Working with Referrals

When running a crowdfunding campaign, collecting detailed information about your backers' sources is crucial. This vital process enables you to:

• Optimize your marketing and outreach strategies.
• Identify the best-performing referrers, allowing you to amplify their effectiveness during the current campaign and leverage them in future campaigns.
• Verify the accuracy of reports from third-party promotional services (e.g., BGG, BackerKit, Jellop).

Within your Kickstarter Campaign Dashboard, you can generate unique referrer URLs to accurately track which sources are driving backers to your project. It is recommended to create distinct URLs for each promotional channel or method used.

For example:

• Giveaways: Assign a unique URL to track giveaway effectiveness.
• Facebook Ads: Create individual URLs for each ad variation (image and text) to identify the most effective combination.
• Banner Ads: Assign unique URLs to each third-party website displaying your banners.
• Kickstarter Updates: Use separate URLs for updates posted to previous projects to gauge their success.
• Newsletters: Each newsletter (whether sent directly or via a third-party service) should have its own unique URL.

If a backer arrives without using a specific URL, Kickstarter attempts to identify the referring website. If no information can be found, the backer is marked as a "Direct" visitor.

Throughout this process, you will accumulate a significant amount of data, which requires thorough analysis to extract meaningful insights. This is precisely where our tools come into play, empowering you to effectively interpret and leverage referrer information!

Kickstarter provides basic referrer information within your campaign dashboard; however, this data is often raw and limited to individual URLs. To extract deeper insights, you'll need more advanced capabilities, such as:

• Grouping multiple referrers into segments: For example, promotional services like Jellop create numerous referrer URLs. Our tool allows you to group these URLs into a single segment, providing both individual and combined performance data.
• Assigning advertising and performance costs: Easily track and calculate key metrics such as Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), total cost, and cost per backer for each promotional segment.

Here's how to use our tool effectively:

1. Download your Kickstarter data: From your Kickstarter Dashboard, click on the "Download daily referrers CSV" button.
   
   
2. Import data into Hive: Navigate to the "Referrals" tab of your Hive project, click "Import KS Data," and upload the CSV file. Importing daily is recommended to keep your data accurate and current. Existing data configurations remain unaffected.
   
   
   
3. Assign referrers to segments: After importing, you'll see a list of referrers. Some will be pre-assigned by Kickstarter, but many initially appear as "Unassigned." Assign each unassigned referrer to a relevant segment, grouping those from similar sources.
4. Analyze your data: Select "Group By Segment" to view an organized report showing total costs, cost per backer, and ROAS by segment.
   
   

To enhance accuracy, input additional cost details by clicking the "Total Cost" number, including:

• Setup Fee: Flat fee charged by third-party services for setting up promotional efforts.
• Performance Fee: Percentage fee based on the amount raised through a referrer URL.
• Ad Budget Fee: Total amount spent on ads associated with a specific referrer URL.

With these inputs, our system automatically calculates accurate metrics for budget and backer acquisition costs, enabling you to make informed marketing decisions and enhance your campaign's success!

Here is an example of what info you can get in the end:

Similar to Kickstarter, Hive also allows you to create custom referrer URLs directly within the platform.

If you plan to run post-campaign advertisements and continue generating revenue after your Kickstarter campaign ends, we highly recommend creating unique referrer URLs for each marketing channel or promotional method you use. This will help you accurately track post-campaign revenue and evaluate your advertising spending effectively.

Additionally, Hive supports seamless integration with Google Pixel, Facebook Pixel, and Facebook Conversion API (CAPI). We strongly recommend utilizing these powerful tracking tools to optimize your revenue streams and maximize the returns on your marketing investments. You can set these up in the "Basics" tab of your project.