You know what’s pretty cool?

Posted by On Filed under About ActBlue, Features

Yep, that’s right. The community that we started building in 2008 has grown to include one million supporters.

What’s so special about Express users? They’ve securely saved their payment information with us, which means they can give in an instant to any candidate, committee, or organization using ActBlue. Whenever you make it easier for people to donate wherever they are, whenever they want, they’re more apt to give and conversion rates go up. That means our work is directly benefitting Democrats and progressives across the country.

In other words, Express users are power donors. But not the Koch-brother type. The small-dollar kind. Check out how many dollars ActBlue Express users have been giving:

Express users also power Express Lane, ActBlue’s one-click payment system. Express Lane increases donation rates anywhere from 40% to 200%. The more Express users an organization has, the more likely they are to bring in those Express Lane donations. The best way to increase your Express user pool? We’ve found that sending Express Lane links to all your users increases donation rates and helps you convert more of your list to Express users. We wrote a post about it here.

The community has been growing rapidly, but we’re really happy to see the current monthly growth rate at about the same level as October 2012. If you remember, there were some big things going on.

As we get further into the election cycle, more and more new donors are emerging and joining the Express Lane community. Every campaign out there is organizing and growing their ranks, all the major campaigns in the country are using ActBlue and adding their donors to this pool, and together the entire left is raising more money. And if we’re seeing this many new donors signing up during summer vacation months….well, we can only imagine what this fall will bring!

Express Lane links for everyone

Posted by On Filed under Tips & Tricks

If you looked really closely to the Express Lane emails of a number of groups and campaigns recently, you might have noticed a tiny but significant change. Rather than saying: “Because you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express…” the emails now read: “If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express…”



Why? Well, it turns out that you can raise slightly more money by sending an Express Lane-structured email to your entire membership. Traditionally, list admins send two distinct emails; Express users see Express Lane links, while everyone else gets an email with “regular” links. With Express Lane to all, you can send the same Express Lane email to all of your users, saving you time and opening up the possibilities for groups with smaller lists.

There’s been a lot of testing done both by us and other committees on sending Express Lane emails to everyone. The general consensus is that Express Lane structure to non-Express users does perform slightly better than normal links. We’ve tested sending Express Lane links to non-Express users 4 different times. Consistently, we see more money (the net bump is around 6-7%), but these results aren’t statistically significant. Others are seeing similar gains.

While we’d love to see statistical significance, we think it’s still a great idea because there is a tremendous upside potential for both groups and campaigns that are already using Express Lane and those who have yet to try it out. It’s a time saver for smaller groups and also encourages your members to save their information with ActBlue and become an Express user.

Our recommendation is that groups and campaigns test this with their membership and confirm that they are getting similar results before making this a best practice. There is some reason to believe that we’re seeing a novelty effect, since the new link structure is unusual. We’ll test this again in the future to make sure that the results are still holding, and we urge others do the same.

This tactic works particularly well for groups with smaller lists. We’re confident enough in the testing to tell you that you’re likely to raise more money from sending Express Lane to your entire list, especially with the strong growth in the Express universe (994k users and counting!). However, pay attention to future posts, in case we do find that there is a novelty effect.

Dear Mitch McConnell & Steve King: No you can’t have Express Lane

Posted by On Filed under General

We noticed something curious this week. Mitch McConnell sent an email this week that looked just like an Express Lane email, complete with “Express donate” links denoting specific amounts. And then another strange thing happened…Steve King did the same thing. Check them out:

When we stopped laughing we wrote this nice little note to them:

——————————————————–

Dear Mitch & Steve,

We’re flattered, really, that you want to use our tools in your emails. Mitch — you’re trying to run a “presidential level campaign,” and our tools are the best in the business, after all. And Steve, you’re looking to increase your national name recognition.

And we know you’re learning first hand in Kentucky and Iowa what an empowered small dollar donor base supporting an amazing Democratic candidate means.

