How selling the final call-to-action too early affects names acquired
Texas State Historical Association
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 09/26/2015 - 10/01/2015
For the Texas State Historical Association, the primary source of new members is through a subsequent membership offer once a visitor downloads one of their free eBooks. This two step process consists of two landing pages; the first uses language that sells the value of the eBook with the subsequent page promoting the benefits of membership.
We had a hypothesis that the visitors to the eBook landing page might be motivated enough that they didn’t need as much language to “sell” of the eBook (it is given free in exchange for their email address). Instead, we could use the headline and subsequent paragraph to begin talking about the benefits of membership which would then make the subsequent offer on the second page more attractive.
Research Question
Does promoting member benefits on the initial email acquisition page increase the number of names and donors acquired?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Texas History Enthusiasts | 10.7% | ||
| T1: | Benefit of Membership | 9.0% | -15.8% | 95.5% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 2,503 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 6,982, 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:
0% increase in traffic
× 15.8% decrease in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
By promoting a TSHA membership before first “selling” the initial name acquisition offer (the eBook), we ended up decreasing the number of email addresses acquired by 15.8%. Additionally, it led to a drop in the number of members acquired by 37% since we were driving less traffic to the membership page and they were not as interested to learn more about the associated benefits.
After further analysis, we realized that we skipped several steps in the donor funnel by promoting the membership before the initial offer. The visitors need to be taken through a mental conversation that ultimately leads to member conversion but each step along the way is important. We must first address their reason for visiting before we sell them on any other offer.