How a program-specific value proposition impacted donor conversion
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: 08/02/2017 - 08/16/2017
During The Heritage Foundation Board Match fundraising campaign, we wanted to incorporate one of their more popular programs (The Daily Signal) into a fundraising appeal email. The goal was to show the broad impact of the organization by talking about the various aspects of the organization.
Historically, we had utilized the same landing page throughout the campaign for each email. This is something that we had tested into, finding that switching landing pages didn’t often result in any significant lifts so we determined it was not worth the extra time and energy.
However, in this situation, we felt that the brand recognition and popularity of the program may be worth creating its own page. We decided to test that hypothesis by creating a new landing page that was branded as The Daily Signal and focused its value proposition on that one aspect of Heritage.
Research Question
Will a Daily Signal focused page increase donor conversion for visitors coming from a news-focused email?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Organizational Value Prop (Heritage) | 5.3% | ||
| T1: | Program-Specific Value Prop (TDS) | 19.8% | 271.6% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 41 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 1,250, 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
× 271.6% increase in conversion rate
× 40.1% increase in average gift
420.5% increase in revenue
Key Learnings
The landing page that reinforced The Daily Signal brand and focused the value proposition solely on that aspect of the organization increased donations by 272%. This emphasizes the importance of creating a cohesive message all the way through the donation process. It also all verifies a trend that we had been noticing in the last several month, that The Daily Signal is a viable program for raising funds with.