So we get it. You’re jealous. But no, you can’t just try and steal or copy what we’ve built this last decade at ActBlue. Frankly, it’s impossible.

That’s because the most powerful thing about ActBlue is the nearly million strong community of committed Express donors. Without that community, those links you used are just links, not money makers, not flashy technology, and no use to you.

Imitations, however pale, are still flattering, so thanks. But you’re doing it wrong.

Best,

ActBlue

——————————————————–

Hilariously, if you clicked on any of Steve or Mitch’s links, they took you to a contribution form for just that amount, which is a recipe for a lot of lost money. It’s not just that they tried to copy us, it’s that they did it so badly. And they completely missed the point of why so many candidates and organizations around the country are asking people to give specific amounts right in the email.

There are over 950,000 ActBlue Express users that have saved their credit cards with us. With just one click, Express donors are powering campaigns and organizations. These days, 62% of all donations made through ActBlue are from people giving with an Express account!! That means more contributions and more funds because the less information people have to enter in, the more likely they are to give.

Mitch and Steve thought they could get that from just copying the style of Express Lane emails. Yeah, no.

First, try investing a decade in building a base of grassroots donors (unfortunately that means getting your party to actually care about people besides the Koch brothers), and then maybe your copy and paste efforts will be effective.

BTW we tested a version of this letter as a fundraising email to our list. It was a classic case of “you are not your list.” It was an email our staff really loved and had fun crafting, but our list didn’t respond as well to it as more traditional email talking about the momentum Democrats are gaining across the country. It’s not surprising, but it is a bit sad for us email writing nerds. And it’s a good reminder why it’s so important to test email copy.

ActBlue Express: A grassroots movement 750,000 strong

Posted by On Filed under About ActBlue

Drumroll please…

Three quarters of a million people have signed up for ActBlue Express accounts!

That’s 750,000 people who have saved their payment information with us and can give with just one click on every ActBlue form. It doesn’t matter if it’s $5 for a city council race in Cottage Grove, MN or a max-out donation for Alison Lundergan Grimes, it works exactly the same.

We’ve been experiencing a crazy growth spurt in the Express user base, which is up from 600,000 in August. Below we chart the number of Express users we’ve added since the launch of the program. As you can tell, the number spikes during election years. One million here, we come!

The Express program is designed to help the Democratic party as a whole. Donors love it because it saves them time and gives them a secure and trackable way to give. And candidates and committees benefit from higher conversion rates.

Making a donation is a streamlined experience for Express users. That equals higher conversion rates, especially on mobile. The mobile part of the equation is going to be key during this election year.

We’ve already seen up to a quarter of the day’s donations come in via mobile. Since 2013, 18.1% of donations from Express users were made via mobile phones, compared with 10.9% for non-Express users. Since we launched mobile responsive contribution forms, 23.1% of all Express contributions were made on mobile (15.8% for non-Express users).

Making the giving experience as easy as possible for users is just as important as increasing conversion rates (although the two are obviously intertwined). Express users are some of our most active users. They give to an average of 2.57 entities campaigns or organizations a year and since 2013, 3.5% of donations from Express users were recurring, compared with 2.2% of donations from non-Express users. These are people who are committed to supporting the candidates and issues that mean the most to them, so it’s important that we’re paying attention to their giving patterns, and listening to them when they reach out to us. Not just for our own success, but for the success of the party.

Express Lane, our one-click payment system, has been a game-changer. We’ve been rolling out Express Lane to a number states for statewide and legislative races the past few months, and we’ve seen campaigns across the country increase their conversion rates (and raise up to 200% more money).

The Express user pool will grow dramatically as we get closer to the election, so we’ll be more focused than ever on finding new ways to increase conversion rates and make the donation process easier for these users.

Have you tried out Express Lane for your federal campaign? Have you used your Express account to keep track of your political donations? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear from you.

