How additional payment options impacted long-term revenue
Heritage Action for America
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 12/20/2016 - 01/10/2017
Heritage Action for America recently implemented an upgrade to their donation form. Historically, the online donation forms had only been able to capture credit cards. A recent upgrade provided the ability to also capture ACH transactions (donors could still make credit card gifts if they preferred).
The additional value provided by ACH comes from recurring gifts. The average lifespan of a credit card recurring gift is roughly 12 months. For ACH recurring gifts, the average lifespan expands to be 5 years. However, our concern was that adding in the additional option of ACH may create friction in the donation process which may reduce overall donor conversion. As a result, we decided to test the new form against the control.
Research Question
How will the ACH form impact donor giving?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Revenue per Visitor | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Credit Card Only | $3.39 | $12.80 | ||
| T1: | Credit Card and ACH | $5.26 | 55.2% | 100.0% | $11.06 |
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
× 79.8% increase in conversion rate
× 13.6% decrease in average gift
55.2% increase in revenue
Key Learnings
This test was launched on a recurring donor acquisition campaign for HAFA’s Liberty Brigade. For this campaign, a recurring donation was the pre-selected value on the form.
As far as conversion rate is concerned, there was no significant difference between the two forms (3.99% for the control and 3.94% for the ACH form). This is a good sign since there was concern that the ACH option would add friction to the donation process.
When we analyze the impact on revenue, the value of ACH recurring gifts resulted in an overall 55% lift to long-term revenue (this includes both immediate gifts and gifts based upon the average lifespan of the recurring gift).
What is interesting is that of the recurring donors, only 15% selected the ACH giving option but that 15% led to that significant increase to long-term revenue.