July 30, 2025 • 15 mins
88% of potential donors ABANDON donation forms mid-click! If you are driving traffic to your donation page only to watch donors disappear, you may have a conversion problem. But don’t worry - I’ll help you close the “conversion gap” and reimagine the donor experience.
In this episode, I’ll walk you through 4 strategic donation page formats, when to use each, and how to analyze your Google Analytics data to diagnose mobile drop-offs, funnel performance, and campaign effectiveness.
Whether you're sending paid traffic to a Giving Tuesday campaign or trying to capture a donor mid-blog post, these tips and tricks will help you match the format to the moment, reduce friction, and finally fix the page that's costing you the most.
Resources & Links
Check out iDonate’s blog, The 4 Types of Online Donation Experiences (and How to Use Them to Convert More Donors).
This show is brought to you by iDonate. Your donation page is leaking donors, and iDonate's new pop-up donation form is here to fix that. See it in action. Launch the interactive demo here and experience how a well-timed form captures donors in the moment they care most.
Let's Connect!
- Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
- My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
- Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, hey, welcome back to Missions to Movements.
I'm your host, dana Snyder, andtoday we are getting into
something every nonprofit leader, digital marketer and
fundraiser really anyone who'slistening should be thinking
about right now, and that is youdon't have a traffic problem.
Maybe you do that's a wholeother sidebar but you do
(00:23):
probably have a conversionproblem.
And shout out to Adam O'BrienMaybe you do that's a whole
other sidebar, but you doprobably have a conversion
problem.
And shout out to Adam O'Brienhe is a former colleague team
member over at iDonate forputting out this idea front and
center in an incredibly smartblog post.
It is literally called youDon't have a Traffic Problem,
you have a Conversion Problem.
I read it and I was like, okay,we have to talk about this on
(00:46):
the show, because here's thedeal.
We spend so much time andbudget trying to get people on
our websites right.
We're boost content, we sendemails, we're paying for ads and
then we lose the gift on thelast click.
So shout out to the iDonateteam for this amazing post.
You can read the full blogposts in the show notes.
(01:10):
And when Adam wrote it, hecalled this the conversion gap,
the CVR gap, and it's basicallythe space between someone
feeling moved to give andactually doing it.
So let me hit you with a statabout this 88% of people who
(01:30):
click on a donation link don'tcomplete their gift.
Let that sink in for a second.
And then, even worse, most ofyour site traffic is probably
mobile.
You can figure this out onGoogle Analytics.
If you're not already lookingat Google Analytics on a monthly
basis, you definitely should beto see how much is on desktop
(01:51):
versus mobile.
But, knowing this, most mobileusers convert at just 8%, and
compare that to 11% on desktop.
Now that might not sound like ahuge gap in a difference
between mobile and desktop,until you remember that about 60
(02:11):
to 70% of traffic is now mobile.
So that's a lot of generouspeople, a lot of generous hearts
bouncing around your websitebefore they ever give, and
that's not a dip, that is acanyon that I really want to
express, and so I share thosenumbers.
It's very beneficial for you toknow your own numbers.
(02:34):
So I definitely suggest go onto Google Analytics.
It's totally free.
Go into GA4.
Look at your mobile versusdesktop traffic.
Look at your conversion rateson your forms.
How many visitors do you haveversus how many people are
donating during that givenperiod of time, your donation
tools should hopefully be ableto provide you with that
(02:55):
conversion rate as well.
So what's happening here?
It's not your campaignmessaging If it's getting people
to your site, it's not your CRM.
It's not because people don'tcare, it's a misalignment
problem.
You are leading people withemotion and purpose and heart
(03:15):
and then they land on your pageand it's like hitting a brick
wall of required fields andawkward layouts and zero
momentum.
You've seen them right fieldsand awkward layouts and zero
momentum.
You've seen them right Formsthat probably feel more like a
tax return than a meaningfulnext step.
Ew, right, the experiencedoesn't match the moment.
The moment poof disappears.
(03:37):
So how do we reimagine thedonation experience?
And this is really where theblog post comes to life.
