FILM/TELEVISION FUNDRAISING
Shining a light on search Understanding your digital marketing performance and what drives search donation requires taking both a macro and micro approach to analysis, says Marcus Lewis.
L
ast year, in an F&P article, I outlined how strong the Australian market is in terms of web donations. At Sanctuary, we work with many nonprofits and, in most cases, we are seeing that the proportion of web donations is consistently increasing year on year. At the same time, there seem to be challenges with other traditional acquisition channels. The quality of bought data for outbound programs is declining and there are issues with face-to-face in terms of access to suppliers and capacity. Because of this, it’s not surprising that we are seeing more and more campaign budgets being directed to digital programs such as EDM, social media and display, as well as TV, radio and out-ofhome advertising. The combination of a public more inclined to respond via the web as well as increased digital budgets leads to some debate around
what is driving an organisation’s search donations. The big question for nonprofit fundraisers, marketers and budget setters is: What is driving search (SEO, search engine marketing and direct) donations, what isn’t and how do you find out?
What prompts a search?
Effective attribution means determining what has driven paid, SEO and direct traffic to a website. In my experience, there is little traffic generated through paid search that hasn’t been prompted by an influence or message from other channels. ‘Brand’ search terms are generally driven by existing awareness from a past action or event, or driven more recently from a prompt from another channel. Additionally, generic search terms are mainly either cause or appeal based in nature.
It’s fair to say that I don’t think it’s the fact that you have put your Google grant to use that causes donors to seek you out. Another consideration is the influence of awareness by the public of a nonprofit because of what it is and what it does (its reputation and general brand knowledge), for example reading about a particular charity in a news report. Donors use search because they’ve already been influenced by something a nonprofit has done. To determine what has driven search, we need to look at the influence of introducer channels such as direct mail, digital display, social and traditional media on all sources of search traffic. There is a strong possibility most of your web donations haven’t been driven entirely by a digital campaign. This may seem obvious, but it does sometimes seem to be an assumption that’s quite often made at some organisations. So how can we establish what is driving your search activity and donations? Unfortunately, there isn’t a single answer or piece of analysis that will determine this. We need to look at the problem in a couple of different ways to get to the solution.
How do we approach measurement?
At Sanctuary, we look at both the wider macro influence of activity over time and the granular micro data around each donation to get to an answer. A macro approach allows us to view the effects of all activity and other influences on search, whereas a micro one allows us to look at the circumstances around each donation and determine the communications most likely to be involved in that donation.
Macro: determining broader influence of activity
The simplest way to understand the top-line contribution of traditional media channels on search is to create a regression model. Modelling the relationship between search and other channels and influences is our first step. How does the activity we undertake for each channel influence search numbers? Just as important is to consider how factors we can’t control, such as competitor messaging, seasonality and consumer confidence, affect donation patterns. In Table 1 (above), for one of our clients, we
Finding it hard to see how drtv can work for you?
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F&P Magazine | February March 2017
fpmagazine.com.au
Table 1 DRTV spend (X axis) vs searches (Y axis)
Table 2 Display spend (X axis) vs searches (Y axis)
12000
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R² = 0.54229
y = -2E-06x + 1356.4 R² = 0.00106
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0 ₩0.00
0 ₩10,000,000.00
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Table 3
can see the very clear relationship between television advertising (in this case DRTV) and the client’s search volumes. For the same client, we couldn’t see the same strong influence for any other channels and influences. See Table 2 for the same model for digital display spend. In this example, DRTV was the primary driver of search – far more so than display activity, which had no clear macro influence on search. Unfortunately, it’s not always this clear cut. However, by modelling each variable and understanding the relationship between it and search you can get a broad understanding of what is driving search volumes and put a value on that relationship. Ultimately, we can build a full model that considers all potential influences on search. That model could give you not only a clear idea of return on investment and sense of direction for each channel, but also a
solid understanding of the overall potential for campaign growth. It answers the key questions most marketers have on this subject: What is driving my search? How much can I spend before my campaigns lose effectiveness? What is the optimum channel mix to deliver the best results?
Micro: getting into the granular detail
This example leads us into looking at the granular detail behind the pathway to each donation. Just because there is no clear relationship between overall digital investment and search doesn’t mean it’s not working. This is where the second part of analysis,
micro understanding, is important. The granular details identify which individual components of each channel are driving search traffic. As I’ve outlined earlier, search marketing doesn’t drive individuals to search. The majority of an organisation’s digital donations involves search and because of that most organisations only look at last click attribution as the means to judge digital performance. This can lead to overstating the performance of search. If you only look at the last event before conversion, you are limiting the potential of your digital marketing. In many cases, digital campaigns consist purely of the Google grant and non-paid social media, simply because organisations have been unable to prove the influence other channels in the donation process have had in the past. However, it is possible to track each interaction on a donor’s digital journey and it then becomes a straightforward process to apportion donors based on that journey. The way this is done is by allocating a fraction of each donation to each interaction by placing a value based on the quality and the time of each interaction in relation to the donation. Over time you can scale those fractions up and the data can be used to understand the true contribution of each channel. Table 3 (left) shows an example of the attributed conversions vs last click conversions.
Going in the right direction
It’s clear to see how putting something like this in place can give you a much better understanding of your digital marketing performance and what drives search donation. Putting these two methodologies in place would give any marketer or head of fundraising a clear idea of how their communications are driving search. I am not claiming these models and attribution methodologies are 100% accurate, however they point you in the right direction and using science will allow you to continue to test, learn and optimise campaigns.
Marcus Lewis
Marcus is Managing Director of DTV Group company Sanctuary Media Group, a specialist direct response agency based in Sydney. Marcus has over 20 years’ experience in analysing all media with a specialty in DRTV and digital performance. Nonprofits have been the focus of his work for a number of years.
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