How a lower gift array affects donor conversion
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive. We provide help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God's design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 03/27/2021 - 05/27/2021
Focus on the Family had a variety of gift arrays on their acquisition donation pages. We wanted to see which array worked best for acquisition, especially since people new to Focus would be more likely to give if the ask was not too steep for a first time donor.
Research Question
A lower gift array will raise donor conversion on an acquisition page.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 4.0% | $0.00 | ||
| T1: | Lower Gift Array | 4.6% | 14.3% | 92.5% | $0.00 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 9,586 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 15,779, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
Overall, most of the segments saw a directional or a valid lift in donor conversion with the lower gift array. And the lower gift array did not decrease conversion in any segments with large enough samples or any meaningful level of confidence. For instance mobile saw a 17% increase at an 88% level of confidence, while desktop saw only a 2% increase at a 13% level of confidence. All indications are that the lower gift array helps and it does not hurt any large segment.
Our hypothesis is that starting at $25 rather than $50 gives a mental ladder up to the $50 gift for the premium, rather than just starting at $50. So more people would give because a $25 gift would be easier donation for most of the page visitors to give. We expected this to be especially true to new visitors who were not as familiar with Focus on the Family and would be turned off at such a high initial donation ask. But the data suggest that primarily returning visitors saw this page and that they were also more likely to give if the array started off in a smaller dollar ask.
And, the best news is that this lower gift array did not lead to a decrease in revenue. There was a 2.3% increase in revenue per visitor at a 53% level of confidence. This tells us that with more people donating, the slight decrease in average gift (from $53 to $48) did no harm to the overall revenue. So we will be rolling this gift array out to all acquisition pages and recommend it is rolled out to Housefile donation pages as well.
Observations of the impact on other visitor segments in the experiment:
- Referral visitors had a 33.8% increase in donations with a 100% level of confidence.
- Mobile visitors had a 17.5% increase in donations with an 89% level of confidence.
- Tablet visitors had a 150.8% increase in donations with an 87% level of confidence.
- Returning visitors had a 12.4% increase in donations with an 86% level of confidence.
- Organic Search visitors had a 100.0% decrease in donations with a 100% level of confidence.
- Female visitors had a 38.4% increase in donations with a 94% level of confidence.
- 45-54 visitors had a 3.1% increase in donations with a 100% level of confidence.
- 25-34 visitors had a 10.4% increase in donations with a 100% level of confidence.