Tracking Donation Funnels, Bad News for Twitter & The Most $$$ Keywords

Measure Your Differences
I enjoyed this advice from Hootsuite on how to pick social media metrics. Their number one tip: figure out your organizational goals and base your metrics on that. (And don’t worry about what everyone else is measuring.)

Google’s Most Expensive Keywords
If you administer a Google for Nonprofits AdWords grant, finding keywords that cost less than $2 can be a big pain. Having struggled with this issue myself, I got a kick out of seeing how much some keywords cost. $58 for “bail bonds,” anyone?

Yet Another Nail, Twitter
I’m not a big Twitter user, but even I feel bad for Trump’s favorite social media site. Here’s the latest report about Twitter’s decline. Monthly active users in the United States fell last quarter.

Why Your Charts are Terrible (And How to Fix Them)
I love Avinash Kaushik’s blog so much. I can’t believe I haven’t featured it yet. His writing is snarky, smart and practical advice about marketing and data. Here’s Avinash talking about how to create charts and visualizations that people can actually read. Tip #1: Stop trying to show off how clever you are.

And in more links…

Roomba Maps Your Home, Sells the Data
It’s pretty cool when your new Roomba learns the layout of your home, so it stops falling off the steps. It’s not so cool when Roomba wants to sell that data to Google, Apple, or Amazon.

Advice of the Week

Donation Form Funnels 101
Hoping to track users’ progress through your site’s donation form (or another process)? Google Analytics’ conversion funnels can help.  Here’s a detailed, step-by-step guide in how to configure these reports (and make use of the data).

Cool Visualization of the Week

And They All Moved to Florida 
Where do people go when they move out of state? Well, this visualization from Overflow Data will tell you. I clicked on my home state of Ohio, and it confirmed my suspicions. Ohio is the former home of Florida-bound snow birds.