How soliciting donor opinion during the donation process impact 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: 03/29/2018 - 06/05/2018
The Heritage Foundation had run an experiment a few years back that indicated soliciting the opinion of existing donors during the donation process increased their likelihood to give a gift. These results were surprising because we have often found adding unnecessary friction like this can negatively impact conversion. We were never able to implement this experiment due to a donation form transition so we decided to retest the concept with the new donation form technology.
Research Question
Will allowing donors to give their opinion increase donor conversion?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | No Designation | 9.1% | ||
| T1: | Gift Designation | 12.2% | 33.9% | 97.8% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 764 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 2,099, 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
× 33.9% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
When we focused on users that were on a desktop or tablet computer, which makes up 88% of the traffic, we saw a 34% increase to donor conversion by soliciting the donor’s opinion. However, when we focused on the mobile traffic, we saw a 56% decrease in donor conversion (92% LoC). These two wildly different results emphasize the importance of looking into the user experience of our donors at individual segment levels.
One key learning we can pull from this experiment is how donor engagement can improve the overall giving experience. When they were in a position that the additional friction from the question was not detrimental (in this case, on a desktop computer where it is easier to fill out a form), soliciting their opinion made them feel like they had a voice within the organization which increased their likelihood to give a gift.
* We used Google Analytics to validate the results of this experiment and it should be noted that the mobile segment of traffic was too small to statistically validate the 56% decrease. It should be treated as a directional indicator.