This article contains instructions for new Feathr users that want to perform all of their initial Feathr setup. Completing the steps listed here will set their organization up to utilize all the features Feathr has to offer.
If you're looking for a quick-start version of this guide, check out this article.
Setup Steps (scroll for detailed instructions)
- Know Feathr's Help Options
- Publish your Feathr tracking code
- Add Additional Users
- Add a payment method
- Verify your Domain
- Import Existing Audience
- Create a Project
- Create a Flight
- Publish a Digital Ad Campaign
- Publish an Email Campaign
- What's Next
1. Feathr's Help Options
Access education, troubleshoot issues, or get in touch with someone at Feathr to help you out. With Feathr’s help resources, you’re never on your own.
Find Help options at the bottom left of your screen when logged into the app:
The Help Desk is your first stop for the most up to date information related to everything Feathr. Additionally, check out the Chat button at the bottom right of your screen when logged in::
Support Chat will get you in directly in touch with a Feathr Support Specialist who can quickly help you with anything Feathr. Support Chat is available from 9am-5pm EST, Mon-Fri. Don't hesitate to reach out!
You can also email the Support team directly at support@feathr.co.
For an in depth explanation of all help options, view this article.
2. Publish Your Provided Google Tag Manager Container Code
Start capturing audience activity by publishing the Feathr provided Google Tag Manager (GTM) code on your web pages. Once the code is published, your audience's activity will be visible in the Community section of your Feathr account. This step is critical to all future functionality of Feathr, so be sure to start with these instructions.
To publish the GTM on your website:
- Copy the GTM code as sent to you by Feathr.
- Paste it in the <head> code of the header of your organization's website and save.
- If your website does not employ a universal header, paste the GTM code into the header of every page of your website.
We highly recommend that you also reach out to any third party vendors that host pages, forms, carts, or any other content on your behalf, and ask them to place the GTM Container code on those pages. This is essential for providing advanced conversion tracking on any of these externally hosted pages.
This is a more in-depth article for publishing your GTM, including FAQs. Please read it for more information or send it to your webmaster or IT professional if you are not the one handling the GTM installation.
3. Add Additional Users
To add additional users to your Feathr account, simply navigate to the Users & Roles within your Account Settings and click Invite Users.
For detailed instructions, visit this article.
4. Add a Payment Method
Next, add a payment method. This will supply Feathr with a method to bill for media spend, so there’s nothing stopping you from running campaigns.
- Once you've logged into Feathr, use the left menu to navigate to Settings > Billing > Configurations.
- Select + Add billing configuration.
- Complete the form on that page.
View this article for a more detailed walkthrough of adding a billing configuration in Feathr.
5. Verify your Domain
In order to send marketing emails with Feathr you are required to verify your domain. Start off by heading over to the Domains page in your Account Settings:
This step will require publishing Feathr provided DNS records within your domain registrar. Either follow the instructions in this article, or send the article along to your organization's IT professional.
6. Import Existing Audience
Importing your existing audience will supercharge your audience data in Feathr. After importing, your person records in Feathr can update with valuable activity data, such as interactions with your emails and web pages.
Start by exporting your existing audience and building a .csv file with each row representing a single person. Be sure to include any custom data fields relevant to your marketing efforts.
Then navigate to Community and then Imports on the left side of your screen:
At the top right of this page, click on Import Data, then Import Contact Data:
Check out this article for in depth instruction on importing your audiences.
7. Create a Project
In Feathr, Projects are like folders that campaigns exist in. It's up to you to create and name your Projects. Generally, Projects are named after the major initiatives that your organization runs marketing campaigns for. Some common project names are "Donations, "Membership," "Events," "Publications," etc.
Navigate to the Projects page:
Then click on New Project at the top right of the page:
Name your project after the initiative your initial campaigns will be working towards.
Click here for more information on Projects.
8. Create a Flight
Feathr's Flights feature is visualizing and organizing your campaigns to understand their impact on your organization's high-level goals, as well as the steps of the marketing funnel your audience moves through to accomplish those goals. It's good marketing strategy to plan your initiatives as a collection of flows consisting of multiple campaigns. Flights make planning and running these flows easy.
Click on the Project you just made, then navigate to the Flights page on the left side of the app:
Then click on the Add Flight button at the top right of the page:
You'll see a collection of Flight Paths on the next page. Flight Paths are marketing templates intended to achieve some of the common goals your organization may have.
Feathr teams have spent years analyzing the data patterns that lead to reliable, repeatable growth, and distilling them into plug-and-play templates. Using Flight Paths, you can capitalize on our hard work, allowing you to market like an expert without having to be one. You can learn more about Pre-Made Flight Paths here.
