# Mapping the public sector funnelfunnelThe customer journey from awareness to purchase, typically Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, Action, with prospects narrowing at each stage.Voir la définition complète → from awareness to sustained action
A city health department sends 500,000 postcards urging residents to get a free flu shot. 40,000 people visit the campaign website. 6,000 book an appointment. 3,200 actually show up. Only 900 come back the following year for the booster. Every one of those drops is a marketing problem, not a policy problem, and each stage has a name, a cost, and a benchmark you can compare against.
This is the same discipline private-sector marketers use to track a shopper from ad click to repeat purchase. In government and nonprofit work, "purchase" becomes "compliance" (filing taxes on time, getting vaccinated, registering to vote) or "gift" (a donation, a volunteer sign-up, a bequest). The funnelfunnelThe customer journey from awareness to purchase, typically Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, Action, with prospects narrowing at each stage. logic doesn't change. The vocabulary and the benchmarks do.
Private-sector funnels optimize for revenue. Public sector and nonprofit funnels optimize for behavior change at population scale, often for audiences who did not ask to be marketed to and who face real friction (paperwork, distrust, lack of broadband, language barriers).
That changes two things:
1. Acquisition cost is a public accountability question, not just an efficiency metric. Taxpayer and donor money is being spent to move someone from awareness to action, and funders ask for that math explicitly.
2. Drop-off is diagnostic, not just a bug to patch. A spike in a specific stage tells you whether the problem is message (awareness), trust (consideration), logistics (conversion), or capacity (retention).
MapMapUsing software to automate repetitive marketing tasks and campaigns, enabling personalisation at scale across channels like email, web, and social.Voir la définition complète → it the same way a commercial funnelfunnelThe customer journey from awareness to purchase, typically Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, Action, with prospects narrowing at each stage.Voir la définition complète → is mapped, with sector-appropriate labels.
1. Awareness. ReachReachThe number of unique people exposed to your message in a given period. Unlike impressions, reach counts each person once, no matter how often they see it.Voir la définition complète →: how many people saw or heard the message. Measured via impressionsimpressionsThe total number of times an ad or piece of content is displayed, regardless of clicks. Each display counts as one impression, even to the same person.Voir la définition complète →, reachreachThe number of unique people exposed to your message in a given period. Unlike impressions, reach counts each person once, no matter how often they see it.Voir la définition complète → on social platforms, or survey-based recall.
2. Interest / consideration. Engagement: website visits, hotline calls, info session attendance, newsletter opens.
3. Intent. The person takes a low-commitment step: starts a form, adds an item to a benefits application, RSVPs.
4. Conversion (compliance or gift). The actual behavior: files the form, gets the vaccine, votes, donates, complies with a regulation.
5. Retention / sustained action. Repeats the behavior or becomes an advocate: files again next year, donates monthly, refers others, remains code-compliant on inspection.
Based on patterns commonly reported by public health campaigns, election agencies, and nonprofit sector benchmarking bodies (treat all as directional estimates, not precise figures for any single campaign):
In this context, CPACPACost Per Acquisition: the total cost to generate one customer or conversion, computed by dividing total spend by the number of acquisitions.Voir la définition complète → is often called cost per compliance or cost per gift.
CPA = Total campaign spend / Number of completed target actionsWorked example: a state motor vehicle agency spends $250,000 on a campaign to get residents to renew licenses online instead of in person. 50,000 people complete the online renewal as a result.
CPA = $250,000 / 50,000 = $5.00 per online renewalCompare that to the estimated cost of an in-person renewal (often cited in government efficiency studies as several times higher once staff time and facility costs are included) and you have a defensible ROIROIReturn on Investment: the ratio of net profit to the cost of an investment. A 300% ROI means each dollar invested returns $3.Voir la définition complète → story for budget season, without ever touching a return-on-equity calculation.
Donor lifetime value (LTV) estimates the total value a supporter provides over their relationship with an organization.