On flipping the narrative, it'swhere your donation page isn't
where the transaction ends.
It's where the belief becomesbehavior, where emotion turns
into generosity.
(03:57):
It's the most fragile andpowerful part of your donor
journey.
So if your page isn't removingfriction, if it isn't matching
the donor mindset, if it isn'tfeeling mobile first and
effortless, the chances are youare losing more people than you
know.
So back up, right, you're likewhoa, whoa, dana, slow down.
(04:20):
How do I know that I have aconversion problem?
If you know me, I love teachingand making things very
practical, so you might bethinking this all sounds great,
but I want to know my conversionrate.
So quick start guide usingGoogle Analytics for GA4.
First things first.
If you can ideally make sureyour donation platform redirects
(04:45):
to a unique thank you pageafter a completed transaction,
why?
Because in Google Analytics,that page now becomes your goal
completion trigger.
So, no matter what system youuse, you need a trackable
success page to tell GoogleAnalytics.
(05:06):
Okay, that's the first thingsfirst.
You can rewind, replay that,but set up a thank you page that
will showcase that atransaction, a donation, was
made.
Number two is you want to checka page path funnel.
So in GA4, on the left-handside when you log in, there's
(05:28):
three options.
I forget what all three are,but one is explore and if you
click on that, it gives you anoption to click on something
called funnel exploration andyou can create a funnel that
starts you customize it to dothis starts with your donation
form page or any pages that aregoing to have an ask on it, and
(05:48):
ends with your thank you page.
This will give you a superclear.
Look at how many people landedon that form page, how many
actually finished the gift andwhere drop-offs happen.
That percentage, that is theconversion rate.
(06:08):
If it's under 10%, welcome tothe club.
That is probably mostorganizations.
So now we want to fix it.
And if it's above that, that'samazing.
Snaps I'm getting some snaps onthe microphone, but it's always
better to make it better right?
Number three if you can, withinGoogle Analytics, also segment
(06:28):
by device.
This is where it gets a littlespicy.
Segment that funnel now bydevice type mobile versus
desktop and you will probablysee what Adam talks about in the
blog Desktop doing better,mobile dragging behind.
So if you find that mobileusers are bouncing off like
crazy, that is a big old redflag that your form is probably
(06:51):
not optimized.
Number four we want to comparetraffic sources.
So which emails, which socialposts or campaigns are actually
converting the best to receivethat use UTM links when sending
people to your donation page.
So in GA4, you can look undertraffic acquisition and you can
(07:15):
filter by something calledsession source backslash medium
and you can track whichcampaigns are driving
conversions, not just clicks,because I don't know about you,
but clicks are not helping topay the bills you got, but the
donations obviously will and arethe ones that make the
difference.
(07:35):
Okay, so that is a littlesnapshot of how you can do some
of the analytics research.
So back to the blog post fromiDonate because this part is
gold talking about donationformats and we talked about kind
of the problem.
So what do we do about it?
Not all donation pages arebuilt the same, so what we have
(07:56):
here is an outline now of fourdifferent donation formats and
when to use each.
So let's break them down.
Number one is a single columnpage.
Think, clean, focused, nodistractions might be great for
giving Tuesday sending adtraffic, which is normally a
cold audience.
High intent email sendstypically converts at over 13%.
(08:21):
It works beautifully on mobilebecause it's that single column
page.
Number two, a pop-up form.
This one is called or I like tocall it a magic moment catcher.
Use this on blogs, campaignpages or anywhere where there's
emotional momentum peaks.
Pop-ups keep people on the page, they convert in the moment and
(08:45):
it's also great for recurringgift upsells.
So, as an idea for you to thinkabout visually here, let's just
say that you are directingpeople to a blog post.
That normally just tells astory, but there's been no ask
there in the past.
What if most pop-ups have somesort of timer, like after 10
seconds, show this pop-up, orone third down the page?
(09:07):
You have your own parameters onyour website tools of what you
can use.
I use Flowdesk for mine and soI know that's a couple of them.
