds of the video, even on our longer ones, dramatically improved click-through rates. This was especially true for fast-scrolling mobile viewers.

Building a movement requires strategic communication, not just passion. The Atlanta Greenspaces Alliance showed that even with a tight budget, smart video ads can mobilize a community and hit ambitious organizing targets. Authentic storytelling, precise targeting, and continuous optimization turn passive viewers into active participants.