For your first Flight, however, we recommend clicking on the New Empty Flight button at the top right of the page:
We now know that Flights exist within Projects, and that Campaigns can exist within Flights. Now, let's introduce Legs. Legs are named groups of Campaigns within your Flight. Legs help us to organize the chronological and strategic order of our Campaigns.
Click "Add Leg" and you'll notice a box appear. You can click the "+" icon outside of the box to add additional legs. You can rename your Leg by clicking on the "Unnamed leg" text.
For your first flight, you can set up a typical marketing funnel like this:
The first Leg will contain expansion campaigns, the second Leg will Cultivate your audience with nurturing campaigns, and the third Leg will work to Activate the audience and drive conversions.
To learn more about building a custom Flight, check out this article.
9. Create a Digital Ad Campaign
Digital Ad Campaigns display your Ads to audiences as they browse the internet.
Go ahead and click on the "+" button inside of the Expansion Leg you've built:
This page displays all of the different campaigns available to you:
Feathr has grouped the different Ad Campaign types by their strategic purpose--some campaigns Expand your audience, and some are meant to Cultivate and Activate your existing audience.
While the purpose of all Ad Campaign types is to show ads to an audience. However, your choice of campaign type determines how that audience is defined. For example, a Search Keyword campaign will build an audience of people that use search engines to search the unique keywords you've uploaded into the campaign, and a Geofencing campaign will show your ads to people who are in a particular place at a particular time. Check out this article for more in depth explanations of each campaign type.
A tried and true marketing funnel begins with campaigns that Expand your audience, then gradually move to Cultivate and Activate the audience that you've gathered along the way. We recommend that your first campaign in Feathr be an expansion campaign.
- For 501c3 Nonprofits or any donation based organization, we recommend an Affinity as your first campaign. Read this article for an in depth explanation of Affinity Campaigns.
- For Associations, Credit Unions, or any membership based organization, we recommend a Search Keyword as your first campaign. Check out this article to learn how to best run a Search Keyword campaign, and also this article to help you formulate an effective keyword list.
Click on the box of your recommended campaign type. Name your new campaign with the call to action you intend to display with your ads. The goal of an Expand campaign is to attract new audience members in order to Cultivate and Activate them down the road. "Learn More," is an example of a welcoming call to action for initial expansion campaigns.
After naming your campaign, the Campaign Wizard will guide you through the steps for publishing your first campaign. Every ad campaign type follows an almost identical process to publish:
The "Targets" step is the primary difference between ad campaign types. We already learned that the most meaningful difference between them is how they define audiences. So, the "Targets" step will be a bit different depending on which campaign type you chose.
Additionally, every digital ad campaign requires creatives to display to your audience. Feathr accepts many different sizes of creatives and you can find the specifications listed here.
While there is a wide variety of creative sizes available to use on Feathr, for your first campaign we strongly recommend using at least the three most popular sizes, listed below:
- 300 x 250
- 728 x 90
- 160 x 600
You can choose to design creatives directly in Feathr using the integrated Banner Builder, or have prepared .png or .jpg files ready to load into the campaign when prompted.
At this time, we recommend skipping the optional Conversion Tracking step. The purpose of an Expand campaign is to attract new audience members, and Feathr's default campaign reporting provides metrics that will help you evaluate the campaign's success at accomplishing that.
After publication, be sure to familiarize yourself with Feathr's Campaign Reporting. The data from these reports can be used to guide your marketing strategy moving forward.
10. Create an Email Campaign
Emails are your direct line of communication to your most committed audience members. Don’t wait to connect with them and use Feathr’s campaign wizard to send your first email.
The first email campaign you publish should be a Single Send Email Campaign. This campaign type allows you to send one off emails, such as a monthly newsletter or an email blast.
The first step is to build the content of the email you want to send. Follow the instructions in this article and utilize the integrated template builder within Feathr.
Once you've saved your email template, determine whether the content of this email is related to the the ad campaign published in the previous step of this guide. If it is, add a Single Send Campaign to the existing flight. If the email content is related to another initiative, create a new Flight and/or Project and add your Single Send Campaign to it.
Follow the instructions in this article to publish your first email.
After publishing, be sure to read up on How to Read Email Marketing Reports.
11. What's Next
- Reporting. Learn about how to read and analyze campaign reporting so that you can measure your success.
- Goals. Understanding and using goals is crucial to conversion tracking in Feathr.
- Google Ad Grants. Google Ad Grants is a program run by Google that provides monthly advertising stipends to qualifying Nonprofit organizations. If you're unsure whether you qualify for Google Ad Grants, please refer directly to Google's documentation and check your eligibility.
- Integrations. Relevant campaign messaging relies on accurate data. Improve the quality of your data by integrating your external platforms with Feathr.