A lot has been written about how important it is for nonprofits to have a presence on the Internet. While social media outlets offer new opportunities to communicate online, websites remain a primary way that organizations engage people on the web. A well-designed website that is frequently updated with interesting content can attract many unique visitors every day, so nonprofits dedicate significant resources to the development and maintenance of their websites. More visitors to your website means more people know about your organization and that’s a good thing, but should you expect more from your website? Yes!
Google Analytics , a free tool that provides detailed information about your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Within Google Analytics you can define and track customized “Goals ” based on visitor actions that are valuable to your organization. Example goals for a nonprofit would be online donations, event registrations, and mailing list sign-ups.
Valuing donations made via your website is easy if you use
Conversion Tracking in your AdWords account. Installing a Conversion Tracking code snippet on the “Thank You” page will enable you to track the number of donations (i.e., conversions) and their dollar value. If you prefer not to use Conversion Tracking, you can use Google Analytics goals data and data from your online payment processor to determine the average online donation amount. Divide the dollars donated via your website during a month (week, quarter, etc.) by the number of people who triggered your donation “goal” in Google Analytics and the result is your average online donation amount. What about finding the average value of a visit to you donations page, since not every visitor makes a donation? To find the average value of a visit to your donations page, divide the dollars donated via your website during a month (week, quarter, etc.) by the number of people who visited your donations page during that time period.
Total Online Donations/Total # of Online Donors
Avg. Value of Visit to Donation Page =
Total Online Donations/Total # of Donation Page Visits
Determining the value of online registrations for events depends partly on the event’s purpose. If the event is a fundraiser that designed to raise money primarily through ticket sales, then the methods we used to value online donations will work well. However, what about events that use ticket sales and an auction to generate revenue? We already know how to calculate the value of the ticket sales, but how do we determine the portion of auction revenue driven by your website? Cross-reference your list of auction participants and their winning bid amounts with the list of people who signed-up online. All of the auction revenue from people who registered for the event online can be attributed to your website. So, the average value of a visit to your event registration page is the total revenue generated by that page divided by the number of people who visited it.
Avg. Value of Visits to Events Page =
Ticket Revenue + Auction Revenue/Total # of Events Page Visits
Finally, we are faced with the challenge of figuring out what a mailing list sign-up via your website is worth. The solution is similar to how we determined the portion of event auction revenue driven by your website. You’ll need to cross-reference your donor list with the list of people who signed-up for your mailing list via the website. When a donor appears on both lists, then some or all of that person’s donation should be credited to your website. The portion of the donation that is credited to the website could depend on how much time has passed since the mailing list sign-up and/or how much contact your development staff has had with the donor in the interim. The average value of a mailing list sign-up on your website is the total revenue generated (i.e., donations made) by people who signed-up during a month (week, quarter, etc.) divided by the number of sign-ups. Similarly, the value of a visit to your mailing list sign-up page is the total revenue generated by that page divided by the number of people who visited it.
Average Value of Visits to Sign Up Page =
Total (or % of) Donations from people signed up via your website/Total # of Sign Up Page Visits
If you’d like more information on how to use Google Analytics please visit
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