Citizens Advice.
Services provided: Strategy, Creative Campaign, Paid Media, Content Guidance.
Brief.
Citizens Advice tasked us with implementing a multi-channel campaign aimed at making young people aware of its national energy-saving initiative while directing them to self-service support via the Citizens Advice website. The core audience was 18–25-year-olds who are living on or beloe the poverty line—specifically those most vulnerable to rising energy costs and most likely to benefit from practical, accessible advice.
Our Approach.
To resonate with young audiences and compete for their limited attention, we built a multi-channel strategy designed to create the perception of being present across all their digital touchpoints and ‘appear to be everywhere’ Our planning centred around TikTok, Meta, YouTube and programmatic channels using contextual targeting, ensuring each platform played a clear role in driving awareness and action.
To maximise budget efficiency, we deployed geo-targeted audiences in UK regions with a high density of 18–25-year-olds living below the poverty line. Creatively, we produced a suite of short-form, platform-native content focused on energy-saving ‘hacks’, actionable ‘how-to’ advice and quick wins. Content ran across video, static and carousel formats to align with platform behaviour and maximise engagement utilising both campain hero content and native content to drive relevancy.
Budget weighting favoured Meta and TikTok, where the target demographic is most active. We also added Google’s Demand Gen mid-campaign to widen reach and strengthen performance, and launched a TikTok Search ad campaign (at the time only available in BETA) to capture users actively searching for energy-saving guidance.
In response to the national news agenda, we strategically launched the campaign earlier than planned to align with the Government’s 1st October energy price announcement, allowing us to capture increased public attention.
While the original KPI focused solely on reach and impressions, strong early performance prompted a shift to include high-quality website traffic. New creatives were introduced throughout the six-week campaign—most notably on TikTok, where a creative added just two weeks before the end became one of the top performers. This agile optimisation ensured consistent momentum and maximised impact.
Results.
The campaign significantly exceeded all targets, delivering 8.2 million impressions—50% above the goal—and 42.1k clicks to site, surpassing the target by 69%. This was achieved with a 60% cheaper CPM than expected.
TikTok emerged as the strongest channel, contributing 71% of total impressions and 65% of clicks while using only 49% of the overall budget. Google’s Demand Gen format also outperformed expectations, delivering a high CTR of 2.41% for an awareness-led placement. On YouTube, 56% of impressions were served on TV screens, giving the campaign a cost-effective, TV-like presence at a fraction of traditional broadcast CPMs.