Campaigns & advertising
Coordinated membership marketing campaigns across paid social, search and email: planned around lifetime value, not vanity metrics, and measured on the members they win and keep. Plus a planner to size the budget before you spend it.
Campaigns that recruit, renew, reactivate, launch, refer
Five campaigns
the right prospects in
the run-up to the renewal date
recent leavers, back
a new tier, benefit or year
members as recruiters
01/ the approach
A referral programme brief separates a useful invitation from reward, attribution and support rules.
Turn an agreed campaign idea into an execution brief with an audience, owner, budget limit and measurement window.
A membership campaign that generates cheap sign-ups who churn in year one has cost you money, not saved it. We plan every campaign around lifetime value: targeting the members who stay, and funding renewal and reactivation alongside acquisition.
This sits alongside our member acquisition strategy and the wider membership marketing programme: campaigns are how the strategy gets executed in-market.
“The cheapest new member is the one you didn’t lose. Fund the renewal campaign before the recruitment one.”
Member action
Every campaign has one goal, one offer and one deadline: recruit, renew or reactivate.
Paid social, search and email carrying one coherent message to the right segment.
Judged on cost per member against the lifetime value that member represents.
Renewal data feeds the next campaign, so targeting sharpens every cycle.
02/ campaign types
A membership calendar combines several of these across the year: winning members, keeping them, and recovering the ones who slip away.
Many organisations leave paid channels untouched. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2026 finds 66% of UK charities run no pay-per-click ads and 58% no paid social advertising.
For eligible charities, Google Ad Grants provides up to $10,000 a month of in-kind search advertising (Google’s own programme terms, in US dollars).
01 / Acquire
Bring the right prospects into membership: targeted paid social, search and email built around who renews, not just who signs up. Acquisition only pays back if the members stay. Measured on: new members, blended CAC.
Size the budget →02 / Retain
A structured run-up to the renewal date (reminders, value recap and easy payment) so renewing is the obvious choice. The cheapest members to keep are the ones you already have. Measured on: renewal rate, on-time renewals.
Renewal email templates →03 / Recover
Recent leavers valued you once. A segmented win-back campaign with a specific reason to return recovers members far cheaper than acquiring cold ones. Measured on: reactivation rate.
The win-back sequence →04 / Launch
A new tier, benefit, conference or membership year needs a campaign behind it: a coordinated push across channels with a clear offer and deadline. Measured on: sign-ups, event registrations.
Plan a launch →05 / Advocate
Your members are your best channel. Referral campaigns turn satisfied members into recruiters, lowering blended acquisition cost with warmer, higher-retaining leads. Measured on: referred members, referral rate.
Plan a referral campaign →03/ budget planner
Set your budget, target cost per member, average fee and how long members stay. See the members you’d win and whether the lifetime value justifies the spend. Illustrative: nothing is stored.
Projected campaign outcome · new members acquired
25
First-year fee revenue £3,750 · lifetime value per member £750 · total lifetime value won £18,750
Lifetime value : cost · Healthy (≥ 3:1)6.3:1
At this ratio the campaign more than pays for itself over a member’s lifetime — the level a sustainable acquisition campaign aims for.
Plan this campaign with us →Illustrative. A healthy membership campaign aims for at least 3:1 lifetime-value-to-cost (GlueUp’s published guidance). Model value in detail with the lifetime value calculator.
04/ the maths
Ongoing plans start from £1,500 per month; the campaign budget beyond that is set by the goal and the maths. A common rule of thumb puts allowable member acquisition cost at 50–100% of first-year dues (MembershipCorp), and a healthy campaign aims for a lifetime-value-to-cost ratio of at least 3:1 (GlueUp).
Retention is 5–25× cheaper than acquisition (Harvard Business Review), so fund renewal too.
Timing sets a ceiling on recruitment. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute estimates only about 20% of business buyers are in the market over a year and around 5% in a quarter (a heuristic for B2B purchases, not membership data), so a single burst can’t reach buyers who aren’t ready. Spread spend across the year.
Lifetime value against acquisition cost
Business buyers in the market over a year
Business buyers in the market in any quarter
05/ how we run them
The same disciplined loop behind every campaign, whether it’s recruiting members or winning back lapsed ones.
Recruit, renew or reactivate, then fix the numbers: budget, a target cost per member, and the lifetime value that has to justify it.
Aim at the segments that stay, not just the cheapest clicks. A low CAC on members who churn in year one is expensive, not efficient.
A clear reason to act now (a deadline, a benefit, a trial) carried across paid social, search and email in one coherent message.
Judge campaigns on the members they keep, not the leads they generate. Feed renewal data back so each campaign targets better than the last.
06/ the rules
Email, text and direct social messages carry legal rules; offers carry advertising rules. Check both before launch.
Under PECR you must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without specific consent, bar a limited “soft opt-in” for your own previous customers (which does not cover bought-in lists), and every message needs a way to opt out (ICO). The same rules reach “tell a friend” referral mechanics that you instigate.
Charities have a separate route: the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added a “charitable purposes soft opt-in” to PECR (Fundraising Regulator).
Is the campaign ready to send?
01Has everyone on the email list consented, or come in under a soft opt-in?
02Did any of the list come from a bought-in source?
03Does the referral ask members for friends’ email addresses?
04Does the offer show its deadline and conditions up front?
05Does every message carry a working unsubscribe?
Answer the 5 questions to see where you stand.
ICO · CAP Code section 3. A readiness check, not legal advice.
An offer must not materially mislead, and must not leave out significant limitations: a deadline, an eligibility rule, a price after the trial (CAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.9).
Email earns the effort: the DMA’s 2026 UK benchmarks, built from six email service providers, report improving deliverability, falling unsubscribe rates and record click-through rates.
Written by Dan Keegan
07/ questions
15 minutes · video or phone
Book a free consultation and we’ll plan the campaign calendar, set the targets and run it: measured on members won and kept. New subscription startups and member clubs can start on a free trial.
Pick a day that suits · live availability
Book 15 minutes · no obligation
Measured on members won and kept. Ongoing plans from £1,500/month.
09/ sources
Vendor, practitioner and US-dollar sources are labelled as such.