How do the perceived benefits of a premium affect recurring donor conversion?
The Navigators
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 03/04/2024
For The Navigators February Sustainers Appeal campaign, we decided to test calling out the perceived benefits of the premium in an effort to pinpoint motivating factors for their audience. The control email called out the impact that their monthly gift would have on the organization whereas the treatment called out the benefits of reading the book that they would receive as a premium for becoming a monthly donor.
This test ran as a 50/50 split to their housefile audience in an effort to acquire more recurring donors as well as test what motivates their audience to give.
Research Question
We believe that explaining the benefits of a premium book for potential donors will achieve an increase in donor conversions because the additional clarity on the premium will motivate them to click the link and learn more.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 3.7% | ||
| T1: | Treatment #1 | 2.1% | -44.1% | 67.8% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 771 in order to be valid. Unfortunately, the required sample size was not met and a level of confidence above 95% was not met so the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The key learning from this experiment is that emphasizing the benefits of a premium in a fundraising appeal may not necessarily lead to an increase in donor conversions. In this case, the treatment that focused on the benefits of receiving a book as a premium for becoming a monthly donor actually resulted in a decrease in donations compared to the control, which highlighted the impact of the monthly gift on the organization. The treatment saw a drop of 44.1% in transactions at a 67.7% level of confidence, which is below the validity threshold.
This copy test saw a valid increase in clicks, but an invalid drop in transactions. Therefore, indicating that the copy was persuasive in getting potential donors to click the link, but their audience was less motivated to give.
In future experimentation, it would be important to continue testing different messaging strategies to understand what truly motivates the audience to give. This could involve testing different types of premiums, highlighting various impacts of donations, or even testing different audience segments with tailored messaging. By continuously testing and learning from these experiments, we can gain a deeper understanding of our audience and optimize our fundraising strategies for better results.