How framing offer content in a Facebook ad impacts email acquisition
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: 09/27/2017 - 10/27/2017
Dallas Theological Seminary was promoting their online course Revelation when they noticed an opportunity to test. In their original Facebook course promotion ad, they called on viewers to ‘study with one of DTS’ renowned professors, for free.’ Through previous message testing, they’ve seen that this is a strong value proposition for a lot of their online resources and material. However, they wondered: Will a stronger focus on the book being studied (i.e. Revelation) and its complexity increase motivation and email acquisition rate?
They launched an A/B test to find out.
Research Question
Will a Facebook ad that frames the offer content adequately increase email acquisition?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.53% | ||
| T1: | Treatment 1 | 1.3% | 143.0% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 1,539 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 30,799, 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
× 143.0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
Dallas Theological Seminary found that their treatment version did increase email acquisition by 143%. It’s clear that offering more context to the book being studied in the course increased motivation of viewers on Facebook and drove far more course signups then the control version. While the original value proposition remains strong, it was much shorter in length.
This has prompted further message testing that focuses on individual course content, as well as the true value of learning from actual seminary professors for free.