How communal language on a donation page affects revenue
CaringBridge
CaringBridge offers free personal, protected websites for people to easily share updates and receive support and encouragement from their community during a health journey. Every 7 minutes, a CaringBridge website is created for someone experiencing a health event.
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 02/28/2021
CaringBridge had failed to validate a lift on their tribute donation page for many months—the embedded control which used cause and effect language had beaten many treatments. The team wanted to try to use language that built up the user, employing “communal language” to reduce the transactional nature of the copy in order to increase conversion and revenue.
The treatment started by thanking the donor for their support, and then expounding on how their support not only encompasses the donation that the page is asking for, but also the comments, hearts and well wishes they leave on their friend’s journal as engagement.
The call-to-action increases the autonomy of the donor by handing them control of the choice to give, or not to give.
They tested these two pages against each other to determine a winner.
Research Question
We believe that employing communal language for tribute donation page visitors will achieve an increase in donor conversion.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Revenue per Visitor | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | $5.48 | $52.43 | ||
| T1: | Treatment #1 | $6.13 | 11.9% | 99.7% | $55.83 |
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
× 5.1% increase in conversion rate
× 6.5% increase in average gift
11.9% increase in revenue
Key Learnings
The treatment produced an 11.9% increase in revenue through the combination of a 5.1% increase in conversion and a 6.5% increase in average gift.
This lift in revenue is powerful because it activates two parts of the Flux Capacitor of Online Revenue Maximization—both getting more people to say yes and getting those people who do say yes to give more generously.
This shows that communal language—as opposed to transactional language—can be a powerful force in conversion. Additionally, with CaringBridge users, it suggests that giving the donor more perceived autonomy through giving them the option to give rather than the command to give can help more people say yes.