What are we learning? This post highlights new metrics and some early analysis from Adam, Amira, Geoff, Hannah and many others. The goal: turn our various sources of raw data into some high-level narrative headlines we can learn from.

Getting to 10K

Current contributor count: 5,529 (Aug 15)

• Are we on track to hit 10K? No, not yet. The statistical increase we’re seeing is based on good work to record past contribution. But our current growth-rate isn’t enough.
• Why is the 4-week trend-line up? Because of Maker Party + bulk capturing historical activity (especially Hive + MVP contribution badges).
• What can we do to grow faster? Short term, we can focus on (amongst other things):
  
  • 1) Maker Party partners. Convert more partner commitments into action, through a streamlined on-boarding process.
  • 2) Webmaker users. Try to convert more users into contributors. Ask them to do something more directly.
  • 3) Training. Net Neutrality teach-ins, train the trainer events, MozCamps, etc.
    • + …what else?

Webmaker users

Highlights:

• We now have about 120K Webmaker users. We’re seeing big recent increases, mostly thanks to the snippet.
• About 2% of those users are currently contributors.
• ~50% of users have published something.
  • Most of that publishing happens on the user’s first day. (Users who don’t make something on their first day tend not to make anything at all.)
  • There’s very little overlap between tools. Users tend to make with a single tool. (e.g., of the ~46K people who have made something, only 2K have made something with both Thimble and Popcorn.)
  • About 20% have opted in to receive email updates from us. (e.g., via BSD)

Owned media

• Snippet
  • Our top snippet performer: “The Web is your playground! See what you can build with Mozilla Webmaker and our global Maker Party.” (+ animated pug icon)
    • CTR = 0.58%. (Other MP variations: 0.15% – 0.49%)
    • The icon and animation have a big influence on CTR. Fun icons and playfulness are the hook.
    • “Teach and learn” language generally performs as well as more playful language.

• Landing pages
  • A “survey-based approach” is our top performer. Asking people *why* they’re interested in Webmaker. (vs straight email sign-up ask) (+4.7% conversion rate)
  • 80 / 20 split for learning vs. teaching. About 78% of survey respondents express interest in making / learning, with 22% wanting to teach / mentor.

• Language focused on teaching, learning and education performs well.
  • e.g., “Welcome to Webmaker, Mozilla’s open source education project, where you can teach and learn the web through making.” (+17%)
  • vs. “We believe anyone can be a tinkerer, creator, builder of the Web. Including you.”

• Mozilla.org referral traffic
  • “Webmaker” out-performs “Maker Party.” Our conversion rate dropped to half when we shifted from from “Learn the web” to “Join our Maker Party.”

“The further away we get from the Mozilla brand, the more work there is to get someone on board.” — Adam

Maker Party

• 1,796 events currently entered (Aug 15)
  • That means we’ve already surpassed last year’s total! 1,694 total Maker Party events last year, vs. same number in our first month this year.
  • But: we’ll still need a big event push in second half to hit our contributor target.
• Key takeaways:
  • Tracking partner activity. Automated tracking has been hard — we’re relying instead on one-to-one calls.
  • We’re gathering great data from those calls. e.g.,
    • Unreported success. Partners are participating in ways that aren’t showing up in our system. Manual badging is filling that gap.
    • Occasional confusion about the ask. Some think “Maker Party” is a “MozFest-level” commitment. They don’t realize the ask is simpler than that.
    • They need easier ways to get started. More simplification and hand-holding. Working on a simplified “Event Wizard” experience now.
    • Some partners see more value in Maker Party than others. Orgs with offerings similar to our own may perceive less value than those in adjacent spaces.
  • We haven’t cracked the earned media nut. Not much coverage. And little evidence of impact from the coverage we got.
  • We don’t have a good way for measuring participation from active Mozillians.
  • Second half. We should gear up for a second “back to school” wave to maximize contributors.

“There’s the ‘summer wave’ and ‘back to school’ waves. We need to have strategies and actions towards both.” –Hannah

Next steps

Short-term focus:

• 1) Partner conversion. This is probably our best immediate strategy for boosting contribution. Ship a simplified on-ramp for Maker Party partners. A new “Event Wizard,” simple start-up events, and user success support.
• 2) Convert Webmaker users to contributors. We’ve seen a *big* increase in user numbers. This opens an opportunity to focus on converting those users. Ask them to do something more directly. Try new low-bar CTAs, email optimization, re-activating dormant users, etc.
• 3) Training. Train the trainer events, MozCamps, MozFest, etc.

Longer-term questions

• Year-long engagement. How do we more evenly distribute event creation throughout the entire year?
  
• Match-making. How do we identify the teachers? How do we connect those who want to learn with those who want to teach? What are the pathways for teachers / learners?
• Impact. How many people are learning? How much are they learning? Should we make “number of people learning” Webmaker’s KPI in 2015?