A/B test donation forms

Kim Thompson 4

Can I random A/B test donation forms from within Blackbaud or is code that has to come from a referring page on our website?


Thanks!

Kim

Erik Leaver

Kim Thompson:

Can I random A/B test donation forms from within Blackbaud or is code that has to come from a referring page on our website?


Thanks!

Kim

Hi Kim,

You'll need to use a third party tool to do A/B testing for your donation (or advocacy) forms. I know folks have successfully used Optimizely (https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/4/5403?post_id=5403#p5403) and Google Experiments (free!).


The roadmap for Luminate Beta includes the ability to do A/B testing on your forms but I wouldn't expect to see that in the product til sometime later in 2017.


Good Luck!

Erik Leaver

Kim Thompson 4

THANK YOU!



Erik Leaver:

Kim Thompson:

Can I random A/B test donation forms from within Blackbaud or is code that has to come from a referring page on our website?


Thanks!

Kim

Hi Kim,

You'll need to use a third party tool to do A/B testing for your donation (or advocacy) forms. I know folks have successfully used Optimizely (https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/4/5403?post_id=5403#p5403) and Google Experiments (free!).


The roadmap for Luminate Beta includes the ability to do A/B testing on your forms but I wouldn't expect to see that in the product til sometime later in 2017.


Good Luck!

Erik Leaver

 

 

Sara Hoffman

Kim Thompson:

Can I random A/B test donation forms from within Blackbaud or is code that has to come from a referring page on our website?


Thanks!

Kim

There are ways to do A/B testing without using (paying) for tools like Optimizely or Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) or figuring out a (new) tool like Google Optimize.


Within Luminate Online, you can A/B test with session variables and random number generation by using S and U tags - details are in a DC Users Group presentation I did in 2012: http://www.slideshare.net/SaraHoffman1/hidden-gems-luminate-online-dc-users-group. This can include different ask strings, different language, etc all present on the same donation form, for instance. You can also change content based on query string parameters very easily.


You can also A/B test and split traffic using Google Tag Manager, setting cookies and then passing the version information into Google Analytics using Custom Dimensions. 


Happy coding,

Sara Hoffman



Digital Analyst and Optimization Lead

​Beaconfire RED

sara.hoffman@beaconfire-red.com

Alicia Searfoss

I don't know if anyone else has done this, but we've also created two different donation forms, with the two email variants pointing to separate forms and then ran an a/b email test.

Sara Hoffman

High five @Alicia.

Totally a best practice!