How removing a gift array on mobile devices affects donor conversion
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: 05/23/2017 - 06/15/2017
CaringBridge had seen a significant lift in donor conversion on one of their donation pages when they removed the gift array and simply offered an “open field” that allowed donors to pick their own donation amount. However, their donation page setup split out desktop pages and mobile pages, so they wanted to test the exact same premise on their mobile pages.
They removed the array on a treatment page and left an open field, then launched an A/B test to determine a winner.
Research Question
How does an open field on a donation form affect donor conversion rate on mobile devices?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 16.6% | ||
| T1: | Treatment 1 | 14.9% | -10.5% | 73.5% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 3,373 in order to be valid. Unfortunately, the required sample size was not met and a level of confidence above 95% was not met so the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
Though the experiment didn’t validate, CaringBridge saw quite the opposite result on mobile devices—a 10.5% decrease in conversion when the open field was presented. This could be due to the fact that the buttons become larger on mobile devices and are much easier to use on a small screen. It could also be related to the situational difference between desktop (likely seated at a desk) and mobile (out and about, with many more possible distractions).