Issues with Acquisition

#8 ... and a few solutions to road test

Sep 25, 2022

Happy Sunday! We turned a corner this week in Upstate New York. Fall arrived and at last it was time to pull on a jumper. My kind of weather.

Let’s dig in!

The ecomm world shares many similarities with the non-profit space. And a lot of what I share below is just as applicable to ecomm players as non-profits. Consumer confidence and inflation are working against DTC brands, especially those selling overpriced commodities. These consumers are donors. And the next 12 months is going to be a grind for them. Unemployment will likely go back up, inflation will be sticky, real earnings will shrink and consumption will ebb. The messaging and the digital experience you provide has to be relevant, meaningful and well-optimized to win.

Win wallet share, win their long-term commitment, win their brand advocacy.

The need to adopt a full funnel approach to your digital marketing and fundraising has never been more necessary. I’m having plenty of conversations about acquisition at the moment, so I thought I’d write down some of the issues I’m seeing and then share some solutions worth exploring.

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1. Issues with Acquisition:

Loss of data has led to a number of issues:
- Ad platforms can't score every donor and match that score with the exact version of ad copy and creative to get that person to convert (the benefit of the "walled garden").
- It's hard to know which versions of copy or creative drove the most impact or highest return — I just don't see a lot of the data on this.
Too many organizations have not built a full funnel approach to fundraising (sales) where BRAND (the external face of CULTURE) and performance are connected, and now they're beginning to struggle in their efforts to continue at the scale they've benefited from emergency fundraising.
There's not a lot of testing going on: most orgs are driving direct to a website. Where are the landing pages? The point of digital marketing is to test and learn constantly. We don't seem to be prioritizing that with websites and landing pages anymore.
- There is too much friction to make a simple donation as a new donor.
- You can't afford to not meet prospects in the channels they want to donate (see below for more).
Lots of orgs don't know nearly enough about who their donor is, why they donate to them, and what else they want to see from the org in the future.

2. Solutions to Some of these Problems:

Acquisition isn't just a game of traffic source, whether that's ads or earned media. That's just one part of the larger donor journey to making a donation. So what are some of the solutions to these problems?

Better site optimization
- Conversion rate
- Site speed
- Tech stack optimization
  - Using all the right applications on your website for donor testimonials, upsells to monthly, analytics, surveys, etc.
  - Using the wrong tools will not only work against you i.e. site speed and functionality, but also in the bill each month.
Better email optimization
- Email capture
- Email flows
- Email campaigns
- Are they written in a way you'd handwrite messages to your donors?
- Are the emails focused on taking donors on the journey of why the org exists, and introducing them to new ways to give, new programs to fund?
- Are you creating content for email/SMS that people can open, consume, and talk about at the dinner table?
Testing new channels and testing in a way that's native to the channel.
You can't just run your FB offer on new channels. You have to study the donor behavior behind how a channel works well, and then replicate that for your own org.
Some channels that have worked well for me:
- Connected TV, OTT (don’t write it off as “expensive” before exploring your options → happy to chat)
- Direct mail (not sitting in a silo but connecting online and offline)
- Out of home, with the ability to retarget online
- Use landing pages
- Your website speaks to one audience — your landing pages speak to many audiences.
- Landing pages can cater offers and messaging directly to the source of your traffic — earned media, paid social, a non-brand Google ad, an influencer posting
Be more aggressive with moving one-time donations to monthly subscribers
- The LTV of a subscriber outweighs your cost to acquire a donor, as long as they become a subscriber through the right path. I saw this week with a non-profit that the best donor LTV was when someone bought an item priced at more than $50 in their ecomm store, did not make a donation at check-out, then made a one-off donation within 30 days, and then signed up to give monthly.
  - Yes, they retargeted the ecomm purchasers hard and amped up "thank you" messaging post one-off donation with all the positive things their donation had made possible, but they didn't compromise the most optimized funnel they'd discovered - laid out above ^
Everything on your own website has to be done especially well
- Traffic is too expensive to not be fully optimized on your site.
- Your homepage, donation page, program pages, navigation menus, and landing pages need to be fully optimized.
  - Use tools to understand heat maps, scroll-depth of the pages, user session recordings, and optimize.
- Your email capture should be A/B tested like crazy — don't settle for 5% or 7% upticks. Keep pushing to beat the record.
- Site speed has to work in your favor, not against it (another reason to use landing pages)
Storytelling needs to be woven into every piece of creative, every landing page, and every email. People make decisions emotionally and feel motivated behind a deeper "why"
- Who are you?
- Why do you exist? The philosophical reason tends to include a phrase like "because everyone deserves to..."
- How is donating to the org going to benefit X?
- Why is this the best solution on the market?
- Where do I donate?

3. Capturing Demand Effectively

A team recently asked me for more digital donors… They had only 1 month to make moves and deliver revenue.

As digital fundraisers and marketers, we have limited power in this scenario. There are a few levers to pull but each come with their caveats.

1. Bid more aggressively on paid search - can work, but will increase costs of acquisition.
2. Bid more aggressively for “top spots” on affilIate sites - can skyrocket costs of acquisition.
3. Retarget more aggressively - this will drive mostly cheap traffic and donors that still aren’t ready, although you’ll probably move a portion of them down the funnel.
4. Do conversion rate optimization - hard to ramp, implement and get a result quickly, with lots of room for losses when doing this out of desperation.
5. Double down on “pressure sell” where you frame everything in dire tones and the end of world has arrived if they don’t donate now - always a bad idea, and those donors are never ever sticky.

What’s my point?

Create demand so you’re never forced to act out of desperation. Build momentum that will sustain growth for the next quarter and beyond. Start now!

Master the art and science of capturing demand effectively, but don’t rely on bottom of funnel forever.

Interesting Reads & Listens This Week:

An annual report into the state of digital transformation in Latin America. There are some eye-popping facts!
Can we use AI-generated art in our digital marketing and content efforts?
A visual story: What makes a piece of creative advertising effective?
Gen Z’s new search engine: TikTok
What happens on the internet every minute: Data Never Sleeps infographic
Will web3 remake Hollywood?