How marketing metrics can help charities

Which metrics should charities use?

The key is to only measure the elements that will bring benefit and provide evidence the intended goal has been met. There are a wide variety of marketing metrics available but here are some of the most useful top-level metrics for charities.

 

 

1. Website traffic

 

Provides basic information on the total number of people visiting the website over a given period. They give an overall snapshot of how the website is performing and reveal insights about visitors, including demographics such as age, gender, location etc. They can tell you how visitors arrived at your site, ie via an organic search, direct search, referral via another site, social media, or via a paid per click campaign.

 

Useful for: Insights on brand awareness and whether the website is growing, stagnating, or declining. They will also identify seasonal trends, patterns, and spikes. They can reveal the top performing content, areas where intervention might be required, and help you find out if you are attracting unique (new) visitors and retaining repeat visitors to your site.

 

 

2. Bounce rate

 

The bounce rate metric provides data on how many visitors leave (or bounce away from) the website after only visiting one page. The lower your bounce rate the longer people are staying on your site. A high bounce rate indicates visitors are not getting what they wanted or expected and are leaving quickly.

 

Useful for: Although the bounce rate doesn’t tell you why people are leaving, it flags that there are issues, probably around loading times, broken links, bad design, and poor content. Bounce rates can be lowered by improving design, content quality, and search engine optimisation.

 

 

3. Page views

You can see the total number of pages viewed and analyse best performing pages – in terms of traffic volume – and how the number of page views look as a percentage of total page views across the entire site.

 

Useful for: Helping to understand if the entire site is of value or if only certain pages are engaging. It helps to show what the audience is responding to and enables you to work towards provide more of what works. You can experiment with new pieces of content and focus on what your donors/supporters are reacting to positively.

 

 

4. Engagement rate

Tracking how engaged the audience is with all content is key to driving responses. Tracking engagement at various touchpoints lets you know how actively visitors are paying attention to the content and how valuable that content is to them. You can find out how many visitors reached a specific page, how they arrived there and how many completed the action required.

 

Useful for: Reviewing and making strategy adjustments to ensure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and providing a better overall experience for your audience.

 

 

5. Conversion rate

 

Have the visitors completed the call-to-action you intended? Did they sign up to your email newsletter or click through to your donation page? By looking at conversion rate metrics you can measure conversions and take action to remedy any problems.

 

Useful for: Tracking whether the total number of leads have taken an action you either asked them or persuaded them to do.

 

 

In conclusion

 

Tracking internet marketing metrics will allow you to see how your website is performing and can strengthen your campaign. They can help establish what’s working and what isn’t and provide evidence of how your charity is meeting its goals and ultimately having the impact to change lives.