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Using Novi Groups to Track Member Engagement
Using Novi Groups to Track Member Engagement

Create groups of members based on their level of engagement, using activity-based date conditions

Erin Marks avatar
Written by Erin Marks
Updated over a week ago

While the Membership Engagement Report can give you a picture of how members are engaging with your site, it may not capture the whole story of communication from your association. Some members may not have attended events or purchased products, but still had meaningful interactions with association admins that were tracked on their Activity Timeline.

By creating a Group in Novi based on the last activity date, admins can reach out to their most (or least!) engaged members.

Note: If you'll be syncing emails over to MailChimp or Constant Contact, be sure to check out the information below.


Overview of Group Conditions related to Member Activity

Activity-based conditions use "Days Ago" to pull members into the group. For your recently engaged members, consider using a shorter time frame. For less engaged, increase that time frame.

  • For example: A "Last Activity Date" of 180 days ago or greater would include members whose last activity was over 6 months ago.


Available Group Conditions Related To Member Activity

The options described below can be used as conditions to build Groups of members. Note that some of them are automatically added to the member's Timeline by the system, but other types of "activities" are manually added by Admins.

Activities Added by Admins

  • Last Note Date (Days Ago) - the last date an activity note labeled as "Note" was added to a member's activity timeline

  • Last Call Date (Days Ago) - the last date an activity note labeled as "Call" was added to a member's activity timeline

  • Last Meeting Date (Days Ago) - the last date an activity note labeled as "Meeting" was added to a member's activity timeline

    • this is a manual activity added by an admin (different than the last "Event" date - see below)

  • Last Task Date (Days Ago) - the last date assigned for a task to be completed on a member's activity timeline

    • this does not look at the task status (open or complete)

  • Last Credit Date (Days Ago) - the last date a manual credit was added to a member's activity timeline

Note: It is possible to have an activity note labeled "Email" on the activity timeline, but this condition has been left out of groups to avoid confusion with emails sent via email marketing platforms.

Activities Added Automatically

  • Last Event Date (Days Ago) - the last date an event registration was added to a member's activity timeline

    • this is tied to Novi's Event component (i.e. Ticket purchases)

    • the date for this is the Start Date of the event in Novi

    • this does not include events where the person was marked as Did Not Attend or if their registration is Cancelled

  • Last Product Purchase Date (Days Ago) - the last date a product order was added to a member's activity timeline

Activities Added Automatically OR by Admins

  • Last Activity Date (Days Ago) - this condition will look for the last date any activity was added to a member's Timeline

    • TIP! This is the most comprehensive option because it includes: Note, Task, Meeting, Email, Call, Credit, Product Order, and Event Registration

    • "Email" means a manual email that has been noted by an admin on the member's activity timeline (NOT connected to MailChimp/Constant Contact)


Items of Note

Activity Dates

As explained above, these activity-based group conditions are based on "Days Ago" so the system will look at the date on the Activity, which may not be the same as the date it was actually created. For example, the date on a Task is usually put out in the future so it's not considered overdue immediately. Keep this in mind when deciding what number to enter in your group condition.

Condition Setting for "Is Null"

When looking for members who have not been engaged, don't forget to include "OR 'is null'" condition to include records with none of the activities logged.

Email Syncs

If you will be syncing over activity-based groups to MailChimp or Constant Contact, please note the following:

Note: MailChimp and Constant Contact do not send data back to member records in Novi, meaning groups based on any of the conditions above will not remove members from the group after an email is sent from your email marketing platform.

So what are your options?

  • One option is for an admin to add an activity (i.e. Note) to each of the member records that received the email campaign from MailChimp or Constant Contact. This way the member record will no longer be included in the Novi Group (until it meets the conditions again).

    • This wouldn't be a problem for a handful of records but is not ideal for a large list of members.

    • If you go this route, an admin will need to do this after every email campaign is sent to the group.

  • A second option is to set up a Drip Campaign in MailChimp or Constant Contact. This is the recommended approach if it will work for your situation & goals!

    • If you go this route, after the initial setup it will manage itself automatically, without an admin needing to manually add activity notes to the member records in Novi.

    • Learn more about how to set up an automated email series in MailChimp or Constant Contact.


Example Groups

Less Engaged Members - 90 days or longer since last engagement

Engaged Prospects - 90 days or less since last engagement

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