How does referencing a recurring donor’s status in email copy impact additional giving?
First Baptist Dallas
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 06/01/2023 - 07/01/2023
Pathway to Victory is the international ministry for First Baptist Dallas. They have 2 major match campaigns throughout the year-one during December, the other in June.
For this June match campaign, we wanted to see whether we could get additional one-time gifts from Pathway Partners–who are recurring donors–by referencing their status in email copy and writing to them accordingly.
This test ran over 4 separate email sends.
Research Question
We believe that referencing a donors’ status for recurring donors will achieve a change in giving.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.14% | ||
| T1: | Pathway Partner reference | 0.17% | 20.0% | 23.7% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 151,889 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 learnings from this experiment are:
1. Referencing a donor’s status as a recurring donor in email copy has the potential to increase one-time donations.
2. The treatment group, which received emails referencing their status, saw a 20.0% increase in donations compared to the control group.
3. However, the statistical level of confidence is only 23.7%, which is below the recommended threshold of 85% for valid results.
Given the very small donation sample size, this experiment requires further refinement and re-testing during future campaigns.