How a testing into a new landing page 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: 05/01/2015 - 06/08/2015
Hillsdale College had recently launched a new microsite to handle all of their online giving. The new microsite had a variation of their standard design but made it easier to create contextualized donation forms and took into account certain principles we learned from previous experiments such as removing banners and navigation, adding value proposition language, and an easier to use donation form.
One of their more traffic donation forms was a general donation form for their online classes. Each class has its own donation form but, to handle general website traffic, we wanted one that could be applicable to all courses. Before making the switch to the new microsite, we wanted to validate that the new page would achieve the lift in conversion rate and revenue that we were expecting.
Research Question
Which donation landing page will produce the greatest amount of donors and dollars?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Original Page Design | 9.2% | $69.86 | ||
| T1: | Radical Redesign | 12.5% | 35.8% | 91.5% | $69.88 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 684 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 1,063, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The learnings achieved through previous experiments held true with this new landing page and help achieve a 35.8% increase in donation conversion rate. The experiment was a good example of leveraging the learnings from multiple experiments to craft a new, more effective landing page.