So let's just say, for instance, at the 10 second mark roughly,
or at one third down the page,I'm going to be hitting a key
impact, key emotional momentwhere it would be perfect for
that emotional moment, peak,that magic moment for a pop-up
(09:29):
to appear where somebody feelsengaged to give.
So that's a pop-up form.
Number three is an embedded form.
I like these pretty much allthe time.
These are great for any partner, microsites that wanted to
share the ability for people togive to your organization.
Storytelling campaigns you haveimpact pages, your homepage
(09:51):
probably.
It's seamless, it's scrollfriendly and it really lets
giving live inside the storythat you're telling.
So it fits, it doesn't feelsegmented.
And then four is an SDK drivenform.
This is for the verytech-forward organizations out
there where you can have fullcontrol, personalized flows,
(10:14):
built-in analytics Really greatfor global chapters, if that's
you.
So what I like about iDonate'sblog is really connecting the
format to the campaign type.
So, for example, adam ListGiving Tuesday single column, an
emotional blog post that couldbe a pop-up.
(10:34):
Or maybe it's embed Anemergency match pop-up, a
recurring donor upsell pop-up,partner microsite embedded.
So every giving moment deservesthe right format because it's
about being intentional.
And why does this matter now?
(10:55):
Now, I'm sharing this because Iam gearing up for the next
round of my monthly givingmastermind and this idea it's
foundational.
This is something that we talkabout a lot is the overall
encompassing experience.
It's not just building aprogram.
Whether you're just launching anew giving program or you're
optimizing for year end, right,yes, it's great to have more
(11:17):
traffic, but definitely makesure you're making the most of
people already raising theirhand.
So, fix the page, fix theproblem, test it.
Fix the page, fix the problem,test it.
Your next big leap in revenueprobably isn't about doubling
your ad budget.
Maybe it is.
Maybe you have great traffic,maybe you have great conversion
rates.
After you check all this,fantastic Love that.
(11:38):
Then, yes, double your adbudget.
Really, it's about doublingdown on knowing and owning your
conversion strategy.
Know your numbers, optimize theexperience and match the moment
.
Huge thanks again, adam, as theauthor of the blog post and I
donate, for putting this allinto words.
That made my marketer heart sohappy.
(12:00):
You can go check out the fullblog post.
You don't have a trafficproblem, you have a conversion
problem and I will drop the linkin the show notes.
So all right, rock stars, goturn those clicks into donors
and I will see you next week.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
changemakers like you andcontinue bringing impactful
stories and strategies to theshow.
(12:36):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
Hey, hey, welcome back to Missions to Movements.
I'm your host, dana Snyder, andtoday we are getting into
something every nonprofit leader, digital marketer and
fundraiser really anyone who'slistening should be thinking
about right now, and that is youdon't have a traffic problem.
Maybe you do that's a wholeother sidebar but you do
(00:23):
probably have a conversionproblem.
And shout out to Adam O'BrienMaybe you do that's a whole
other sidebar, but you doprobably have a conversion
problem.
And shout out to Adam O'Brienhe is a former colleague team
member over at iDonate forputting out this idea front and
center in an incredibly smartblog post.
It is literally called youDon't have a Traffic Problem,
you have a Conversion Problem.
I read it and I was like, okay,we have to talk about this on
(00:46):
the show, because here's thedeal.
We spend so much time andbudget trying to get people on
our websites right.
We're boost content, we sendemails, we're paying for ads and
then we lose the gift on thelast click.
So shout out to the iDonateteam for this amazing post.
You can read the full blogposts in the show notes.
(01:10):
And when Adam wrote it, hecalled this the conversion gap,
the CVR gap, and it's basicallythe space between someone
feeling moved to give andactually doing it.
So let me hit you with a statabout this 88% of people who
(01:30):
click on a donation link don'tcomplete their gift.
Let that sink in for a second.
And then, even worse, most ofyour site traffic is probably
mobile.
You can figure this out onGoogle Analytics.
If you're not already lookingat Google Analytics on a monthly
basis, you definitely should beto see how much is on desktop
(01:51):
versus mobile.
But, knowing this, most mobileusers convert at just 8%, and
compare that to 11% on desktop.
