Web Metrics: How Do You Measure Up?

So you're tracking your web analytics, and your metrics are going up in all categories. Great! But have you ever wondered how you compare to other organizations?

To help with this, Convio has released their Online Nonprofit Benchmark Study, which shares 2009 data from over 500 of their clients. Reports like this are great for organizations to determine if their increases in different web metrics are comparable or better/worse than others'. Here are some interesting takeaways:

Online Giving: In spite of the economic downturn, most organizations still saw a 14 percent increase in online giving in 2009. Seventy percent of organizations raised more than they did the previous year. Donors are giving in smaller amounts, but still giving.

Site Traffic: In the past, I have advised clients that they should aim for web traffic to increase by at least 5 percent each year, excluding years during redesigns or for a site's first year. This report shows that web traffic grew on average of 6 percent for organization's sites over 2009, with 60 precent of organizations bringing in more traffic in 2009 than in 2008.

Email Sign Ups: Specifically, in terms of email signups, the average conversion for users signing up when coming to a site dropped to only 2.1 percent (sign up for our newsletter here!). The typical range in past years was 3-3.5 percent. Please note that this number will be smaller if you have a high proportion of return visitors — which is common among organizations with small traffic. A return visitor who is already subscribed to your newsletter is obviously not likely to sign up for your newsletter again. Although cookies and other tracking mechanisms can weed out return visitors, all cookies are deleted eventually, and no one can control for visitors who visit your site from multiple devices or browsers types.

Email Conversions: When Convio's clients sent emails, users opened them 20 percent of the time, but only 3.3 percent clicked on a link. I always expect this number to vary according to the size of your subscriber list, and Convio's data backs this up: Groups with smaller email lists perform better. For groups with large lists, you can increase engagement by offering more target lists (or interest segments) as opposed to just offering one general list.

If you, like me, can't get enough of numbers like these, you'll have another view of similar organizations with the release of M&R's 2010 eNonprofit Benchmarks report on April 29. Their report will include data from organizations that use tools besides Convio.