How a stripped down acquisition donation page impacts donor conversion compared to a newer, heavily designed donation page
Buckner International
Buckner International is a global ministry dedicated to the transformation and restoration of the lives we serve. We are a Christ-centered organization that delivers redemptive ministry to the most vulnerable from the beginning to the ending of life.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 07/11/2023 - 07/26/2023
Buckner International’s top donor acquisition campaign has been their Shoes for Orphan Souls campaign. In this campaign, donors donated pairs of new shoes and socks to vulnerable children worldwide. The donation page for this offer had been tested and refined for several years. Recently, they launched a radically redesigned version of this page that featured a much more image-heavy and designed “look” than their original page that was stripped down and very text-heavy.
They had no data on how this new page was performing compared to their old page and were unable to test the design since Google Optimize ended. We hypothesized that the new page design may be harming donor conversion because it led with the ask and placed the value proposition for giving shoes beneath the appeal. We also feared that the new design could be distracting to users, increasing friction.
Since we couldn’t test in Optimize, we decided to test the new page against the old on Facebook. We created an AB test of their Shoes campaign and evenly split traffic and budget between both versions.
Research Question
We believe that a stripped-down acquisition donation page design will increase donation conversion by decreasing friction and increasing the strength of the value proposition.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.01% | ||
| T1: | Treatment #1 | 0.03% | 392.8% | 96.3% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 24,798 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 65,400, 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
× 392.8% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The key learning from this experiment is that the stripped-down acquisition donation page design was highly effective in increasing donation conversion.
In future experimentation, it is important to prioritize simplicity and clarity in the design of donation pages. The stripped-down design reduced friction and made the value proposition more prominent, leading to a higher conversion rate. This suggests that donors respond better to a clear and focused ask, rather than being overwhelmed with excessive imagery and design elements.
Our hypothesis is that the primary issue with the new design is the lack of a compelling value proposition before visitors are asked to make their gift. It is also possible that the competing CTAs of the new design are contributing to the decreased conversion. The original design has one call to action. The new page has multiple, including a subscription CTA in the footer. It is impossible to know from this limited test which elements of the new design were the most distracting to users and had the greatest negative impact on conversion. Once Buckner is able to launch tests on their donation pages again, we will be able to dig into each element’s impact on the page.
Also, due to budget limitations in Facebook, we weren’t able to get a large sample of gifts through the experiment. However, at no time did we see the new page result in a higher conversion rate than the old per Facebook’s campaign data.