How a humanized sticky bar impacted donations after a course sign up
Dallas Theological Seminary
The DTS mission is, “to glorify God by equipping godly servant-leaders for the proclamation of His Word and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide.” They strive to help men and women fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, or more simply: Teach Truth. Love Well.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 02/16/2023 - 03/12/2023
Dallas Theological Seminary’s Galatians course reroutes users to a donation page after they sign up for the course. This donation page is experiencing a lower than expected donation conversion rate, so we want to test adding a humanized sticky bar to the top of the donation page in hopes that it will effectively nudge more people to make a donation.
The sticky bar messaging includes a thank you for signing up and kindly asks the page visitor to stick around to view a special message about how they can help more people get access to free bible study courses like the one they just signed up for. It also includes a picture and a signature of the organization president and course instructor implying that the message is being stated by that person.
We’ve seen encouraging results for the humanized sticky bar for various organizations so we want to see if it is successful in this instance in increasing donor conversion rate.
Research Question
We believe that a humanized sticky bar encouraging support for potential donors will achieve an increase in donor conversion because the personalized message from a prominent and relatable figure will inspire them to give.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.45% | $0.00 | ||
| T1: | Stickybar | 0.88% | 95.5% | 84.2% | $0.00 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 2,679 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 2,909, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The treatment resulted in a 95.5% lift in donations at an 84.1% level of confidence. The results confirm our hypothesis that the personalized message from a prominent and relatable figure would inspire visitors to donate and increase donor conversion rate. It is also important to consider the person speaking through the humanized sticky bar. In this case, users likely appreciate that the message is coming not only from the president of the organization but also the course instructor – the person they will be engaging with as they learn more about Galatians.
The key learning from this experiment is that creating a personalized and humanized experience for potential donors can significantly increase donor conversion rates. The sticky bar separates the page from standard pages – the sticky bar stands out as a unique feature that catches the users attention right away and amplifies the donation value proposition. This treatment should be tested with other course donation pages.