“Generations X and Y are far more likely to give online, and as many Baby Boomers say they give online as via direct mail.” That’s according to a new report from Blackbaud.

The study also confirms that donors older than 49 are a better target for fundraisers: they represent 69 percent of all charitable giving. Those under 32, meanwhile, give just 11 percent of donations.

The “one weird trick” ads and their absurd-looking landing pages work well because they focus on human psychology, Alex Kaufman reports:

“Research on persuasion shows the more arguments you list in favor of something, regardless of the quality of those arguments, the more that people tend to believe it,” [Harvard marketing professor Michael] Norton says. “Mainstream ads sometimes use long lists of bullet points—people don’t read them, but it’s persuasive to know there are so many reasons to buy.” OK, but if more is better, then why only one trick? “People want a simple solution that has a ton of support.”

Marketers—even those not selling diet drugs and miracle cures—should be paying attention.

The new Gmail inbox design, which diverts marketing e-mails to a separate “Promotions” tab, could pose a threat to e-mail marketers, Jordan Cohen writes.

While it is still too early to tell what the impact on open and click-through rates will be, marketers are right to be concerned that emails placed in a separate tab will be out of sight, and may also be out of mind (or, in the very least, not top of mind). By last count (June 2012), there were 425 million Gmail users in the world, and it may be up to half a billion by now — so the effect can potentially be substantial.

For now, users’ ability to disable the tabs and the increased use of mobile devices to check e-mail could limit the damage, he adds. Kimbia suggests a few workarounds as well.

But perhaps the bigger threat is that other providers follow Google in hiding marketing messages from recipients.

This, from a survey of young donors, should come as no surprise:

The donors also prefer to give online, with 84 percent saying they want to give through a Web site. The second most-popular way to give, with only 48 percent of donors, was to make a donation in person at an event.

It’s yet another reason to make sure you have a solid website and an easy-to-use online donation process.

But don’t rework your fundraising program just yet. The real question is not what young people claim about their giving behavior—people have a tendency to lie about such things on surveys—but whether they actually give at all.

Mike Allen quotes from Jonathan Alter’s new book on the 2012 Obama campaign (emphasis added):

The fundraising emails – more than four hundred in all – appeared hour after hour, day after day because they worked. An elaborate ‘More Emails Test’ showed conclusively that the more fundraising emails that went out, the more money came back – simple as that. Even the $3 ask – just enough to cover the credit card processing – helped build lists and increase a sense of ownership on the part of supporters. The growth in the number of people unsubscribing because they couldn’t stand the alarmist emails was much slower than the growth of cash flowing in, and Chicago knew that peeved unsubscribers would end up voting for Obama even if they thought the emails sounded like sketchy pleas from Internet con artists. Goff concluded that ignoring the human desire not to be annoying may have been the single greatest conceptual breakthrough of the campaign. It turned out to be worth more than $100 million.

Marketers, repeat after me: You are not your target audience.

You can preorder Alter’s book on Amazon.