The Nonprofit Email Report Data-Backed Insights for Better Engagement

VI. Methodology & Appendix

Browse The Report

  1. Introduction
    1. A Note from Neon One
    2. Who’s Represented In This Report?
    3. Why Is Email So Important?
    4. Anatomy of an Email
  2. Nonprofit Email Deliverability & Engagement Benchmarks
    1. Introduction
    2. Nonprofit List Sizes
    3. Ask The Expert: Is List Segmentation Really That Important?
    4. Nonprofit Email Bounce Rates
    5. Nonprofit Email Open Rates
    6. Nonprofit Email Unsubscribe Rates
    7. Nonprofit Email Click-Through Rates
    8. Nonprofit Email Fundraising Performance
    9. Nonprofit Email Performance by Date & Time
    10. Email Sender Superlatives
  3. A Data-Driven Approach to Subject Lines & Preview Text
    1. Introduction
    2. Convey Positive Emotions in Subject Lines
    3. Ask the Expert: How Did You Use AI for Subject Line Sentiment Analysis?
    4. Words to Include (or Avoid) in Your Subject Lines
    5. Experiment with Emojis in Subject Lines
    6. Write Compelling Preview Text
    7. Words to Include (or Avoid) in Your Preview Text
    8. Put It All Together — Performance Benchmarks & Word Usage
  4. Creating Effective Emails
    1. Introduction
    2. Ask the Expert: What Should I Keep In Mind When Creating Compelling Emails?
    3. Tip #1 — Include Imagery in Your Emails
    4. Tip #2 — Pay Attention to Salutations
    5. Ask The Expert: Do Salutations Really Make a Difference?
    6. Tip #3 — Use the Word "You"
    7. Tip #4 — Make Your Message Scannable
    8. Ask The Expert: How Do I Create a Great Call to Action?
    9. Tip #5 — Include Great Calls to Action
    10. Put It All Together - Build Clear, Compelling Emails
  5. Lessons from the Most Engaging Email of 2022
    1. Introduction
    2. Top Engagement Email Dissection
    3. Go Build More Engaging Emails
  6. Data-Backed Insights for GivingTuesday and Year-End
    1. Introduction
    2. Who’s Included In This Data?
    3. GivingTuesday Fundraising Totals
    4. GivingTuesday Email Data
    5. End of Year Fundraising Totals
    6. End-of-Year Email Data
    7. Use These Data-Backed Best Practices to Nail Your GivingTuesday and Year-End Goals
    8. Now Get Out There And Write Some Emails
  7. Methodology & Appendix
    1. Methodology
    2. The Dataset
    3. Terminology and Definitions
    4. Metrics Definitions
    5. Analysis by Mission & Organization Income
    6. Analysis by Time & Date Sent
    7. Analysis by Content Sentiment
    8. Data Privacy & Security
  8. About Neon One
    1. Learn more about Neon One

Terminology and Definitions

To ensure that there is a consistent understanding of terminology, the following definitions have been established with respect to key points within the report.

Campaign Email: Any email sent through the Email Campaigns feature of Neon CRM. This allows emails to be sent to many individuals at one time and its delivery is managed by the administrators of the database.

Date and time sent (delivery completed): The timestamp when delivery has been attempted to all emails in the email audience. For context, there are separate columns for “Delivery Started” and “Delivery Completed” in the Email Campaign Statistics list. These timestamps are often identical, but if the email audience is very large, it may take time for our email servers to process everything. Any timestamps are in Central Daylight Time (CDT).

# Opens by user: Total number of email audience recipients who opened the email campaign.

# Clicks total:  Total number of times that links in the email campaign were clicked. Includes multiple clicks by the same recipient, as well as any clicks that occur after a recipient forwards the email to someone else.

# Clicks by user: Total number of email audience recipients who clicked on links in the email campaign. Includes any clicks that occur after a recipient forwards the email to someone else (if the original recipient did not click on the link, but the forwarded recipient did).

# Bounces: Total number of email addresses in the email audience which were unable to receive the email campaign (ex: mailbox full). Clicking on this number within the Email Campaign Statistics detail page will display a general bounce category. Users can run the Email Report to see more detailed information from recipients’ email servers as to why the emails bounced.

 # Unsubscribed: Total number of email audience recipients who clicked the Unsubscribe link in the email campaign and completed the email opt out process.

Email Subject Line: This copy appears as the subject line of the email and is prominently displayed to recipients.

Preview Text: This copy appears in the inbox after the subject line.

Emoji: A small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc.

Sender Name: This is the text that displays as the name of the sender.

Sender Email: This is the email that displays as the sender.