The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

How removing decision friction impacts donor conversion

Experiment ID: #11244

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate are a Roman Catholic congregation of priests and brothers founded after the French Revolution by St. Eugene De Mazenod to work among the poor. Today there are nearly 4,000 missionaries working in more than 60 countries around the world.

Experiment Summary

Timeframe: 04/02/2019 - 04/19/2019

The Missionary Oblates have a place on their website that allows people to submit a prayer request. After submitting their request, they are taken to a page with a donate button, along with 6 other options for premiums. In an earlier test where they tested the multiple options versus just one option – donate – they decreased donor conversion on the page. In analyzing the experiment they hypothesized that maybe the one option that they chose to offer wasn’t the right kind of offer. To continue to test into this, they hypothesized testing the multiple offers again versus one of the more popular offers – the Lourdes water. They also added value proposition to the page communicating the action they wanted people to take after submitting their prayer request and the benefit of that action and the offer. 

Research Question

Can we increase conversion on the post-prayer request page by eliminating the number of offer options?

Design

C: Control
T1: Lourdes water and donation

Results

 Treatment NameConv. RateRelative DifferenceConfidenceAverage Gift
C: Control 1.9%$0.00
T1: Lourdes water and donation 4.6%141.3% 100.0%$0.00

This experiment has a required sample size of 332 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 5,546, 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
× 141.3% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift

Key Learnings

We were able to significantly increase donor conversion on the page by 141%! By narrowing the decision process down for people to the one they were most likely to select and then communicating the benefit of that decision and offer, we were able to remove friction for this conversion process and increase motivation. The results of this experiment can have a significant revenue impact for the organization. With the volume of traffic on this page, the high conversion rate with the treatment in place and an average gift of $27, the roll-out of this experiment has the potential to bring in over $10k in additional revenue every month. 


Experiment Documented by Courtney Gaines
Courtney Gaines is Vice President at NextAfter.

Question about experiment #11244

If you have any questions about this experiment or would like additional details not discussed above, please feel free to contact them directly.