How a plain text email performed against an email with a logo banner
Leadership Institute
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 02/28/2019
Focus on the Family ran a year end campaign in 2018. They hypothesized that stripping down the “Last chance” emails to look more like Outlook or plain text emails would perform better than the control email which used large banner logos and video screenshots. They tested the outlook styles between two different signers.
Research Question
Will a plain text email receive more conversions than an email with all the bells and whistles?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Click Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Branded | 0.04% | ||
| T1: | Plain text | 0.05% | 21.4% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 425,658 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 2,783,831, 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:
21.4% increase in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
The combined total of the plain text emails resulted in a 21.4% increase in engagement and donor conversion. This tells us that people give to people, not email marketing machines. Focus on the Family should continue to use plain text emails in future fundraising emails.