How to do everything in the whole world (of ActBlue online fundraising)

Posted by On Filed under Tips & Tricks

At ActBlue, our goal is to help Democratic candidates, committees and non-profits raise more money, plain and simple. And one of the best ways we can do that is by making it easier to use our system and teaching the 10,345 (and counting!) candidates and groups who have used ActBlue how to be more effective fundraisers.

For years we’ve provided free one-on-one consultation for thousands of campaigns and groups, but we never had the time to sit down and write up our nearly 10 years of experience. We’ve always wanted to reach even more practitioners than those who pick up the phone and give us a call. The glory of an off-year meant we finally could document not just instructions on how to use the robust toolset we have here at ActBlue, but also best practices we’ve learned over the years.

The result is the ActBlue Tutorial, a comprehensive guide that shows activists and campaign admins how to do online fundraising the right way–from using the tools on ActBlue to devising testing plans to implementing advanced programs like tandem fundraising. That means you (yes, even you the solo online activist or small-town candidate running for your first election) can be a fundraising rockstar!

Learn how to create beautiful custom brandings with the ActBlue Tutorial

Running a great online fundraising program is about great planning–figuring out which tools, tactics, and messages will work for you, then testing them out on your list, revising, and trying again. That applies even if you’re working in an unofficial capacity, trying to mobilize support for your favorite candidate or cause among your family and friends. It’s also why we give everyone–from the largest senate campaigns to local school board elections–the same great tools for collecting donations, managing donors, and analyzing results, which can scale to each group’s size and needs.

It can be hard to know where to start with online fundraising, and we’re willing to bet there are a few great tools on our site that many admins and fundraisers have never taken advantage of, or maybe never even heard of. Our tutorial gives you the rundown on each one, with instructions on how and when to implement them, so there’s no reason not to try something new. Even the smallest of campaigns can learn to use the most sophisticated tools.

Of course, our strong and growing political team is always going to be there to answer questions and talk strategy, but we’re excited to be empowering all of our users, campaigns, committees, and organizations by giving them the tools they need to make the best decisions possible. We want to make sure no one’s leaving money on the table, so if you’re running a fundraising program, make a pledge to shake up your routine, and please, tell us about your results. Together, we’re building a movement!

Visit the ActBlue Tutorial here.

Notice anything on this graph?

Posted by On Filed under Analysis, Features

A couple of weeks ago, Julia unveiled our new mobile-responsive contribution forms to the world. Since we’ve rolled out mobile-responsive forms, our mobile contribution numbers have been through the roof, so we’re really excited to share them with you.

Check out this graph, in which the red line represents the release date. Notice anything?

ActBlue mobile donation trends
ActBlue mobile donation trends

As we’ve mentioned, our initial A/B test yielded some excellent results: our new mobile-responsive forms led to a 49% boost in conversions (a statistically significant improvement at p< .01). And these forms are already making a marked difference.

Since the release, 21.9% of sitewide donations have been made by supporters using a mobile device. For ActBlue Express users– those who have saved their credit card information with us– the number’s even higher at a full 25.9% mobile. According to the stats textbooks I keep on my desk for reference, that number is “insanely high”.1 Seriously though, from the beginning of the year to the day our mobile-responsive contribution forms were released, 9.0% of donations were made via mobile devices (12.3% for Express users). It’s pretty tough to exaggerate how prodigious this jump is, and there’s clearly more growth to come.

The importance of mobile donations is increasing inexorably; we all know that. But, on one of the busiest days of the year, we topped over 30% mobile donations among ActBlue Express users. It’s a whole new world.

Footnotes:
1Just kidding, of course 🙂

The Do’s, Don’ts, and DIYs of Express Lane

Posted by On Filed under Case Studies, Testing, Tips & Tricks

This week we officially announced Express Lane, and I’m guessing the fact that it can more than triple your money caught your eye. It can, and the way to raise more money is to learn Express Lane best practices and do your own optimization. We’re here to help you with both.