Now that might not sound like ahuge gap in a difference
between mobile and desktop,until you remember that about 60
(02:11):
to 70% of traffic is now mobile.
So that's a lot of generouspeople, a lot of generous hearts
bouncing around your websitebefore they ever give, and
that's not a dip, that is acanyon that I really want to
express, and so I share thosenumbers.
It's very beneficial for you toknow your own numbers.
(02:34):
So I definitely suggest go onto Google Analytics.
It's totally free.
Go into GA4.
Look at your mobile versusdesktop traffic.
Look at your conversion rateson your forms.
How many visitors do you haveversus how many people are
donating during that givenperiod of time, your donation
tools should hopefully be ableto provide you with that
(02:55):
conversion rate as well.
So what's happening here?
It's not your campaignmessaging If it's getting people
to your site, it's not your CRM.
It's not because people don'tcare, it's a misalignment
problem.
You are leading people withemotion and purpose and heart
(03:15):
and then they land on your pageand it's like hitting a brick
wall of required fields andawkward layouts and zero
momentum.
You've seen them right fieldsand awkward layouts and zero
momentum.
You've seen them right Formsthat probably feel more like a
tax return than a meaningfulnext step.
Ew, right, the experiencedoesn't match the moment.
The moment poof disappears.
(03:37):
So how do we reimagine thedonation experience?
And this is really where theblog post comes to life.
On flipping the narrative, it'swhere your donation page isn't
where the transaction ends.
It's where the belief becomesbehavior, where emotion turns
into generosity.
(03:57):
It's the most fragile andpowerful part of your donor
journey.
So if your page isn't removingfriction, if it isn't matching
the donor mindset, if it isn'tfeeling mobile first and
effortless, the chances are youare losing more people than you
know.
So back up, right, you're likewhoa, whoa, dana, slow down.
(04:20):
How do I know that I have aconversion problem?
If you know me, I love teachingand making things very
practical, so you might bethinking this all sounds great,
but I want to know my conversionrate.
So quick start guide usingGoogle Analytics for GA4.
First things first.
If you can ideally make sureyour donation platform redirects
(04:45):
to a unique thank you pageafter a completed transaction,
why?
Because in Google Analytics,that page now becomes your goal
completion trigger.
So, no matter what system youuse, you need a trackable
success page to tell GoogleAnalytics.
(05:06):
Okay, that's the first thingsfirst.
You can rewind, replay that,but set up a thank you page that
will showcase that atransaction, a donation, was
made.
Number two is you want to checka page path funnel.
So in GA4, on the left-handside when you log in, there's
(05:28):
three options.
I forget what all three are,but one is explore and if you
click on that, it gives you anoption to click on something
called funnel exploration andyou can create a funnel that
starts you customize it to dothis starts with your donation
form page or any pages that aregoing to have an ask on it, and
(05:48):
ends with your thank you page.
This will give you a superclear.
Look at how many people landedon that form page, how many
actually finished the gift andwhere drop-offs happen.
That percentage, that is theconversion rate.
(06:08):
If it's under 10%, welcome tothe club.
That is probably mostorganizations.
So now we want to fix it.
And if it's above that, that'samazing.
Snaps I'm getting some snaps onthe microphone, but it's always
better to make it better right?
Number three if you can, withinGoogle Analytics, also segment
(06:28):
by device.
This is where it gets a littlespicy.
Segment that funnel now bydevice type mobile versus
desktop and you will probablysee what Adam talks about in the
blog Desktop doing better,mobile dragging behind.
So if you find that mobileusers are bouncing off like
crazy, that is a big old redflag that your form is probably
(06:51):
not optimized.
Number four we want to comparetraffic sources.
So which emails, which socialposts or campaigns are actually
converting the best to receivethat use UTM links when sending
people to your donation page.
So in GA4, you can look undertraffic acquisition and you can
(07:15):
filter by something calledsession source backslash medium
and you can track whichcampaigns are driving
conversions, not just clicks,because I don't know about you,
but clicks are not helping topay the bills you got, but the
donations obviously will and arethe ones that make the
difference.
