Collecting first-party user data can transform your marketing efforts to reach the right people ready to stand alongside your organization and drive lasting change.
Nonprofits can enhance their connections with event participants and donors by collecting first-party user data and gaining insights like browsing behavior, user preferences, donation history, and survey responses. This data can transform campaigns with personalized messaging and targeting, making interactions more impactful while supporting data-driven decision-making for your marketing team. By utilizing techniques such as quizzes, surveys, and tracking user actions like event sign-ups, nonprofits can refine their campaigns and boost the effectiveness of lead-generation initiatives.
By leveraging data collected directly from real users, teams can create ads that are more relevant, timely, and impactful and serve the right people who are ready to take action, advocate, or donate to support your organization's mission. At Streetlight Digital, we do our best to collect this data ethically and safely so that it can support our marketing strategies and obtain the best results for our clients.
What is first-party user data and why does it matter?
First-party data is collected from users as they interact and navigate throughout your website, register for events, subscribe to an email newsletter, or engage with your social media accounts and other channels.
There are many ways to collect this information, including Google Analytics, Facebook insights, or other analytics platforms to identify engagement rates, traffic sources, and conversion rates from specific landing pages or tracked URLs. Our team uses a mixture of these methods to track user behavior in conjunction with an app we’ve created that acquires bits and pieces of information throughout a user's journey as an online quiz, survey, or engagement form. The app helps us gain insight into users’ interests and backgrounds, and we use that to refine messaging, improve engagement strategies, and capture more conversions.
An inside look into Streetlight’s strategy for collecting first-party user data
Our team came together to answer the need for safe, secure, and ethical means of collecting first-party user data to inform our targeting approach for acquiring more leads, enhancing donation match opportunities, and improving corporate visibility. Most importantly, it allows us to cater to the donor and deliver to them the content that matters most.
The app we’ve built is made possible through our client's CRM platforms and is integrated through an API. We employ an interactive quiz, survey, or engagement form to obtain lead information, which can be sorted based on different user personas of that organization. When you take the quiz, we only request need-to-know information and do so through micro-engagements as users fill out the form. As a best practice, we always ask for consent to use it in marketing efforts as well.
The quiz has been impactful for nonprofit organizations by providing a platform that tells their story and highlights partnerships that have increased website traffic and improved donation match opportunities. Organizations can raise awareness of key issues through simple Q&A and provide an opportunity to showcase corporate support simultaneously. Engaging prospective donors and event participants throughout the form encourages users to spend more time on a site which helps us retarget through emails or ads, knowing we’re communicating with a group of people who are interested and most likely to take action to advocate for or donate to your organization.
Want to see it in action? Take a quiz for yourself! You’ll learn a little something new today and get a sneak peek into the first-party data collection for one of our clients, The Armed Services YMCA
As with any personal information about your event participants or leads, organizations need to prioritize user security and be in compliance with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. There are too many stories of corporations experiencing data breaches that negatively impact their PR and impede their ability to obtain new users. That’s why when we collect information from users through embedded forms or our engagement app, we only ask questions that are essential and try to streamline the process of transferring this information using secure web apps that only a select group of people access.
Conclusion
As long as your organization is ethical, transparent, and secure when collecting user information, it’s one of the best ways to improve your marketing efforts and maximize your advertising spend. We’ve helped nonprofits transform from lackluster fundraising results to an overflow of support because an ad campaign simply reached the right audience at the right time. Contact us if you’re looking for similar results.