How the friction added with website navigation affects conversion rate
Harvest Ministries
Harvest Christian Fellowship exists to bring Christians closer to God and to bring nonbelievers to a saving relationship with Him by showing how God's Word and faith in Him are applicable and relevant to everyday life.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 03/02/2015 - 03/17/2015
Hillsdale College offers a free, online training series named Constitution 101. After initially enrolling, participants are sent to a contextualized donation opportunity where we ask for a gift to help support the efforts of Hillsdale.
There had been complaints recently that the contextualized donation page gave the impression that the course was not free. We wanted to alleviate those concerns while not reducing the revenue or conversion rate of the page.
Research Question
Does adding the standard website header and navigation to the landing page ease the concerns of visitors about the cost of the course while not affecting or increasing conversion rate?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | No Navigation | 5.3% | ||
| T1: | Treatment 1 | 4.4% | -17.4% | 91.5% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 4,102 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 6,307, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The addition of navigation decreased conversion rate by 17%. Whenever we offer donors the opportunity to explore more areas of the website, we are increasing the likelihood that they will. While we were trying to decrease anxiety, we inadvertently increased the friction associated with making the gift.