I’m currently offering a few fixed cost packages to help charities and non-profits get insight from the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4):
Training for reporting & analysis in GA4
Looker Studio dashboard using GA4 BigQuery data
Customised GA4 reporting walkthrough
Contact me if interested! (Non-profits/charities/education/social impact only.)
You can also connect with me by email or via LinkedIn
As an expert digital analytics freelancer, I have already delivered Google Analytics 4 training and dashboards to several major clients, with excellent feedback. I’m highly experienced in providing GA4 training for charities and non-profits. I’ve also produced many high quality, on-brand reporting GA4 dashboards.
I’ve taken the time to master the intricacies of reporting in GA4, BigQuery, and Looker Studio, so you don’t have to. For a simple one-off payment, you’ll receive high quality, tried and tested deliverables on a quick timescale.
I can also offer support with these digital analytics tools as part of a wider freelance analytics consultancy engagement for your charity or non-profit.
Daniel has been invaluable in helping us to translate often complex and confusing data into meaningful insights and opportunities, in order to continually improve our websites and apps.
It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with Daniel.
We needed a better way to access our face-to-face fundraising data from the Evergiving platform. The data reporting Daniel produced for us was of excellent quality and exactly what we were looking for, and has had a very positive impact on streamlining our processes.
The training he delivered was also excellent – he is very thorough and patient and we hope to work together again soon.
Tommy’s is a charity organisation committed to saving babies’ lives. We fund pioneering research and support families through every part of the pregnancy journey.
Tommy’s has been a core analytics client of mine since 2020. Like most large non-profits, they have a wide range of digital products supporting diverse activities. With one of the UK’s most visited charity websites – tens of thousands of daily visitors to the main site alone – there is a wealth of data to organise and make sense of.
Working closely together, we have delivered reliable data analytics leading to actionable insight. This spanned the launch of a new website in 2020 through to ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and optimisation of Tommy’s activities. Our work together has covered several high-profile websites, apps, campaigns, and digital channels. I have brought a wide range of skills and knowledge to these projects, while constantly learning and adapting to support the highest quality results.
Work delivered includes:
A range of deep-dive analysis, highlighting opportunities for UX, content, and campaign improvements
A conversion rate optimisation (CRO) process, principles, and materials
Individual CRO experiments leading to conversion uplift and highly actionable insights
Bespoke website reporting dashboards created in Looker Studio
Strategic guidance on analytics approaches, platforms, tools, and integrations
A highly customised multi-site analytics setup, featuring Google Tag Manager, Universal Analytics, GA4, and Google Optimize.
Training, walkthroughs, and handover with Tommy’s team and consultants
Support with tracking and evaluating advertising and social media campaigns
Daniel has been invaluable in helping us to translate often complex and confusing data into meaningful insights and opportunities, in order to continually improve our websites and apps.
Highlight: Surfacing opportunities through analysis
We have carried out several pieces of “deep-dive” analysis across Tommy’s website: detailed data analysis looking at many aspects of web content and user conversion. I am always keen for analysis to present opportunities for improvement, which could relate to UX, content, or communications driving traffic to the site.
Our deep-dive analysis work has accelerated in recent times, feeding directly into Tommy’s strategic web development roadmap. It also provides a sound basis of quantitative insight – and inspiration! - for our CRO programme.
We have helped to evaluate the overall performance of Tommy’s website, focusing on traffic profiles, user journeys, and a range of key outcomes across the site. As well as this broad analysis, we have delivered granular insight into specific areas, like the donation process and Tommy’s popular pregnancy tools.
Most recently, we analysed the performance of Tommy’s new Miscarriage Support Tool in depth. The Miscarriage Support Tool uses an algorithm developed by the University of Warwick and is based on data collected from Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research. Our insights fed directly into development improvements and enhanced recruitment for user research, receiving positive feedback from within Tommy’s.
Highlight: Conversion rate optimisation
A core specialism throughout my career has been conversion rate optimisation (CRO). Through structured AB or multivariate tests – randomised control trials - we can get true “cause and effect” insight on website changes.
