How changing the sender of the newsletter impacted email engagement rates
The Fund for American Studies
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 07/17/2020 - 07/24/2020
As a part of optimizing their program, TFAS wondered if switching who sent their weekly newsletter email to subscribers could improve their email engagement rates. To test this experiment, we decided to send three straight weekly newsletters and combine the results so as to mitigate false readings from a single email send.
Research Question
Would changing the newsletter sender increase email engagement rates?
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Click Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Reply To: rogerream@TFAS.org - From: Roger Ream | 0.82% | ||
| T1: | Reply To: kristin@TFAS.org - From: Kristin, TFAS Communications | 0.98% | 19.1% | 96.7% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 27,637 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 65,730, 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:
19.1% increase in traffic
× 0% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
With a 96.7% level of confidence across a combined three newsletters, we achieved a combined +19.1% increase in newsletter email clickthrough rates when using Kristin as the sender (instead of Roger).
Ironically, this is a directly proportionate increase relative to the percentage of increase we also observed in open rates (which was also +19.1% increase in open rate, with an LoC of 100%, as well).
This will increase the number of senders and immediately increase results. Moving forward, this could improve email engagement rates for key solicitation emails within the program sent by Roger, as well.