Clean water charity WATERisLIFE turned 1,000 1-cent payments into hyper-targeted ads on social payment app Venmo, creating a new media platform to talk directly to millennials in their own language.

On the 4th of July, one of the biggest days for spending money out with your friends, we monitored Venmo’s global feed in real time, to see who was paying who back, and for what. Then we immediately sent them a micro payment. People paying each other back for things like beer and pizza received a 1-cent payment with a relatable caption, and a direct link to donate. Users started paying us back directly on Venmo and reposted our ads, using the caption to spread our message about clean water.

For $10, we directly targeted 1,000 people, turning every payment into a personalized ad. All ads were automatically published to users’ news feeds, and Venmo’s public global feed where they were visible to millions of users. We had created our own media channel. Almost immediately, users started paying us back on Venmo, reposting our ads to spread our message about clean water.

The campaign was quickly picked up by media outlets like Gizmodo, PSFK, and Techcrunch, leaving us $1.78 million worth of earned media—priceless exposure for a small charity for a small $10 investment.

After quickly raising $1,000 in a day, Venmo shut us down—but offered WATERisLIFE their third ever charity account, allowing us to legitimately raise many next to behemoth like The American Heart Association and Malaria No More.