I presented this at the 2012 Nonprofit DMA with my good friend Evan Blackford. We cover some examples work from various areas/offers to demonstrate what is working...and what still needs work!

1. What’s working in email and
landing pages for nonprofits?

2. Questions?
Text EMAIL to 30644

3. “Example isn’t another way to teach,
it’s the only way to teach”
- Albert Einstein

4. Survive to Five Challenge
• Hypothesis #1: Is it better to try a more provocative subject line or
stick with a traditional format that our audience has been
conditioned to?
• Hypothesis #2: Does longer, more copy heavy email still work in
the evolving mobile/desktop space?
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

5. Survive to Five Challenge
• Offer: Help children reach the critical age of 5 by providing
emergency food and medicine
• Audience: Existing donors
• Testing Methodology:
• 25/25/25/25 Split
• Subject line: Traditional VS Provocative
• Format: Short Copy VS Long Copy

6. Survive to Five Challenge
• Subject Line #1 (Control): Your gift triples to
help children survive
• Subject Line #2 (Test): Join the Survive to Five
Challenge and save children’s lives
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

7. Control Test

8. Open Rate: What subject line worked?

9. Click-Thru: What got them engaged?

10. Revenue: Show me the money!

11. Survive to Five: Conclusions
• A more provocative subject line improved
open rates, but not conversion
• Longer copy is not dead (at least for our
house audiences)

12. Email Test: Image vs. Letter Format
• Hypothesis: Are more visual, less copy-
driven emails more effective?

13. Email Test: Image vs. Letter Format
• Testing Methodology:
• 50/50 Split
• Creative the only variation
• Test run over a range of appeals
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

14. Email Test: Background

15. Offer: Holiday Card (with thank you video)
Control: Letter Format Test: Image Format
15

16. ✔ Image Format=WINNER!
• 9% lift in CTR
• 107% lift in Average Gift
• 107% lift in Income

17. Offer: 7X the smiles - help rush blankets and
medicines to waiting children
Control: Letter Format Test: Image Format
17

18. ✔ Image Format=WINNER!
• 40% lift in Click Through Rate
• 44% lift in Average Gift
• 83% lift in Income

19. Offer: Double your gift – Join our Holiday
Matching Gift Challenge
Control: Letter Format Test: Image Format
19

20. Image Format=mixed winner
• 21% decreased CTR
• 53% lift in Average Gift
• 38% lift in Income

21. Image vs. Letter format: Conclusions
• For this file, with these appeals, there was
lift in revenue
• Reduced CTR was noted on a few
examples, which should be monitored
• Freshness a likely factor in lift – must keep
innovating
• Not the right fit for all needs

22. Segmentation Testing
• Hypothesis: Can we target our email audience
and reduce send quantity while still maintaining
revenue goals?
• Less unsubscribes = more long-term email revenue
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

23. Segmentation Test Setup
• Test run on 3 email sends with 3 different offers
• Audience: Existing donors
• Testing Methodology: Match back on
“modeled” select versus “all file” send

24. Creative

25. Results & Conclusions
• A segmented audience out performed in every metric:
• 25% better open rate
• 39% better click-thru
• 72% drop in unsubscribe rates
• 26% increase in revenue (with 1/5 of the audience!)

26. Catalog Email Promotion:
Letter vs. Ecommerce Test
• Hypothesis: Will an ecommerce style email
format work better to promote a holiday catalog
than the control letter style?
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

27. Control Test

28. ✔ Ecommerce Format=winner
• 148% lift in Revenue

29. Results & Conclusions
• For catalog promotion, ecommerce email format is a
clear winner:
• 148% revenue lift
• A cleaner handoff from ecommerce email
creative to the catalog experience
• Audience is already in shopping mode when they
click through

30. Gift Catalog Father’s Day “Format” Test
• Hypothesis: Will long-copy product descriptions
increase conversion & revenue over our
promotional control format?