(07:35):
Okay, so that is a littlesnapshot of how you can do some
of the analytics research.
So back to the blog post fromiDonate because this part is
gold talking about donationformats and we talked about kind
of the problem.
So what do we do about it?
Not all donation pages arebuilt the same, so what we have
(07:56):
here is an outline now of fourdifferent donation formats and
when to use each.
So let's break them down.
Number one is a single columnpage.
Think, clean, focused, nodistractions might be great for
giving Tuesday sending adtraffic, which is normally a
cold audience.
High intent email sendstypically converts at over 13%.
(08:21):
It works beautifully on mobilebecause it's that single column
page.
Number two, a pop-up form.
This one is called or I like tocall it a magic moment catcher.
Use this on blogs, campaignpages or anywhere where there's
emotional momentum peaks.
Pop-ups keep people on the page, they convert in the moment and
(08:45):
it's also great for recurringgift upsells.
So, as an idea for you to thinkabout visually here, let's just
say that you are directingpeople to a blog post.
That normally just tells astory, but there's been no ask
there in the past.
What if most pop-ups have somesort of timer, like after 10
seconds, show this pop-up, orone third down the page?
(09:07):
You have your own parameters onyour website tools of what you
can use.
I use Flowdesk for mine and soI know that's a couple of them.
So let's just say, for instance, at the 10 second mark roughly,
or at one third down the page,I'm going to be hitting a key
impact, key emotional momentwhere it would be perfect for
that emotional moment, peak,that magic moment for a pop-up
(09:29):
to appear where somebody feelsengaged to give.
So that's a pop-up form.
Number three is an embedded form.
I like these pretty much allthe time.
These are great for any partner, microsites that wanted to
share the ability for people togive to your organization.
Storytelling campaigns you haveimpact pages, your homepage
(09:51):
probably.
It's seamless, it's scrollfriendly and it really lets
giving live inside the storythat you're telling.
So it fits, it doesn't feelsegmented.
And then four is an SDK drivenform.
This is for the verytech-forward organizations out
there where you can have fullcontrol, personalized flows,
(10:14):
built-in analytics Really greatfor global chapters, if that's
you.
So what I like about iDonate'sblog is really connecting the
format to the campaign type.
So, for example, adam ListGiving Tuesday single column, an
emotional blog post that couldbe a pop-up.
(10:34):
Or maybe it's embed Anemergency match pop-up, a
recurring donor upsell pop-up,partner microsite embedded.
So every giving moment deservesthe right format because it's
about being intentional.
And why does this matter now?
(10:55):
Now, I'm sharing this because Iam gearing up for the next
round of my monthly givingmastermind and this idea it's
foundational.
This is something that we talkabout a lot is the overall
encompassing experience.
It's not just building aprogram.
Whether you're just launching anew giving program or you're
optimizing for year end, right,yes, it's great to have more
(11:17):
traffic, but definitely makesure you're making the most of
people already raising theirhand.
So, fix the page, fix theproblem, test it.
Fix the page, fix the problem,test it.
Your next big leap in revenueprobably isn't about doubling
your ad budget.
Maybe it is.
Maybe you have great traffic,maybe you have great conversion
rates.
After you check all this,fantastic Love that.
(11:38):
Then, yes, double your adbudget.
Really, it's about doublingdown on knowing and owning your
conversion strategy.
Know your numbers, optimize theexperience and match the moment
.
Huge thanks again, adam, as theauthor of the blog post and I
donate, for putting this allinto words.
That made my marketer heart sohappy.
(12:00):
You can go check out the fullblog post.
You don't have a trafficproblem, you have a conversion
problem and I will drop the linkin the show notes.
So all right, rock stars, goturn those clicks into donors
and I will see you next week.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of
Missions to Movements.
If you enjoyed our conversationand found it helpful, I would
love for you to take a moment toleave a review.
Wherever you're listening, yourfeedback helps us reach more
changemakers like you andcontinue bringing impactful
stories and strategies to theshow.
(12:36):
Don't forget to hit thatsubscribe button too, so you'll
never miss an episode, and untilnext time, keep turning your
mission into a movement.
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