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What Has Your
Donation Page Done
for You Lately?
Testing, Optimization &
Best Practices
Mwosi Swenson
Jason Wilson
Dawn Stoner
Session Speakers
Mwosi SwensonVice President
Donordigital | Mal Warwick
Dawn StonerDirector of Analytics &
Testing, Donordigital
Founder, Analytics Insight
Jason WilsonDirector of Digital
Communications
Share Our Strength/
No Kid Hungry
Agenda
A Brief Review of the Basics
Why Optimizing Donation Pages Matters
Optimization Principles You Need to Know
Figuring Out What to Test
Case Studies
Q & A
A Brief Review of the Basics
When optimizing a donation page, you must
focus on a single goal.
The donation page conversion rate
measures the efficiency of your page.
# Donations / # Donation Page Visitors
(expressed as a %)Ex. You get 25 donations from 125 donation page visitors.
Your conversion rate = 20% (25/125).
We aim to maximize the number of visitors that
“convert” to donors. The process is known as
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO).
Though important to track, revenue per visitor
(RPV) can be misleading due to outlier gifts.
Why Optimizing Your Donation Page Matters
Efficient. Small investments to
improve your donation page
conversion rate can yield big money.
Smart. Outbound marketing is
getting more costly all the time.
Driving more traffic to your site
without optimizing the user
experience just wastes money on
traffic that won’t convert.
Deciding Where to Test
Find your top opportunities.
Dive into analytics and look for:
Donation pages with high traffic
& low conversion rates
Pages that heavily influence
traffic to your donation pages
(look upstream)
Conversion Principles You Must Know
“It is not the magnitude of change
on the ‘page’ that matters, but the
magnitude of the change
in the ‘mind’ of the prospect.”
-- Flint McGloughlin, MECLABS
Rules of Web Awareness
If the visitor can’t find it easily, it does
not exist.
If you emphasize too many things on
the page, all of them lose importance.
Any delay increases frustration, and the
risk of abandonment.
3 Factors that Drive Conversion
Relevance/Consistency• Visitor finds what they’re looking for
• CTA language is consistent with what they saw upstream
Clarity• It’s immediately obvious what you can do & how you do it
Urgency• You give the prospect a reason to act now
• Can be an internal (emotional) or external trigger
3 Factors that Harm Conversion
Distractions
• e.g. full navigation, social media
actions, auto-play video
Anxiety/Fear
• Lack of trust
• Lack of credibility
Difficulty
• Form is too long. Text hard to read.
• Steps involve difficult decisions
5 Techniques That Will Make You Money
1. Write copy in a succinct, conversational tone
2. Focus on what your donors’ care about (the
benefits) not what you care about (the money)
3. Use images that are authentic & reinforce the
message/tone of your copy
4. Remove distractions
5. Eliminate difficulty
Deciding What To Test
Direct feedback: surveys,
focus groups, interviews
In page analytics, e.g. heatmaps, scrollmaps
Usability testing
Test Hypothesis
The more you know, the
better your hypothesis (because you’re not just picking
random stuff)
Collect “source material” by learning as much as
you can about your donors’ likes/dislikes:
Deciding What To Test
Copy
Images
Form layout & length
Button design & text
Trust elements
Not everything matters for conversion! Focus on the
“mission critical” elements that impact behavior most:
Test Hypothesis
How are these elements
helping or hindering a
decision?
CASE STUDIES
Tests with No Kid Hungry
Test #1: No Kid Hungry General Donation Page
Traffic Sources: Primarily direct traffic & organic search
Hypothesis: Does the way you frame the problem & call
to action in headline/subhead impact the conversion rate?
Test Design: A/B/C split test run in Optimizely in 2014
Case Study #1: No Kid Hungry
Test variable: Headline/Subhead
(All other elements
were identical)
Control
Treatment #1 Treatment #2
Test Results
Why did Treatment #2 win? Our analysis:
Intensifying a problem before presenting your solution is a
well-established, road-tested sales technique. Upping the emotional
ante and helping the donor “feel the problem” more acutely
improves conversion.
Treatment #1’s command & ask approach used no proven
copywriting technique for direct response.
*Retired after 6 days due to magnitude of the weakness. (Smaller data sample accounts for lower confidence level)
Variation Conversion Rate % Lift Significance
Control 21.4%
Treatment #1 18.0% -29.3% 83%*
Treatment #2 25.9% +20.8% 92%
Tests with No Kid Hungry
Test #2: Hunger Core Monthly Giving Page
Traffic Sources: Primarily direct traffic & organic search
Hypothesis: Does new copy (problem/solution headline,
shorter text & conversational tone), more emphasis on
donor benefits, stronger trust content, and a 2-column form
requiring less scrolling convert more monthly donors?
Test Design: A/B split test run in Optimizely in 2014
Case Study #2: Hunger CoreControl Treatment #1
Test Results
Why did the Treatment win? Our analysis:
Shorter, conversational copy with a problem/solution headline focused on
the power of Hunger Core donors, and more emphasis on mission-related
benefits strengthened the value proposition—and increased motivation
to give.
The new language “You are free to cancel…” helps reassure the donor
that they’re in control. Reducing anxiety is critical on a page with a high-
commitment ask like monthly giving.
Variation Conversion Rate % Lift Significance
Control 17.1%
Treatment 23.2% +35.3% 92%
Final Thoughts
No single page design works for all audiences.
Don’t adopt changes without testing them first!
(What works on other sites may not work on yours)
Focus on the process! The more you learn about
your audience—the better your test ideas will be.
Gains from testing don’t happen evenly (or all at
once). If initial tests don’t succeed, keep at it!
Q & A
Thank you!
Mwosi Swenson
Vice President
Donordigital | Mal Warwick
Director of Analytics & Testing
Donordigital
Founder, Analytics Insight
What Has Your Donation Page Done for You Lately?Testing, Optimization & Best Practices
Dawn Stoner Jason Wilson
Director of Digital
Communications
Share Our Strength
415.271.7272
@donordigital.com
Donordigital
No Kid Hungry
@nokidhungry
Linkedin.com/in/dawnstoner
Appendix: Bonus Case Study
Test #3: No Kid Hungry Donation Page
Traffic Sources: Primarily direct traffic & organic search
Hypothesis: A personal story of a child who has struggled
with hunger will convert better than brief, factual copy about
child hunger.
Test Design: A/B split test run in Optimizely in 2013
Bonus Case Study: No Kid Hungry
Control (Mission-centric, factual copy) Treatment (Child’s story)
Test Results
Why did the Treatment with personal story lose? Our analysis:
Shorter, mission-centric copy was easier for donor prospects to
absorb; it required less mental energy than a long story.
It's also possible that the technique wasn’t the problem—but the
story itself. Adrienne’s story may not have been poignant enough
to elicit the emotional response we'd hoped for, which in turn would
trigger a stronger sense of urgency to give.
Variation Conversion Rate % Lift Significance
Control 23.0%
Treatment 19.1% -16.9% 98%
