Fundraising 2011/Test Updates/September/30
September 30 Staff Appeals Test[edit]
Maryana Appeal Test[edit]
Very exciting and fascinating test day! Throughout the week, we've been working on appeals from Maryana Pinchuk from the Wikimedia Foundation Community Department. We tested three different versions of her appeal in the US. Of the three appeals, the one that came out ahead of the others really reinforces our theory that the personal authenticity factor is critical in writing effective messages. This best performing message actually sounds like a real person talking to you. Maryana does say wonderful things about why Wikipedia is a remarkable tool, but it seems as though her personal message about why she is working here rather than anywhere else really makes her appeal. We received quite a few messages from donors with this same feedback. As one donor put it, “It was personal. If you had included marketing/PR lingo, I would have been turned off.”
The next best performing appeal from the day wasn’t too far behind. It also used Maryana’s own language but didn’t seem quite as personal as the best performer. This message included a bulleted list comparing the number of servers and employees among the top five websites. One donor wrote that he donated because of the “comparison to the ‘big guys’ – and the idea that there will be no ads – no undue influence.”
The third appeal was the least personal of the three and brought in significantly fewer donations than the other two messages. This appeal included quite a few general statements about Wikipedia, and it was lacking the personal factor. It was also the longest of the three appeals, which could have negatively impacted donations as well.
Maryana Banner Test
We also tested two different photos of Maryana, one photo of her smiling and one with a more serious facial expression.
- The particular photo didn’t affect donations nearly as much as the content of the appeal.
- The smiling photo had about a 5% increase in click rate.
| title | impressions | views | donations | amount | amount50 | don_per_view | amt_per_view | amt50_per_view | avg_donation | avg_donation50 | click_rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Let's build something beautiful together | 586737 | 5469 | 123 | 3180.00 | 2430.00 | 0.0225 | 0.581459 | 0.444323 | 25.853659 | 19.756098 | 0.0093 |
| You don't have to go to Harvard | 580729 | 5413 | 229 | 6048.00 | 4398.00 | 0.0423 | 1.117310 | 0.812488 | 26.410480 | 19.205240 | 0.0093 |
| 300 Chairs | 597787 | 5572 | 259 | 6724.00 | 5504.00 | 0.0465 | 1.206748 | 0.987796 | 25.961390 | 21.250965 | 0.0093 |
Landing Page Report:Media:C_3009_Maryana_US_LP.pdf
| title | impressions | views | donations | amount | amount50 | click_rate | don_per_imp | amt_per_imp | amt50_per_imp | avg_donation | avg_donation50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Smile | 1766437 | 15637 | 297 | 7376.00 | 5806.00 | 0.00885228 | 0.000168 | 0.0041756370 | 0.0032868420 | 24.835017 | 19.548822 |
| Smile | 1766005 | 16461 | 314 | 8576.00 | 6526.00 | 0.00932104 | 0.000178 | 0.0048561580 | 0.0036953460 | 27.312102 | 20.783439 |
Banner Report:Media:C_3009_Maryana_US_B.pdf
Maryana vs. Brandon Test
In the past several weeks, we have seen the message from Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris perform consistently well. Once we discovered which of the three Maryana appeals performed the best, we ran this best performer against Brandon’s appeal for a short test.
Something pretty interesting happened when we ran the best Maryana appeal against Brandon:
- Brandon's banner had a much higher click rate (about 43% higher)
- BUT Maryana's appeal had a much higher conversion rate
- Overall they brought in just about the same amount of money.
- More people who actually read Maryana's appeal ended up donating, and with a $5 higher average donation.
We have plenty of tweaks we can make to her banner to try to bring up her click through rate including a variety of photos, titles, and wording. It is really encouraging to see Maryana’s own message resonate with readers and to find yet another story we will be able to use to appeal to readers during the rapidly approaching fundraiser.
