I love the smell of successful online fundraising in the morning…

Laura Durington, Catholic Relief Services

Patrick Frame, Key Acquisition Partners

Sean Powell, The Engage Group

#Bridge14 1

How to effectively acquire and re-solicit donors online.

Smells like VICTORY!

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Sean: Intros and overview of session

Pat: Reaching new donors online

Laura: Data Driven Digital

Sean: Recap and Q&A

Today’s Agenda

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Session Overview

Practical and proven techniques to optimize your digital fundraising programs across multiple phases of the donor continuum.

Online acquisition Data-driven digital

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Sean Powell

Director | The Engage Group

Laura Durington

Digital Giving Manager | Catholic Relief Services

Patrick Frame

Principal | Key Acquisition Partners

Your Panelists

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The Engage Group is a fundraising and technology solutions integrator and implementer helping nonprofits build websites, landing pages and email campaigns, no matter what platform is being used.

www.engageyourcause.com

The Engage Group

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Online Prospecting for Sustained Growth

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About Key Acquisition Partners

Key Acquisition Partners is a multi-channel donor acquisition partner for non-profits. Our historical expertise in list brokerage & management is complemented by digital donor acquisition and lead-gen strategies tailored to the needs of today’s non-profits.

Offices in Annapolis, MD & Naples, FL www.keyacquisitionpartners.com

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In this session, you will learn how Key Acquisition Partners uses paid acquisition investments to grow clients’ donor files. Topics include: Types of investments Benefits Process Results

Online Prospecting

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Loyalty Programs—effective but limited scale

Digital Display Advertising | Retargeting

Unless you’re branding, CPA is your best friend.

Some Online Acquisition Types

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Loyalty (?) Programs

Examples:

MyPoints®

eMiles®

“You’ve got more than one loyalty card? That’s despicable!”

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Incentivized Giving Programs Sustainer or 1x gifts

Appropriate for almost any size organization

CPA = low risk; typically $10K minimum

Limited scalability

*Video or dynamic HTML are recommended for best results. 12

Incentivized Giving Programs Typical Results

2-3 campaigns per year per publisher

75 – 125 sustainers per campaign

~70% 12mos sustainer retention

50/50 split sustainer to 1x

Avg. Gift = $16 sustainer; $34 1x

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Loyalty Program Results Over 5 campaigns, CRS has: converted over 550 sustainers received an aggregate 12 month value of $80-100 per donor reached positive ROI the first 12 months

Campaign# of Single

Gifts

Single Gift

Revenue# of Pledges

12 Month

Sustainer

Payments

12 Month

Sustainer

Revenue

Total 12 Month

Value

12-Feb 118 $4,118 205 1,657 $27,517 $31,635

12-Jul 95 $3,172 109 931 $17,617 $20,789

13-Mar 99 $3,225 88 710 $11,688 $14,913

13-Jul 55 $1,670 79 576 $9,152 $10,822

14-Mar 58 $1,890 71 518 $8,225 $10,115 ***Projected

Totals 425 $14,075 552 4,042 $74,199 $88,274

E-Miles / CRS sustainer performance by campaign

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Digital Display: Retargeting/Prospecting Retargeting Prospecting

(Hint: You’ve been to my website!) 15

Digital Display Benefits Scalability compared to other online channels

Mobile & dynamic are available but inventory is more limited and costly

Enhances branding efforts

Rapid issue (disaster) response capabilities

Real-time bidding & continual optimization This IS Big Data in action

Targeting based on visit recency, visit frequency, search intent, behavior, geography, demographics, lifestyles, psychographics, time of day, offline purchases, past purchases, etc.

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CRS Examples: Control and Emergency CRS was able to pivot from regular display ads to Typhoon ads within 24 hours of getting internal approval.

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Digital Display Advertising|Retargeting You can retarget without prospecting, but not vice-versa

100,000+ unique visitor pool is optimal for retargeting (30-60 days)

A pilot program typically requires 90 days and $35K minimum

Creative per IAB standards

Vocab 101

+ vs.

