How urgency impacts email acquisition rate on a Facebook ad
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: 10/11/2017 - 10/16/2017
Dallas Theological Seminary was making preparations to launch its new ‘mini’ course on the life and work of Martin Luther. They wondered: If we tell visitors to pre-enroll in this course by stressing the urgency of the upcoming launch date, will email acquisition increase? They launched an A/B test leading up to their launch date to find out.
Research Question
Will a Facebook ad that stresses the urgency of a course launch increase email acquisition?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 0.72% | ||
| T1: | Treatment 1 | 1.4% | 88.1% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 2,021 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 40,734, 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
× 88.1% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
Dallas Theological Seminary found that the treatment version that stressed the upcoming launch date did, in fact, increase email acquisition by 88%. By using the actual date of the launch (October 16, 2017) and the word ‘Monday’ in their call-to-action, Dallas Theological Seminary was able to signal to viewers that this was an urgent offer with a specific launch date. It likely made viewers feel that they were going to miss out on a particular event, even though the course was still offered after the launch date.
This strategy has prompted further tests, especially as Dallas Theological Seminary builds plans to launch new courses.