What Tootsie Pops teach us about optimizing your website to donation page conversion rate

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

As Wikipedia outlines, the phrase was first introduced in an animated commercial which debuted on US television in 1970. In the original television ad, a questioning?boy?proposes the question to a?cow, a?fox?, a?turtle, and an?owl. Each one of the first three animals tells the kid to ask someone else, explaining that they would bite a Tootsie Pop every time they lick one.

Eventually, he asks the owl, appearing wise, who offers to investigate. He starts licking the orange Tootsie Pop, but bites into it after only three licks. The child walks away, saying to himself, "If there's anything I can't stand, it's a smart owl." The commercial ends the same way, with various flavored Tootsie Pops unwrapped and being "licked away" until being crunched in the center with?Herschel Bernardi?asking, "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie pop? The world may never know."

Tootsie Pops and Donor Patience

I often use the above commercial as an example of what a donor is feeling when they decide to make a donation through a nonprofit's website. Research by respected user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) shows that the average time it takes a donor to complete a donation online is over 4 minutes.

This is compounded by the research they found that said that 25% of the homepages included in their study failed to provide a?Donate?call to action.

If donors are clicking around in order to support you, they will either get frustrated and leave or will start the generosity experience at a net negative on their happiness with how things have went.

Optimizing Donation Flow On Your Website

One of the critical words and phrases that NNG found that consistently works across different types of missions is to make a button that is clearly labeled Donate or Donate Now.

Especially if using the Donate Now copy, your nonprofit should link directly to your online giving form or pop-up modal. There are a few reasons for this:

• Setting clear expectations for what will occur next - if a donor clicks something that tells them they can donate now, then the nonprofit is delivering on that promise
• Cutting down the need to feel that they have to rush through the process - if an organization is designing towards optimizing their flow and ideally cutting down the time it takes to convert into seconds versus minutes, then the nonprofit is respecting the donor's time they are committing mentally to the nonprofit

There is a ton of great resource on how to optimize the page once a donor gets to it, such as this resource from NextAfter.

Don't NASCAR Your Donation Form

One of the more worrying trends I've seen from digital forward vendors is trying to shove every type of payment option into a traditional online donation form. There is such a thing as too many choices.

Choice overload is a result of too many choices being available. It can result in decision fatigue, sticking to the default option, or even avoiding making a decision altogether.

An alternative is to map out the generosity experience from the point of view of the donor's intent. This is why starting with audiences and designing toward their flow will be a critical step. If you know that donors want to give in different ways, your nonprofit can adjust the flow underneath a larger drop-down menu of options for "ways to support."

A few ideas on how to begin this process include:

• Having a summary page that includes all giving channels
• Creating more detailed pages for high touch fundraising activities, such as a dedicated landing page for your legacy giving or monthly giving program
• Adding supporting quotes from donors on the impact they were able to see from being able to give easily, such as quoting from a local wealth advisor on the flexibility that Donor Advised Funds have given their clients and why the nonprofit is a great recipient of that type of gift
• Using sub-pages to test the interest of experimental giving channels, such as cryptocurrency

No matter what, there's a big difference between building out a nice flow for folks to explore deeper options and then trying to shove everything into one form.

Upcoming Webinar

We are excited to be welcoming Austin Hattox to the Neon One webinar stage in March! I've learned so much from him about website design and flow so I highly encourage you to check out his upcoming session.