Originally published May 16, 2007. Updated August, 2025.
Website HITS, or…
How Idiots Track Success
Most in philanthropy aren’t that tech-savvy. And if you don’t understand the basics, it’s easy to fall for bad advice that does little for your institution’s long-term success.
Website “hits” mean nothing.
Yes, you read that right. Counting “hits” is like counting the number of crumbs on your table after dinner—it doesn’t tell you how good the meal was. What matters is measuring real engagement and tracking results relative to your marketing campaigns.
Why “Hits” Are Misleading
Most so-called hits are meaningless. Many come from search engines crawling your site, not actual humans. Unless you’re filtering out junk data with professional analytics, you’re literally counting up the wrong tree.
What to Measure Instead
Forget raw hits. Focus on metrics that reflect human interaction and intent:
- Visitors – How many people come to your site?
- Unique visitors – How many individuals, not repeats?
- Loyal visitors – How many return for more?
- Time on page – Are they engaging with your content?
Tracking sessions (a single visitor’s unique experience on your site) is far more accurate. A session tells you whether someone looked at one page and left—or stayed to explore.
Stickiness Beats Hits
Your goal: make your website sticky. That means prospects stay longer, read more, and get inspired to take the next step. Think of your planned giving website as a 24/7 brochure—always ready to engage, not just a digital billboard gathering dust.
Use photos, lists, callouts, and campaigns that double visitor engagement. Incentivize action: a phone call, a meeting, or requesting a personal illustration—not just more generic brochures.
Make the Ask
When they call, skip the middleman. Don’t just send another brochure. Make the ask. The average American sees over 3,700 ads per day. Yours can be the one that cuts through—if you make a personal connection on the first call.
Caution: stay away from mass email blasts unless you follow strict best practices. Otherwise, you risk annoying the very prospects you want to cultivate.
Ask the Right Question
Wrong question: “How many hits did we get?”
Right question: “How is the internet integrated into our overall marketing strategy?”
Hits don’t close gifts. People do. Use your website to expand reach and start conversations—then build relationships offline.
The “Fresh Content” Myth
Excuse: “We’re not getting hits because our site isn’t updated monthly.”
Reality: planned giving websites aren’t Time Magazine. Donors won’t visit daily looking for the latest rates or tax tables. They visit, gather information, and act when they’re ready—sometimes weeks or months later. Don’t waste energy chasing artificial freshness.
Stay on Course
Obsession with hits is a sales gimmick that distracts you from the real challenge: using your website as part of a coordinated marketing campaign. A website alone won’t close gifts. But a smart campaign—online and offline—will.
Cause and Effect
Instead of stressing over daily traffic, track trends. Look for spikes after mailings, events, or targeted ads. That’s how you prove cause-and-effect in your campaigns. Over time, steady growth in sessions is what matters—not vanity numbers.
The Real Challenge
Your job is to maintain a proactive, consistent marketing campaign across all channels. Don’t binge market. We give our clients 12 simple, low-cost tips that, like exercise for health, only work if you keep at it.
A Final Word: Planned Giving is “Boring” (to Prospects)
To insiders, planned giving is a fascinating puzzle of tax codes and legal jargon. But to the average donor, it’s confusing at best—and boring at worst. Remember: they don’t live in your world. They just want clarity, simplicity, and a reason to call you.
So forget about hits. Measure coordinated marketing efforts. And for heaven’s sake, put your phone number on the site. The obvious is too easy to miss.
