How relevance and evidentials impact conversion on a serial ask
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: 01/05/2018 - 01/30/2018
The serial ask found on The Heritage Foundation donation pages has become a significant source of revenue and new donors for their sister organization, Heritage Action for America. When a donor makes a gift to Heritage, they are shown a screen that contains both the thank you message and a value proposition for Heritage Action. There is then a single text field that is pre-filled with the gift amount they just gave. Historically, 1 out of every 10 donors would give an immediate second gift when prompted this way.
What is unique about this offer is that that value proposition used on the page has not changed in the 2.5 years since this offer was first launched. Given the volume of people that see the offer, it has been challenging to validate something new.
However, during the year end campaign, we decided to test new language for this offer. We wanted to see if a more relevant value proposition, one that spoke to areas of work that were actively being debated in the news, would be more appealing than the Control. We saw a lift during year end but given the high urgency of the time period and the relatively small sample size, we wanted to re-test this for a longer period of time and across more donation forms.
Research Question
Will a more relevant value proposition increase conversions over an evidential-based value proposition?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Original | 13.2% | ||
| T1: | New HAFA Language | 22.8% | 73.2% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 121 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 3,174, 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
× 73.2% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
We found that the more relevant value proposition significantly outperformed the evidential-based one that had been used for the past 2.5 years. What is amazing is that this means 1 out of every 5 donors decided to give an immediate second gift when prompted.
This is an area that we will need to monitor over time to ensure the conversion rate is maintained. If it does experience decline, this may indicate that the relevance of the offer is no longer as strong and needs to be refreshed and re-tested.