Most guides on running a crowd-sourced funding campaign are written by people who’ve never run one. This one isn’t. I was performance lead at Birchal for two and a half years, and I’ve since run the advertising on 34 CSF raises. Here’s how it actually plays out.
The single most important idea to hold onto: momentum and scarcity run through the whole thing. Every decision you make should either build momentum or protect it. Once you see the campaign through that lens, the phases make sense.
Before you launch: this is where raises are won
Nearly everything that decides your outcome happens before you open to the public.
This is the EOI phase - expressions of interest. You run ads and email your existing audience to get people registering interest before the raise goes live. The point is simple: you want a pile of committed demand ready to move the moment you open, so the raise looks alive from minute one.
Two numbers to plan around. On my campaigns, EOIs come in at roughly $30 each through paid ads, and about 22% of them convert to actual investors. That lets you work backwards from your target. Know your target, know your conversion, and you know how many EOIs you need - and what the ad budget has to be to get them.
You also need the opportunity itself sorted before launch: the offer, a valuation that doesn’t scare people off, and a story worth telling. If the offer’s wrong, no amount of ad spend fixes it.
Launch day: bank the momentum early
When you open, you want to convert that built-up EOI demand fast. A raise that jumps out of the gate signals safety to everyone still watching. A raise that opens quietly tells people to wait - and a lot of them never come back.
This is scarcity and social proof doing their work. People invest partly because other people are investing. Early momentum is what pulls in the next wave.
During the raise: keep it moving
The middle of a raise is where a lot of founders go quiet, and quiet kills it. The campaigns that hold momentum are the ones where the founder is genuinely working it:
- Running webinars to talk through the opportunity and answer questions live
- Posting regular updates so there’s always something happening
- Emailing, calling and texting investors and warm leads directly
- Refreshing the ad content throughout so it doesn’t go stale and the cost per EOI stays low
That last one is where I spend my time. Ad creative fatigues fast. If you set it and forget it, your costs climb and your momentum drains. New angles, new copy, new creative keep the engine efficient right through the raise.
The late surge is real - plan for it
Here’s something worth knowing so it doesn’t spook you: a lot of people sit on the sidelines and only move in the final stretch of the offer phase. They sit and watch. They want to see it working before they put money in. Then scarcity kicks in - closing soon, nearly there - and they pile in late.
So don’t panic at a slow middle if your fundamentals are sound. But do earn that late surge: the closer you get to target, the harder you lean on scarcity and social proof.
The mistakes I see again and again
- Launching with a cold list and no EOI phase. Opening to silence is the most common own goal.
- Going quiet mid-raise. No updates, no emails, no webinars. Momentum needs feeding.
- Letting ad creative go stale. Costs creep up, EOIs dry up, and nobody notices until it’s late.
- Treating ads as a five-week afterthought. You’ve got a short window. Every wasted day and wasted dollar is one you don’t get back.
That last point is the big one, and it’s why I only work on CSF. Plenty of people know Meta ads. Very few know how they apply to a crowd-sourced funding raise - the timing, the phases, when to push and when to hold. When your whole advertising window is about five weeks, there’s no time to learn on the job.
Not sure CSF is even the right raise for you? I’ve compared it to the alternatives in CSF vs VC, angels and everything else. And if you want the bigger picture on what makes raises succeed, start with what actually decides CSF success.