The Covid-19 pandemic caused uncertainty for many brands, none more so than in the charity sector. Restrictions at the time forced the closure of non-essential centres. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB, the UK’s largest nature and conservation charity) lost visitors and revenue to their physical properties, whilst also gaining a significant increase in visitors and revenue through digital channels.
One issue arising from this increase in visitors was with RSPB’s supply chain as they were hitting limits on the volumes of sales that could be fulfilled.
The optimisation focus was therefore turned to donations as these were not affected by supply chain issues and 100% of the income goes directly to RSPB’s vital work.
The aim was to increase RSPB donation rates whilst ensuring there was no negative impact on their ecommerce conversion rate.
We proposed a series of A/B tests using our established experimentation frameworks.
- Through website analytics we discovered that desktop donation rates were significantly lower than mobile and tablet.
- Heatmap data illustrated that the cart on the donation module had low visibility.
- Through user testing we established that users had additional questions about how their donations were going to be used.
- Heuristic analysis highlighted that to encourage users to take further action, donation options could be presented in a more compelling way.
We achieved our goals. The approach demonstrated once again the benefits of structured experimentation - even (and maybe especially) in difficult times.
- 130% increase in desktop donations.
- 61% growth in incremental donation income through the eCommerce shop.
