You’ve no doubt labored over the perfect end-of-year plan that falls in line with the continuing trend of covering all of your multi-touch, multichannel donor experiences. While it is extremely important to have your cross-channel content locked down, remember that you must be able to look back and tell your own story once the campaign comes to an end. This is so important that we’re teaming up with our partners at Change.org to bring you a webinar on November 12th about this important topic, and more! Register today for Operation Acquire and Convert!
Wouldn’t it be a shame to have inadequate reporting and analysis to actually find out how your medium-spanning strategy performed?
You will want to know where all of your end-of-year actions and gifts are sourced from, so keep reporting and tracking top of mind as you begin implementing your plan with these pointers:
- Google Analytics Audit
A sweep of your current Google Analytics tracking may show that you need to tweak your code or funnel setup for accurate campaign reporting. As always, the best way to ensure correct tracking is to test it.
If you’re not already doing it, consider GA tracking for your emails as well by tagging links with specific campaign parameters. This will give you an extra layer of insight beyond standard email reporting to see your end-of-year email audience’s website interactions.
- May the Source (Codes) Be with You
A saving grace when dealing with heavy segmentation in end-of-year email campaigns are source codes appended to every link you put out into the world.
For emails, I recommend variant sends for each segment. For instance, high donors get Variant 1, active donors get Variant 2, lapsed donors get Variant 3, etc. This allows you to append unique source codes for each segment at the end of their links.
In your strategy plan, be sure to document the source codes used for your campaign by message and segment for reporting purposes. That way, when you see a source code like “16EOYE1hd” attached to a donation, you will know that it came from the FY16 End-of-Year Email 1 High Donors variant.
- Snail Mail, Phones, Website, Social and Beyond
Don’t fall into the trap of remaining laser-focused on email reporting alone. Remember, we want to be able to report across channels. Don’t forget to append specific source codes to ALL links, including lightbox, slider, social, direct mail vanity URLs, specific telemarketing donation forms and ads.
- Reporting and KPIs
You’ll want to track the obvious: donation amount, number of donations and average gift per channel. For email, stay on top of performance by variant/group, A/B testing, open rates, click-through rates and unsubscribes as well.I also recommend keeping an eye on how many donations per channel are from first-time donors versus returning donors. This is a great way to see if you are battling end-of-year list fatigue and need to pivot engagement strategies for these audiences to deepen their involvement with the organization more. Also, are different acquisition sources performing better on different channels, i.e., emails acquired through social converted better on the phones?Specific Luminate Online reports to reference:
- Email Message –> Variant Performance Report
- Donation Management –> Donations by Transaction
- Donation Management –> Donations by Group Report
- Reports –> Report Writer –> Emails / Transactions Reports
- Analysis and Retrospective
Set up a reporting dashboard to track the campaign before you launch, so you can make real-time updates as you move through it. This dashboard should include all of your main KPIs as columns and will give you great organization heading into the campaign in case you need to pivot based on any findings. For example: Is your match language lightbox outperforming your personal story/video lightbox? Switch to a match-only lightbox moving forward!
You’ll also want to include a year-over-year column or section to this dashboard for easy-to-reference comparison reporting.
A retrospective with your internal team and vendors is also an incredibly useful tool to redefine timelines and assets for future multi-channel deliverables. This will help you keep track of lessons learned and ensure you are prepared to take on FY17 stress-free.
Want to keep the cross-channel conversation alive? Join us for a webinar presented by Charity Dynamics and Change.org: Operation Acquire and Convert on Thursday, November 12th at 2 pm EST.
