The Net Project — Mental Health Outreach Campaign

Context

15-week capstone project. Cal State East Bay, MKTG 693. Client: The Net Project, a nonprofit focused on mental health and narrative identity.

The challenge

Mental health audiences don't search for therapy or counseling when they first start looking. They search for why do I feel empty or how to find purpose. Reaching them meant meeting them at the exact moment they were searching — before they'd named it as a mental health problem.

The research

Before writing a single ad, we spent weeks inside the communities where this audience actually lives. We analyzed 6 subreddits — r/Existentialism, r/Stoicism, r/Mindfulness, r/findapath, r/DecidingToBeBetter, and r/careerguidance — across 180+ comments and 60+ threads.

What the research revealed

• The reframe is the product. The highest performing content didn't solve anything — it shifted how people saw their problem. Advice got ignored. Perspective shifts got saved and shared.
• One sentence beats a long post. The most upvoted comments were short because this audience is smart enough to recognize when something gets to the point.
• People are here because they're lonely. The emotional undercurrent wasn't philosophical confusion — it was disconnection. That became The Net Project's biggest opening.

The Hook Point Mirror Test

We analyzed three creators who consistently reach millions in the psychology space — Reid Olson, Dr. Ramani, and The School of Life. The gap between their best and worst performing content came down to one thing: whether the opening created an immediate identity match. When a viewer thinks this is about me within two seconds, they stay. When it feels like a lesson delivered to a third party, they scroll.

The campaign

Built on Google Grants, the nonprofit version of Google Ads providing up to $10,000/month in free search advertising. Two ad groups: Search New (broad awareness targeting users at the very start of their search) and Page Views (re-engagement targeting driving traffic to the Escape the Emptiness and Narrative Identity guides).

Ad copy was written to validate the user's experience rather than tell them what to do. Instead of Find Your Purpose Today, the copy read: Lost in the noise? Find clarity and purpose that lasts beyond quick fixes.

A Redundant Keyword Analysis identified and removed 10 overlapping terms that were competing internally and splitting quality scores.

What the data showed

• 3.70% CTR on Page Views — nearly double the nonprofit industry average of 2%
• 25 to 34 age group drove highest engagement
• 80% of traffic came from mobile, most of it late at night
• Highest impression windows: 9PM to 2AM

Recommendations delivered to client

• Lead with confession, not concept, in all future copy
• Post and run ads between 9PM and 2AM
• Build a library of single-sentence reframes
• Create dedicated ad groups for high-intent queries like self reflection app
• Build toward community, not just content