The Fund for American Studies

How breaking your goal down into a smaller ask impacts revenue

Experiment ID: #20212

The Fund for American Studies

Experiment Summary

Ended On: 03/06/2020

During the Founders’ Day Campaign for The Fund for American Studies, we wanted to test whether presenting a smaller ask (or “micro ask”) instead of a larger, nebulous amount (of their “most generous gift” amount) and what affect it would have on donor conversion rate or revenue collected in the context of this campaign.

Research Question

Will making a smaller, more tangible and relevant ask during a campaign increase donor conversion or revenue.

Design

C: "A gift of any amount"
T1: "Will you be one of X donors to give $Y?"

Results

 Treatment NameRevenue per VisitorRelative DifferenceConfidenceAverage Gift
C: "A gift of any amount" $0.04$54.09
T1: "Will you be one of X donors to give $Y?" $0.17347.9% 99.9%$166.56

This experiment was validated using 3rd party testing tools. Based upon those calculations, a significant level of confidence was met so these 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
× 45.5% increase in conversion rate
× 207.9% increase in average gift
347.9% increase in revenue

Key Learnings

With a 99% level of confidence, we observed an increase of 348% in revenue, and a 45% increase in donor conversion rate (although the donor conversion rate did not validate, achieving only a 66% LoC).

The results shown were actually significantly better than reported, as we removed an outlier major gift from the report. That major donor was asked to be “one of five” donors to give a $1,000 gift to make the campaign successful and they generously chose to give a gift that would cover the entire need for the segment they were in.

When it comes to what you should ask for, perhaps using a data-driven approach to create a relevant ask and putting the goal within reason and reach for each individual donor to allow them to “be the hero” at whatever their means allows is the better approach to high urgency campaign fundraising.

Normally, we would like to receive 4x the number of gifts in a revenue lift experiment like this, but the results are still relative for the size of this organization. Therefore, further experimentation is recommended on a go-forward basis for testing and consideration for how this will improve revenue for other programs at scale.


Experiment Documented by Greg Colunga
Greg Colunga is Executive Vice President at NextAfter.

Question about experiment #20212

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