Ross Purves Marketing

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Ross Purves Marketing

Terrence Higgins Trust

Transforming HIV awareness through digital

Terrence Higgins Trust is the UK’s leading HIV and sexual health charity. As Digital Marketing Manager, I led the organisation’s digital marketing activity across national awareness campaigns, fundraising, healthcare services and organisational communications. Alongside leading and developing a multidisciplinary digital team, I translated organisational objectives into high-performing digital marketing strategies that increased engagement, improved fundraising efficiency and supported some of the charity’s largest national public health campaigns.

Project Scope: National digital campaigns, digital transformation, fundraising, team leadership and digital strategy.

Results

campaign impressions
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HIV test kits ordered in 2023
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lower fundraising cost per acquisition
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National public health campaigns delivered

Digital transformation and improved digital efficiency

Team of 3, led and developed

The challenge

Encouraging people to change health behaviours requires more than awareness. The challenge was to translate national campaign objectives into effective digital marketing that encouraged HIV testing, supported fundraising and reached diverse audiences across multiple channels. Alongside campaign delivery, there was an opportunity to modernise digital operations, improve performance through data and build long-term organisational capability.

The solution

Integrated Digital Marketing

Working closely with campaign, fundraising and communications teams, I translated organisational objectives into integrated digital marketing strategies that supported some of the UK’s largest HIV awareness and fundraising campaigns. This included planning and delivering activity across email marketing, paid media and digital advertising platforms, using audience insight, testing and performance data to continually optimise campaign effectiveness.

Bringing Fundraising In-House

Alongside campaign delivery, I led the transition of key fundraising campaigns from external agencies to an in-house model. This significantly reduced acquisition costs while providing greater control over campaign performance, reporting and long-term optimisation.

Leading And Developing The Digital Team

As Digital Manager and later Acting Head of Digital, I led and developed a team of three digital marketing specialists, embedding a culture of continuous improvement through mentoring, performance management and organisation-wide digital training. I also managed relationships with external agencies and suppliers, ensuring digital platforms continued to evolve in line with organisational priorities.

Building Digital Capacity

Beyond day-to-day campaign delivery, I played a key role in shaping the charity’s wider digital strategy. By combining analytics, competitor research, user insight and performance reporting, I identified opportunities to improve fundraising, healthcare services and public engagement, helping establish a more mature, data-driven approach to digital marketing across the organisation.

The results

Digital marketing played a central role in increasing awareness of HIV testing, encouraging people to access life-saving services and improving fundraising performance. National HIV Testing Week exceeded its target with more than 25,000 HIV self-test kits ordered in 2023 alone, while bringing fundraising campaigns in-house reduced acquisition costs by approximately 80%. Alongside campaign delivery, improvements to reporting, optimisation and internal capability strengthened the charity’s digital maturity, enabling campaigns to be delivered more efficiently and effectively.

Project Highlights

Their Story, Your Choice
An interactive, choose-your-own-adventure campaign designed to challenge HIV stigma within Black communities. By allowing users to influence the story's outcome through their own decisions, the campaign encouraged empathy, increased understanding and prompted meaningful conversations about HIV, relationships and stigma.
Public Health Awareness Campaign on Mpox
Following the emergence of Mpox in the UK, I supported the rapid digital delivery of a national public health campaign designed to reach those most at risk. Working within tight timescales, the campaign provided trusted information about symptoms, testing, vaccination and prevention, helping people quickly access reliable guidance during a fast-moving public health situation.
Fundraising Value Exchange
I led the transition of the Value Exchange fundraising campaign from an external agency to an in-house delivery model. Through audience optimisation, continuous testing and performance-led campaign management, average cost per lead reduced from £2.21 to £0.35, delivering an 84% reduction in acquisition costs while providing greater control over campaign performance and reporting.
National HIV Testing Week
I led the digital delivery of National HIV Testing Week, supporting one of the UK's largest HIV awareness campaigns through paid media, email marketing and digital communications. The campaign exceeded its original target, with more than 25,000 HIV self-test kits ordered in 2023, helping increase access to HIV testing and encouraging more people to know their HIV status.

Reflection

This role reinforced that successful digital marketing is about aligning strategy, technology and people behind a shared objective. Whether increasing access to HIV testing, improving fundraising performance or developing internal capability, combining strong leadership with data-driven decision-making enabled digital marketing to deliver meaningful public health outcomes at national scale.

Location

London, UK

Duration

2018 – 2024, 2026

Role Type

In-house, Consultant

Industry

Charity Healthcare Third-Sector

Services used

Audit Content Creation Digital Training Email Marketing PPC SEO Social Media Web Design Website Implementation

Technologies

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Premiere Elementor Facebook GA4 Google Ads Google Analytics Google Lighthouse Google Search Console Hotjar Instagram Mailchimp Meta Ads Meta Business Suite Snapchat TikTok Webflow WordPress

Website

Visit

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Ad Examples

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Testimonials

What the team said

Will Howells
  • Organisation: Terrence Higgins Trust
  • Role: Head of Digital

I worked with Ross for several years at Terrence Higgins Trust where he was a valued member of the team and always a pleasure to work with. Having initial joined in a digital marketing role, he quickly took on additional responsibilities across the digital team, eventual becoming a line manager and my de facto deputy. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with him again.

  • Via LinkedIn
Gaz Vorley
  • Organisation: Terrence Higgins Trust
  • Role: Digital Marketing Manager

Ross is an exceptionally capable digital marketing professional and was a brilliant manager to work with as part of the Terrence Higgins Trust Digital Team. In the 4.5 years we worked together he taught me so much about managing digital campaigns and was always willing to guide me when I hit a roadblock. As a teammate he’s skilled and reliable and as a manger he’s supportive and compassionate. It’s always been a pleasure to work with him and he’ll be a credit to any organisation looking to improve their digital campaigns in the future.

  • Via LinkedIn
Kian Scott-Loach
  • Organisation: Terrence Higgins Trust
  • Role: Head of Digital

Ross is an exceptional web and digital marketing manager who would be a valuable addition to any team.

  • Via LinkedIn

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