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The Process Define objectives & KPIs Determine data source(s) Place pixels Develop creative Submit creative for network approval (3-5 days) Launch – have patience – let optimization do its thing

Pretty Simple Right?

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Details Pixels! Pixels! Pixels!

Parameterized pixels are recommended

Expect 90%+ of conversions to be view-thru Set meaningful attribution windows (# of days)

Homepage needs to amplify offer to capture view-thru

Be cautious of lightboxes

Utilize black-lists

Identify and allocate creative & technical resources 21

Is It Worth the Effort/Risk? Client rotated sustainer to catalog to year-end single gifts

over 120 day period. Initial program netted $85K 200 sustainers (45 day promo); $74 avg. gift

12mo ROI projected at 100% from sustainers alone

500 catalog gifts $150+ average gift 3:1 ROI

280 single gifts (30 day promo) $300+ average gift

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Monitoring | Key Metrics

CRS was active in Digital Display for 7 months in FY14 and is net positive to date on new donors acquired.

Category Cost per Donor Rev. per Donor Net per Donor

Sustainer & 1x New only $125.43 $216.32 $90.89

Including 1x Existing $60.23 $273.06 $212.83

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Monitoring | Key Metrics Sustainer Donors - Conversions and Acquisitions

33% of the sustainers converting through ads are newly acquired donors to CRS.

They are fulfilling their pledges at a rate around 93%

Sustainer Conversions by Month Oct. 2013 - Apr. 2014

Month

All Sustainer

Conversions

True Acquisitions -

New to CRS % Acquisition

OCT 82 30 36.6%

NOV 92 42 45.7%

DEC 93 31 33.3%

JAN 109 35 32.1%

FEB 106 20 18.9%

MAR 170 57 33.5%

APR 63 21 33.3%

Totals 715 236 33.0% 24

CRS FY14 Sustainer Conversions by Channel

The Average Pledge Amount for Digital Ads is significantly higher than other major channels.

All transactions are credit card or electronic funds transfer which improves long-term value to CRS

Direct Mail and Telemarketing still accept check method of payment, where donors do not fulfill all 12 months of their pledges.

Channel Direct Mail Telemarketing Digital Ads Light Box Upsell Email / CRS.org Inbound Calls

% of Total

Pledges 31% 7% 22% 17% 17% 6%

Avg. Pledge

Amount $34.42 $19.35 $51.27 $26.75 $35.49 $36.61

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Does it Work? Revenue/ Cost Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr Total Income 12 Income 18

Sustainers (New and Existing Donor) 78 88 91 102 103 166 48 676 $173,511 $245,941

1x New 1 34 2 1 0 0 0 38 $4,475 $4,475

1x Existing 4 47 6 1 2 6 1 67 $12,625 $12,625

Total Initial Revenue $3,905 $15,055 $2,685 $2,251 $3,355 $5,924 $1,721 $34,896 $190,611 $263,041

Overall Expense $25,971 $27,295 $66,090 $13,023 $10,316 $20,184 $11,839 $174,718 $174,718 $174,718

Net ($22,066) ($12,240) ($63,405) ($10,772) ($6,961) ($14,260) ($10,118) ($139,822) $15,893 $88,323

ROII -85% -45% -96% -83% -67% -71% -85% -80% 9% 51%

Highly Conservative - Click-thru Only

Revenue/ Cost Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr Total Income 12 Income 18

Sustainers (New and Existing Donor) 78 88 91 102 103 166 48 676 $173,511 $246,119

1x New 4 597 91 10 3 12 0 717 $173,446 $173,446

1x Existing 23 936 168 24 22 204 131 1,508 $490,813 $490,813

Total Initial Revenue $54,634 $399,365 $111,427 $7,983 $8,049 $64,087 $36,509 $682,054 $837,769 $910,377

Overall Expense $25,971 $27,295 $66,090 $13,023 $10,316 $20,184 $11,839 $174,718 $174,718 $174,718

Net $28,663 $372,070 $45,337 ($5,040) ($2,267) $43,903 $24,670 $507,336 $663,051 $735,659

ROII 110% 1363% 69% -39% -22% 218% 208% 290% 379% 421%

Optimistic - Click & View-thru (caveat: Nov influenced by Haiyan)

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Opportunity to Improve

Impressions Clicks CTR

% Conversions Avg. Gift CPA Media Cost Revenue

3/1 - 4/19 : 2014 - New Approach

13,586,896 2,598 0.019% 755 $157 $ 34.47 $ 26,023 $ 118,623

3/1 - 4/19 : 2013 - Initial Approach

4,204,055 467 0.011% 585 $103 $ 52.39 $ 30,649 $ 59,987

It’s often not what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it that can be improved.

