Maximizing Your Nonprofit's Google Analytics: A Beginner's Guide to GA4

Let's talk about the most exciting part of the online world - data

Understanding your website visitors and their behavior can be a crucial step in achieving your fundraising goals. This is where Google Analytics 4 (GA4) comes in - a tool that can help you gain insights into your website's performance and make data-driven decisions.

As a marketer myself, I've used various analytics tools to track website performance and user behavior. But Google Analytics has always been my go-to tool, and for good reason.

Note: Universal Analytics (OG report) will be sunsetting, so you're in the right place!

But we understand that the NEW GA4 can be overwhelming, especially for nonprofits with limited tech experience. That's why I've created this simple breakdown.

We'll explain each report and give you examples of how you can use the insights to improve your fundraising efforts.

Getting familiar with your nonprofit's GA4 reports

GA4 offers several different views and reports that can help your nonprofit get a comprehensive understanding of your online audience and their behavior. Here are some of the key areas and reports that you can focus on:

Overview Report

This report gives you a snapshot of your website's overall performance, including the number of users, sessions, and pageviews. It also shows you where your traffic is coming from and how users are engaging with your website. This report is useful for understanding how many people are visiting your website and where they are coming from.

Example: Let's say you notice that most of your traffic is coming from social media. You could use this information to focus your marketing efforts on social media platforms to drive more traffic to your website and potentially increase donations.

Behavior Report

This report shows you how users are interacting with your website, including which pages are the most popular and how long users are staying on each page. This report is useful for understanding what content is resonating with your audience and what could be improved.

Example: If you notice that users are spending a lot of time on your "Donate" page, but not actually making a donation, you could use this information to test different calls-to-action or donation forms to make the process more user-friendly and increase conversions.

Conversion Report

This report shows you how many users are completing a specific goal on your website, such as making a donation or signing up for a newsletter. This report is useful for understanding how effective your website is at driving conversions and where you may need to make improvements.

Example: If you notice that very few users are completing the donation form on your website, you could use this information to test different payment options or simplify the form to make it easier to use.

User Acquisition Report

This report shows you where your website visitors are coming from, including which channels are driving the most traffic to your website. This report is useful for understanding which marketing efforts are working and where you may need to focus your efforts.

Example: If you notice that most of your traffic is coming from organic search, you could use this information to invest in SEO efforts to improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your website.

I hope this helps! Remember, GA4 can be a powerful tool for nonprofits to understand their website visitors and improve their fundraising efforts, but it can be overwhelming at first. Start with these key reports and focus on what's most important for your organization. 

Best part... it's ALL FREE

For Harness Giving customers, we have an easy setup option in our platform that allows you to add your code within a users Admin Account.
For instructions, click here.

Some examples we provide include: GoDaddy, Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, & custom websites.