How much should your default donation ask be?

The below test was conducted by Ben Raue, for more information get in touch at ben@getup.org.au

For the 2013 federal election, an ask was put out to the GetUp list asking for donations to fund election advertising.

The list was split into three groups: those who have never donated, those who have donated large amounts (over $400) before, and other donors.

The group of people who have given large amounts is quite small, and thus the focus was on the other two groups.

In both cases, we split the list in half (roughly). All recipients received the same email, but the default donation ask on the page they clicked on was different. One confounding factor was that donation pages had very slightly different page names. All other content was consistent.

• For non-donors, the amounts were either $5 or $30.
• For donors, the amounts were either $30 or $70.

There is evidence that the increased default ask was effective for previous donors. While the number of members to donate was less for the $70 ask (14.7% of clicks, as against 15.1%), the average amount donated was higher ($71 vs $51), and the total amount raised was higher.

• The $70 ask resulted in $10.50 raised per person who clicked on the page.
• The $30 ask resulted in $7.70 per click.

There was a hope that reducing the default ask for non-donors from $30 to $5 would result in a larger number of donors giving money, which would hopefully result in an increase amount of money raised, even if the average donation was smaller.

However, non-donors were slightly less likely to donate on the page with the $5 default ask (3.2% of clicks) as compared to the $30 default ask (3.3%). The average donation was also lower for the $5 default ask ($37 vs $47).

• The $30 ask resulted in $1.55 raised per person who clicked on the page.
• The $5 ask resulted in $1.16 per click.

This experiment shows evidence for the idea that pre-existing donors have the potential to increase their donations with a relatively small impact on the number of donors giving money. No evidence is apparent that a very low default ask on the donation page is effective at broadening the number of donors.

There are a couple of design elements which may be hindering any potential for this to be more effective:

• Flagging default donation asks in email - Non-donors may not be clicking on the link, as the email does not refer to the default ask, and someone who may be more willing to donate if a smaller ask is made may already be deterred before getting to the page.
• Changing position of donation form so person selects their dollar amount before giving credit card details - at the moment the form asks for the dollar amount at the end, and on a 13-inch laptop screen this part normally does not appear without scrolling. May result in people being deterred before realising that the ask is for only $5.

It is also possible that more sophisticated division of the GetUp list could be helpful in effectively differentiating GetUp members to determine the ideal default ask.