We’ve done a significant amount of Express Lane testing in our email blasts over the past few months to help you get started on what works– and what doesn’t– with Express Lane. Each email list, of course, is different, so you should probably test and expand upon the the takeaways below with your own list. And definitely let us know the results; we’d love to hear about them. It’d be especially great if you wanted to share your results here on the blog– just like the fantastic folks at CREDO Action were happy to do for this post– so that others can learn from your test results.

Here’s a little bit of background: our own email list consists entirely of donors, therefore it’s a pretty diverse group of folks. Also, we always fundraise to support our own infrastructure, not specific issues or candidates. Further, we spend most of our time optimizing for recurring donations because we’ve found them to be best for our organization, but much of what we say here also applies to one-time donation asks. We are, by the way, totally interested in collaborating with you on testing and optimization efforts– just give us a shout.

For this post, we’re going to discuss the gains you can expect from using Express Lane, results from some of the tests we’ve run on our Express Lane askblocks, and touch on stylistic concerns. Then, we’ll finish up with a summary of our recommendations and where you can go from here.

What to Expect

So, you probably expect to raise a lot more money using Express Lane, but what’s a typical increase? We’ve tested Express Lane vs. non-Express Lane on both recurring and one-time asks among randomly sampled Express users and seen Express Lane bring in more than triple the money for one-time1 asks, and 37.7% more for recurring asks (measured by money donated plus pledged recurring).

That’s quite a big boost, but other partners have seen significant gains, too. For example, here’s a test that was run by our friends at CREDO Action, some of our most sophisticated users. They tested a $5 control ask against a $5, $10, $25 Express Lane askblock. Their Express Lane version brought in 37.4% more donations than the control version. If you don’t see a noticeable increase in your testing, you should definitely reach out.

exp_lane_test_graph
Results from ActBlue’s April 2013 Express Lane test

Askblock Structure

We have an awesome Express Lane Link Creator tool for you, which you can find by clicking the “Express Lane” tab of your fundraising page. It’s really important that you use the language we provide there so that donors know that they’ll be charged instantly and why that’s possible– if you want to deviate from this, you’ll have to get our approval first. We do think, though, that you should stick with this language since it’s clear and concise.

But, how many Express Lane links should you include in the body of your email, and for what amounts? Should the intervals between amounts be equal? The answer to such questions will depend on your email list members but here are some suggestions, based on tests we’ve run, that should help get you on your way to optimizing your own Express Lane askblock structures!

One approach we’ve seen used by organizations in different contexts is what we refer to as a jump structure. The basic idea is that you set a large interval between the lowest link amount (which should be a low amount relative to your list’s average donation amount) and second-lowest link amount. Here’s an example we’ve used:

jump_example_image
Example jump structure

This relatively low-dollar link could encourage a much higher number of donations (if your jump structure amount is, for example, $4 instead of the $5 you’d usually use). This is because it’s a lower absolute dollar amount, but also a lower amount relative to the rest of the structure. Basically, the large jump between the lowest amount and the second-lowest amount makes the first one look small.

We’ve found that in general, this type of jump structure does indeed lead to a higher number of donations, but a lower overall amount of money, than the common structures which we used as controls. While it led to more donations, we didn’t see enough extra donations to outweigh the “cost” of the lower dollar amount and bring in more overall money. If you’re looking to bring in more low-dollar donations in the hopes of larger-dollar donations in the future, however, this might be a good strategy to try.

We’ve also looked at the effect of changing the lowest dollar amount in your ask block. In July, we tested the the following three askblock structures against each other:

Structure "A"
Structure “A”
Structure "B"
Structure “B”
Structure "C"
Structure “C”

Obviously, we were trying to see whether we could increase the total money we raised by increasing the amount of the bottom link2. The risk of this approach is that you might lose a certain number of donations by setting the lowest ask amount to be a little bit higher3.

We found that the by number of donations, A>B>C, but by overall money raised, C>B>A. The askblock labelled “C”, in fact, raised 21.1% more money than “A” (“B” raised 12.1% more than “A”), even though “A” brought in 15.3% more donations than “C”!

structure_test_graph

The “other amount” Link

A great thing about Express Lane is that users’ donations are processed once they click the link in your email body. However, as much as we try to structure our links perfectly, some donors are always going to want to do their own thing, and that’s okay. Enter the “other amount” link.

