How employing active language affects clickthrough rate
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: 07/24/2014 - 08/14/2014
The Heritage Foundation has an annual fundraising campaign backed by a challenge grant from their board of Trustees. In 2014, Steve Forbes wrote an introductory paragraph on the landing page about why the board was matching gifts. Heritage wanted to tease the quote in the ad, but wanted to test the active language of Forbes “issuing a challenge” versus the more passive language of “announcing a challenge grant”.
Research Question
Does active language incentivize more people to click through?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Click Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 15.8% | ||
| T1: | Treatment 1 | 21.6% | 36.8% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 346 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 55,085, 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:
36.8% increase in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
By using active language, Heritage’s new ad attracted more interest from people who saw it. Nonprofit organizations commonly use challenge grants during fundraising campaigns — but “issuing a challenge” from the board is a much stronger way to approach the same action.