Are Your Fundraising Emails Getting Delivered?

May 15, 2017      Tom Belford

A new report released today by EveryAction suggests you might be leaving substantial online fundraising revenue on the table (or should I say in the ether?) if your nonprofit is not attending properly to email deliverability issues.

Their report — 2017 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study — looked at data from 55 leading US nonprofits to determine the impact of spam and poor deliverability practices. The nonprofits selected represent a variety of ESPs (email service providers) and email list sizes to ensure the results illustrate trends across of the nonprofit community at-large.

Their conclusion: “…diminished engagement and soaring spam rates are significantly weighing down nonprofit fundraising potential.”

For the organizations studied, an average of 18.2% of emails were delivered to spam folders. The best performer had 8.6% delivered to spam. Open rates stayed stable from 2015 at 15.5%, but click-through rates fell 14%.

Spam rates increased substantially in the last week of the calendar year, both in terms of the year-long average and in terms of week 52 in 2015 versus week 52 in 2016 (rising from 8.6% in 2015 to 23.6% in 2016).

Agitator readers who recall my views on #GivingTuesday, note this: “…the spam figures revealed something shocking: the rate at which fundraising emails were rerouted to junk folders nearly quadrupled. In 2016, for the 55 organizations studied, #GivingTuesday saw an average of 36.68% of fundraising messages go to spam, up from 9.27% in the year prior.” I’ll say no more.

The leading reasons your emails wind up in spam …

  • Making unsubscribing difficult.
  • Using an out-of-date email list.
  • Sending irrelevant email.
  • High complaints.

More advice on improving email deliverability in the report.

The gain from getting it right? About 22% in email fundraising revenue. Their average nonprofit lost $24,552 last year.

Perhaps that’s enough to encourage you to read the study.

Tom

P.S. EveryAction is conducting a webinar on their findings and recommendations on May 31. Details here.

 

3 responses to “Are Your Fundraising Emails Getting Delivered?”

  1. Soozeality says:
    May 15, 2017 at 9:22 am

    The EveryAction details on the May 31st webinar aren’t posted yet
    (last line link in your article).

  2. Sarah Robie says:
    May 15, 2017 at 10:03 am

    It seems counterintuitive, but our organization has been seeing a higher number of opens and clicks on our emails by sending emails to fewer supporters. Presently, spam filters are highly triggered by recipients’ engagement with your emails. The more people who open and click your emails, the more likely that your emails will start arriving in inboxes rather than spam. Long-term changes in trimming your target lists and segmenting your emails will lead to long-term benefits for your inbox placement.

    It’s not too late for some spring cleaning to remove people from your list who haven’t opened your emails in more than a year! You’ll be doing your email, and your revenue, a huge favor.

  3. Lisa Wettstaedt says:
    May 15, 2017 at 12:03 pm

    We are in the processing of testing email sends to our most engaged email audience members. Similar to what Sarah mentioned (and as you would expect), we are seeing better statistics. We are hopeful the continued testing will lead to more targeted and welcomed communications in the months to come!

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