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

Metrics Definitions

To ensure a consistent understanding of terminology, the following definitions have been established with respect to key metrics and formulas within the report. In analyzing any data relating to list size and corresponding benchmark data, the reporting rule was to round up to the nearest whole number.

Open Rate: The percentage of email recipients who open a given email campaign. A note about the impact of Apple’s iOS 15 changes on open rates has been included in the report.

Click-through Rate (CTR): The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in a given email. Unless otherwise designated, this report uses the following formula to calculate this:

(Total clicks / number of delivered emails) x 100

Bounce Rate: The percentage of total emails sent that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox. This report uses the following formula to calculate this:

(Total number of hard bounced emails / number of emails sent) x 100

Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of email recipients who unsubscribed from the send list after opening a given email. This report uses the following formula to calculate this:

(Total unsubscribes / number of delivered emails) x 100

Average Amount Raised Per Email: This references the transaction totals divided by the number of campaign emails sent within the time period established.

Average Amount Raised Per Contact: This references the transaction totals divided by the average number of recipients attempted per email campaign within the time period established.