Is your nonprofit looking to optimize your fundraising efforts?
You have likely heard that you can use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your online fundraising campaigns. But unless you take into account the right metrics, it’s easy for even the best-designed website or campaign pages to fall flat.
So today the Yeeboo Digital team is going to help clarify how nonprofits can use Google Analytics data to improve their results.
Clearly define and establish goals in your Google Analytics account.
The first step in using Google Analytics to inform your fundraising is establishing goals for your account.
So what makes a good nonprofit fundraising goal? First off, make sure it’s specific enough that it can actually be measured. Some great examples would be:
- How many many donations are needed by year-end in order for your organization’s budget proposal to succeed?
- How many people are you wanting to reach each month for your advocacy campaign?
- How are we going to increase our average recurring donation amount in the new year?
Let’s talk traffic
Website traffic is a measurement of how many people visit your website. It’s important to measure because it helps you understand who’s visiting your site and what they want from it.
You can improve website traffic by providing relevant information that speaks to their needs, as well as by increasing search visibility through SEO (search engine optimization). The more people who visit your site for relevant reasons, the greater the chances a visitor will become a donor or even become involved in the organization itself!
There are a few different ways to measure website traffic, but the most common is with Google Analytics. This free tool helps you understand how many people came to your site from different sources (like search engines vs email marketing), how long they stayed, what content they interacted with and more.
See the whole conversion picture with multi-channel funnels
Multi-channel funnels are a powerful tool for understanding how visitors interact with your website. They show you how many people are coming to your site and what percentage of them make it all the way through the donation process—from first contact to successful donation.
The Yeeboo Digital team often uses multi-channel funnels to gauge the effectiveness of its digital fundraising efforts, change course when necessary, and keep on track toward higher goals.
Multi-channel funnels can be used to track the progress of a single donor or a group of donors who are working together on an event. They also reveal which channels are bringing in new donors and how long it takes them to make their first donation. This information helps you see where to focus your digital fundraising efforts in order to get more people through the donation process faster.
Use segmentation to understand and reach your donors better.
Segmentation allows you to focus on specific groups of users, so that you can understand your audience better and reach them with more relevant content.
For example, if a user has visited the site multiple times but never made a donation, there may be something about their experience that’s preventing them from doing so. If you’re able to identify these users in Google Analytics, you can work with your website team to improve the donation process and make it easier for this segment of users to become donors.
The same goes for other segments: identifying those that are most likely to be donors will help optimize your website for them (and therefore increase donations).
Don’t forget an optimized donation form
Donations are crucial to any nonprofit’s fundraising efforts, but optimizing your donation form can be a challenge. Google Analytics offers insights into how donors are interacting with your site and what information they need to complete the action you want them to take—but how do you know if those insights are enough?
If you’re ready to get started on optimizing your donation form, there are a few key things you’ll want to do:
- Optimize for mobile devices by using responsive design so that it adjusts automatically depending on the device being used. This ensures that potential donors will be able to fill out their information even when they’re on the go.
- Use A/B testing by splitting test groups randomly and comparing the data from each group in order find significant differences between them. Then make changes based on these findings as necessary.
- Change the way you ask for donations by using a “Donate Now” button that appears when people scroll to the bottom of your page instead of having them fill out their information before they can donate. This will help ensure that people who are ready to give are able to do so quickly and easily without being distracted by anything else on your site
Conclusion
It’s important to remember that Google Analytics is a tool, and it can’t make decisions for you. You still need to be the one who makes decisions about how to use your data and what actions follow from it.
But with the right approach, Google Analytics can help nonprofits answer questions about their campaigns so they know what is working and where to focus time and resources next.
Feeling overwhelmed with those first steps? Connect with the Yeeboo Digital team to get Google Analytics set up right for YOU.
Because digital marketing and fundraising is measurable and the data from Google Analytics is a critical tool in helping to support your long-term fundraising strategies.
Tasha Van Vlack (article author) is a nonprofit connector, marketer and advocate. She works closely with the Yeeboo Digital team to curate excellent resources that will support nonprofit professionals in advancing their missions.