Fundraising 2011/Test Updates/October/7

Jimmy Appeal Length Test October 7, 2011

During the 2010 fundraiser, we tested quite a few versions of Jimmy's appeal. Jimmy wrote our most successful message and we made slight tweaks throughout the campaign to improve donation rates.

Jimmy Photo

In our latest test, we came back to a few versions of Jimmy’s appeal to test the length of his message.

We tested:

The control length from 2010
A short version of this same message
A very short version of this message basically just hitting on the need for user donations

The Results

The short version had the highest donation rate of the three appeals (about 20% increase in number of donations, and 15% for amount raised).
The control performed second best.
The very short version performed the worst of the three.

We will definitely return to test and refine this message as we go through the fundraiser. There may not be a "magic length" that works for all appeals. The impact of appeal length on donations will likely vary somewhat between different people and stories. Jimmy is also working on a new 2011 fundraising message which we’ll test a few versions of prior to launching the campaign.

Landing Page Test Results
title	impressions	views	donations	amount	amount50	don_per_view	amt_per_view	amt50_per_view	avg_donation	avg_donation50	click_rate
Super Short Jimmy	462216	6622	67	1194.76	1100.72	0.0101	0.180423	0.166222	17.832239	16.428657	0.0143
Short Jimmy	471221	6751	110	1624.70	1480.56	0.0163	0.240661	0.219310	14.770000	13.459636	0.0143
No Control Jimmy	461030	6605	91	1559.01	1265.85	0.0138	0.236035	0.191650	17.131978	13.910440	0.0143

Campaign
title	impressions	views	donations	amount	amount50	don_per_view	amt_per_view	amt50_per_view	avg_donation	avg_donation50
C_1007_1_Jimmy_EN Totals	1394467	19978	268	4378.47	3847.13	0.0134	0.219165	0.192568	16.337575	14.354963