Hello all,
Please see:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=6334670&oldid=6327710&…
This is not an isolated incident. I've seen it on-wiki in other locations, although
did not record the links.
Entering Wikipedia while not logged in, from both a PC and mobile device, lead to an
insane amount of large, bright red banners asking for donations.
Statistics may show that this sort of advertising gains the most clicks and donations.
That should not be the only metric by which donation requests are decided.
We are losing readers because of this.
Thanks,
Vermont
-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org> On Behalf Of James
Salsman
Sent: Saturday, December 1, 2018 1:56 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads
Seddon, thanks for addressing this.
What are your thoughts about measuring the extent to which you would have to run a
minimalist banner to achieve current goals, as per
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas#Design
?
Both of the "small" banners in the set of four (total?) you are testing --
linked from the top of that page -- seem to be as big as the average banner was ten years
or so ago. Is that a fair statement?
Do you agree with Yair's sentiment that you should have never measured the cost per
donation on Facebook as expressed at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas#Techn…
?
Best regards,
Jim
On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 2:47 PM Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hey Molly,
Thank you for your feedback, it is really appreciated. There are a
fair few points you’ve raised so I will do my best cover them all. For
some background, mobile fundraising is vitally important. Desktop page
views have been in decline for the past 2-3 years from 4.36 billion
(Oct 2016) to
3.64 billion (Oct 2018). Likewise, the relative effectiveness as of
mobile as a fundraising platform has historically been substantially
lower compared with desktop. So we’ve been working hard to ensure that
as user behaviours shift we are well prepared and that the future of
the movement is safeguarded.
We show two types of banner to users on both desktop and mobile. The
first banner is larger and shown only once to user in their browser
followed by a second banner that is show to the user typically up to a
maximum of 9 times and is substantially smaller.
Our mobile large banner changed last November from a splash style
banner to the current text message style. Since then one of the things
that has constantly surprised us, is that people seem to genuinely
read the extra content. We’ve repeatedly tested over the past year
removing content and every time, the shorter banners loose. Now this
could just imply that it’s length that was producing move effective
banners. So we decided to confirm if people were actually reading our
banners. We tested two banners of similar length, one with our best
copy and one where we replaced some of the lower paragraphs with copy
had historically lost out in previous testing. Our best copy won and
confirmed that people are actually invested in reading our banners. So
the copy is long and we are continuing to try and shorten it but we
genuinely believe its not just impactful of genuine value to our readers and donors.
When we implemented this style of banner we made sure to add a toolbar
to the top that enabled users to skip straight to the article. You
mentioned on facebook that you didn’t notice that we will look to see
if we can make the toolbar a little more visible to users.
Regarding the bottom red banner, that is something that was retained
from previous versions of this banner. We actually have just
instrumented our banners so that we could track the effectiveness. We
got data that this additional call to action was not performing as
originally expected, most likely due to the format of the banner
having changed since last year. We re-tested removing this and the
effect was minimal and so we have removed this in our large banner on the first
impression.
We completely agree that it’s vitally important to ensure our readers
who use assistive technologies are supported and we are going to look
at how we can improve our banner content to ensure compatibility and
provide a good experience including improving descriptions, providing
better descriptions and maybe look at suppressing some content for
screen readers to reduce some of the impact for them.
I will copy this to your cross post on wiki too :) Thank you again for
your feedback, it is genuinely appreciated and the fundraising team
are actively acting on it.
Regards
Seddon
On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 4:52 PM GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hey all,
I feel a little bad raising this because I know there was some
community vetting of fundraising initiatives that I ignored, but
please forgive me. I brought this up in the Wikimedia Weekly
Facebook group asking where best to raise the issue, and it was suggested I post here.
I was looking something up on my phone just now, apparently not
logged in to Wikipedia, and I discovered that mobile users in the US
(and presumably
elsewhere) are being shown enormous ads. It took four full page
scrolls for me to reach the content of the article I was hoping to
read. Even once I made it past the ads at the top of the page, I was
greeted with a pop-in banner from the bottom of the page, as if I
could possibly have not noticed the four pages of text asking me to donate. (Screenshots
attached).
I understand that we need donations to keep the site running and
all, but this seems excessive. I particularly worry for people who
use assistive technology who are having to listen to or try to skip through four
pages'
worth of text-to-speech before they can get to what they want to
know. The WMF needs donations, but I think we need to weigh the need
for cash against the goal of providing free and accessible
information to our readers. A couple of page scrolls might not seem
like much, but I assume if they're off-putting to me (a reader with
good vision and generally high tolerance for WMF money pleas) they'll be off-putting
to others.
So much of this text could be cut out. I work for a marketing/sales
company in a non-marketing role, and I've heard from colleagues that
it's frustrating when people writing copy like this hear from people
who are not educated about appealing to people, so I don't pretend
to know better than you at the WMF or your consultants about how to write good donation
copy.
But to my (admittedly uneducated eye), copy like "It's a little
awkward to ask you, this Friday, as we're sure you are busy and we
don't want to interrupt you." and "We can't afford to feel
embarrassed, asking you to make a donation—just like you should
never feel embarrassed when you have to ask Wikipedia for
information." seems like at best it's not adding anything besides
more words to have to scroll past, and at worst it's pretty cringey
to read. Are you really expecting people will read all four pages?
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Seddon
*Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement
(Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>