I have brought years of successful CRO experience to Tommy’s, helping them to:
Identify CRO tools on the market and choose a solution
Understand strategy, best practice, and rationale around CRO
Embed a clear, rigorous process and documentation
Demonstrate the tools
Set up individual tests
Integrate CRO with rich web analytics
Analyse and share results, making clear recommendations for next steps
We gained momentum in our CRO programme across 2021-22. Our first major test was a success: we trialled two popup variants on Pregnancy Hub pages, asking users to sign up to pregnancy support emails. We had to ensure that the popup was not shown at inappropriate times, such as on pages relating to baby loss. We also did not want to damage the overall user experience and cause abandonment from the site.
The test resulted in a clear winning popup variant, with over four times the email signup conversion of the control (gaining hundreds of extra signups over the test period). We also increased the marketing opt-in rates from completed signups, and improved overall website engagement rates, making this test a resounding success for positive uplift.
Next, we focused heavily on optimising the website donation process. We carried out several tests, starting with introducing an inline donation widget to high-traffic pages then moving on to testing donation popups across different site sections. We also completed iterative rounds of testing on the donation form prompts, aiming to find optimal values and understand the behavioural economics underpinning donor choices.
Our tests so far have been extremely useful. They have either given us direct conversion uplift or helped increase our understanding of user behaviour and guide development priorities.
Some successful variants from our CRO tests.
Highlight: Multi-site analytics setup
All data analytics needs a good implementation at its heart. This is particularly true for Tommy’s: several websites, apps, and platforms generate a huge continuous stream of visits, interactions, and conversions.
I was fortunate to come on board several months before the launch of Tommy’s new website in 2020. This enabled us to think through solutions, map out what we wanted to track (and why), and work closely with web developers. I advocated a clean, modular, consistent approach using the Google suite of products. Central to this was using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to help us deploy analytics and marketing tags with relative ease. I proposed a custom data layer for rich information capture – for areas like donation transactions and marketing opt-ins - briefing developers and providing thorough feedback to achieve this. We also integrated Google Optimize across the main website for CRO experiments and personalisations.
Initially, I set up a comprehensive Google Universal Analytics (UA) solution for Tommy’s main website via GTM. We have since extended the solution to several microsites and a mobile app, My Prem Baby. In 2022, we completed a complex rollout of the new Google Analytics 4 (GA4). I created a comprehensive GTM/GA4 solution design, which doubles as a handy reporting reference. I have also facilitated the setup of other tools, such as Wisepops to help us AB test website popups.
I am stepping back from hands-on implementation but have left solid foundations and practices in place for the future. From the beginning, I strove to explain to Tommy’s what we were doing and why, so that the solution did not become a “black box”. In reporting and analysis, I clearly outline caveats and limitations with the data, which ultimately aids understanding and insight. I have demonstrated various tools and technical concepts to Tommy’s and their consultants over the course of our work, to ease the handover of the analytics setup.
What’s next?
I am continuing to work closely with Tommy’s, with renewed focus on insight and optimisation.
My strategic aim is to use organisations’ existing data and capabilities to their fullest potential. Working with Tommy’s and their developers, we hope to roll out many more CRO tests and website enhancements in 2023.
Our overarching objectives are to improve the user experience and support good outcomes for those who use Tommy’s services and content. Positive social impact is what drives me as an analytics specialist working with non-profits; I’m pleased to be a part of achieving this through Tommy’s crucial work.
If you'd like to discuss how I can help your charity with data analytics, you can find me on LinkedIn, or email me at [email protected]
Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.
Website relaunch: May 2021 – April 2022
In early 2022, Plan International launched a new global website platform.
Keen to ensure full web analytics capability from day one, the organisation commissioned me to provide a comprehensive analytics setup, custom dashboards to surface key reports, plus training, documentation, and support for website stakeholders.
We began working together from the outset of the website project in 2021, scoping the analytics solution and offering expert analytics consultancy from website conception through to build and release.
With a keen interest in international development and education, and being familiar with Plan International’s work, I was excited to be involved with this bold new phase for their online presence. I was able to bring comprehensive analytics experience from similar projects, including complex multi-site setups and training for other major international organisations.
What did we do?
Requirement gathering questionnaire & interviews with international stakeholders.
Solution design & detailed configuration checklist for analytics.
Training sessions on Google Universal Analytics (UA) & Google Tag Manager (GTM).
Interactive Google Data Studio dashboards for essential website reporting.
Full setup and testing of UA custom events & goals to track rich website interactions.
Consulting on cookie consent and privacy policy.
Full integration of userconsent options with analytics.
