5 Paths to Website Donation Domination

EOFY giving season is here—end of financial year appeal campaigns are flooding inboxes and mailboxes alike. As Fundraisers, you’ve spent months preparing and crafting this campaign and are nervous seeing it go live—will your supporters like it? Will they respond?

While you can’t change your print pieces once they’re lodged, there is still time to optimise your website! Here are five paths to donation domination:

1. Make it easy for people to find your appeal page

It should go without saying—make it easy for people to find your appeal page.

Last year, a client remarked how impressed they were with their appeal performed when they put it on the home page (just a link). Obviously! Every part of me wanted to layer on the sass, but I refrained. It should be obvious, but sometimes it isn’t.

Most people receiving your print piece aren’t scanning your QR code or entering your campaign URL but just googling you and clicking the top result or going directly to your homepage.

Make it easy: top of the home page, in the navigation, in the footer, and on the donate page if it’s separate from the appeal page.

If you have a distinct appeal landing page separate from your regular donate page, make the appeal campaign the top item on the donation page.

Put the link everywhere.

If people can’t find your appeal, they can’t donate.

2. Great copy is a superpower

As fundraisers, we can get caught up on our site’s limitations—its outdated design, the donate form’s excessive fields, and my inability to do XYZ. The good news is you can always change the text—and great copy is a superpower.

I’m frustrated with charity donation forms that can’t articulate what the donation will do. Staff can get caught up in the emotion of an appeal story but miss what the donation enables.

To a potential donor, you need to communicate more than a hopeful story. It’s great that Jesse is no longer homeless and Byron has food, but how is your organisation driving the change with my donation? People are savvy and skeptical of charities—you need to concisely articulate your organisation’s impact throughout your site.

What does your organisation do—specifically? What is the money going to? Why should they care about what you are doing specifically? Is it tax deductible?

Consider the donor’s journey and remove ambiguity at every step. Fewer questions lead to more confidence in donating. Being general or vague isn’t enough to attract new donors. You don’t need a new website to communicate effectively. People will enter their personal details if they want what you do.

Great copy is a superpower and free to change—embrace it!

3. Track everything—then check it works

I’m obsessive about URL UTM tracking parameters—so much so that I built an app to ensure people are doing it correctly. Using UTM parameters is common practice, but not universal.

Appeals run year on year and are a fantastic vessel for layering on learnings. What you learn this year is usually applicable to next year. However, you can’t learn effectively if you don’t track it.

Do you have a QR code on your print piece? Track it. If you have multiple print pieces, use different QR codes and track them individually. Posting on social media? Track it. If your email platform doesn’t track automatically, ensure you’re tracking them.

A link to your website without tracking parameters is naked, please, clothe your links!

Once you’re tracking everything, check it’s working.

Don’t obsess over aggregate bounce and open rates. Transactions/donations matter. Engagement metrics like bounce rate are independent of donations. A UTM campaign can have a high bounce rate but receive more donations than a campaign with a lower rate.

Engagement metrics are good and associated with donation performance, but don’t guarantee it. Correlation is not causation.

An appeal email with a poor open rate may have a high donation rate; only those already intending to donate opened it—which is fine. Optimising for open rate would come at the cost of donations. Optimise for donations.

Compare metrics across channels and UTM campaigns. What is your session (or user) to donation/transaction rate? Hunt for exceptions. Ask why this worked and others didn’t.

Did you see any QR code traffic? If not, and you’re confident the link was working, then it indicates to either abandon or change up your QR code usage next year.

4. Approach your site as a whole: people judge the house, not just the room.

As fundraisers, we’ve tended to approach our websites in a fragmented way. We want our appeal landing page to be amazing, but often ignore the rest of the site.

Your website is like a house; you’re inviting people to view your newly renovated appeal room, but they tend to snoop around. Your fresh appeal room might be nice, but the rest of your site adds to the impression.

I found for a client that people often check the about page before donating. We improved that page and saw an increase in donations. This was a small but not obvious change.

How much effort goes into your appeal/campaign pages/content and other important site pages? I’d guess there’s a large gap. They may not be ‘your’ pages, but their quality could impact your campaign’s performance.

Check Google Analytics to understand your users’ behaviour. What do donors do differently from non-donors?

Don’t just optimise the room—users will judge the whole house. If the quality and freshness of all your key pages is high, your appeal will benefit.

5. Treat your website as a product of your organisation

The website is your organisation’s virtual storefront and often the first and most frequent brand touchpoint. Your homepage sees more daily traffic than most appeal pages in a month. Treat it accordingly. Who is looking for broader opportunities? Who is responsible?

Your website is a product and should be managed like one. Have a product roadmap for desired features/enhancements, a centralised budget and a responsible person.

For example, implementing an abandoned cart email or SMS would yield ongoing results for years, but would be outside the remit of a single appeal project. A roadmap outlines how, who, and when to undertake these features and functionality.

Product management of your website is a long-term approach. While it will help short-term, the main benefits will be felt in future appeals and campaigns. A fine-tuned website will be a huge asset in your fundraising efforts.

Final thoughts

Tunnel vision with an appeal is common. These large projects require a lot of energy to craft and launch. Taking a fresh look at your website in this critical donation season is valuable.

Your EOFY appeal is a sprint, but your website is a marathon. Start with what you can do now; small changes could make a big difference. Ask yourself:

• Can supporters easily find the appeal page?
• Is it clear what their donation will do?
• Am I tracking every click, or do I have naked links?
• Are there other pages that might influence giving?
• What can I learn to improve for next time?

Here’s to smart marketing, generous supporters, and website donation domination!