An “other amount” link doesn’t process the donation right away, it’s simply a normal ActBlue link that takes the user to your contribution page and allows them to choose a custom donation amount and/or recurring length. This is included as a default in our Express Lane Link Creator tool.

We at ActBlue focus on recurring donation asks because over the long run– and our goal is to be the best technology both today and years into the future– they bring in more money than one-time donation asks, even taking into account imperfect pledge completion rates. So, we worried at first that adding an “other amount” link might draw too many people toward giving one-time donations instead of more valuable recurring donations. But, we also know that it’s important to give people the option to choose their own donation amount, lest they not donate at all. This is why every ActBlue contribution page allows people to easily choose between a one-time donation and a recurring donation.

So we decided to test two things. First, we wanted to know whether the presence of an “other amount” link in our email body would lead to more/fewer donations. Actually, we were almost positive that getting rid of the “other amount” link would be a big loss, but we wanted to run the test anyway. That way, we could confirm this and make sure no one else has to lose money on the test. The result: don’t try this at home. The version which included the “other amount” link brought in 88.3% more money (90.6% more donations) than the version which did not. We’ll accept your thanks in the form of chocolate or wine. Just kidding! Our lawyers won’t allow that.

Second, we’ve performed several tests (and several variations thereof) of whether an “other amount” link which indicated that users could instead give a one-time donation would lead to more/fewer donations than an “other amount” link that made no mention of one-time donations. This matters to us because, as we mentioned, we focus mostly on recurring donation asks, and wanted to see whether we could retain people who would give a one-time donation, but might not know that it was possible.

Typically, an “other amount” link which mentions one-time contributions leads to a statistically significantly higher number of donations, but less overall money raised. While this setup might draw in some people who otherwise wouldn’t have given, it also pulls some would-be recurring donors into giving one-time donations, which bring in less money. This doesn’t mean that such language is a bad thing, but you should consider your fundraiser’s goals and organizational priorities while choosing your link language. If, for example your goal is to increase participation rather than raise as much money as possible, then mentioning one-time donations in your “other link” might be a good idea during a fundraiser focused on recurring donations.

No mention of one-time donations
No mention of one-time donations
With mention of one-time donations
With mention of one-time donations

Style

Stylistic elements of an email can often have a huge impact on your ask, and since Express Lane links are new, the presentation of them hasn’t yet been set in stone. We started sending emails with our Express Lane askblock simply as an HTML <blockquote> element. We wanted the Express Lane askblock to stand out and to be easily identified, though, so we devised a simple design to make it pop. We put our Express Lane askblock in a gray box and center-aligned the text4. It looked like this:

We tested this against our original structure among several different link structures, and the results were pretty interesting. Among link structures with 4 or 5 links (including “other amount”), the gray box boosted the amount of money raised by up to 37.7%.

Subtle Express Lane askblock styling
Subtle Express Lane askblock styling

The obvious concern is that some stylistic elements are really subject to novelty effects, and the initial boost in action rate will decline or disappear altogether in time. We think the gray box may be an exception, though. First, the gray box is pretty subtle, almost to the point of being too dull, so I doubt that it caused the fervor of a “Hey” subject line or manic yellow highlighting. Second, the box serves a legitimate function, i.e., to identify this new set of links that’s now appearing in emails as a single entity that stands out from the email content.

Where to go from here

You’ve seen how some slight changes– the link amounts, the intervals between them, the number of links, etc.– can seriously affect the performance of your Express Lane email ask. Hopefully, you’ve picked up some tips about how to structure your asks, as well as picked up a few ideas for testing that might prove fruitful for your own organization.

As progressive organizers, we all know how important participation and collaboration are. In this light, I encourage you to get in touch with us if you’d like to work together on running a test. Moreover, if you run a test with interesting results, we would love to hear from you so that we can share them with the larger ActBlue community.

