Ko-Fi conversion rate analysis over time

On 30th July, I added a Ko-Fi link in the footer and at the end of the most visited articles on the website.

The idea behind this article is to keep the results on how a donation button performs (without being pushy or spammy).

Month #1

Results:

Month	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
August	2160	5 (0.23%)	0 (0%)

1 month isn't a narrow window, but the results look unpromising. At the moment that I'm writing this article, the website has 165 articles (total of 66228 words written) and has a traffic of ~4000 sessions per month.

Month #2

Results:

Month	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
August	2160	5 (0.23%)	0 (0%)
September	4690	9 (0.18%)	0 (0%)

2 months aren't a narrow window neither. The results still look unpromising though. At the moment that I'm writing this article, the website has 193 articles (total of 72194 words written) and has a traffic of ~5000 sessions per month.

I feel kind of sad that I didn't get a single donation, to be honest. 😔

It might mean that people don't find the website valuable enough. This is only a supposition because numbers are still low to make conclusions.

Month #3

Results:

Month	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
August	2160	5 (0.23%)	0 (0%)
September	4690	9 (0.18%)	0 (0%)
October	8349	21 (0.25%)	0 (0%)

This month the website has had ~7000 sessions. This is a new record. At the moment that I'm writing this article, the website has 225 articles (total of 83578 words written).

It seems that impressions and clicks are almost doubling every month. Click rate remains constant at ~0.2%, but still 0 donations.

Month #4

Results:

Month	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
August	2160	5 (0.23%)	0 (0%)
September	4690	9 (0.18%)	0 (0%)
October	8349	21 (0.25%)	0 (0%)
November	9078	26 (0.28%)	0 (0%)

This month the website has had ~7000 sessions as well. At the moment that I'm writing this article, the website has 256 articles (a total of 91632 words written).

There is almost no progress during this month because instead of displaying the Ko-Fi link, I'm displaying a Black Friday campaign—during the last two weeks of the month.

In December I will display the Ko-Fi link from day one. Results will be more interesting then. Let's take November as a short break in the experiment.

Month #5

Results:

Month	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
August	2160	5 (0.23%)	0 (0%)
September	4690	9 (0.18%)	0 (0%)
October	8349	21 (0.25%)	0 (0%)
November	9078	26 (0.28%)	0 (0%)
December	11162	36 (0.32%)	0 (0%)

In December, the website didn't grow. The total amount of traffic has been 4684 sessions at the end of the month.

Like the past months, the website didn't get any donations, and I'm losing hope it will get a single one in the future.

Month #6

I didn't check the data... Have been busy with my day job.

Month #7

I got the first donation (🎉). Thanks to Roman Lukš! It means a lot to me! Here is the data until the first donation:

First donation	Impressions (accumulated)	Clicks (accumulated)	Donations (accumulated)
7th February	15273	45 (0.29%)	1 (2.2%)

He suggested to enable PayPal payments. I've done it! Let's see if it affects the number of donations.

Update 1

After trying the experiment of Ko-Fi for ~8 months, I decided to remove it from this website. Only one user donated, and it was after reading this article. Now I've activated GitHub sponsorships, which I suspect it might have similar results, but I'd happy to be wrong.

Update 2

I deactivate GitHub sponsorships because I want to experiment with a donation model using Stripe, which is frictionless.