A Non-Techie’s Primer on Google Analytics 4 (and Why You Need to Care)

This week marks a turning point in web analytics, a sort of un-anniversary: one year from now, Google will retire Universal Analytics, which for years now has been synonymous with “Google Analytics” (and for a lot of folks, let’s be honest, with web analytics in general). It’s being replaced with a shiny, new, barely-out-of-beta Google Analytics 4. A year might seem a long way away, but if you want year-over-year data available in GA4 when you start using it primarily, you need to have it set up and collecting data now. Literally, ASAP. Preferably yesterday. A ton has been written about the nitty-gritty details by people who specialize in web analytics (check out this GA4 FAQ from Krista Seiden for a good rundown on what’s changing), and I’m not going to attempt to replicate them here. What I am going to do is break down, in the simplest possible terms, what this means for the typical small-to-medium nonprofit digital team. Specifically, for those of you who need to figure this out and don’t have an entire team of analytics folks and web developers or a big agency on retainer to take care of it. Here we go. What is Google Read More

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Too big, too small, just right: Why knowing your budget is key when you’re hiring a consultant

I often get questions from clients about what things cost. How much would I charge to develop a digital strategy? What’s the cost to develop an online advocacy campaign? How much should we spend on online ads? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for these, and I ask a lot of questions to get at what the organization in question really needs. I’ll ask about their goals, their program, and what resources they can bring to the project. Then, I’ll always ask about their budget. That may seem like circular logic – after all, they’re asking me how much the project costs, so why am I asking them? But it’s a key piece of information for any consultant, and I want to explain why. The real question in my mind, when scoping out a potential project, is not “what will it take to do what this organization wants?” but “what’s the best I can offer to help them meet their goals?” Some projects are pretty specific: writing a fundraising email, for instance, takes roughly the same amount of time and effort no matter who the client is. Others, like a website or an online campaign, are bigger and squishier, and could look Read More

Insights from the Digital Summit

This week I attended the Digital Summit, a digital marketing conference that draws participants from across many sectors. Because I work almost exclusively with non-profits, and most of the events I attend are nonprofit-focused, I find it energizing and often fascinating to attend conferences where many of the participants are from large companies and agencies. It can provide interesting insights to see what the “big brands” are thinking about: some of which is new for the nonprofit sector, too, and some of which isn’t relevant to our work… and some of which we’ve already been doing for a long, long time. Here are a few of my top takeaways from this year’s Digital Summit in DC: Content Marketing: Companies are talking about how to create authentic, meaningful content that connects with their target audiences. Nonprofits have a leg up here, since our content has built-in meaning, but it’s still important to keep our audiences’ priorities in mind. Just because our work is critically important doesn’t mean it feels relevant to people’s lives. If we want people to engage in our campaigns, it’s our job to make them relevant – to make people care. Audience Research: We tend to assume we Read More

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Getting the Right Reporting: Dashboards, Tune-ups, and Deeper Dives

One of the challenges of the digital world, compared to other sectors, is that we have so much data to pick from when analyzing our program’s health. We’re drowning in data. You could spend all day running reports and doing analyses – but unless your organization is large enough and complex enough to have its own analytics team, you probably don’t have time to do that. And more data isn’t necessarily better data. The trick is to effective reporting is to track and use your data smartly: to have the metrics you need, when you need them, but no more than that. It also helps to simplify your processes, so you’re spending more time using that data to inform your work, rather than sinking your effort into pulling and manipulating it. You want different levels of reporting, each tailored to specific, goal-oriented purposes. There are three levels of reporting that I find useful for most non-profit digital programs: Your Dashboard When you’re driving, you need to certain information about how your car is doing right now. Your dashboard tells you how fast you’re going, how hard your engine is working, and whether your headlights are on. It’ll warn you if Read More

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Goal Setting for your Google Grants Campaign – Beyond Fundraising

“Can we use our Google Grant for fundraising?” I get that question a lot, and my usual answer is: yes, in a way. The slightly longer version of that answer is that, yes, fundraising is allowed and many organizations use Google Grants in that way – but it won’t necessary be an effective use for every organization. Search ads are a tough space for fundraising because you get so little space – just a few words! no images! – to make a connection and build trust with potential donors. Direct fundraising asks tend to work best for organizations with a lot of brand recognition (think household-name nonprofits), or those with a mission that strongly invites donations. If you’re a relief organization, for instance, or if you’re working for a cure of a specific disease, people who come to you through search ads are probably primed to donate, because they’re looking to support that specific cause. If someone Googles “help people in Syria” and you show them an ad about supporting aid work in Syria, you’ve probably just gotten yourself a donor. But sadly, most organizations don’t have thousands of people Googling how to give money to your cause. If a Read More

Finding the Keyword Sweet Spot for your Google Grants

Google Grants is a pretty terrific program for 501(c)3 nonprofits. If you’re not familiar with it, Google offers $10,000 per month in free search ads to qualified nonprofits. It’s easy to apply, and if used properly, it can give a nice boost to your online goals. I’ve seen organizations use Google Grants to build their email lists, for instance, with great success. But while the Grants program is quite similar to using a paid Adwords account, there are certain limitations that require a different strategy than you’d use for paid ads. That can make it tricky to figure out what will perform best for your Grants account. With a “normal” Adwords account, your success is based largely on your budget and the competition for your keywords. (It’s also based on the quality of your content – but that’s a topic for another post.) If you’re advertising on a popular topic using a very general keyword, like “donate,” you’re going to get a lot of competition from other non-profits. To beat that competition, you have two choices: Get more specific. If you can advertise instead on, say, “donate to save octopuses,” you’ll have less competition and lower costs – assuming people Read More