As we are closing in on the end of January, you have likely be finalizing your nonprofit’s digital strategy plans. Now is the time to celebrate what all your organization achieved, reflect upon what you didn’t, and learn from that data to make 2022 your best year yet.

Over the past year, you and your team devoted time and resources to optimize your digital platforms, social media and email marketing to support your organization’s goals and overall mission.

So the big question is: how did you do? To answer that question, you want to be sure you’re pulling up the right data. From website traffic to email fundraising campaigns, there are a great number of things you need to take into account to review your various communications activities.

We dove into a number of industry benchmark reports to compile the following indicators that nonprofits should consider when planning for the year ahead. Not all points may apply to you, so we recommend that you to focus your evaluation on categories and elements that are most critical to your overall mission.

Website metrics

• Website visitors (what did traffic look like on a monthly or quarterly basis?)
• Session duration (how long did people stay on your site?)
• Conversion rate (e.g., newsletter sign-up, resource download, donation)
• Traffic source (how did people find your site? Natural search, email, etc.)

Email metrics

• List size (how did it increase and decrease throughout the year?)
• Response rate (how often did people reply directly to your email?)
• Open rate (was your subject line compelling enough to open the email?)
• Click-through rate (what content got people to click through?)
• Engagement rate (webinar registrations, donations, downloads)

Social Media metrics

• Number and growth of followers/fans (did you see an increase? when/why?)
• Average number of posts per day (is it enough or too much?)
• Audience engagement (e.g., favorited your webinar announcement tweet)
• Click-through rates (e.g., visited your webinar landing page)
• Conversion rates (e.g., registered to attend your webinar)

Fundraising metrics

• Overall online revenue (versus other non-digital channels)
• First-time donations (what % of your revenue depends on this?)
• Repeat donations (how/why are people coming back to give more?)
• Performance breakdown by platform: website, social, email
  • Total revenue by channel
  • Average donation amount
  • $ raised for every 1,000 website visitors
  • $ raised for every 1,000 emails delivered

Once you’ve got these main results mapped out, you can start to extrapolate real insights on how your activities performed over the course of the year and finalize your data-driven strategic plans for the year ahead. These findings will be paramount in how you shape your digital plan going forward: what channels and activities you will want to focus on, which staff and resources you will need, and what budget will be required to get you there.