Is Your Giving Form Fully Optimzed?
Is Your Giving Form Fully Optimzed?
Having to create an account is the second highest reason for e-commerce cart abandonment - 31%. Too long, complicated process is the third most - 23%. (Baymard.com - Cart Abandonment Rate*)
Ideal Checkout flow (including card entry) is 8 form fields. (Baymard)
85% of mobile users will abandon a donation form if the giving process takes longer than 30 seconds. (Xpastor.com - 3 Myths Pastors Believe*)
Average donation page load time according to M+R Benchmark study was 1.37 to 3.54 seconds.
Main Donation page conversion rate (9% mobile, 16% tablet and 21% desktop. Transactions on a mobile device made up 30% of donations (up 20% from 2017) so you better be optimized for mobile devices. (48% of traffic came from mobile, 44% from desktop and 8% from tablet. (M+R benchmark)
Everyone has room to improve their donation page. (Reviewing 203 pages and scoring on a 100 point scale, median score was 57%)
Should have at least 4 sentence value proposition on donation page. This simple step could increase conversion rate 150% (Next After study)
Generally too much friction (non-essential info required, distracting links, too many options, unclear language, having to re-enter information upon error, not optimized for mobile device, requiring an account, too many steps) (Requiring phone number results in 42.6% decrease in donations. Going straight to thank you page instead of asking are you sure you want to give page increases donations 176% Layout matters too. Make a form that has credit card info in a separate section (halite in a different color). Remove header links (increase donations 195%). Validate as you go. (Making a phone number optional had no effect on donations in one test. Another said donations decreased %42.6%)
Most need to communicate the value/importance of recurring giving (why should I give to you rather than some other organization or not at all). Do it in words, not video. Increased donations 560%. Talk about glorifying God through giving (reflecting his nature as a giver) and your local church's mission.
You need to reduce anxiety - people want to know their information is secure. Value of trust marks, indication that site is secure and encrypted
Thank you should state the value proposition and offer a next step - maybe signing up for recurring giving or ACH.
(Nextafter - Interactive Donation*)
(Nextafter - Friction Self Assessment*)
Include recurring giving: Setting up recurring giving can also help if your church needs to get a loan.
If it's not already in here, suggest they look at their website on a desktop, tablet and mobile phone. Suggest they give on all 3 devices to see how the experience is
Offer ACH - Credit card accounts are open on average of 9 months, bank accounts average 6 years (Next After The Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark)
Importance of offering ACH (costs less and accounts are open 16 years on average compared to 9 months for a credit card) (Bankrate.com - Best Banks Consumer Survey*)
Most common numbers used in gift areas are 50, 100, 500, 300, 25 and 1000. I'd suggest starting with 50, 100, 500 and 1000. But test, test test. Putting the higher dollar amount first decreases donations by 16%.