Website Redesign Experimentation Drives Significant Results for Sierra Club

CLIENT

Sierra Club

SERVICE

Analytics, Creative Services, Digital Journey & CRO, Integrated Marketing, Website Design & Development

INDUSTRY

Nonprofit

+40% Monthly Donations

+14% Monthly Gifts

Sierra Club homepage hero with “Fight for the Planet”

Background

Sierra Club, the longest-standing grassroots environmental organization in the U.S. with over 3.8 million supporters, fights daily to protect the right to a healthy world. They partnered with Cro Metrics to ensure their website redesign would enhance user experience without negatively impacting donation volume.

CHALLENGE

Increase Lead Volume, Enhance Mission

To meet the evolving needs of Sierra Club and to best serve its members and constituents, the organization embarked on a website redesign. While the effort was intended to further the Sierra Club mission, it was imperative donation volume wouldn’t be negatively affected, and ideally, increase as a result.

Solution

Test into Changes with an Experiment-led Website Redesign

Our team implemented a test-driven redesign strategy, focusing on down-funnel donation optimization, global site elements, and new features like a “My Account” portal. Testing these changes prior to launch derisked negative impact with launch, while guiding design.

Methodology

Make Data-Driven Design Decisions, Testing Before Launch

Since we already an existing partnership with Sierra Club, there was already an established Culture of Experimentation (CoE), giving us further insights into how users behave on their site. We prioritized tests around primary KPIs, including recurring donations, one-time gifts, and email list building. Optimization extended across the donation funnel, site navigation, hierarchy, and global elements.

Our team also also provided ongoing analytics reports to track marketing campaign effectiveness, down-funnel conversion, and donation frequency by opt-in status, empowering Sierra Club to make data-driven decisions continuously.

Results

More Donations, More Impact

Not only did incorporating CTAs in key areas outside the donation funnel lead to a 40% increase in monthly donations, and 14% in monthly gifts, it also prevented a major potential loss by visitors who would have otherwise missed those cues.

Additionally, personalizing the donation experience drove a 30% lift in monthly donations, and extensive testing around global navigation ultimately led a 9% increase to donations, against an initial -4% loss.

Our partnership with Sierra Club continues to drive impact through both analytics and website optimization, driving results in an ever-changing political landscape.