How clarity affects clickthrough rate
CaringBridge
CaringBridge offers free personal, protected websites for people to easily share updates and receive support and encouragement from their community during a health journey. Every 7 minutes, a CaringBridge website is created for someone experiencing a health event.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 11/20/2014 - 11/25/2014
CaringBridge had a donation ask on the homepage that registered users saw when they were logged in. We wanted to increase clickthroughs on this ask to generate more donations. We created a treatment that was highly donor-centric — it gave them a virtual “pat on the back” and reminded them of all the ways that they help those they care about.
Research Question
Does donor-centric language and a more personal connection increase the number of clicks compared to more succinct copy?
Design
Results
Treatment Name | Click Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
---|---|---|---|---|
C: | Short Copy | 0.12% | ||
T1: | Long Copy | 0.06% | -51.7% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 17,772 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 312,436, 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:
51.7% decrease in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The treatment delivered 51.7% fewer clicks than the control. This says a lot about not only the audience viewing this, but the context in which the copy appears. It tells us that this audience values clarity over persuasion — a quick, short ask trumps a longer, more personal ask that attempts to draw in their emotions.
It also suggests that this page is highly functional – since it is a “dashboard” of sorts, people use it to get from one place to another, which suggests that future copy should be concise and to the point.
Question about experiment #223
If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.