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Five Ways to Optimize Your Email Fundraising Strategy

by with No Comment CCAHdigitaldigital fundraisingdigital marketingonline fundraisingonline giving

Email is responsible for about one third of nonprofits’ online fundraising revenue. With email files often five times larger than social network followers, it has become the workhorse of many organizations’ digital fundraising.

Optimizing your email fundraising strategy can pay big dividends. Read on to learn ways you can make the most of your email program!

1

Focus on quality, not quantity.

Everyone is sending more emails—but users aren’t opening them. That’s why you should focus on quality, not quantity. For example, individualizing emails can increase open rates by 244 percent—and improve clickthrough rate by 161 percent.

2

Remove inactive addresses.

When you repeatedly email non-responders, the resulting lower engagement rates reduce the likelihood of your messages being delivered—which further depresses engagement rates. Purge those inactives to avoid being trapped in a vicious cycle.

3

Always test.

Test send day, send time, and cadence. Test subject line length, tone, and content. Test sender name and email address. And test copy and design to ensure that calls to action are clear and compelling. Test everything, and test often!

4

Create stronger and more specific segments so you always send the most relevant content.

Consider creating a “recently engaged” segment that includes recipients who have opened at least five or clicked at least one email in the past six months. You can also target specific interests based on response to a similar action alert or donation subject appeal in the current or previous year. And be sure to segment for chronic non-responders—those who have not opened, clicked, taken action or donated in a specific period.

5

Target content based upon what you know about your donors.

Your donors expect you to know who they are—so use the data you have! Personalize by name, location, and cohort status. And when you don’t know, ask questions to learn more!

We would love to work with you to optimize your email fundraising strategy and make the most of this important revenue source. Please reach out to Brenna Holmes, Principal and Senior Vice President, at bholmes@ccah.com to learn more about how we can help!

“We’re Changing Everything”: Navigating Social Ads in the 20s

by with No Comment digitaldigital adsdigital fundraisingdigital marketingNTConline fundraisingonline giving

Last year the social advertising industry was turned upside down.

With the release of iOS 14.5 for iPhone, Apple gave users the ability to opt-out of tracking for targeted advertising. The New York Times has reported that more than 80 percent of users have done so—a huge shift that has meant more than a few sleepless nights for CCAH’s Digital Advertising Team.

“The ad landscape has changed dramatically over the past year,” says Senior Digital Advertising Manager Mike Crump. “It’s been a time of rapid learning for everyone in the industry.”

Earlier this week, Mike and Senior Advertising Specialist Linsey Park led a session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference exploring both the challenges and unexpected opportunities presented by last year’s dramatic shift.

The numbers tell the story: impression costs on Facebook are double or even triple what they were last year. Donation rates are dropping, there’s less individual engagement on Facebook, and changes to interest-based targeting—particularly important for nonprofits—have thrown many marketers for a loop.

Not CCAH’s Digital Advertising team, however.

“It’s been a challenge, but an exciting one,” says Mike. “It has given us the opportunity to reassess some longstanding assumptions within the fundraising and advertising space—and try new things.”

One example is the team’s push for more creative advertising approaches, incorporating video and animation—as well as static ads—to grab and hold users’ attention. Mike, Linsey and the rest of the Digital Advertising department have also been exploring a variety of lead generation strategies like quizzes, surveys, petitions and more. Investing in these strategies will drive traffic and create a “well” of users for later retargeting.

But no matter how creative you get, there’s no getting around it: Facebook and other social media platforms simply can’t provide the audience or the data that they used to. That’s why CCAH’s Digital Advertising team remains committed to following the data.

In this new era of digital advertising, it’s more important than ever to monitor costs, track conversions, and adjust accordingly.

In addition, bringing digital advertising out of its traditional silo has become absolutely essential. Ads should compliment what is happening across other channels, contributing to overall brand awareness and increasing the number of touchpoints.

Linsey sees CCAH’s Digital Advertising team as uniquely ready to meet this challenge. “In our department, we have seasoned nonprofit fundraising professionals as well as for-profit experts.” She believes that industry-wide changes will lead to more of an overlap between for-profit and non-profit advertising—and knows that CCAH is more prepared than most for this shift.

If you’d like to know more about how CCAH and our Digital Advertising team can help your organization during this period of transition, feel free to reach out to Mike at mcrump@ccah.com or Linsey at lpark@ccah.com. We’d love to work with you!

CCAH’S Top Tips for Giving Tuesday

by with No Comment #GivingTuesdaydigital fundraisingonline fundraisingonline givingyear end

So #GivingTuesday (GT) is coming … yes, I know it’s 90 degrees in DC (and in many other places!), but holiday shopping, travel, and year-end fundraising seems to start earlier every year, so why not embrace it and get your plan in place now?