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Myth #1: Digital prospecting is “cheaper” than direct mail – after all there is no postage!

Myth #2: The last touch point with a donor is what drove them to make their gift.

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Attribution A topic for another session…but briefly:

Agree on enterprise-wide objectives before attempting

Obtain buy-in from all stakeholders

Must be customized to your organization and modified as new channels are employed, new tactics combined and new learnings gained

http://www.iab.net/attributionprimer

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Monitoring | Key Metrics CTR – good for measuring creative tests

CPM – baseline metric for branding or to translate into CPA

CPA – short-term, the most important metric

ROI – long-term, the most important metric

Site Traffic – a prospecting program should increase site visits and some search activity

Don’t forget to monitor impact on total online giving when display is live vs. dark.

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Best Practices Treat display as direct response – measure & test rigorously. Be accountable to ROI.

Test providers, data sources, creative, offer, seasonality

Structure tests to avoid natural skew of algorithmic optimization

Work on attribution models early on - get ahead of the game.

Existing brand awareness improves odds

Resist the temptation to compare metrics 1:1 against direct mail

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Creative refinements

Prioritizing for 1x or sustaining donors

Adding incremental data streams into targeting methodology

Opportunities Ahead

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Catholic Relief Services an international humanitarian agency working in 93 countries overseas without regard to race, religion or nationality.

www.crs.org

About Catholic Relief Services

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Database of record: PledgeMaker

eCRM: Convio

Analytics: CRS + Integral + Google Analytics

Acquisition: Key Acquisition Partners

Catholic Relief Services Uses

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In this section, you will learn how Catholic Relief Services is using data analytics to:

Better understand their constituents

More effectively target their supporters online as well as through traditional channels

Data Driven Digital

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To better understand their email file, CRS conducted an analysis of lapsed donors that have recently opened emails.

The process:

Select the audience

Evaluate benchmarks

Survey the audience

Lapsed Donor, Active Email

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Selecting the audience:

37,101 donors (MRC 13+ months ago) were split into:

13-24 month MRC (Opened email in past 3 months)

25+ month MRC (Opened email in past 3 months)

Lapsed Donor, Active Email

Identifying the folks that were reading emails but not actively giving allowed CRS to better understand a large segment of their constituency…

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Lapsed Donor, Active Email AUDIENCE KEY FINDINGS: Join source and MRC Source Code:

49% came from an Acquisition join code, 35% from a disaster join code.

Frequency: 54% have only given one gift: Acquisition makes up 25% and Disaster 21%

MRC: 25% Disaster Joins fall into 37+Mos MRC (Haiti Earthquake)

Email Campaigns Opened: Regardless of how the donor joined, we saw the same type of email campaigns being opened. Community Campaigns and CRS Briefing represent 47% and 24% respectively

Time Between Latest Opened Campaign and One Prior 46% fall into the 31+ days; 7% only have one open on record, majority are offline donors. CRS Briefing and Community Campaigns represent 35% and 33% respectively

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Can you tell us the primary reason why you stopped giving?

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last gave

I recently gave to CRS through my parish

My giving priorities have changed

I just can't give at this time, but I still want to be involved

Other

The One-question Survey

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Survey Results

Other 54%

None - 3%

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last gave - 11%

I just can't give at this time - 22%

My giving priorities have changed - 10%

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Email Results Emails Delivered: 37,101 Open Rate: 36.37% CTR: 3.40%

A/B Testing: Segmented data by length of lapse per donors. 18-24 months vs 2 plus year. Significant action rate in more recently lapsed donors. This was for both emails.

