How adding benefits of monthly giving in an email impacted donations
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
Ended On: 09/23/2020
DTS was leading a campaign to acquire new monthly donors for our Cornerstone Partners monthly giving program. The donation page clearly listed the benefits of becoming a Cornerstone Partner and we wondered if including these same benefits directly in the email appeal would influence the number of gifts received. The hypothesis was that presenting potential donors with the information in the body copy of the email would lead to more highly motivated traffic on the donation page and increase conversion rate.
Research Question
Will including benefits of monthly giving in both the email copy and donation page copy increase conversion rate?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 14.4% | ||
| T1: | Treatment - with Benefits | 32.1% | 122.7% | 99.6% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 43 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 181, 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
× 122.7% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The control copy explained why monthly giving was of benefit to the organization, but the treatment copy introduced why monthly giving would be of value to the individual donor and how they would personally benefit from making a monthly rather than a one-time gift. By introducing this clarity in perceived value, we were able to increase donor conversion rate by 122.7%. In addition to listing the benefits, the treatment copy also included a sentence clearly communicating that a donor’s monthly giving commitment could be altered or suspended as needed in the future. In future testing, we would want to isolate this language to determine if the decreased pressure for continued recurring giving played any additional role in the increased conversion rate.