How using a non-traditional sender and conversational subject line impacts open rate
Care Net
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 01/22/2018
Care Net created a special giving campaign to acquire more monthly recurring donors. This campaign was similar to a money bomb where they sent multiple emails over a short period of time. Recently, the majority of their emails came from their President, Roland C. Warren. They hypothesized that using a conversational subject line with a different sender might break through the clutter of nondonor’s email inbox and motivate them to want to open it. They tested two different senders and a different subject line against each other.
Research Question
Can we increase the amount of people who open the emails by using a conversational subject line and different sender?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Open Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Offering life and hope | 10.6% | ||
| T1: | Do you like superheroes? | 16.2% | 53.3% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 280 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 37,754, 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:
53.3% increase in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The treatment subject line and sender increased opens by 53%. By sending the treatment email from a name that different from the sender they have been used to seeing along with a conversational and intriguing subject line, people were more interested in opening and reading what the email was all about. While the increase in opens doesn’t directly tell us if more people ultimately converted and gave a gift, it is a critical point in the conversion funnel to get more people to open and read the email and potentially convert. For future campaigns, we should consider using a non-traditional sender with a conversational style subject line.