11 A/B tests to increase your digital fundraising results

As digital fundraising continues to grow as a major source of revenue for charities, adopting a structured, data-informed fundraising strategy has become essential to ensuring every campaign performs at its best.

Supporters now encounter countless donation requests and expect experiences that are easy to navigate, fast to complete, and meaningfully personalised.

This guide has been created to give charities a practical, accessible playbook for designing and executing A/B tests across online donation forms and digital giving journeys, covering:

• The fundamental principles of A/B testing for online fundraising.
• A step-by-step method for planning and evaluating your tests.
• A set of 11 proven A/B test ideas with real outcomes and variations to try.
• Recommendations to help you run performance-driven, measurable digital campaigns.

All with the simple goal of equipping charities with clear, actionable insights they can use right away while encouraging long-term optimisation and innovation.

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What does A/B testing mean for your digital fundraising?

An A/B test directly compares two variations of the same donation experience: this could be a full online donation form, a fundraising page, or a single element such as a button or image.

In practice, this means:

• Version A: the current or control version
• Version B: a modified version created based on your hypothesis

Your visitors are randomly assigned to one of the two versions, and their behaviours are measured (conversion rate, average donation, recurring gift rate, etc.)

The purpose: to identify opportunities to improve your fundraising performance without risking your entire campaign. At the conclusion of a test, you’ll know which version encourages more donations and generates greater online revenue.

A/B testing isn’t simply a technical exercise, it’s a strategic tool that helps you understand how donors behave, identify what influences their decisions, and improve both conversion rates and average donations.

Strategies your charity can apply immediately

The whitebook breaks A/B testing down into actionable steps and real examples from different charities. Inside, you’ll find:

• Foundations of effective testing. Understand the principles behind controlled comparisons and why they’re essential to improving supporter journeys.
• A clear methodology. Learn how to build hypotheses, choose KPIs, segment audiences, and run tests that produce reliable insights.
• 11 ready-to-use A/B test examples. Explore proven test ideas that have helped charities increase conversions, raise higher gifts, and tailor their messaging.
• Best practices for digital optimisation. Improve donor pathways through better form design, mobile responsiveness, messaging clarity, and content layout.

Real A/B test results you can learn from

The guide features tests that have already generated meaningful improvements for different organisations. From optimising donation grids and exploring native donation forms to enhanced storytelling, each test offers inspiration for your own campaigns.

A few highlights include:

• Emphasising a recommended donation amount. Small visual prompts can nudge donors toward higher contributions, with tested increases of up to 27%.
• Using impact-led donation equivalents. Showing what a gift can achieve (meals, shelter, supplies) has boosted supporter engagement by up to 17%.
• Exit-intent pop-ups. Strategically timed pop-ups have helped charities re-engage as many as 30% of users who were about to leave without donating.

These examples demonstrate that incremental changes can translate into substantial gains in both revenue and supporter interaction. The iRaiser guide also includes bonus optimisation ideas that don’t require a developer or advanced technical expertise.

Download a free copy of the whitebook “11 A/B tests to boost your online fundraising” and start using evidence-backed tests to grow your fundraising, attract more donors, and streamline every stage of your online giving process!