A common misconception in fundraising is that when sending an email appeal, the most effective method of receiving donations is to simply provide the donor with a link that takes them directly to a Donation page. Lawrence Direct Marketing, Inc. tested this theory for an International Non-Profit client. (Click here to see the full Case Study.)
In order to test the effectiveness of Landing Pages versus Direct-to-Donate pages, LDMI ran a series of campaigns with different 2 emails that were similiar in content but had different conversion paths.
Once the emails were received and the “Donate” link was clicked, 50% of the recipients were sent directly to a Donate page, and the other 50% were sent to a landing page which expanded on the content they had received in the email, and also provided another “Donate” button that they could click on to take them to a donation page.
The Landing Page results far surpassed those of the Direct-to-Donate Page. Overall, the landing page test group resulted in 223% more donations than the group who was sent directly to the Donation Page. In addition to an overwhelming number of donations, the landing page also resulted in a 202% higher average gifts. These results can be seen here. These tests continued for several months, and the results were the same. In every instance, the Landing Page group had more positive results.
Although LDMI’s results may seem to oppose the concept of making donations path shorter, the results of the tests run by LDMI are convincing.
