How inviting donors to stand in the gap for those struggling with inflation impacts donor conversion
KCBI
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 06/17/2022 - 07/04/2022
KCBI is a large Christian radio station in the DFW area with a worldwide listening audience. Due to skyrocketing inflation, they were receiving word from a number of dedicated supporters that they would no longer be able to support the ministry. As donor response slowed, KCBI decided to air an appeal for donors to “stand in the gap” during this time to ensure that KCBI could remain on the air to provide the inspirational content families desperately need.
We wanted to test this approach on the donation page as well, so we created a radically different version of the donation page that discussed the difficulties communities are struggling with and invited the donor to “put your arm around a friend who cannot give” and ensure that “ KCBI can remain on air to provide inspiration and Bible-centered music, conversation, prayer and teaching during a time when we all so desperately need it.
We also acknowledged in the copy the struggles the reader may have been having with inflation and invited them to give if, “you’ve been blessed by KCBI and God has made it possible for you to give.”
We split the traffic to the donation page 50/50 and ran the test for 14 days.
Research Question
We believe that we can increase donor conversion on the main donation page by inviting donors to stand in the gap for those struggling with inflation and needing the inspirational content of KCBI.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 32.6% | $0.00 | ||
| T1: | Urgent language | 26.9% | -17.3% | 60.2% | $0.00 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 503 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
We only ran the experiment for two weeks because we were not seeing any positive impact of the treatment copy. We may have been able to validate the experiment with a longer test, but the client did not want to lose more donations to achieve a valid decrease in conversion.
It is possible that talking about those who’ve had to stop giving due to inflation had the opposite impact of what we intended and caused visitors to reconsider their intention to give. They may have asked themselves, “Maybe I should save my money too!”
In retrospect, it would have likely been better to have included a microgoal and/or a smaller appeal amount like we’ve tested recently with other organizations that have discussed the impact of inflation on their donors. This may have overcome any friction added by discussing donors withdrawing their support due to inflation and given the visitor a clear way of getting involved while respecting their budget.
Observations of the impact on other visitor segments in the experiment:
- Returning visitors had a 51.1% decrease in donations with a 91% level of confidence.
- Direct visitors had a 42.6% decrease in donations with an 86% level of confidence.
- Tablet visitors had a 100.0% decrease in donations with a 100% level of confidence.