Analytics usage notes & a complete walkthrough guide for GTM.
Introduction to Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
What was the outcome?
Plan International have had high-quality, global reporting in place from website launch, giving them continued access to key insights with no interruption.
The Data Studio dashboards provide a website performance overview across a few concise report pages. This reduces the need for stakeholders to log in and navigate GA’s interface for basic insights.
The GTM solution is highly flexible and scalable. This allows Plan International to manage all their analytics and marketing tags across the entire global web platform, or by each country’s individual sub-site as desired.
We have strong analytics foundations in place following best practice and extensive first-hand experience of analytics for large websites. This gives us a clear path to implement GA4, and make ongoing enhancements and additions to the analytics setup.
In our transition to a new website, Daniel’s experience and insight in Google Analytics has helped us anticipate issues, resolve unexpected roadblocks and quickly understand technical challenges.
Daniel’s expert knowledge also meant he was able to deliver a flexible solution – ready for our transition to Google Analytics 4.
For a large global organisation like Plan International, it was essential to consider the perspectives and needs of different country teams as well as the central support function. Plan International kindly facilitated our analytics discovery questionnaire and arranged targeted interviews with key stakeholders.
Even with what appeared to be relatively simple analytics requirements, talking these through with different teams was invaluable to validate our design decisions, clarify what was in scope, and keep people informed about what they could ultimately expect on the new web platform.
We also laid some early groundwork by running brief, interactive training sessions in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager for Plan International’s global support team.
Data Studio dashboard
In large organisations, there are many types of analytics users. Some have detailed expertise and are comfortable with advanced analysis, while others use analytics infrequently, perhaps for annual performance reporting or a snapshot of a big campaign. For users less familiar with the tool, Google Analytics can be daunting. The interface has many different reports and settings: great for expert analysts, but it presents challenges for basic ongoing reporting.
To address this, we decided to create a summary reporting dashboard in Google Data Studio, a free – but powerful – data visualisation tool. Our dashboard pulls in select data from the global web platform, allowing users a quick - almost at-a-glance – summary of website performance. The dashboard can be filtered easily to show data for specific sub-sites or groups of sites, as well as common reporting dimensions like device type, traffic source, and user country. There are further dynamic filters for users wishing to interrogate the data without fully diving into the GA interface.
We produced a dashboard template which we were able to replicate for both the new web platform and the previous platform, giving Plan International the additional option of straightforward historical reporting alongside the new solution.
Tracking setup
We identified the key features for website analytics and mapped these to a comprehensive solution design. This included a measurement framework of top-level KPIs - mapped to goals in GA - and supporting KPIs, which could be reported as either custom events or pageviews.
We designed a clear, scalable system of GTM containers to allow us to manage all analytics and marketing tags across the website, at either the global level or per sub-site.
In collaboration with Plan International’s developers, we were able to integrate GTM cleanly with the content management system and provide a CMS field to add additional containers. We also implemented a basic data layer in the website backend to help delineate individual sub-sites in reporting where this was not apparent from the URLs.
With this solid infrastructure in place, we set up all our analytics tracking tags in GTM. These could be updated and tested with ease ahead of the website launch. The tagging setup included custom work to ensure that interactions with all elements of interest are picked up and mapped neatly to GA data.
Cookies & user privacy
Cookies, consent, and user privacy are core considerations for any modern website. Against a backdrop of increasing regulation and public scrutiny on cookies and trackers, Plan International recognised that they needed to implement a fully compliant cookie notice across the website.
Together, we worked with developers to understand the cookie notice technology, test out its features, provide feedback, and ultimately integrate the cookie notice with all analytics tags. This ensures that users are only ever tracked when they actively opt in.
Part of the data privacy work is clear explanation of trackers in the website’s cookie and privacy policies, as well as supporting stakeholders in understanding the rules and logic. We were able to provide analytics guidance for the website policies, along with step-by-step instructions to ensure that Plan International remain compliant as they extend their analytics tracking in future.
Global website launch
Our careful process and clear strategy ensured that we had no major issues come website launch. The analytics tagging was tested thoroughly in pre-live environments, and again several times on the live environment. Once real user data began to flow, we arranged a demo of reports with key Plan International stakeholders, to ensure they could find what they needed and understood the nuances of the setup.