Giving Tuesday is a global day of giving that allows your organization the unique opportunity to engage with your donors, supporters and volunteers to raise important funds for your mission. Taking place on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday kicks off the charitable season for many non-profits, political and advocacy organizations. With more than 3,600 charities participating, it’s important for you to consider ways that your organization can stand out and make the most of this giving day. Whether this is your organization’s first time participating or you’re ready to level up, it’s never too early to start thinking about Giving Tuesday plans.

First steps for organizations that haven’t fundraised on Giving Tuesday before:

1. Start backwards: Determine the promotional efforts that will happen prior to Giving Tuesday. If this is the first time your organization is participating, you’ll need to start sharing details prior to Giving Tuesday to let your donors, supporters and volunteers know that they can support your organization this Giving Tuesday.

2. Pump up the surround sound: A successful Giving Tuesday includes coordinated efforts across all digital channels. You want to meet your Giving Tuesday donors where they are, so that could be via email, social media, or your homepage.

3. Set a goal and show impact: Inspire your donors to help you reach an important goal this Giving Tuesday that can have an important impact on your mission. This can help motivate them to choose your organization this Giving Tuesday. It also allows you the opportunity to follow up after Giving Tuesday with how their donation made a difference.

Next steps for organizations that have fundraised successfully on Giving Tuesday and are ready to level up:

1. Double Up the Impact: Need an extra incentive for your donors to support your organization for Giving Tuesday? Share that they can have double the impact! To stay competitive among charities who are also promoting Giving Day, providing a matching gift opportunity can be a stronger motivator for someone to make the choice to give to your organization. You might even see some triple or quadruple opportunities out there!

2. Go Beyond Digital: You’ve pumped up the surround sound already, so it’s time to go beyond digital channels! The reach of your Giving Tuesday efforts can extend to donor’s mailboxes. Try sending a postcard mailer or other direct mail formats to your direct mail audience with a short URL or QR code. You never know who of your direct mail donors might be interested in taking part in this global day of giving, but you have to make sure to ask!

3. Make it Monthly: Giving Day is a great opportunity to build your monthly giving program. These are your most loyal donors that give monthly to help sustain your organization’s programs and services. While you may not see the same revenue totals on the day of, the long-term value you are building can be even stronger.

Make it your own, rally your network of supporters, go out there and raise important funds for your mission. Giving Tuesday is fast approaching, but with these tips, a successful giving day is right around the corner!

The Future of Digital Advertising

by with No Comment CCAHChapman Cubine Adams Husseyclient servicescross channel marketingdigitaldigital fundraisingdigital marketingfundraisingmultichannelmultichannel marketingnonprofit fundraisingomnichannelStrategy

Preparing for a Cookieless Future

The only constant is change.

This mantra could never ring truer than for those of us who spend our days focused on digital advertising. With technology advances, shifts in policy priorities, and an ever-evolving user base adjusting its online activity, we know change is always around the corner.

But when you’re tasked with bringing in mission-critical revenue for some of the nation’s biggest nonprofits, you can’t be afraid of that.

The latest wave of change in the online ecosystem? The looming sunset of the third-party cookie. Or rather, the decision to retire support for it in Google Chrome (several other browsers have already retired third-party cookie support in recent years, citing privacy and other concerns). But with Chrome’s 65% market share (and 70% on mobile!) this decision effectively puts the nail in the coffin.

Last year, Google announced its decision to sunset support in Chrome in 2022, and since then a flood of bad puns have filled the advertising space and industry papers about cookies crumbling, half-baked tech responses, and other groaners. Google has since adjusted its timeline to delay this change to 2023, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start preparing now.

Why does this matter? First- and third-party cookies are a big part of what makes the internet function. They help websites deliver a customized web experience to you (think leaving an item in your online shopping cart), and they can ensure that the ads you receive (and that keep your favorite websites online) make sense for you as the individual.

We (Van Do, Senior Strategist, and Mike Crump, Digital Advertising Manager, along with Pete Ellard of Nexis Direct) were fortunate enough to present on what’s next in the digital advertising space without a third-party cookie as a part of DMAW’s Digital Week. (For a deeper dive than we’re able to fit in a blog post, take a look at our presentation here).

Here’s the thing though: despite a lot of chatter on the end of the third-party cookie, for 90% of your nonprofit advertising and fundraising efforts, you’re not going to see a real change.

