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About

Stanford Immigration Policy Lab evaluates and designs policies surrounding the integration of immigrants and refugees worldwide. They are reimagining the traditional research model of social science to be more collaborative and responsive to real-world problems. By helping partners in government agencies and nonprofits better understand flaws in the status quo, they discover opportunities for incremental change to drive impact. Stanford IPL was partnering with the New York Office for New Americans, the Robin Hood Foundation, New York Community Trust, and others on the Naturalize NY initiative, which offered fee vouchers to directly assist New Yorkers with becoming US citizens and to learn how citizenship impacts immigrants, their families, and communities.

The Challenge

Stanford IPL and Naturalize NY had an ambitious goal: 2000 qualified registrants to their program. To be a qualified registrant, one had to hold a US green card (lawful permanent resident) be eligible for U.S. Citizenship, be a resident of the State of New York, and meet certain income requirements. The program is to help serve New Yorkers who face economic obstacles to becoming naturalized citizens.

What we did

In 2018, Whole Whale worked with the Stanford IPL team to run a digital ad campaign to drive qualified individuals to register.

Google Analytics

Whole Whale audited and reviewed the current Google Analytics setup to make sure all key actions on naturalizeny.org were being tracked correctly and we were filtering the view to only see behavior from potential registrants. We then created a funnel of engagement to ensure that any ads reporting focused on key actions, rather than vanity metrics. Whole Whale also set up automated dashboards so the Stanford IPL team could easily review the site data.

Digital Advertising

Whole Whale devised a digital advertising strategy on both Facebook and Google AdWords to test which platform would be most effective. We also drafted advertising copy and calls to action based on researched value propositions relating to citizenship, made additional social media recommendations, and built AdWords ad campaigns for one of the other Naturalize NY partners, Dominicanos USA. Across all platforms, we ran multiple campaigns testing copy, images, and calls to action.

Website Optimization

As we drove traffic to the site, Whole Whale saw opportunities to optimize the user experience of NaturalizeNY.org for conversions. Whole Whale conducted a website optimization audit summarizing these suggestions, and investigated quick and easy ways to implement them.

Capacity Building

Whole Whale conducted trainings on Google Analytics and Facebook Advertising, and was readily available to answer any questions from the Stanford IPL team and their partners. Now, Stanford IPL can continue to optimize their ad campaigns to drive qualified registrants and help more immigrants apply for citizenship.