The 2016 Nonprofit Deliverability Study

Transcription

1 The 2016 Nonprofit Deliverability Study How much does spam hurt online fundraising? 1

2 Table of Contents 3 About the Author 5 Executive Summary 10 How much does spam cost nonprofits annually? 15 What can organizations do to improve their deliverability? 16 Resources About the Author With more than a dozen years managing and nonprofits, associations, and labor unions on consulting for some of the largest issue best practices and future trends. He also supports advocacy organizations in the country, organizations with reputation management, Brett Schenker is regarded as one of the industry s mitigating blocks, and preventing other leading experts on and deliverability. deliverability issues. He has helped countless Schenker has worked on everything from advising organizations raise more money online by associations, nonprofits, and multi-million implementing his strategies for deliverability. dollar corporations to technology solutions and Schenker s past experience also includes work as strategy. He has been a featured speaker Deliverability Specialist for Salsa Labs and and panelist at NTEN s Nonprofit Technology Internet Director and Database Administrator Conference, FUSEcon, PAX, and San Diego for national and statewide campaigns, including Comic-Con. presidential campaigns. Schenker is the Deliverability Specialist at EveryAction, where he educates national 2 3

3 Part One: Executive Summary is the cornerstone of most nonprofit online fundraising programs. 1 Nonprofit marketers have never had more powerful tools than they do today, and fundraising currently accounts for about a third of online fundraising revenue. However, most nonprofits programs raise substantially less than they could due to an often overlooked metric: the percentage of that actually makes it to recipients inboxes. We call this deliverability. Nonprofit marketers and communications professionals often report on list size, open rates, click rates, page views, and money raised through channels. Deliverability affects each one of these metrics substantially. For the 2016 Nonprofit Deliverability Study, we once again analyzed 55 leading national nonprofit organizations and compared their deliverability data with last year s findings. Nonprofits using a variety of ESPs ( service providers) were chosen so that the results would be representative of the nonprofit community at-large. While we observed some improvements from last year s rates, the research revealed that deliverability continues to be a costly problem across the nonprofit community. Nonprofits sent more overall in 2015, (including around #GivingTuesday), and some saw their deliverability rates improved, despite lower open rates across the board. End-of-year fundraising campaigns, however, saw an increase in the amount of ending up in spam folders than in EveryAction has special tools and a dedicated team focused on tracking inbox delivery trends and best practices. We ve worked with national nonprofits to significantly increase their deliverability, creating substantial gains in fundraising. In this report, we will share common causes of poor deliverability, the findings from our study, and a few easy ways you can improve your program. Deliverability is a metric for the rate of success you have at getting your messages into people s inboxes. It s affected by a lot of factors, with spam and spam-related things generally being the primary ones. 4 5

4 Why would your messages be sent to spam? Internet Service Providers (ISPs) determine whether or not your is delivered based on the reputation of the IP address from which your is sent. If an ISP notices that s you send are marked as spam, junk, deleted immediately without being read, never opened, or not engaged with in general, they may begin routing your to spam folders, or worse, completely blocking you as a sender. Once your IP address has been flagged by an ISP as a bad sender, it can take months or even years to recover. Common Causes of a High Spam Rate Making unsubscribing difficult. If you make your unsubscribe process difficult, you re running the risk of a user simply marking your message as spam instead, which is far more harmful to your deliverability than unsubscribing. Always include a single-click unsubscribe link in all your s. Using an out-of-date list. People change their addresses fairly regularly. If your has never been opened by an address, or you haven t received a response from an in 6 months, it s likely outdated and should be removed from your regular send list. Sending irrelevant . If you are sending the same to your entire list, you re likely not providing relevant content to everyone. Segment your list, use dynamic content, and merge tags to make your s more personal. If you ve sent over 3 unopened s to the same address, either they aren t interested in what you have to say, or they ve changed their address. 6 7

