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Facebook Election Drama, Google Analytics 4 & What To Do About TikTok

The Huge Mess That Facebook Created

I don’t work on political campaigns, but I’m still alarmed by this article in Politico. Here’s the background: starting Oct. 27, Facebook stopped allowing new political ads (their VERY broad definition of “political” includes issues like climate change and health care). Then, all those ads will pause when the polls close on Nov. 3. Google is doing something similar. Facebook’s policy got off to a rocky start this week when they incorrectly blocked some campaign ads while launching others early. As Facebook straightens that out, I’ve moved on to worrying about what’s next. When will “political issue” ads be back? I help clients raise money to fight climate change and address other “political” issues. Will my ads be back by Giving Tuesday? The platforms are now saying “who knows?”

What to Know About Google Analytics 4

While you may have already heard the news about the update to Google Analytics, you haven’t heard my take. I’m pretty excited! GA’s new version has many promising new features. I’ll definitely use the improved integration with Google Ads. It will now be easier to remove someone from your campaign (say, automatically stop running “Donate Now” ads to people who have already given). It’s also promising that Google Analytics 4 is taking into account the phase-out of cookies (something we covered back in March). This new version can — allegedly — use machine learning to fill in the gaps in data. I’m going to see how that pans out. Other improvements included in the update? Expanded AI-powered predictive insights, better cross-device measurement capabilities, codeless event tracking (no more writing Javascript to track website scrolling), and more granular data controls.

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My Favorite Advice & Data Viz of the Month

My Favorite Advice

GDPR-Compliant Opt-Ins to Gain Consumer Trust.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions from clients (and when I teach Google Analytics) about analytics opt-in messages on websites. A few of the most common questions are: How much ability should I give users to opt-in or out of Google Analytics? What percentage of people click to “accept” cookies? What should my pop-up say and where should I put it? Lucky for you, I found an article to answer all the questions that have been piling up. DHL tested every various configuration and recorded their results in this article. The attention-grabbing elements resulted in more opt-ins, while banners in the footer were often ignored. While it’s important to do your own testing, this article is an excellent starting point for what to expect.

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Minimalist Dashboards, Google Rolls Back COVID Rules & The Ban on Political Ads Post-Election

Simplify Your Analytics Dashboard

We’ve all heard the adage “less is more,” but does it apply to dashboards? According to Urs Boller in this blog from Web Analytics for Developers, the answer is yes. I often get requests to build complicated Google DataStudio dashboards, with pages of metrics and a detailed glossary. I worry these create the same issue that Urs describes: Users don’t understand what dashboards mean, so they avoid using them. Making things simple encourages people to actually use the information they have. If you’re curious about how to adopt a more minimalist approach, Urs recommends three steps: Focus on user behavior, use your stakeholders’ language, and create dashboard templates. “This creates an analytics foundation which is both easy to understand and immediately allows everybody in our organization to start using the data and take actions.” Thanks to Craig Scriber for sharing this with me.

The GTM Feature We’ve All Been Waiting For

There’s always been room for improvement when it comes to Google Tag Manager, but this new feature is pretty handy.  GTM has now introduced the ability to export part of a container into another! This is great if you want to um, borrow, a particularly clever piece of tracking you set up for another site but don’t want to move over every single tag and variable. Head over to this article from Simo Ahava to find out how the new feature works and get step-by-step instructions (with screenshots included!) about how to select only the items you want to export. I already know this is going to make my life much easier.

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My Favorite Advice & Data Viz of the Month

My Favorite Advice

How to Be Smart About Measuring Your Success.

After political pollsters failed to predict Trump’s 2016 election win, you might think that they have little to teach us nonprofit folks about metrics and measurement. Not true, says this article in PR Newswire. According to the author, at least, the Biden campaign has done an enviable job selecting metrics that actually correlate to campaign success – instead of simply being visible and easy to measure. How does that apply to your organization? Well, don’t let your boss talk you into padding your monthly metrics report with Twitter impressions and website page views. It’s easy to get caught up in vanity metrics and false cause fallacy’s instead of collecting and analyzing the data that truly matters. I realize it’s easier said than done, but your whole organization should be on the same page about what matters and how to measure it.  Without a clear metric for judging the success of outreach or fundraising, you end up grasping at assumptions and are unable to correctly measure whether you actually reached your goals.

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Was the Facebook Ads Boycott a Success, Your Guide to Google Analytics & New Charity Navigator Rating System

The Results Are In: Facebook Ads Boycott

One fact we can all agree on? The boycott was not successful. Not only did Facebook ad spend increase last month — from $3.78 million in June to $3.83 million in July — but the recommendation of changes from Stop Hate for Profit were largely unmet. Despite this, many big-name companies are done posturing and have returned to the platform to advertise (or never stopped advertising on other Facebook-owned platforms). Also, the majority of Facebook’s total ad revenue comes from small advertisers — a group that includes many nonprofits — and many didn’t feel they could afford to pause campaigns during the COVID crisis. This boycott gives us all a lot to think about.

A Move To Smaller, More Frequent Donations

Did you know the average donation in 2018 was $128? If you think that number seems high for current times, you’re not alone. There’s a new wave pushing to lower the bar for smaller donations as a way to expand your donor pool. Especially if your nonprofit is targeting Millennial and Gen Z donors, smaller, more frequent donations make giving more manageable. If you’re wondering how to implement this, a good place to start is to encourage donors to round-up their donations or “set up their own peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns” that typically garner a few dozen dollars for your cause.

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