Catholic Extension Society

Can a Streamlined Donation Path Improve Results for a Content Offer?

Experiment ID: #197981

Catholic Extension Society

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 06/10/2025 - 06/25/2025

This experiment was conducted for Catholic Extension Society (CES), a nonprofit organization that supports Catholic faith communities in under-resourced areas. The campaign centered around a special content offer tied to Extension, CES’s quarterly magazine. This particular edition was a commemorative issue celebrating the newly appointed pope.

The primary offer allowed supporters to sign up to receive the digital edition when it becomes available. Additionally, anyone who donated $35 or more would receive a physical copy of the magazine as a thank-you gift.

The experiment aimed to test whether adding a slide-up that bypassed the digital sign-up step—and instead directed visitors straight to the donation page—would reduce friction and result in more donations.

This test was split 50/50, and everything else remained the same.

Research Question

By removing the initial email capture step and directing high-intent visitors straight to the donation page via a slide-up prompt, we believe we can reduce conversion friction, shorten the donor journey, and increase overall donation revenue without significantly sacrificing lead generation for the digital magazine.

Design

C: Control

T1: Treatment 1

Results

	Treatment Name	Conv. Rate	Relative Difference	Confidence
C:	Control	5.4%
T1:	Treatment 1	1.3%	-75.4%	100.0%

This experiment has a required sample size of 149 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 6,651, and the level of confidence is above 95% the experiment results are valid.

Flux Metrics Affected

The Flux Metrics analyze the three primary metrics that affect revenue (traffic, conversion rate, and average gift). This experiment produced the following results:

0% increase in traffic
× 75.4% decrease in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift

Key Learnings

The experiment compared two user pathways to drive donations in exchange for a commemorative edition of Extension magazine:

Control: A landing page that promoted sign-up for the digital magazine, with an optional donation ask (gift array started below $35).
Variant (Direct Ask): A slide-up that bypassed the digital sign-up and directed users straight to a donation page (gift array starting at $35).

Key Takeaways

The Control significantly outperformed the Direct Ask in donor conversion rate—5.4% vs. 1.3%, representing a 75.4% drop in performance for the variant.
While the Direct Ask page aimed to remove friction by sending visitors straight to a donation form, it appears to have disrupted the user motivation flow. The digital magazine offer likely served as a stronger value proposition and entry point, especially for cold or less-committed visitors.
Despite a slightly higher average gift on the Direct Ask page, the sharp drop in conversion volume led to dramatically lower total revenue and engagement.

Insights & Interpretation

Donation Volume: The control page drove nearly 4x more qualified gifts (177 vs. 45) than the direct ask page. This suggests that leading with the magazine offer and allowing users to choose whether to donate afterward may generate more overall engagement and gift volume.
Average Gift Size: While the direct ask page had a higher average gift size ($48 vs. $42.71), the lift was not enough to offset the substantial decrease in total conversions.
Total Revenue: The control page significantly outperformed in total revenue from $35+ gifts, generating $7,560 vs. $1,680—a 350%+ increase over the direct ask version.
Friction Tradeoff: Although the direct ask aimed to reduce friction by shortening the donor journey, it may have missed the motivational hook provided by the digital content offer, resulting in lower engagement and fewer conversions overall.

Conclusion

While the direct donation page attracted slightly higher-value donors, the sign-up-first approach drove substantially more revenue and donor conversions. This suggests that leading with a high-value content offer (the commemorative magazine) and allowing donors to self-select into giving—even at lower entry points—can be a more effective strategy for maximizing both lead generation and donation revenue in content-driven campaigns.

Experiment Documented by Yanni Saratsis

Question about experiment #197981

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