How leveraging a small image to build affinity and alignment affects donor conversion rates
The Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 03/26/2024 - 04/08/2024
The Heritage Foundation had been running a slate of experiments on their membership renewal page to try to increase conversion and get more members to renew as monthly donors. In their last experiment, they had tested the arrangement of the giving form tabs to prioritize their monthly ask first.
The team had noticed an eCommerce site that, when selling merchandise for a particular team, put that team’s logo on the “add to cart” page to leverage the natural affinity between the buyer and the team.
The Heritage team wondered if this might be true for donations, and decided to test it on their renewal page. They added a small American flag to appeal to the patriotism of their donors to the “Join the Leaders Club” tab and to the donate button itself, and launched an A/B test to determine a winner.
Research Question
We believe that using a small American flag to build affinity for renewal prospects will achieve an increase in conversion rate because the flag image will help align their motivation with the intended action.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 3.9% | $45.56 | ||
| T1: | Flag Icon | 10.6% | 170.4% | 99.3% | $105.23 |
This experiment has a required sample size of 113 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 436, and the level of confidence is above 95% the 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
× 170.4% increase in conversion rate
× 131.0% increase in average gift
524.6% increase in revenue
Key Learnings
The key learnings from this experiment are:
1. The use of a small American flag on the membership renewal page significantly increased the conversion rate for renewing as monthly donors by 170.4% with a high level of confidence.
2. The treatment version with the flag image and patriotic messaging outperformed the control version by a large margin.
Moving forward, we should consider the following for future experimentation:
1. Including visual elements like the American flag that align with the organization’s values can have a significant impact on conversion rates.
2. Personalized and motivational messaging can help create a sense of belonging and purpose, potentially leading to higher conversion rates.
3. It may be beneficial to continue testing different visual elements and messaging strategies to further optimize the membership renewal process and maximize conversions.
4. Consider incorporating similar elements in other areas of the website or marketing materials to maintain consistency in messaging and branding for better results.
Overall, the results of this experiment highlight the importance of using visual cues and persuasive messaging to influence donor behavior positively.