How the reasons NOT to give affects revenue
Dallas Theological Seminary
The DTS mission is, “to glorify God by equipping godly servant-leaders for the proclamation of His Word and the building up of the body of Christ worldwide.” They strive to help men and women fulfill the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, or more simply: Teach Truth. Love Well.
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 12/02/2014 - 12/04/2014
Giving Tuesday has become a powerful fundraising response to the consumerism of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But with so many nonprofits are soliciting gifts on the same day, it becomes more difficult to stand out in the crowd. DTS tested a contrarian messaging approach that would both intrigue their supporters and increase traffic to the donation page.
Research Question
By giving reasons NOT to support DTS on Giving Tuesday, will we be able to drive incremental traffic to the donation page and which will lead to an increased number of donors?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Revenue per Visitor | Relative Difference | Confidence | Average Gift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Reasons to Give | $0.23 | $243.57 | ||
| T1: | Reasons NOT to Give | $0.47 | 104.6% | 82.4% | $386.67 |
This experiment was validated using 3rd party testing tools. Based upon those calculations, a significant level of confidence was not met so these experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The test treatment was able to increase the click through rate by 528.3% but was not able to convert enough of those visitors to donors to be a statistically valid experiment. With that said, the results would certainly indicate that this tactic may work in the future as long as we then focus our efforts on optimizing the landing page for the varying motivations of the visitors.
This same tactic of driving an increased number of visitors to the page will be employed in the future but more effort needs to be placed on developing a page that fully addresses the reason for the visit. Our hypothesis is that we did not spend enough time explaining the reasons NOT to give before leading into reasons TO give.