How the amount you ask for in your campaign impacts your non-donor response rates
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
A not-for-profit citizen's advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 02/12/2022
As the Canadian Taxpayer Federation continued experimenting with breaking their campaign goal down into smaller, more achievable goals, they wanted to experiment with what drove the greatest non-donor response rates.
To experiment with what drives the best response rates, they broke their campaign goal and ask amounts into four groups.
Those groups were:
- $10
- $25
- $50
- $100
They then built a treatment like a previous email used for the same campaign that broke down the fundraising goal into one of those four ask amounts.
Research Question
Which ask amount and donor goal drives the best response rates from non-donors within the context of a fundraising campaign?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.09% | ||
| T1: | $10 Ask | 0.35% | 270.3% | 100.0% |
| T2: | $25 Ask | 0.21% | 120.0% | 99.0% |
| T3: | $50 Ask | 0.18% | 95.7% | 96.9% |
| T4: | $100 Ask | 0.11% | 20.1% | 43.1% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 4,607 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 97,289, 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
× 270.3% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
In total, asking in this way showed an aggregate lift of +126.7% in donor conversion rate (with a 100% level of confidence).
There’s no doubt that asking in this way drives non-donors to respond at a higher rate (more than 2x when compared to the control experience).
In terms of what ask amount drives the greatest response and revenue, as shown above, the evidence points to asking for $10 from non-donors (since that had the largest lift — +270.3% in donor conversion rate, fully validated with a confidence score of 99.9%).
But the question is: Are we leaving money on the table by asking for so little?
The answer? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Here is how revenue increased when compared to the control ask experience across the various ask amount segments:
- $10 Ask Amount: +147.7% (LoC: 99.3%)
- $25 Ask Amount: +97.5% (LoC: 97.5%)
- $50 Ask Amount: +124.1% (LoC: 98.1%)
- $100 Ask Amount: +49.7% (LoC: 83.9%)
The only ask category that didn’t fully validate as an increase from the ask amounts listed above was the $100 ask amount category, but there is directional data that points towards that lifting results, as well.
Additionally, here is how the percentage of gifts and revenue were spread across the various ask amount categories within the treatment segment:
- $10 Ask Amount: 41% of gifts & 32% of revenue raised in the treatment segment
- $25 Ask Amount: 24% of gifts & 24% of revenue raised in the treatment segment
- $50 Ask Amount: 21% of gifts & 27% of revenue raised in the treatment segment
- $100 Ask Amount: 13% of gifts & 17% of revenue raised in the treatment segment
This means that asking for $10 from non-donors not only generated the greatest response rate but also drove the largest share of gifts and revenue.
Finally, we wanted to check to see if we received a disproportionately lower number of $100+ gifts in the lower ask segments of the treatment. Here is what we found: The $10 ask amount produced 5/12432 (or 0.04% of gifts) at the $100 gift level, while the $100 ask segment produced just 6/12476 (or 0.05% of gifts).
Simply put, this means that asking for $10 from non-donors produced just as many $100+ gifts, while also producing 3.1x the number of gifts compared to the number secured within the $100 ask segment, and 1.9x the revenue from that segment, as well.
All of this is to say: It appears that asking for $10 not only activated the highest number of donors but it raised the most money of any ask amount from non-donors.
Further experimentation is advised for your program, but at least for the CTF — asking non-donors to give $10 to a high urgency campaign effort is very much the way to go moving forward.