31. Gift Catalog Father’s Day Email
• Offer: Meaningful Father’s Day gifts that change lives
• Audience: Existing donors & Prospects
• Testing Methodology:
• 50/50 Split
• Email creative the only variable
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

32. Control Test

33. Father’s Day Email: Results
• Existing Donors:
• Click-thru was flat
• Control had 17% better conversion
• Control delivered 112% lift in revenue
• Prospects:
• Click-thru was flat
• Test had 60% better conversion
• Test delivered 16% increase in revenue

34. Conclusions
• We can use shorter formats with our house
audiences who have high brand awareness
• Prospects require more information, so it’s
worth developing a unique creative approach for
this audience

35. Ways To Give Test
• Hypothesis: Can we increase revenue by combining an
ecommerce style Ways To Give page and a more
tangible offer on the giving page?
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

36. Ways To Give Test
• Audience: All web traffic
• Testing Methodology:
• 50/50 Split
• Ways to Give Page and Giving Page creative are the two variables
• Due to time and budget, unable to test these separately

37. Ways to Give Control Ways to Give Test

38. Giving Page Control Giving Page Test

39. ✔ Test formats=winners

40. Ways To Give Test: Results
• 4% lift in Conversion Rate
• 19% lift in Average Gift
• 20% lift in Median Gift
• 21% lift in Revenue

41. Conclusions
• Average Gift improvement was achieved by
prominently merchandizing tangible offers
• Non-critical elements were reduced
• Minimal gains in Conversion Rate were
achieved with usability and credibility
enhancements

42. Gift Catalog Landing Page Testing
• Hypothesis: Can we increase revenue and conversion
by driving email traffic to a specific landing page versus
our general e-commerce site
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

43. Gift Catalog Landing Page Testing
• Offer: Gift Catalog Christmas Promotion
• Audience: Existing donors & Prospects
• Testing Methodology:
• 50/50 Split
• Landing Page destination the only variable

44. Control Page – Gift Catalog Website

45. Test Page – Special Landing Page

46. Results: Landing Page Testing
• Open and click-thru rates remained equal
for all audiences
• The special landing page showed a
revenue increase of 5% to over 50%
depending on the audience

47. Landing Page Enhancements
• Clearly organizes top items
• Takes away additional distractions
• Clear credibility statement
• Allows them to browse full catalog if they choose

48. Conclusion: Landing Page Testing
• For major campaigns or initiatives you can see
increased revenue and engagement by limiting
the clutter and focusing on the key message

49. Search Landing Page Test
• Hypothesis: If Search traffic needs more persuading
than general website traffic, can we increase search
revenue with a redesigned Search Landing Page?
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

50. Search Landing Page Test
• Offer: Help people vs. Meals and more
• Audience: All paid search traffic
• Testing Methodology:
• 50/50 Split
• Landing Page destination the only variable

51. Control Test

52. ✔ Test Version=winner
• 4.1% lift in Conversion Rate
• 30.2% lift in Average Gift
• 37.4% lift in Revenue

53. Conclusions: Search Landing Page Test
• The conversion rate increase was lower
than expected
• Highly motivated audience possible cause (likely
givers were undeterred by usability problems)
• Increased gift amount achieved with better
offer treatment for search traffic

54. Responsive Design/Mobile
Courtesy: see3 communications

55. Responsive Design/Mobile
Clearly picture your user flow across
platforms and contexts
•Will someone in bed with an iPad watch an engaging
video? Absolutely!
•Will they share it? Yes, if it’s compelling
•Will someone in line at the DMV with their phone key in
billing info? Maybe. Let’s test!

56. Suggested Mobile Test
• Hypothesis: Revenue is lower on mobile than
desktop because conversion pages (with forms)
aren’t optimized for mobile.
• By optimizing conversion pages using
responsive design, we can reduce the platform
revenue gap.
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644

57. Suggested Mobile Test
What you might see:
•Optimizing content for platform will yield a very
important lift in mobile engagement
•Optimizing conversion pages will yield some lift,
but real money will be elusive UNTIL one-click
mobile payments are the norm
•These are 1 to 2 years off (Google Wallet, Isis,
and PayPal are all in the running)

58. Key Take- A-Ways
• Know your audience and talk to them accordingly
• Email isn’t free, pay attention to your unsubscribe rates
• Keep the message relevant in both messaging and timing
• Make it EASY! Don’t let system limitations hinder your
email programs

59. Brian Tucker Evan Blackford
Director of Acquisition, Director of Digital Production
Diversified Products Russ Reid
World Vision 626.463.9275
253.815.2313 eblackford@russreid.com
btucker@worldvision.org
Questions: Text EMAIL to 30644