5 Example 1 A perfect deliverability spam rate Example MILLIO N EMA ILS A R R IV E IN IN B OX ES 2.4 MILLION S ARRIVE IN INBOX 15.94% OP EN R AT E 15.94% OPE N RATE SPAM R AT E : 0 % 0 E MA I LS I N S PAM An average deliverability spam rate S PA M R AT E: % 1 6 8, EM A I L S I N S PA M 3 8 2, 560 S A R E OPENED 355,666 S ARE OPENED % CL I CK R AT E 0.43% CLICK RATE 9,595 LINKS ARE CLICKED 10, LIN K S A R E C LIC K ED 1 5% PAG E C O MP L E TIO N RATE 15 % PAG E C O MP L E T I O N R AT E What does spam do to your fundraising? 1,5 4 8 PAGE S ARE CO MP LE TED 1,439 PAGE S AR E C OM P L E T E D A story of 2.4 million s sent A N AVERAG E O F $ 6 8 I S DO NAT ED P E R E MA I L AN AVE RAG E O F $68 IS D O NATE D P E R E MAIL $105,264 IS RAISED! $97,863 IS RAISED. W OW. T HAT S A DI F F ER EN C E OF $ 7,

6 Figure 1 Spam, Opens & Sends by Month % 36 Part Two: How much does spam cost nonprofits annually? Rate 15% 10% Avg. Sent What s to gain from improving deliverability? 7.56% in fundraising revenue. 5% 24 That s the potential increase in fundraising revenue for a nonprofit sending 24 fundraising asks a year with a 100,000 person list. On average, a nonprofit loses $7,401 each year due to spam. While much of the marketing conversation revolves around list sizes, open rates, and clicks, the amount and impact of messages not delivered or delivered to the spam box is largely overlooked. In a study of 55 organizations, EveryAction found that, on average, 7.03% of was delivered to spam folders monthly during November saw the highest spam rate (10.31%) and February, the lowest (5.77%). Once again, there was a massive range in spam rates among the 55 organizations. One saw half (49.98%) of its tracked going to spam while another saw just 0.10%. These were nationally recognized nonprofits with substantial programs. Compared with the data we explored in last year s report, nonprofits sent more in 2015, more of which arrived in inboxes rather than spam folders, but they also experienced lower open rates. The trends for s campaigns on and around #GivingTuesday were consistent with the overall findings, but end-of-year campaign data revealed something interesting: nonprofits sent slightly more during the end-of-year fundraising push and, while open rates were similar to those in 2014, more s went to spam. 0% 20 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Avg Spam % Avg Sent Avg Open % Figure 1 shows how the average spam rate of 7.03% is distributed over the course of a year, month by month. The average number of blasts sent per month for each nonprofit is included on the right x axis, along with open rates and spam rates on the left. According to benchmark online giving data, 2 every percentage of going to spam results in a loss of $1, annually, as the impact of spam makes itself felt in every metric from open rates to page completions. Every undelivered is a lost opportunity for supporters to take action, raise their voices, volunteer their time, and donate to your cause. 1% spam equals $1, lost per year 10 11

