Case Study: Obama for America achieves 49% increase in donations and 161% rise in sign-ups with Optimizely

Obama for America’s digital fundraising machine

Obama for America (BarackObama.com) needed to maximize online fundraising and supporter sign-ups in the tight 2012 presidential race. The digital team’s challenge was to turn high site traffic into donations and email subscribers across desktop and mobile while navigating usability issues and legal form requirements.

They ran a disciplined A/B testing program with Optimizely—about 500 tests over 20 months—driven by strong hypotheses, analytics and user psychology. Iterative changes (for example, adding the president’s photo on mobile and splitting a long donation form into four steps) produced measurable gains: a 49% increase in donation conversions, a 161% increase in sign-ups, a 6.9% lift on the sweepstakes mobile form and a 5% lift from the sequential form.

Obama for America

Kyle Rush

Deputy Director of Frontend Web Development, Obama for America