Simple steps to turn visitors to your site into donors.
You work hard to show how important your nonprofit is to the community. You send newsletters, host events, publish on social media platforms and more. Eventually, when the word gets out, people want to support your cause and will visit your site’s donation page. At this point, you may think that you have done all you can to get people interested in donating, but you are not done yet! Only a small percentage of individuals visiting your site will actually donate. You’ll need to implement ways to convert these visitors into donors. This is where knowing how to use a donor conversion rate, and leveraging it, will help you. But first, what is a conversion rate?
Conversion Rate = Donations Received / Unique Visitors
This means that the higher your conversion rate, the more people visiting your donation page actually donate. When you want to improve your donations, you need to make sure you convert well before spending a lot of energy on getting them to your page.
Think about it, if you double your conversion rate, it means that every action you will take to raise donations will have twice as much impact. You can improve your conversion rate instantly by creating a form with Zeffy.
How do you measure your donor conversion rate?
To measure your organization’s rate, you’ll need to embed your donation form into your website. If you are using fundraising platforms like Zeffy, it’s simple to embed the form directly onto your website. Then, using Google Analytics, you can compare the number of unique visitors to your form to the number of donations received. You can even link your Zeffy form to your analytics tool. And just like that, you will have calculated your conversion rate!
What should your conversion rate be?
The industry conversion rate is 15%, and drops to 9% on cell phones. If your conversion rate reaches 20% or above, congrats! If you are at 10% or below, that’s also a good news! It means you have opportunities to easily double your donation volume.
At Zeffy, we worked hard to get conversion rates to 23%. Here are the methods you can use to get to that.
Increase your conversion rate
To do so, you need to understand what’s creating friction between browsing and actual donations. What is stopping potential donors from clicking on that final donate button? There are so many small changes you can make to your donation page to turn that half completed form into actual revenue, so you can have greater social impact!
Explain how the donations are being used
Users visiting your site know your mission, but are more inclined to donate if they really understand how their gift will be used. You will need to show the work you are doing to accomplish your goals. By making the impact of their contribution obvious, donors are more eager to give. For example, your mission might be to eliminate hunger in your community, so tell your donors how they will help you get there! It could be that their $100 will provide 1000 meals to children.
Craft a straightforward donation flow
Sometimes, you miss out on donors because they just get lost. Too often, people arrive on a donation page, click on the donate button, and get sent right back to the home page ! Make sure that once someone is on your donation page, they don’t get distracted. Their experience must be as straightforward as possible. Your donation form should be visible immediately and ready to fill out, as shown below.
Minimize the number of clicks on your form
If your donors need to click through less options, they will spend less time on the form, which increases the likelihood that they will complete it. Another way of speeding up the process is by creating smart defaults for the responses. For example, if you know your donors are all from Canada, you can set the country response to that. The more responses you can set, the better! Here’s an example of what to avoid:
Make sure your form is cell phone friendly
Just like online shopping has increased on cell phones, so has making donations. You can check how many people are visiting your organization’s site on their mobile device by using Google Analytics. It is extremely important to make sure that your site and donation forms adjust to cell phones. For all 4000 organizations receiving donations through Zeffy, 40% of donors gave using their smartphone, as displayed in the chart below:
How Zeffy can help you increase your conversion rate
At Zeffy, we managed to dramatically increase our conversion rate because we applied all the tips mentioned above. We have a reduced number of clicks; only 7 are required to complete a donation!
The mobile experience is also simplified because we accept Apple Pay and Google Pay. With the growing popularity of mobile wallets, having these payment methods is a must! Especially if you want to increase younger donors. Users under 35 make up 55% of e-payment methods and around 1.2 billion people use mobile wallets in 2020 (FinTech News). Adapting to the rise of Google and Apple Pay is important, making it more likely for people to donate!
There is also a unique way that Zeffy provides added value. 100% of donations made using our platform go directly to your organization, no exceptions. Donors know that the entirety of their gift goes towards your mission, making them more willing to give. Our creative model offers the option to leave us a contribution at the end of the transaction. Donors like our model because they value the transparency of knowing where their donation is going. The proof is in our conversion rate, it’s 150% better than the industry average.
By combining all these tips to improve your donation page, your conversion rate is sure to increase, making you on your way to creating a bigger impact!
