Giving Page Suggested Donation Amount
Experiment No. 013
Our Most Popular Amount
People like options, but too many and they feel overwhelmed.
As fundraisers, we need to provide options but not so many that supporters can’t decide. We must strike the right balance. This is why most digital giving pages have 3-4 buttons with suggested gift amounts.
When you go to the giving pages of some nonprofits you will notice they highlight a specific gift amount. For instance, they might suggest you give $25, 50, or $100 and the $50 button will be in a different color so it stands out.
Having a suggested amount is common on landing pages and it helps supporters make a decision even easier. Most of the best practices you read tell you to highlight the most popular donation amount. This strategy provides supporters with a baseline. It also gives them more confidence in their donation choice.
Yet, not all nonprofits use this approach. Many organizations don’t highlight a gift amount in a gift array. Which way will lead to more donations?
Before we accept all best practices and what other organizations do, let’s run a test first.
Test: Highlight a Gift Amount
We created two landing pages. Both landing pages had the same image, copy, and donation amounts. On the control landing page, all the gift amount buttons in the gift array were identical. The test page had one gift amount button highlighted.
Research Question: Will a donation landing page with a suggested gift amount increase the number of gifts?
Test Element: Suggested Donation Amount in a Gift Array
Control - No highlighted gift amount button
Test - Highlighted the $50 gift button
Key Metric: Conversion rate
Other Metrics: Click rate, number of gifts, and amount donated
Results & Application
Results: The landing page without the suggested donation amount resulted in a higher conversion rate (2%), more total gifts, and a higher amount of money given.
The click rate from the emails to the different landing pages was the same.
Application: For certain audiences, a giving page without a highlighted donation amount will perform better than one that does. Our audience preferred not having a suggested amount. This is a test worth conducting for your organization.
Future Tests: A good test will often lead to more questions. This test raised a few. New test ideas include:
Would highlighting a different amount produce different results?
Change the button color
What This Means For You
Test it for yourself.
The majority of articles say highlighting a donation amount is a best practice. From a behavioral approach, this makes sense, however, I did not find any studies or tests to prove this. Certain audiences respond better to a suggested amount while others do not.
If you have only designed your giving page one way, you should consider testing it to see which page your donors prefer.
It’s always best to test.