Our Take: Great for engaging with donors, less so for immediate reactivation.

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In an effort to maximize sustainer conversion, CRS modeled the email file for their semi-annual invite campaign.

Sustainer Conversion Model

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Working with internal and external analytical teams, the email file was scored based on likelihood of sustainer conversion.

The model was built to take advantage of existing donor transactional data.

Sustainer Conversion Model

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CRS identified 3 to 4 previous email sustainer conversion campaigns (recipient lists, conversions or pledges)

CRS selected a base query of single gift donors for conversion that was scored into tiers based on likelihood of becoming a sustainer

Model variables included:

Year On File, Frequency 24, MRC, HPC, Join Amount, Join Source, etc…

CRS forced 1st year donors into this campaign

Lastly, new emergency donors (Typhoon Haiyan) were included per current strategy of limited diet of mail and email as we try a new tactic to keep them engaged.

Building the Model

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July FY12 Example Model Predicted:

SustainerPercent Total % of Total

Sustainer - 1%+ 384 0.38%

Sustainer - .30% to .99% 6,683 6.67%

Sustainer - .01% to .29% 39,601 39.52%

Sustainer - 0% 30,679 30.61%

Z: UKNOWN 22,865 22.82%

Grand Total 100,212 100.00%

Results:

Row Labels Responses Model % Responded

Sustainer - .01% to .29% 34 39,601 0.086%

Sustainer - .30% to .99% 4 6,683 0.060%

#N/A 2 53,000 0.004%

Grand Total 40

SustainerPercent YOFId Total

Sustainer - .01% to .29% 1st Year 2

2nd Year 2

3rd Year 2

4th Year 1

5+ Years 26

Sustainer - .01% to .29% Total 33

Sustainer - .30% to .99% 1st Year 1

2nd Year 1

5+ Years 2

Sustainer - .30% to .99% Total 4

Grand Total 3745

Footsteps in Faith Program Opportunities to join (Online, EM, TM, Mail)

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This model is applied to several targeted campaigns per year, including DM.

Now using a different model to score for likelihood of Planned Giving.

Opportunities Ahead

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Data Hygiene Our open and CTR metrics had dipped and we knew that Gmail will hold your email for a delayed delivery. Don’t go to “SPAM jail”! Data Hygiene can be your Get Out of Jail Free card.

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Data Hygiene Process

Worked with analytical partner to find “non-openers” 135,000 records that had not opened an e-mail in

over nine months Sent one final e-mail and if they clicked anywhere on it

we pulled them from the non-openers list Then we did a mass opt-out of those records Our open rate has gone up 2% Out of Jail Free card

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Year End + Display Campaign

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Year End + Display Campaign Digital Display campaign was live Dec 2-Dec 31

Starting the day after Christmas we sent 6 messages, suppressing people that already gave

Supported with PPC, text messages, social media content

Campaign in total raised over $950k from more than 2500 online gifts

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Future Opportunities Now that we know the possibility of predictive modeling is in our reach, we will be using this intelligence to make better, data-driven decisions on who and what to send.

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Let’s Recap Digital investment options likely exist for your organization.

Scalability and start-up costs will vary. Remember CPA is your friend!

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Loyalty Programs:

Appropriate for nearly any sized org

Lower cost to entry

Limited in scale

Strong ROI

Digital Display:

Higher entry costs (90 day pilot ~ $35K)

Highly scalable

Enhances branding

Rapid ‘disaster’ response

Let’s Recap Use your data to analyze and segment your supporter lists to

better understand their make-up and performance metrics.

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Segment your list to:

Better understand how supporters are engaging with your cause

Develop segment specific strategies and measures of success

Identify sustainer prospects, upgrade prospects, planned gift prospects

Avoid SPAM jail and minimize list opt-outs

Questions

Any Questions?

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Thank You!

Laura | ldurington@crs.org Patrick | pframe@keyacquisition.com

Sean | sean@engageyourcause.com

Don’t forget to visit the

Solutions Showcase! Many of the ideas discussed today are on display at the

Solutions Showcase!

#Bridge14 57