Footnotes:

1N.B.: some of this money came from people giving recurring donations from the “other amount” link in our one-time ask.

2There could be an additional effect from having one fewer link in “C”, but our other testing indicates that this isn’t a particularly important factor.

3Think about it as if it’s a variation of the classic revenue maximizing problem, where Revenue = Quantity * Donation Amount. Of course, donors can still choose their amount by clicking the “other” link, but the suggested amounts do indeed impact behavior.

4style="background-color:#ECEDF0; padding:1.0em 1.5em; text-align:center;"

Introducing ActBlue Express Lane and up to 3x more $

Posted by On Filed under Features, Tips & Tricks

Last week we were a bit of a tease. We announced to a million members that we had a super secret new feature that brings in 3x as much money for candidates, committees and non-profits. And then we never told them what it was. Well, we were saving it for you, our dear blog readers.

Today we’re proud to unveil ActBlue Express Lane! It allows donors to give immediately from a link in an email, no landing page needed. Donors just need to have an Express account with us. Over 618,000 donors (and growing!) have already saved their payment information and have Express accounts. With most federal lists we’ve seen about 40% of donors already in our system. And like all the features on ActBlue, it’s absolutely free.

So how does the magic happen? Express Lane works with special donation links tied to a specific dollar amount in combination with an ActBlue cookie on a donor’s computer or phone. When someone with an Express account clicks on that link, their card automatically gets charged, and they land on a thank you page. It makes the process effortless for donors, and you’ll see the results.

The conversion rate on Express Lane is dramatically higher. It’s clear that Express Lane is a winner for campaigns and donors alike. While results have varied list to list in our tests, all tests have shown eye-popping increases…some even up to 224.6%! The goal of Express Lane is to make it as easy as possible for activists to become donors. By making donating virtually frictionless, we’re ensuring more people will give and participate more often.

The best part is that the over 618,000 ActBlue Express users are shared across the whole platform. That means if a donor on your list saved their information while giving to say, Elizabeth Warren, they can use Express Lane to make a donation to your campaign or organization. There’s no need for them to re-enter their information. (Read all about ActBlue Express users here, they’re awesome.) The Express user base is growing in leaps and bounds, with over 13,000 new users this month alone.

We’ll match your list to our Express user database for free, and as we mentioned there are often huge overlaps among lists. Plus, once you start sending blasts to your lists using ActBlue, more of your donors will convert to Express. As your list continues to grow, so does our Express pool. You can match at your anytime so you’re always sending optimized emails and your performance keeps getting better.

Express Lane works for both one-time and recurring asks. We’ve been having a ton of success here at ActBlue using it for recurring asks. We’re also seeing higher percentage of donations come in off of mobile, due in large part to Express Lane. Increasing mobile conversions is a big organizational focus here at ActBlue, and Express Lane makes our great mobile system even better. It’s easier than ever for a donor to give via an email.

Express Lane isn’t available for everyone yet, but we are offering it for free to large federal campaigns using ActBlue for all their online fundraising. (We’re working on expanding it to more jurisdictions.) And you should keep in mind that you’ll need a decent size list, and a sophisticated email program.

Deploying Express Lane means you need to send two different emails on every fundraiser: one to Express users with the Express Lane ask links and then a “normal” one to the rest of your supporters. It’s very easy to create the links, we’ve got a link builder tool all set up for ya.

Here’s how an Express Lane ask structure looks:

Because you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:

Express Donate: $10
Express Donate: $25
Express Donate: $50
Or donate another amount

You may have seen us and a few groups beta testing this before we rolled it out to more people. We couldn’t have opened this powerful tool to so many campaigns and organizations without the help of over a thousand donors who contributed to this project. All of us here at ActBlue really can’t thank them enough.

If you are interested in Express Lane, drop us a line at info [at] actblue [dot] com. And don’t worry, our staff is happy to provide all the training you need to optimize Express Lane, for free of course.

