Online Benchmarking: What Worked in 2012#OnlineBenchmarking

Chas OffutDennis McCarthy

2012 Benchmarking Report:

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2012 Benchmarking Report: Framework Methodology Report by started Vinay Bhaghat, founder of Convio – this is the 7th report and my third.

• The report covers 17 self reported NTEE verticals plus Canada, Teams, and National Non Profits.

•What’s new this year are email tiers, revenue tiers and the years your organization has been engaged on line.

•We also require that you be on the Luminate platform for three years to minimize distortion .

Key Factoids: approximately 500 non profits and their affiliates, 16.8 M donations, 4.2 billion emails sent and $1.12 billion in revenue

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2012 Benchmarking Report: What You’ll Learn in this Session

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• What clear trends have emerged in terms of engagement

• How has advocacy, recurring giving been driving engagement

• And what the hell is a median anyway?

2012 Key Findings

• Despite double digit decline in website traffic and minimal change in website conversion rates, email files grew 12.45%.

• Fundraising continues double digit growth as sustainers and repeat donors grew 27% and 20%, respectively.

• Email opens sees minimal change from previous year, but double digit decline in CTRs. Response rates for appeals also declined 18.77%.

• The number of advocates grew, but not at rate of total house file growth. All verticals saw positive growth in number of advocates who give.

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House file

• As size of file often correlates to revenue, a robust email file is a critical component of any effective online marketing program.

• Trend: Median growth rate for all organizations in this year’s cohort is 12.5%.

• Vertical: All verticals experienced positive growth rate in email files. Food Bank and Hospitals see the highest overall email file size growth rates with 21% and 29%, respectively.

• Email: The largest email tiers saw the greatest growth; 1.5–3x of median growth rate for all organizations.

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Email & Monthly Web Traffic

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Fundraising Growth Rate

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Click Through Rates & Appeals

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Click Through Rates & Appeals

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First Time Gifts

• Gifts with no prior online gift is mapped to that email address. The intent here is to begin to examine online as a new donor acquisition channel.

• Trend: The funds raised from first time gifts see a modest 3% growth, but the % of total revenue declined 9%.

• Vertical: Higher Ed (29%), Hospital Foundation (18%), and Hospitals (22%) see greatest growth.

• Email: Lower and upper email tiers see strongest growth in first time revenue while middle email tiers struggled the most.

• Revenue: Organizations with revenue <$99k and >$3m see negative growth in first time revenue, all other positive.

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Holt International

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• 3.5% website conversion rate• 75% of pledge signees were new registrants• 120% web traffic increase to campaign landing page (YoY)

Repeat Donations

• Repeat donations provide a comparison of the fundraising metrics for repeat/returning donors and their donations.

• Repeat fundraising revenue sees 20% growth; repeat % of total revenue also grew 9%.

• Vertical: Visitation (54%), Higher Ed (40%) and Environment & Wildlife (30%) saw the greatest growth. All verticals see repeat % of total revenue growth.

• Email: 500,000-749,999 see greatest growth, but overall smaller email tiers outperformed the larger tiers for repeat fundraising revenue growth.

• Revenue: All organizations see positive growth, but organizations with revenue >$100K see the greatest growth.

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National 4-H Council

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• A 300% increase in the number of online contributions in one month compared to the previous 3-months combined.

Recurring Donors (i.e. Sustainers)

• Allows organizations to forecast as well as provide designated funding opportunities for donors.

• Trend: The median online revenue from recurring gifts of $30,052, a 27% increase. Recurring giving represents 8% of online revenue.

• Vertical: Verticals with standout performances: Association & Membership, Higher Education, Jewish, and Performing Arts.

• Email: Organizations with email files >200k see the greatest increase, upwards of 48%.

• Revenue: Growth % correlates to larger revenue bands, $2-2.9m see 52% growth.

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Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty

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• Grew number of new sustainers by more than 50% in 2012 compared to 2011.

Christians United for Israel

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• Return on investment was achieved in <3 months.

Email Performance Metric: Opens

• The open rate is the percentage of constituents who view an email divided by the number delivered in the given campaign.

• Trends: Appeals (14.72%) & eNews (15.21%) communication see minimal growth.

• Verticals: The high performing verticals for appeals were Hospital Foundation and Higher Ed. For eNews, Hospital Foundation and Team Event.

• Email: All but the two largest email tiers see positive email growth.

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Email Performance Metrics: Clicks

• The click through rates as a percentage of clicks on one or more links contained in an email divided by the number of email messages delivered.

• Trends: Appeals (.7%) & eNews (1.95%) see decline, 16.01% and 11.91%, respectively.

• Verticals: All verticals except Hospital Foundation and Higher Ed see negative growth for appeals. All verticals except Team Event see negative growth for eNews.

• Email: All tiers except 125,000-199,000 see positive email growth for appeals. All tiers except 750,00-999,999 see negative growth for eNews.

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Email Performance Metrics: Response

• As with other direct response channels, key drivers are campaign response rates.

• Trends: The median response rate is .5%, an 18.77% decline.

• Verticals: Only Hospitals had an increase in response rate of 3.96%.

• Email: Across all tiers, there were declines except for the 750,000-999,000 tier where there was a 21% increase in email response rates.

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Email Performance Metrics…

• As with other direct response channels, key drivers are campaign response rates.

• Trends: The median response rate is .5%, an 18.77% decline.

• Verticals: Only Hospitals had an increase in response rate of 3.96%.

• Email: Across all tiers, there were declines except for the 750,000-999,000 tier where there was a 21% increase in email response rates.

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A Case Where Engagement Trumps

• The industry report identifies the trends which are used to inform the health of your online program, not overall constituent engagement.

• The San Diego Zoo’s total monthly messages grew >4x times.

Does an increase in the number of email messages or the increase in the number of people identified in email messages lead to lower email message performance?

• Reviewed the performance of the unique cons. on email file over the 12-mo to identify trends in total # of message opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.

• These findings revealed that increased messaging has not compromised email performance as the number of opens and click-through increased.

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Advocacy

• Online advocacy provide a grassroots voice, recruits new constituents, and keep constituents engaged. • Trends: Though number of advocates increase 8.7%, the % of advocates on file decrease 1%. Advocates who donate see a 11.98% growth.

Vertical: Jewish organizations see a 29.20% increase of advocates who donate followed by Environment & Wildlife and Higher Ed (22.21% and 21.21%, respectively).

• Email: Highest email tiers see strongest % of advocates who donate, upwards of 38%.

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PETA

• Already high donor & activist overlap, creation of I&R designated giving program converts activists and one-time activist+donor to sustain.

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Homework, reading material and questions

• http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2007/10/beyond_benchmarking_why_copy_t.html

• http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/03/16/using-data-to-inform-strategy/

• Thank you

• Questions

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