LTV = Average gift size × Average gifts per year × Average years retainedExample: average gift $75, 1.5 gifts per year, average retention 4 years.
LTV = $75 × 1.5 × 4 = $450If cost to acquire that donor (through direct mail, digital ads, events) exceeds $450, the organization is losing money on the relationship before year four, a red flag flagged routinely in nonprofit sector benchmarking reports like those from the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
For government programs, an equivalent is constituent engagement value: the downstream savings from someone who consistently complies (renews on time, avoids penalty processing costs, does not need enforcement follow-up).
Stage conversion rate = (Number who complete stage) / (Number who entered stage) × 100Track this per stage, not just top-to-bottom, because an overall 0.5 percent awareness-to-conversion rateconversion rateThe percentage of visitors or prospects who complete a desired action (purchase, sign-up, contact form), calculated as conversions divided by total opportunities.Voir la définition complète → can hide a healthy 60 percent intent-to-conversion rateconversion rateThe percentage of visitors or prospects who complete a desired action (purchase, sign-up, contact form), calculated as conversions divided by total opportunities.Voir la définition complète → paired with a terrible 2 percent awareness-to-interest rate. The fix is completely different depending on which number is broken.
Retention rate = (Actors who repeated action) / (Total actors in prior period) × 100US nonprofit sector estimates put average donor retention around 40 to 45 percent as of recent Fundraising Effectiveness Project data; European averages vary by country but are commonly reported in a similar 40 to 50 percent band by sector bodies like the UK's Charity Commission adjacent research groups. Always confirm current-year figures before citing them in a real report.
Vérification des acquis
1. In the flu shot campaign example, a large number of people visit the website but very few book an appointment. What does this specific drop-off pattern most likely indicate?
2. Why does the text argue that acquisition cost is a 'public accountability question' rather than just an efficiency metric in public sector funnels?
3. A commercial marketing funnel and a public sector funnel share the same underlying stage logic. What is the key difference in what each funnel is fundamentally optimizing for?
4. Select ALL correct answers about why drop-off at a specific funnel stage is described as 'diagnostic' in public sector campaigns.
Sélectionnez toutes les réponses correctes.
5. Select ALL correct answers describing factors that make public sector and nonprofit audiences distinct from typical private-sector customers in a marketing funnel context.
Sélectionnez toutes les réponses correctes.
Once you have stage-by-stage rates, benchmark against three things:
1. Your own historical performance (the most reliable comparison).
2. Comparable campaigns in the same sub-sector (public health versus tax compliance versus voter registration behave differently).
3. Published sector estimates, treated as directional, not gospel, since methodologies differ widely.
A practical rule: if the awareness-to-interest drop is unusually steep compared to your own past campaigns, suspect message or channel mismatch (wrong platform, wrong language, wrong trust messenger). If intent-to-conversion is the weak link, suspect operational friction: form length, appointment availability, document requirements. This distinction is why government innovation labs (the US Digital Service model, since restructured under 18F precedents) exist specifically to fix intent-to-conversion friction rather than run more ads.
🎬 [VIDEO: "How the UK Nudged a Nation" - youtube.com - a look at Behavioural Insights Team case studies showing how small design changes moved people from intent to completed action in government services]
Even low-budget teams can track stage drop-off with basic event tagging. A simplified funnelfunnelThe customer journey from awareness to purchase, typically Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, Action, with prospects narrowing at each stage.Voir la définition complète → event log:
event_name, user_id, timestamp, stage
"ad_impression", u1023, 2026-02-01T10:03, awareness
"site_visit", u1023, 2026-02-01T10:05, interest
"form_started", u1023, 2026-02-01T10:07, intent
"form_submitted", u1023, 2026-02-01T10:12, conversion
"renewal_next_year", u1023, 2027-02-03T09:00, retentionAggregating this table by stage and dividing consecutive counts gives you the conversion rates above, no proprietary platform required, just consistent event definitions across teams.