PiP: The Pledge Improvement Project

We are looking to recruit six to ten PMM participants to join in a research project aimed at significantly improving the performance of online pledge areas and pages.

Each participating station will get

• Individual attention from a Google Analytics specialist to install the proper tracking code;
• Individual station recommendations for making improvements
• Monthly online meetings to review project progress; as well as
• Raw data and analysis from all of the participants.

Specific Results

We think it’s possible to optimize the pledge process, in two ways:

• First, we would like to work with stations to determine: Is there is an optimal design for membership and pledge pages?
• Second, once we get the pledge page working well: Is there a way to optimize the average online pledge?

This project will focus on the first question: that is, optimizing the design of pages and forms. Our experience suggests that small changes can make a big difference. In the last half of 2008, our lead Analytics consultant, Justin Cutroni, worked with KQED to modify a page in the ‘QED online membership process. The changes were surprisingly small—removing one image and a left-side navigation element. The results were large:

“[B]efore the change, only 10% of the visitors went from step 1 to step 2, that is, from the membership page to the pledge page. After changing the page, 37% went from step 1 to step 2, an increase of 370%.”

In this research project, we want to see if we can replicate those results and extend them across a variety of stations.

Fees

Participating stations will need to be paid up on their 2010 PMM Subscription and contribute $2,000 to the research budget. Public Media Metrics will invest an additional $12,000-$15,000 to cover the consulting and research costs.

What would this mean for you?

The ROI on this project should be immediate and substantial. A site with 2000 online pledges and a $90.00 average pledge will gain $3,600 (gross) from a 2% improvement in the abandonment rate.

We will be aiming to reduce abandonment rates by 10% or more, so stations with 2,000 to 5,000 online pledges could see gross revenue improvements of $20,000 to $50,000 in the first year.

Background

Online pledge is—by a large margin—the most powerful revenue generating online application available to public broadcasters. Some stations are already receiving millions of dollars annually through their online pledge systems, which are emerging as the largest piece of the membership revenue stream. Over the next decade, we can confidently predict that the role of online pledge will grow, as online transactions become the norm for bill paying and charitable giving.

Pledge is also an attractive subject of research because it is one of the few online applications that is equally important in public radio, public TV and within joint licensees. For these reasons, Public Media Metrics will make “improving online pledge a major priority for 2010.

Our first goal in this area will be to produce a measurable improvement in the completion rate of pledge forms, as measured by Google Analytics. Later we will look to use web analytics to help raise the average size of online memberships.

Over the last two years, PMM has organized a series of small-scale research projects, on content, promotion, and functionality. As we begin our third year of publication, we’ve decided to expand our research efforts, especially in key elements of online service, starting with online pledge.

We are choosing pledge because it is by far the most important revenue-generating online application in public radio and television. As we look around the country, we are seeing growth in online pledge, to the point where it will soon be the largest piece of the membership portfolio.

Method

Stations will participate in an assessment call with form development experts from WebShare and PMM staff to review an existing online donation form and discuss changes that can be tested in the variation (test) form. After stations will take WebShare’s suggested changes and implement them into a variation form to test against the existing control form using Google Website Optimizer and Analytics.

Once the variation form is completed, participating stations will reconvene with WebShare and PMM to set up their Google Website Optimizer test. All the forms will be tagged for testing, the test will begin with results being tracked and observed.

Once a clear ‘winner’ of the test is established for participants we’ll bring the group together in a series of calls and webinars to share results and explore ways to build upon each station’s completed tests with the goal in continuing to reduce abandonment, and increase revenue.