An in-depth introduction at how nonprofits can use Google Analytics.

1. Marketing 'funnel'

2. Theory of change
Inputs
Outputs
Outcomes
Impact

3. Metrics in the relationship cycle
(off and online, public and direct
Reach,
Brand awareness,
word of mouth,
knock on effect...
Likes, shares, views,
comments, shares,
DMs, follows, clicks,
attendance,
questions, opens..
Link clicks, completed
online action, donations
signatures, conversion,
attendance...
Organic growth over
time, long term
relationships,
positive sentiments,
advocacy, recurring
actions...

4. Appropriate time on
page/ not bounced
Report on all stages of a journey
First step
Social media
post to attract
Second step
Click through to a
new page/ view
Third step
Initiates the action
that has been called
Fourth step
Completes the
activity.
Fifth step
How many
people?
How many
people?
How many
people?
How many
people?
How many
people?
What's
working?

5. Nurturing your relationships
AWARENESS
INITIAL ENGAGEMENT
MORE CONSIDERED ENGAGEMENT
ACTION, CONVERSION
LOYALTY, ADVOCACY
PUBLIC COMMS BROAD
MESSAGING
DIRECT COMMS, SPECIFIC
MESSAGING, SEGMENTATION
SOME ACTION

6. You want to move away from reporting like this:
"We successfully posted 20 posts on Facebook in May 2020"
To:
"Between February and March, we reached 500 0000 people and achieved a
high engagement rate of 5% engagement rate per post and reached over a
million people in May. This, in turn, meant that we saw an increase in
attendance at our core events and also, a steady increase in donations over
time between these dates."
Track quality not quantity

7. How many people have seen or viewed your content/
(how far you reached); this is tied into how much you
spend and how people respond to your content. Very
much broad strokes.
A bigger quantity indicates more potential for
engagement and action.
Examples: Opens, pageviews, video views, downloads
Reach (indicator of awareness, potential)

8. Engagement rate (indicator of
consideration, quality)
How many people from the initial total took a closer look at your
content; explored more, stayed longer, contacted you.
A high rate means your content is resonating with you audiences
and shows trust.
Examples: likes, shares, pageviews, DMs, retweets, comments,
asking questions, leads

9. Engagement rate
Total number of engagements/ reach, or size of community etc.
Click through rate
Total number of clicks/size of community or reach of content
Open rate
Total number of opens/ size of the database
Conversion rate
Total number of completed actions/ relevant metric
Rates indicate value

10. Traffic
Traffic is link clicks. How many people literally click on
your link? This indicates interest and is a form of
engagement.
Beware of equating link clicks with actual pageviews.
Remember to track your journeys and what happens at
the destination.

11. A trackable, completed action that means someone has finished a journey.
Doesn't usually happen on web.
Conversions are often synched with broader organisation/ campaign
outcomes. A much smaller number of people will complete a journey,
which is normal. Ideally you measure conversions in rates but there are
often quantity targets associated like 'funds raised'.
Examples: learning completed, funds donated, application completed,
participation completed.
Conversion

12. How many times people read a certain page/
all pages. Indicates interest, trust, loyalty. Also,
great for SEO and ranking.
Can also be an indicator of digital literacy and
even language literacy and comprehension, as
well as content/ experience 'stickiness'
Pageviews (qt)

13. Tells you if someone is interested in what you have to say.
Can also indicate outcomes like literacy, for example if time spent
reading indicates literacy levels.
You can also use time on page to measure if someone is doing an
activity, by timing how long a typical persona takes to read and not
do an activity, versus how long they take to read and complete the
activity (if you don't have event stats for activities).
Time on page/ time on site

14. What people are saying about your
organisation and you content; indicates
general feelings about org; can check
manually in comments or pay for a tool to
do this automatically (Tools such as
Hootsuite or Social Bakers, both quite
expensive, so manual could be your best
bet. You could get a good sense of things
from a sample of comments)
Sentiment

15. Can be seen across social media and websites.
Indicates loyalty, interest, brand name, social leadership, great content.
On web, should be the largest proportion of traffic. One social, usually
the lowest compared to paid.
Organic traffic to site, size of organic
community, organic results

16. Tools
Social listening/
sentiment
tracking/ social
analytics
Mention
Keyhole
Crowdtangle
Hootesuite (and the
likes)
Web analytics
Google Analytics,
Google Search console
Social analytics
Insights tab
Ads reporting
Newsletter
Depending on email client, all mailers/
campaigns should have a report