127. SPN: Email Fatigue and the Magic of Compounding Creativity
8 (.5) actionable but non-conventional metrics to track at EOY; and lots of jobs
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In this week’s SPN:
How consistency leads to creative quality, stronger brands and more revenue
9 actionable, non-conventional metrics to watch at EOY
Lots of Jobs that took my fancy this week
Consistency = Compounding Creativity
After I shared the data in last week’s SPN #126 on how Orgs’ paid media budget is increasingly going direct into ad platforms rather than via agencies, I saw some smart thinking on the topic - including a good post from Shane O’Leary drawing out some of the issues.
He’s right to call it a Kaleidoscope - and I was reminded of its many implications when I watched the new KitKat Christmas ad for the US market. It’s a nice way to promote a good product innovation - and the System1 Score shows it works.
Check it out:
I’ve shared before in SPN my love of System 1’s Creative Effectiveness Platform. Here they tested the KitKat campaign with a crowd of American consumers, and it scored a whopping 4.6 ⭐ - a really solid indication of long-term creative effects.
Click below to watch it track viewer behavior against the ad: it’s mesmerizing!
KitKat have been doing their thing for awhile now. The consistency of message, the consistency of how they “turn up” cross-channel and how they’ve consistently stayed so present is on point.
What also struck me was who made the ad. Once KitKat was a core client at WPP agency JWT - now subsumed into VML. But this ad was done by Paramount - working with an in-house Hershey team.
The genie is out of the bottle and, with self serve tools proliferating, can anyone do Agency work now?
Consistency leads to stronger brands and greater revenues.
But what’s that got to do with our sector or your digital fundraising?
System 1 published some research recently that challenged the idea that ads become less effective over time because audiences get sick of them (wear out). In fairness to them, they dug pretty deep - 5 years worth of System1 data for 56 brands across the UK and US, testing over 4000 TV and digital ads with more than 600,000 respondents.
And the researchers looked beyond the ads themselves for evidence of consistency.
For example, they found brands that stuck with the same agency generally had higher creativity scores than those that worked with two or more partners.
And, sticking with the same creative agency was linked with a superior annual “fluency rating change” (a measure of brand recognizability).
Largely, it seems, consistency proved to be an amplifier of good creativity as opposed to a weapon in its own right.
Why is this interesting?
More and more I’m seeing creative success of good ads in our sector that are allowed to wear-in continue to grow. And this report challenges the idea that Orgs need to be fearful about ad wear-out.
It also emphasizes the importance of identifying and committing to long-term brand and evergreen campaigns. Good reminder to think twice about abandoning a successful campaign if the concern is merely a fear that donors or prospects are getting bored of seeing the same creative.
Allow me 2 caveats:
In some cases it’s impossible to infer the causality of consistency as a factor towards creative success. For example, it may not be a change of agency that causes a lack of success, but a lack of success that causes a change of agency.
Creative consistency has all sorts of benefits for Orgs – but only if the creative is good to begin with.
System 1 have some really good ad insights on our sector too - not just KitKat! - in both the UK and US. I dropped the links in the Reading section.
Jobs & Opps 🛠️
National Trust: Manager, Innovation & Development (£44,500)
Make-A-Wish International: Director, Philanthropy
Bronx Zoo: Manager, Mid-Level Giving ($75,000 - $100,000)
ShareTheMeal (WFP): Lead Performance Marketing
Cancer Research UK: Director, Audience, Strategy & Innovation (£120,000 - £140,000)
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP): Legacy Marketing Manager (£46,200)
University of Notre Dame: Director, Marketing & Operations ($110,000)
YouthBuild Global: Executive VP, Program Success ($125,000 - $140,000)
Comic Relief: Individual Giving Manager (£44,310 - £47,712)
WWF: Senior Specialist, Global Development Centre
National Kidney Foundation: Senior Director, Digital Advertising ($120,000 - $124,000)
Animal Legal Defense Fund: Digital Media Specialist ($76,549)
→ More jobs updated daily to SPN’s sister website: www.pledgr.com
Explore: Build Your Tech Stack (link)
Searching for new tools or trying to trim down your tech stack? Play around in this infographic. I add to it most weeks.
8 (.5) Actionable, Non-Conventional Metrics to Track at EOY
… and how to act on them to maximize revenue right now.
I structured my thinking below as a countdown (just because 1 feels worthy of a reveal!) that loosely follows the Donor Lifecycle, excluding the obvious metrics such as Conversion Rate or Average Donation Value. Those are great bragging numbers but aren’t actionable over the coming six weeks.
Starting at 8. Track the number of Branded Search Queries on Google and Bing reported from the Search Console.
It’s a crucial indicator of how your Org’s prospecting efforts are doing. Branded searches between now and the end of the year should be higher daily, day over day – and at least flat year over year. If they fall behind at any point, crank up your prospecting efforts.
SPN Tip: Google is projected to slip under 50% of search market share in 2025, allowing Amazon, TikTok, and several retail media networks to take their place. To get ahead of the trend, monitor your Org’s Page Views on TikTok and Meta as you would Branded Search Queries.
7. Impression Share for Branded Search Queries in Paid Search.
This metric should be in the 90%+ range every day between now and EOY, regardless of the price it takes, or else your Org will miss a significant portion of the bottom-funnel revenue.
