THE ROAD TO OPTIMISATION

Silvia Pilotto Head of Digital Strategy

BARNARDO’S

the journey

• Where did it all start?

• Who owns UX?

• Finding the right partnership

• First results & key findings

• Challenges faced

• The road to optimisation

• Key learnings & Conclusions

benchmarking

• Exercise: compared figures from key charities re: funnel conversions for cash and committed donations

• Results were shared with Fundraising colleagues

WHO OWNS UX?

• Team structure & responsibilities

• Who owns your website?

• Comms & fundraising - different approaches & priorities

• The role of IS/web development department

• Doing the testing in-house

THE RIGHT PARTNERSHIP• The brief & business objective

I. increase value and number of online donations through the optimisation of the Donate page

II.achieve higher online income target by increasing the funnel conversion rate

III.optimise the donor’s journey to maximise the number of people landing on the Donate page no matter where they come from

• Looking for the right partnership

• analyse the donor’s journey(s)• agree how we define success: ROI, KPIs...?• understand the motivations ...

A/B TESTING

First results

• The average amount showed an uplift of 17% for the new donation form:

•Standard form: £49.72

•New form: £58.34

• With an open field more people donated a smaller amount

• A round number to the free-entry of the standard page

First results

• The standard page

• had a peak at 10,

• whereas the new

• page had a spike

• at 25

First results

• The increase mainly came from more donations at the £100-£300 level

Challenges

• Google analytics tracking

• CSM issues affecting the analysis

• Inflexibility of the credit card payment gateway service (redesign and test of Sagepay forms)

• Involving key stakeholders

... and it was Christmas

The road to optimisation

• Implement tracking & technical recommendations from Nomensa 1st test

• implement the planned canonical URL patch

• implement the e-commerce tracking into GA

• reduce the number of profiles

• only use virtual page-views for AJAX-type interactions which load new content, and use events for within-page interaction

The road to optimisation

• Consider a more collaborative and integrated way to work across departments:

• allow key teams to own their share of the project

• define ROI and KPIs together, in an holistic way

• agree a shared budget for the UX project

• agree a working/management group who is responsible for the delivery of the project (and it is cross-departmental)

• have a key stakeholder engagement plan to involve senior management & report back results on a regular basis

Key learnings & Conclusions

• It was necessary to have a first test TO TEST if we were fit for optimisation

• This lead to a strategic long-term integrated project and set optimisation at the heart of the work we do

• UX has now its own budget and agreed KPIs

• You don’t have to have a dedicated team if you work with the right partner

• When you choose the ‘right partner’ think in an holistic and strategic way and not just about the ‘funnel’

Conclusions

• The real long-term business benefit:

• Know & understand our online audience

• And their motivations: why do they support us?

• Define ‘web personas’

• Use the insights to develop a website strategy and supporters’ journeys

.... while keep testing and learning.

THANK YOU

silvia.pilotto@barnardos.org.uk