I wasn’t aware that other matching campaigns use the “Double your impact” line frequently, that’s helpful to know. I think our match wasn’t advertised with phrases like that; I consider this to be pretty dubious and wouldn’t really feel comfortable with it. (This is why I would be a terrible salesperson.)
But point taken, if they are matches advertised like that, then it’s seems like a reasonable assumption that the donation wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It’d be good to know how much assumptions like this from other matches influence recipients of ads for other matches which aren’t advertised like this.
This is something I’d be interested to see research on—is the average donor aware that the money would have been donated anyway?
nods
If people knew that most matches weren’t actually matching, we’d expect saying “I plan to donate £60k to AMF, please join me!” to have about the same effect as donation matching
Hm, I don’t think I agree. Isn’t it a pretty standard psychology finding that people react very differently to the same facts depending on how they are phrased? (Genuine question.) Though I couldn’t quote any offhand.
No worries. I probably should have titled the post “Did Donation Matching Work in Two Direct Mail Campaigns in Minnesota?”, but then nobody would have read it.
:)
I really appreciate all the work you put into it!
I wasn’t aware that other matching campaigns use the “Double your impact” line frequently, that’s helpful to know. I think our match wasn’t advertised with phrases like that; I consider this to be pretty dubious and wouldn’t really feel comfortable with it. (This is why I would be a terrible salesperson.)
But point taken, if they are matches advertised like that, then it’s seems like a reasonable assumption that the donation wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It’d be good to know how much assumptions like this from other matches influence recipients of ads for other matches which aren’t advertised like this.
nods
Hm, I don’t think I agree. Isn’t it a pretty standard psychology finding that people react very differently to the same facts depending on how they are phrased? (Genuine question.) Though I couldn’t quote any offhand.
:) I really appreciate all the work you put into it!