How strengthening the value proposition through a radical redesign affects donations
Hillsdale College
Founded in 1844, Hillsdale College is an independent liberal arts college with a student body of about 1,400. Hillsdale’s educational mission rests upon two principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The College does not accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 02/12/2015 - 02/23/2015
Hillsdale College’s popular Constitution 101 online course is supported by donations from individuals, many of whom donate after taking the course. Immediately after signing up for the course (or any of their other courses), registrants are given the opportunity to donate. The original donation page contained multiple links to other parts of the site, concentrated in two different navigational areas. It also gave them an immediate opt-out opportunity — by clicking the link (in the second paragraph of copy) “I cannot make a donation at this time”. A single line of copy asked the user to support the course, making the assumption that the visitor already understood the value of Hillsdale College. Additionally, the page focused on a premium book, the Constitution Reader, and used most of the available language to sell the value proposition of that item.
In order to improve donor conversion on this page, Hillsdale wanted to test a simplified design that expanded and highlighted the value proposition of Hillsdale College rather than the premium associated with their gift.
The new treatment page took away all of the navigation menus — creating a “cul-de-sac”, where the visitor either continues through the page or closes the window. The value proposition language focuses on the goal of the course and the intended outcome — educating 50 million Americans on Constitutional founding principles. The Constitution Reader offer is reduced to a secondary, value-added ask.
Research Question
Which page layout and value proposition best presents the value proposition and minimizes friction and anxiety to optimize donor conversion rate?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Original Donation Page | 3.1% | $76.92 | ||
| T1: | Radical Redesign | 4.1% | 33.3% | 91.4% | $57.75 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 2,523 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 3,879, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The two donation forms resulted in nearly identical revenue — but the new treatment led to a 33.3% increase in conversion rate. Since the primary goal of the page is the acquisition of new donors, the increased conversion rate made the new treatment the winner.
The discrepancy in average gifts between the pages did lead to some interesting observations. After further examination of the individual transactions, we learned that the new treatment was getting lower average gifts than the control. This led us to believe that the three options in the new treatment’s gift array may be too much of a stretch for most people. As a result, they are using the “Other amount” option. This is an example of “unsupervised thinking” which is leading to the visitors entering lower gift amounts than we would prefer.
As a result, Hillsdale’s next experiment will be a test of the gift array to see if lowering the initial ask can lead to an overall increased average gift.