If competing Orgs are “attacking” your brand terms and driving the price up to unsustainable levels, break your branded search campaigns into more ad groups and return to a “SKAG” way of managing paid search to increase Ad Quality and lower CPCs.
Switching your bidding to “maximize impression share” will achieve the same result but likely at a much higher cost.
6. By-device Engagement Rate.
This should include a Click-Through rate for all channels and the Engagement rate in Paid Social platforms, including likes and comments.
The key is to look at them separately for Desktop, Mobile, and (if you’re running it) In-App environments. All three should be increasing between now and EOY. If any of them aren’t - and I’ve been there, especially Desktop - consider this:
Lower your daily budget by 10-15% to buy time for optimizations
Lower the frequency by 20-25%
Stop campaigns driving 5% of the click volume at the lowest Engagement Rate
Don’t substitute Engagement Rate for Cost per Click or Cost per Engagement. I’ve done that and then found out that both metrics can “ hide” an underlying pattern of an increase in cheap, low-quality impression volume.
5. The volume of “Meaningful Sessions” and cost per one.
In this context I’m defining a “meaningful” session as one that includes 3+ clicks (on a video, link, or to the other page), a visit to the “About Our Programs” page, or a visit to the donation form.
These definitions can be pulled out of your Org’s Web Analytics platform – create a custom dashboard and set a notification for it to land in your inbox every 3-4 days. Look at this metric by Channel and Campaign YoY - you should see at least the same volume and cost per. If the total volume is down:
Stop the 5% of campaigns across all channels with the highest cost per.
Reallocate the budget to the campaigns driving the highest volume, even if not at the lowest cost.
Chances are that campaigns driving the lowest cost per meaningful session are already maxed out.
4. Same-day donations and average time to donate.
Both can be pulled from the time lag report in Google Analytics (in GA4, it’s now called “Conversion Path” and sits under Advertising):
For same-day donations, set the time range to one day and look at conversions that happened within 0 days.
For the average time to donate, set the time range to a whole week, export the report, and look for a median value – a period where 50% of conversions happen faster and 50% happen slower.
Between now and the EOY, your Org’s share of same-day donations should gradually increase, and the average time to donate should decrease. If you see the opposite dynamics, increase the budget for display / paid social retargeting and branded paid search campaigns.
3. Similarly, look at the Average number of Interactions to Convert.
A year ago, I’d have recommended using the “# of Interactions” report in Google Analytics. Since the announcement of Google Analytics 4, it has become much less robust, resorting to Early, Mid-Funnel, and Late-Funnel interactions instead of the actual count.
You can get better data by comparing the average frequency pulled directly from advertising platforms to the daily volume of donations.
The rate of DoD increase in the number of donations should be higher than in frequency - if your Org’s numbers are flipped, try manually restricting the frequency to 90% of the number you see now in each platform.
2. “Email Fatigue” index.
The hard way to calculate it is to pull the average number of emails per lapsed donor per month from your CRM system. An easier way is to monitor the decrease in email open rates between campaign drops.
If, at any point, the open rate dips by more than 15% between the two drops (e.g., from 30% to 25.5% and lower), the drops are too frequent. Extend the time between them.
1. Lastly, this is a particular fave: track the YoY repeat donor rate increase.
The easiest way to pull it is to automate the following cadence of reports out of your CRM:
Number of donors 2 years ago from 11/1 to date (eg, 11/1/22 – 11/17/22 today)
Number of donors 1 year ago who donated 2 years ago AND donated again a year ago
These two numbers, divided, represent the denominator of the resulting metric
Total number of donors 1 year ago 11/1 to date (eg, 11/1/23 – 11/17/23)
Number of donors this year who donated 1 year ago AND donated again this year
These two numbers, divided, represent the numerator of the resulting metric
For all of the above numbers, ignore the 11/23/24 – 11/27/24 period.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve this year, use (same date last year – 5) comp – ie, 11/28/24 vs. 11/23/25
Starting on Christmas Eve, switch back to (same date last year) comp – ie, 12/24/24 vs. 12/24/23
The most straightforward description of this metric is are you converting the same share of last year’s donors this year as you did last year? If the answer is “no,” upload last year’s donor file into your advertising platforms and run a reactivation campaign.
OK, that’s all for today!
As always, ping me with any questions and ideas or asks. I’m here for them all!
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Reads From My Week
The Magic of Compounding Creativity (System 1 and IPA)
The Case For Turning Google’s Network Biz Into A Nonprofit (AdExchanger)
The 10 reasons Marks & Spencer is the Brand of the Year (Marketing Week)
Where’s the Value in AI? (BCG)
What to Know About Bluesky: Twitter/X competitor (Tech Crunch)
WTF is ad tech curation? (Digiday)
185 real-world gen AI use cases from the world's leading organizations (Google Cloud Blog)
Creative Ad Tech Innovation Webinar (Flashtalking)
In Europe, Instagram Ads Are About to Get Less Personal (WSJ)
Spotify Takes Aim at YouTube in Battle for Podcasts (WSJ)
Why the ad industry is redefining what it means to be a creator vs. influencer (Digiday)
Tony Blair’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ tipped to be UK’s man in DC (Politico)
The Charity Challenge - System 1 learnings - UK and US (scroll down in the link or hit reply to this SPN and I’ll send you the already downloaded .PPTs)