You want to raise the most revenue for your programs, and the strongest direct results in the nonprofit world right now are generally coming from the “walled gardens” of Google, Facebook, etc, with robust first-party user data. Could this change? Sure. Soon? We’re not betting on that.

But there will be an impact on programmatic advertising like banner ads on websites, which use web signals (anonymous) and credentials to build out and fine tune user profiles for optimal ad delivery and to remarket. Historically, programmatic delivery has relied on third-party cookies that help connect a user’s web activity across different websites.

As we already noted, the third-party cookie has been on the decline for several years.

And the industry has been preparing for that. New tech like Google Turtledove and Privacy Sandbox have been under development to specifically address the sunset of the third-party cookie. And while those tools will take some time for full development and rollout, rest assured that they are on the horizon.

So let’s look back at first-party data, which is where we’ll need to focus in the short term.

What can you do right now?

  • Take a look at your access to first-party data. Are your Google Tag Manager and Analytics accounts fully set up to maximize data collection?
  • Look at your users. What additional information can you gain about your customers to tease out new targeting models? What are some overlying interests and demographics? What content sources do they follow? How can you use this information strategically?
  • Start testing. Start your testing now — if you’re quick you may even find some learnings that can be applied at year end.

What can you test? Some areas of opportunity to consider (and for more information on these, take a look at our presentation):

  • Native and Contextual Targeting to supplement programmatic display budgets
  • Direct buys with content creators utilizing their internal user data
  • Other data sources like IP targeting
  • Robust targeting lists from data vendors
  • Inventory from niche sites relevant to your mission

The TL;DR: If your organization is small or new, or otherwise has a small ad investment program, focus on high-impact, high-result channels first (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook & Instagram). Prioritizing these platforms while results are strong will limit the impact of the cookieless future on your program.

And for your programmatic and display budgets? Dig into the data and start testing! But don’t scale until you see results coming in to warrant a spend.

We’re always up for a discussion with other nonprofit professionals and marketers about digital advertising. You can reach me at mcrump@ccah.com or Van at vdo@ccah.com. For more information on how this may impact your organization, reach out to work with us!

CCAH Attends Engaging Networks Community Conference

by with No Comment Brenna HolmesCCAHChapman Cubine Adams Husseyclient servicescross channel marketingdigitaldigital fundraisingdigital marketingdonor recruitmentEngaging Networksfundraisingmultichannel marketingNew Opportunitiesnonprofit consultingnonprofit fundraisingNonprofit Marketingsustainers

Last week CCAH had the honor of presenting at the Engaging Networks Community Conference. This conference is an opportunity for industry leaders to have one-on-one conversations with colleagues and learn how they are innovating on the Engaging Networks platform.

CCAH attendees learned about critical strategies to ensure increased data security, innovative features exclusive to the platform, and got a sneak peek at what Engaging Networks has in store for 2020. These learnings will allow our Account and Web Developer teams to better achieve client goals by building upon the already robust donation tracking, A/B testing, personalization, and segmentation strategies.

With topics ranging from email automation to peer to peer fundraising, this conference was a great way to remind ourselves of tried and true SOPs and the importance of finding innovative techniques for our client’s success. Conferences like these are a great way for CCAH to show our community what’s working for our clients and what’s working for our company.

Brenna Holmes, Vice President of Digital Services, and Alyssa Ackerman, Senior Account Executive, co-led a session on building a recurring giving program for the future. These sessions featured omnichannel tips as well as case studies of our most successful tactics.

Check out some photos of our experience and the full-length presentation video below!

nonprofit radio.

CCAH on Nonprofit Radio – Welcoming Your Donors The Right Way

by with No Comment digital fundraisingnonprofit radio

While at the 19NTC conference, two of CCAH’s Vice Presidents – Chrissy Hyre and Brenna Holmes – did a segment on Tony Martignetti’s Nonprofit Radio, talking about their standing room-only session Make Them Love You – Welcoming Donors the Right Way!

Building an integrated surround sound welcome series is more important than ever. Have you got one in place?This panel will get you started in the right direction.

Listen to their podcast here!

And remember - You only get once chance to make a first impression!

What are your favorite tips that Brenna and Chrissy gave? Let us know by commenting below!

The Importance of KPIs

by with No Comment analyticscross channel marketingdatadata analyticsdigital fundraisingdirect mail fundraisingfundraisingintegrated marketingIntegrationmultichannelmultichannel marketingNonprofit MarketingStrategystrategy planning and trackingtelemarketing

You may read that title and say “I know this already, I use KPIs, All. The. Time.” But do you? A lot of people treat KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and Metrics as the same thing. BUT THEY ARE NOT.