Your website isn't going to save you.

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A disturbing trend is starting to move into the nonprofit world around website optimization. With declining direct mail response rates and an overall drop in fundraising ROI the website is sometimes the scapegoat of the failing performance. We stress about SEO, content creation, conversion optimization, etc. And it doesn’t really matter because not enough people are going to see it.

OK, hear me out.

First, let me preface this with the fact that I’m talking about small to mid-sized nonprofits. If you are one of the top ten charities in the nation then changes to our SEO strategy can move the needle. But if we look at the numbers you'll find that the return simply isn't there.

Let’s make the following assumptions:

  • Unique website visitors per month: 50,000

  • Website conversion per unique visitor: .15%

  • Total conversions: 75

  • Average Gift: $75

  • Revenue per month: $5,625

Now through your web optimization efforts, you increase conversion by 25%, at a cost of $500 a month so that means:

  • Unique website visitors per month: 50,000

  • Website conversion per unique visitor: .19%

  • Total conversions: 95

  • Average Gift: $75

  • Revenue per month: $7,125

Let's take out the costs of marketing:

  • Incremental revenue per month: $7,125 - $5,625 = $1,500

  • Minus Marketing Costs: $1,500 - $500 = $1,000

  • Incremental revenue over 1 year: $12,000

But what if we spent $1,000 a month driving traffic to the website and increased visitors by 50% but kept the conversion rate the same?

  • Unique website visitors per month: 75,000

  • Website conversion per unique visitor: .15%

  • Total conversions: 112

  • Average Gift: $75

  • Revenue per month: $8,437

Take out the cost of marketing again:

  • Incremental revenue per month: $8,437 - $5,625 = $2,812

  • Minus Marketing Costs: $2,812 - $1,000 = $1,812

  • Incremental revenue over 1 year: $21,750

The key factors to take into account in this scenario are two-fold. First, the money you spend on conversion doesn’t guarantee any sort of incremental improvement in conversion. Unless your site is a complete mess, seeing even a 25% increase would be optimistic.

However, promotional well-qualified traffic can be measured and to some point guaranteed with a solid media plan in place.

A solid web strategy still boils down to the fundamentals of having a strong offer and targeting the right audience. Find ways to drive people to your site, have strong second gift strategies in place and scrutinize your offers. Then when you have done your homework focus on your SEO and UX strategy. You’ll have a more solid data set to work with and you’ll also see higher incremental gains from your efforts.

Every case is different, so run the numbers and find out what makes sense for your organization. Always keep the end-goal in mind.

Brian TuckerComment