Testing “late” messaging vs. content messaging
Hillsdale College
Founded in 1844, Hillsdale College is an independent liberal arts college with a student body of about 1,400. Hillsdale’s educational mission rests upon two principles: academic excellence and institutional independence. The College does not accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies for any of its operations.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 10/01/2020 - 10/05/2020
We sent an additional email after the cut-off for the Constitution Day 2020 HFC. Would telling recipients they were late improve engagement vs. a subject line based on the campaign content?
Research Question
Does “late” messaging increase engagement?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Open Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Continue celebrating America’s heritage of liberty | 25.1% | ||
| T1: | You can still join…it’s not too late | 25.9% | 3.2% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 22,680 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 476,362, 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:
3.2% increase in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The “late” messaging had a 3% lift in open rate and a 51% life in clickthrough rate!