The Email Acquisition report in Avid shows how new online subscribers become donors. It tracks two donor types: Instant Donors who give right after signing up, and Downstream Donors who give later. Use it to measure the revenue impact of your email acquisition efforts and prioritize your budget.
Use this article when
- You want to measure revenue from new online donors.
- You need to compare email acquisition sources or campaigns.
- You are deciding how much to spend on donor acquisition.
Applies to and prerequisites
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Connected tools | Your CRM, email capture tool, and online giving tool(s) must be connected to Avid. |
| Plan | Avid Intelligence or Avid Operating System |
| Role | Any role that can view Insights |
What it is
New online donors usually start as email subscribers. The Email Acquisition report helps you track how many subscribers convert into donors, how quickly they convert, and how valuable they become over time.
The two donor types
Instant Donor
An Instant Donor is a new email subscriber who gives right away. This usually happens on an Instant Donation Page shown immediately after someone signs up for a newsletter, downloads a resource, or fills out another online form. On average, about 4% of new subscribers convert this way.
Downstream Donor
A Downstream Donor is a subscriber who gives later. The first gift may come a week after signup, or several months later. Downstream Donors can account for half or more of new donor acquisition revenue for some organizations.
Using the Email Acquisition report
Open the report from your Insights dashboard. Look for the Email Program reports section. The Email Acquisition report is divided into four main sections.
1. New Subscribers
This section shows trends in new email subscribers, including their subscription status. You can see who is sendable, who bounced, and who unsubscribed. Use the top sources list to decide which channels, offers, and campaigns deserve more time and budget.
Avid Expert Tip: Create custom audiences from your top email acquisition sources. Use them to segment and personalize future communication based on what subscribers showed interest in.
2. Instant Donors
This section answers questions about donors who give immediately after signing up:
- How many new Instant Donors do I have?
- How valuable are my Instant Donors over time?
- How likely are Instant Donors to give again?
- Which acquisition campaigns lead to the most Instant Donors?
Avid Expert Tip: Donors who give twice in their first year are much more likely to keep giving. Use this section to see which campaigns lead to more second gifts and shift budget toward them.
3. Downstream Donors
This section answers questions about subscribers who convert later:
- How long does it take to convert a subscriber into a donor?
- Which acquisition sources lead to the most Downstream Donors?
- How valuable is a Downstream Donor over their lifetime?
Avid Expert Tip: If it takes a long time to convert subscribers into Downstream Donors, test a new welcome communication. Avid Playbooks can help you build or test one.
4. Donor Cohorts
This section compares cohorts side by side. You can see the current makeup of your email subscribers by type:
- Non-donors
- Instant Donors
- Downstream Donors
- Recurring Donors, grouped by acquisition type
Avid Expert Tip: Create a custom audience from your Non-donors and push it to a Meta campaign. Re-engage them with a downloadable resource that leads to an Instant Donation page.
Drill deeper with filters
Use the Filters control in the top right to slice the report by time frame, channel, source, or UTM parameters. This lets you compare specific campaigns without changing the underlying report.
For agency partners
Avid counts an Instant Donor as someone who gives on the same day they become an email subscriber. A few technical notes:
- Different CRMs and donation tools handle timestamps and time zones differently. A subscriber who joins at 11:55 p.m. and gives at 12:01 a.m. may not count as an Instant Donor.
- If the donation tool does not provide time data, Avid may not be able to tell whether the subscription came before the gift.
- Manual processes for migrating emails and gifts between systems can create small discrepancies.
Overall, Avid's Instant Donor measurement is dialed in to within a 5-10% margin of error. That range is reliable enough to build meaningful segmentation and personalization.