We’re not done yet though! Yes, we’ve found a few new voices for the fundraiser but there are so many more we have not found yet. The Storytellers are still interviewing people from all over the world, so please send a message to wikistory@wikimedia.org if you’d like to help raise money for Wikimedia with a compelling message about your personal Wikipedia experience.
| title | impressions | views | donations | amount | amount50 | click_rate | don_per_imp | amt_per_imp | amt50_per_imp | don_per_view | amt_per_view | amt50_per_view | avg_donation | avg_donation50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maryana | 596651 | 5666 | 103 | 2557.00 | 2107.00 | 0.00949633 | 0.000173 | 0.0042855835 | 0.0035313745 | 0.0182 | 0.451288 | 0.371867 | 24.825243 | 20.456311 |
| Brandon | 595055 | 8137 | 131 | 2253.00 | 2003.00 | 0.01367435 | 0.000220 | 0.0037861994 | 0.0033660711 | 0.0161 | 0.276883 | 0.246160 | 17.198473 | 15.290076 |
Report:Media:C_3009_Brandon_Vs_Maryana_US.pdf
Ryan Kaldari Appeal Test[edit]
Outside of the US, we tested an appeal from programmer Ryan Kaldari against an appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. We also tested two banner images of Ryan, one with him wearing his classic Kaldari hat (which is his standard accessory around the office) and one without his hat.
The good news: We've found another Wikimedian's story to to share with our readers during the fundraiser!
- Ryan's banner and appeal combination had about 15% increase in donations over Jimmy's banner and donation page combo.
Kaldari's message hit on what makes Wikipedia different from the rest of the Internet and described his personal involvement and commitment over the years. Once again, as in our past several successful appeal tests, this message used nearly all of Kaldari's own words from his interview. The authenticity and real language are proving to be extremely important in presenting an honest, compelling message to our readers.
An interesting finding:
- Ryan's donations were significantly higher coming from the banner without his hat.
- Both banners used the exact same appeal message, but the banner with Kaldari hat-less had about 30% increase in donations.
- The click rates for both Kaldari banners were very similar, the big difference was in the donations.
We suspected the hat might have an effect, but really did not expect it to impact donations this much. A possible hypothesis we're stirring with is that age could be a factor. Kaldari's banner with the hat received a higher percentage of PayPal donations than we usually see compared to credit card donations. It may be that younger readers (who tend to have PayPal accounts more than an older readers) are more engaged by his unique style than older readers. The reasoning behind this result is not too clear yet. We want to come back to this finding again to confirm the results and use a survey to find out more about the donor group from each banner.
The most exciting result from this test, is that people are responding to genuine messages from Wikimedians other than Jimmy.
We’re not done yet though! Yes, we’ve found a few new voices for the fundraiser but there are so many more we have not found yet. The Storytellers are still interviewing people from all over the world, so please send a message to wikistory@wikimedia.org if you’d like to help raise money for Wikimedia with a compelling message about your personal Wikipedia experience.
To Kaldari and all the other programmers, here's a quick comment from a donor: "My heart goes out to programmers."
| title | impressions | views | donations | amount | amount50 | click_rate | don_per_imp | amt_per_imp | amt50_per_imp | don_per_view | amt_per_view | amt50_per_view | avg_donation | avg_donation50 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaldari No Hat | 389704 | 4905 | 84 | 2094.49 | 1643.63 | 0.01258647 | 0.000216 | 0.0053745634 | 0.0042176347 | 0.0171 | 0.427011 | 0.335093 | 24.934405 | 19.567024 |
| Kaldari Hat | 389687 | 4870 | 58 | 1161.70 | 1015.97 | 0.01249718 | 0.000149 | 0.0029811023 | 0.0026071370 | 0.0119 | 0.238542 | 0.208618 | 20.029310 | 17.516724 |
| Jimmy | 761692 | 8787 | 173 | 3438.57 | 2827.04 | 0.01153616 | 0.000227 | 0.0045143824 | 0.0037115254 | 0.0197 | 0.391325 | 0.321730 | 19.876127 | 16.341272 |