How a “one click” donation experience impacted giving from current donors
The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 12/09/2020 - 12/21/2020
During The Heritage Foundation’s year-end campaign, we wanted to streamline the process to capture gifts from active members. To reduce friction from filling out multiple form fields, and simplify the gift processing option for existing donors, we presented a “one click” experience similar to what one might experience with other online transactions as a repeat visitor, like Amazon or Paypal. Instead of the donor having to re-enter payment details, we presented them with a message indicating the last 4 digits of the most recent card they used on a past donation while still giving them the option to change or update their payment method. We also created a second treatment that allowed the donor to “swipe” the button to make a gift using their past payment details.
Research Question
We believe that removing friction for returning donors will achieve an increase in conversion rate.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 17.9% | ||
| T1: | One Click | 32.5% | 81.7% | 99.4% |
| T2: | One Click Swipe | 21.5% | 19.9% | 53.9% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 98 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 395, 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
× 81.7% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
By acknowledging our pre-existing relationship with the donor and reducing friction for mobile visitors we saw a 122.1% increase in donations with a 100% level of confidence. Since we know the year-end giving donation page receives highly motivated traffic during the month of December, we would want to re-test this experience during other campaigns as well to compare results but given the increase in both conversion rate and revenue, we will move forward with this approach for future appeals to current members.
Notable changes to other metrics due to the experiment:
- Revenue experienced a 242.9% increase with a 98% level of confidence.
- New visitors had a 95.7% increase in donations with a 99% level of confidence.