7 Figure 2 The Data 0% SPAM 1% SPAM 7.03% SPAM INBOX 2,400,000 2,376,000 2,231,280 OPEN RATE (15.94%) 312, , ,666 CLICK RATE (0.43%) 10,320 10,217 9,595 The spam rate affects the amount of s that actually make it to the inbox, which then subsequently affects the total money raised. Figure 2 illustrates three scenarios for lists of 100,000 people sending 24 fundraising messages annually: 0% spam rate (or 100% inbox deliverability), 1% spam rate, and the average 7.03% spam rate. Some organizations may have a smaller list, send more fundraising asks, or have different opens, clicks, page completions, or average donation amount from the chosen benchmarks. However, the figures demonstrate that spam has a direct relationship to total money raised from fundraising. As reported by The Case Foundation, 3 an incredible $116.7 million was raised offline and online on #GivingTuesday in 2015 thanks to recordshattering participation. That s in contrast to U.S. Black Friday 4 brick-and-mortar sales which dropped 10% and Cyber Monday 5 sales which increased a less-than-expected 21%. In 2015, for the 55 organizations studied, #GivingTuesday saw an average of 9.27% of fundraising messages go to spam. That s an improvement over last year s rate (11.63%) but a fair amount higher than the average of 7.03%. It should be noted, however, that nonprofits are sending more than double the volume of s - an average of 2.35 each - as opposed to less than 1 for a normal day. When you consider the fact that the average spam rate on #GivingTuesday rose in 2015, and that the sheer volume of those s still represents a huge amount of dollars lost, it becomes clear that deliverability continues to cost organizations money on the fundraising day many consider to be their most successful. Using our research and benchmark figures, we found that a nonprofit with a list of 100,000, the average spam rate of 9.27%, and sending the average of s loses $ on #GivingTuesday to spam. PAGE COMPLETION (15%) 1, ,439 TOTAL RAISED (AV. DONATION $68) $105,264 $104, $97, To determine how much money nonprofits lose annually from fundraising s going to spam, we began with the scenario of a nonprofit with 100,000 person list sending two fundraising asks per month. From our interviews and qualitative analysis, this seemed like reasonable starting point. We then used the open rate for the 55 organizations measured in our study and looked at M+R s Nonprofit Benchmarks Study to determine benchmark click rate, page completion rate, and average one-time donation amount to calculate the expected revenue from a year s worth of fundraising. What does this mean for your organization? #GivingTuesday remains a key date in your fundraising calendar. Organizations that send a significant amount of around #GivingTuesday or have a higher donation per amount for that campaign could be losing even more money than they realize from spam rates

8 Nonprofits could increase revenue by Seven Percent for every percentage of that goes to spam. A nonprofit loses $7,401 on average, each year because of spam. 7.03% of goes to spam every month The average spam rate rises to 10.19% during end-of-year campaigns Part Three: What can organizations do to improve their deliverability? Spam might seem like a hard metric to influence, but a few simple tweaks can improve deliverability and unlock huge benefits. OPT-IN AND CONFIRM. Not only should you be explicitly asking individuals if they d like to opt into your list, you should also send a follow up to confirm their address is correct. People mistype addresses. Sometimes they feel forced to provide an address. By optingin addresses and confirming them, you ensure the person on the other end absolutely wants to hear from you. RAMP UP YOUR MESSAGING WITH A WELCOME SERIES. A welcome series is a great indication of what you can expect from your subscribers in the future. A study by Return Path 6 says that, People who read all three messages read 69% of the brands going forward; people who read none continued to ignore the brand s messages, reading only 5%. LOOK BEYOND OPENS AND CLICKS. senders have only a few metrics to go by when it comes to measuring how successful campaigns are: the opens, clicks, and conversions. service providers however use many more and look beyond those, and measure things to the individual donor. Every organization should be focusing more on how individuals react, testing engagement with subject lines and content, and looking at how various segments perform. FOCUS ON WHO ISN T GETTING THE MESSAGE. Explore why bounces are occurring, and what you can do to remediate them. If they happen more than 2 or 3 times, remove them. Repeated bounces can cause alarm bells to ring with service providers. PAY ATTENTION TO INACTIVES. Inactive addresses are individuals who have not opened or clicked an in more than one month. Individuals who drop off in interaction, or don t interact at all, should be messaged differently with a focus on getting them to re-engage. If they continue to be inactive for more than a year, then it s time to remove them from your list. ISPs can turn dead addresses into spam traps, marking all s to that address as spam and seriously hurting your sender reputation. WORK WITH YOUR PROVIDER. Your provider can give you information about your deliverability, sender reputation, and more that isn t always accessible from your end. At EveryAction, we like to address any deliverability issues before they get out of hand - in the case of , an ounce of prevention is worth a couple of tonnes of cure. A good provider should work with you to monitor key deliverability metrics like Sender Score, as well as acting quickly to fix problems like blocks and blacklisting before they get out of hand

9 Resources 1,2 // M+R s 2016 Benchmarks Study 3 // Case Foundation 2015 #GivingTuesday Report million-donated-this-givingtuesday/ 4 // Cyber Monday 2015 Results - Infographic, PFSweb 5 // Black Friday store sales drop off by more than $1 billion as shopping habits change, The Dallas Morning News 6 // A New Welcome Message Study - Find Your Best Customers, Return Path info@everyaction.com