Shortly after the launch, Google announced that Google Analytics 4 would be fully replacing Universal Analytics in July 2023. Our use of GTM, clean, future-proof analytics tagging setup, and clear documentation mean that we can now go ahead and implement GA4 with relative ease compared to many organisations.
Plan International’s work and values align very closely with my own areas of interest: they are exactly the type of organisation I want to help get better insights from their data.
Our analytics work over the last year provides a strong foundation for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as Plan International renew and expand their global web presence. I’m thrilled to be part of that journey and relish any opportunity to help make a positive impact in the world, however small my own contribution may be.
If you'd like to discuss how I can help your organisation with data analytics, you can find me on LinkedIn, or email me at [email protected]
Link is Scotland’s leading international education charity, working to improve the futures of people living in some of the most marginalised communities in the world.
With projects in Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, Link’s vision is of a world where every child has the right to quality education.
Following a recent website relaunch and with an upcoming Christmas fundraising campaign, Link were keen to improve their data analytics and build the foundations for getting quality insight from their data.
What did we do?
Complete audit of Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) on Link’s website.
Set up a range of GA goals and custom events to measure KPIs.
Support on UTM link tracking for campaign attribution.
Created interactive dashboards in Google Data Studio.
What was the outcome?
Link now have a reliable, clean implementation of Google Analytics they can depend on for ongoing analysis and evaluating future campaigns.
With an enhanced UTM process and a way to integrate CRM data with the website dashboard, Link have a fuller picture of channel attribution and their overall KPIs.
Data Studio reports will help stakeholders to view crucial data in one place, interacting with and querying the dashboards where needed.
Daniel has been a huge help to us at Link. Having recently launched a new website, we worked with Daniel to audit our digital analytics needs and capabilities.
Daniel was extremely flexible and responsive to our situation. He worked with us to deliver a package of work that was bespoke to our needs, in line with our budgets, and would give us maximum impact for our current situation. He kindly accommodated our tight timelines and always turned work around quickly and efficiently.
As a charity, we really appreciated his expert subject knowledge in our field as well as his clear expertise in analytics and we wouldn’t hesitate to work with him again in the future.
A core part of our offering is a comprehensive review of the Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager setup. This also touches on other platforms that can be integrated with GA, such as Google Search Console and Google Ads.
The aim is to ensure that we have a clean, reliable analytics setup, which serves as the foundation for all reporting, analysis, and optimisation work.
We carried out priority fixes and enhancements to the analytics setup, and provided a roadmap for further improvements to Link’s analytics ecosystem.
Custom Google Analytics measurement
Link did not have much in the way of custom tracking in place on their website but needed to be able to evaluate various KPIs. These included key fundraising and interaction points across the website. We also wanted to measure “softer” user engagement, such as CTA button clicks, document downloads, page scrolling, and video plays.
We worked with Link to understand their requirements and gain a deep knowledge of their website. We were then able to translate these into goals and custom events for ongoing reporting in GA.
Campaign links & attribution
Effective analytics is an ongoing process, requiring buy in from various stakeholders to be successful.
A key factor in analytics data quality is the use of UTM parameters for tracking campaign links. These tell Google Analytics through which platforms, campaigns, and marketing channels users reach the website. The responsibility for managing UTM parameters usually lies with marketers or content creators.
We worked with Link to help them understand the best use of UTMs and created a tracked link generator to support them in this continuous process.
Dashboard reports for stakeholders
Google Analytics can be overwhelming and difficult to use for many people, even analysts with specialist knowledge.
Google Data Studio is a business intelligence platform that allows us to create attractive visual reports from data. We can work with many data sources and pull them into a single report. For example, with Link we provided a Google Sheet for them to export CRM data, which is connected to Data Studio and will display reports alongside a suite of Google Analytics data.
Link wanted to help many stakeholders engage more readily with website data. Working closely together to refine the requirements and presentation, we created a high-level report for wider distribution up to board level, and a more detailed report for communications and fundraising stakeholders.
The ultimate purpose of all the analytics setup is to get useful insights from the data, and we hope these dashboards will be a key contributor to Link’s work.
It’s been a pleasure working with Lyndsey and Link Education – particularly satisfying to help support the work an international development organisation with such an admirable vision.
We hope to continue working together and that our analytics groundwork will bring value for months and years to come.
If you'd like a consultation about how I can help your charity or organisation with data analytics, you can find me on LinkedIn, or email me at [email protected]
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