CitizenGo

How adding a money back guarantee statement on the donation page affects donor conversion rates

Experiment ID: #197157

CitizenGo

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 04/11/2025 - 05/07/2025

CitizenGO is a global community that uses online petitions and action alerts to defend life, family, and liberty. Their platform enables individuals to influence decision-makers worldwide by leveraging the collective support of like-minded citizens.

As part of their commitment to transparency and donor trust, CitizenGO has a policy that allows donors to request a refund of their donation at any time, no questions asked. While this policy has long existed, it had never been clearly communicated on the donation page itself.

We hypothesized that explicitly including a money-back guarantee on the donation page would reduce the perceived risk of donating and increase donor conversion rates. By clearly communicating CitizenGO’s refund policy, we aimed to reassure hesitant visitors and increase their likelihood of completing a donation.

This experiment was launched during CitizenGO’s monthly donation campaign titled “FR MD L Expand our MD base in [COUNTRY] 2025.” To ensure broad applicability across CitizenGO’s global audience, we tested this experiment on donation pages in the following languages: English (EN), French (FR), Italian (IT), German (DE), Spanish (ES), and Portuguese (PT).

Control: No changes were made to the donation page.
Treatment: We added the following money-back guarantee message to the donation page:

“Our Promise to You: If you ever feel that your donation isn’t making the impact you expected to defend fundamental human rights, just let us know, and we’ll refund 100% of your gift—no questions asked.”

Research Question

We believe that adding a money-back guarantee message to the donation page will increase donor conversion by reducing perceived risk and building trust.

Design

C: Control

T1: Treatment #1

Results

	Treatment Name	Conv. Rate	Relative Difference	Confidence
C:	Control	47.8%
T1:	Treatment #1	43.1%	-9.8%	77.9%

This experiment has a required sample size of 865 in order to be valid. Unfortunately, the required sample size was not met and a level of confidence above 95% was not met so the experiment results are not valid.

Key Learnings

We ran this test for 27 days and found that overall donor conversion decreased by -9.8%, with a confidence level of 77.9%. While not statistically significant, this directional result suggests that the addition of the money-back guarantee may have introduced doubt or hesitation rather than reassurance for prospective donors. It’s possible that mentioning a refund option on the donation page raised concerns about the organization’s impact or credibility. Further testing could explore alternative placements or softer language to build trust without unintentionally undermining confidence. Here are the results split up by language:

English: Treatment saw a -3.2% relative decrease in conversion compared to control (20.0% confidence).
French: Treatment saw a +36.9% relative increase (57.7% confidence).
German: Treatment saw a -14.3% relative decrease (59.6% confidence).
Italian: Treatment saw a -46.4% relative decrease (90.7% confidence).
Spanish: Treatment saw a -15.3% relative decrease (62.5% confidence).
Portuguese: Treatment saw a -10.5% relative decrease (21.0% confidence).

While the French variant showed a positive lift, it did not reach statistical significance. The Italian variant, however, showed a strong negative effect with high confidence. Other languages saw smaller negative impacts, none of which were statistically significant. One possible theory is that the language felt too commercial or “retail-like” for the context of charitable giving, which could have conflicted with the emotional and mission-driven nature of CitizenGO’s cause. Instead of building trust, the guarantee may have cast doubt on the organization’s impact or created unnecessary friction at the point of conversion. Next Steps:

Explore softer, mission-aligned language that emphasizes donor trust without using retail-style guarantees.
Test different placements for trust-building language (e.g. near testimonials or impact statements rather than near the gift form).
Consider emphasizing positive reinforcement—such as donor impact or satisfaction—rather than offering an opt-out.

Experiment Documented by NextAfter

Question about experiment #197157

If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.