Dallas Theological Seminary

How adding a sticky bar to a year-end fundraising campaign donation page affects donation rates

Experiment ID: #120656

Dallas Theological Seminary

The DTS mission is, “to glorify God by equipping godly servant-leaders for the proclamation of His Word and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide.” They strive to help men and women fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, or more simply: Teach Truth. Love Well.

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 12/21/2022 - 01/04/2023

During a year-end fundraising campaign for a faith-based education organization, we wanted to test how adding a humanized sticky bar to the donation page would affect donation rates.

We set this experiment up as a redirect test with ~50% of traffic seeing the standard donation page, sans sticky bar, and the other half seeing a humanized sticky bar from one of the organization’s staff members (including a photo) making a personal appeal and expressing the value of the prospect’s donation.

We ran this test for 10 days, during the last stretch of the fundraising campaign.

Research Question

We believe that adding a humanized sticky bar to the donation page of a year-end fundraising campaign will increase donation rates by humanizing and further conveying the value of the appeal.

Design

C: Control
T1: Stickybar

Results

 Treatment NameRevenue per VisitorRelative DifferenceConfidenceAverage Gift
C: Control $68.49$148.61
T1: Stickybar $171.88150.9% 98.9%$328.29

This experiment was validated using 3rd party testing tools. Based upon those calculations, a significant level of confidence was met so these 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
× 13.6% increase in conversion rate
× 120.9% increase in average gift
150.9% increase in revenue

Key Learnings

After running this experiment for 10 days, the treatment featuring a humanized sticky bar achieved a 14.5% increase in donation rates with an 87.1% statistical level of confidence when compared to the control.

In addition, the treatment including the sticky bar increased revenue per visitor by 151% with a 99% level of confidence, indicating that not only did the sticky bar encourage more people to give, it inspired them to give more generously.

We believe that including a sticky bar featuring a staff member of the organization was able to increase donations among page visitors by humanizing and putting a face to the appeal, reminding people that this organization is comprised of real people, just like them, who are trying to make a difference.

And even though we did not receive a large enough sample size to statistically validate these results, we did observe a directional lift that indicates there is low risk associated with implementing this treatment and we therefore feel confident in recommending the inclusion of a humanized sticky bar to 100% of the traffic during their next high-urgency campaign.


Experiment Documented by NextAfter

Question about experiment #120656

If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.