Who gives 72.9% more frequently? Express donors, that’s who.

Posted by On Filed under Analysis, Features

We’ve been crossing milestones left and right this summer. Earlier this month we topped 600,000 ActBlue Express donors. These are folks who have saved their credit card information with us, and let me tell you these people are awesome.

Keep in mind that when a donor signs up for ActBlue Express and gives to one entity (our word for a candidate, committee or non-profit listed on ActBlue), they can use their account to give to any other entity listed on ActBlue. It’s one of the biggest examples of ActBlue’s strength as a fundraising platform. We’re growing the pie, not eating it.

If you manage a sizable email list, a healthy percentage of your list members will be ActBlue Express donors, whether you’ve used ActBlue in the past or not. We’ve even seen groups start out fundraising on ActBlue receiving 40% of their donations from Express users.

Here’s why ActBlue Express donors are so incredible. They give 72.9% more frequently than non-Express donors. Yeah, that’s a pretty eye-popping number. These donors also give more money than other donors. The median amount of their lifetime giving is $84 (mean $284). Our site wide median is $50 (mean $237).

50.3% of Express donors have donated to more than one entity. That’s significantly more than the 39.3% of average donors. ActBlue Express donors can and indeed do save their credit card information while donating to one entity and then are able to donate to another group or candidate with fewer clicks.

Not surprisingly, these folks convert at a much better rate: 5.7 times higher on regular forms. It’s even better on mobile, where they convert 14.5 times higher than non-Express visitors. That makes a lot of sense: who really wants to pull out their credit card and type it into phone? With more and more emails being read on some sort of mobile device it’s crucial that we remove the barriers to donating on mobile. (Stay tuned for some new exciting new info about our mobile optimization efforts!)

The growth of Express users has been fairly cyclical–check out that huge spike around the election last year.

express growth chart

Still, we’ve seen solid growth each month, even this off year, as candidates reach out to donors early in the cycle. Plus, more and more organizations are using ActBlue these days and building a base of Express donors.

For a little fun, go into the way back machine and look at this post from 2011, when we changed the sign-up process for Express. Removing one click caused a five-fold conversion rate increase.

And that’s sorta the whole point. The easier it is for donors to give, the more likely they are to contribute to you and all of the other candidates, non-profits and committees listed on ActBlue.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

Posted by On Filed under Features, Web/Tech

Our mission is to increase participation and transparency in the fundraising process, and we work hard to make sure our features match that goal. No matter how you measure it–3,000,000 donors, more than a quarter billion dollars sent to Democrats–it’s been a success. Here’s one example:

A while back we noticed that mobile web traffic was exploding, so we built a mobile donation form that would make it easy for people to donate with their phone. We also realized that data entry, already a pain on a regular computer, would be even more difficult on a phone. Long story short, we made our mobile form play nice with ActBlue Express, a feature that allows donors to create a profile so they don’t have to retype their info every time they want to give.

The combination proved extremely potent. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of users with an ActBlue Express account, and the mobile conversion rate has grown steadily. ActBlue is hardly the only political entity out there with a quick donate option or a mobile form. But we’re different in one important respect: we provide these tools to every campaign that accepts donations through our site. They’re available to you whether you’re a state senator or a federal candidate, whether you’re a donor who gives $25 or $2,500.

Why does that matter? If you follow politics, you’ve probably seen something about Democratic discomfort with the Citizens United decision. As Republican SuperPACs ramp up for 2012, Democratic campaigns are worried that they won’t be able to keep up with the Adelsons. Donors, meanwhile, are concerned about entrenching a system they dislike. ActBlue is a way out of that dilemma. Candidates don’t have to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage vis a vis Republicans. Donors can give quickly and easily, without embracing GOP tactics.

By taking a settled piece of campaign finance–the ability of individuals to support campaigns–and updating it for the digital age, we’ve massively increased participation and transparency in fundraising. Oh, and sent nearly $100,000,000 to Democrats this cycle.

That’s what we’re here to do.