Mobile fundraising ads - Wikimedia-l

Joseph Seddon

30 Nov 30 Nov

10:46 p.m.

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*

Reply

vermont＠vtwp.org

5 Dec 5 Dec

10:52 a.m.

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>

Reply

Samuel Klein

4:42 p.m.

I love the focus on mobile and smaller format interfaces, quite generally; it's increasingly how I use the projects too! A) This banner-text-series is clearly impactful, gave me a bit of a jump scare, and got me to read it to find out why. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. ~ Visual effect: Messages that flow smoothly in and out of the reading experience are even nicer. ~ Message: Is there an estimate of the total impact on all readers, as well as total effective fundraising? If there is a very effective compact/delightful banner, and an even more effective large/ambivalent one, is there some internal calculus about the overal impact of running the former for longer vs. the latter for a short period? I'd like to think the best possible messages inspire and delight and draw on positive emotions while raising funds, including for those who don't donate, even if they do not yield the most donations per view. B) The tracking of whether I've donated, when choosing to show or not show me banners, is definitely lacking. Part of this is that we have taken an overly-paranoid approach to gathering and anonymizing user data. It is entirely possible to cluster users for the purposes of not-continuing-to-show-banners (maintain a dictionary of user-fingerprint-hashes-already-seen, check to see if the current user is in there, don't show banners if they are) without being able to see what pages a given user is viewing. I wrote more about this here: https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2018/07/25/anonymizing-data-on-the-users-of-wi… Please consider doing this; it is really hurting the user-experience of the wiki projects (not only in this instance -- in so many other basic instances of usage stats + testing over time!), for no benefit to anyone.

Reply

MZMcBride

11 Dec 11 Dec

1:20 a.m.

James Salsman wrote:

...

For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an example: https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png

Hi. This type of advertising is noxious and unacceptable. It should be revised or taken down as soon as possible. MZMcBride

Reply

AntiCompositeNumber

2:10 p.m.

Pageviews isn't a good metric for this, because it isn't measuring the people who load a Wikipedia page, see an obnoxious banner, and then click away without reading the content. That's still a pageview and a reader lost. On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 1:17 AM Peter Southwood <peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net> wrote:

...

It is slightly less repellent than some I have seen in the past, but in general I concur. Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of MZMcBride Sent: 11 December 2018 03:20 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mobile fundraising ads James Salsman wrote:

For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an example: https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png

Hi. This type of advertising is noxious and unacceptable. It should be revised or taken down as soon as possible. MZMcBride _______________________________________________ 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> --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. https://www.avg.com _______________________________________________ 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>

Reply

Joseph Seddon

11 Dec 11 Dec

3:03 p.m.

Hi James, As I mentioned in my original reply to Molly, 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 with future budget growth in mind and a desktop fundraising environment that will become increasingly difficult, we’ve been working hard to ensure that as user behaviors shift we are well prepared and that the future of the movement is safeguarded. Regards Seddon On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 5:14 AM James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an example: https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png The fundraising message literally takes 4.5 screens that have to be scrolled through to get to the article. I don't think its accurately reflected with how desktop browsers render the example given by the Fundraising team at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=B1819_0701_mlWW_mob_p1_lg_templ… which is only a little over one screenful before the article text on typical landscape-shaped desktop browser rendering. In years past, it seemed like the fundraising team was more forthcoming about their choices and the reasons for making them. Has anyone inside or outside of the Foundation seen any explanation of why so much text, with such odd formatting, is necessary on mobile this year? On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I love the focus on mobile and smaller format interfaces, quite

generally;

it's increasingly how I use the projects too! A) This banner-text-series is clearly impactful, gave me a bit of a jump scare, and got me to read it to find out why. I'm still not sure how I

feel

about it. ~ Visual effect: Messages that flow smoothly in and out of the reading experience are even nicer. ~ Message: Is there an estimate of the total impact on all readers, as

well

as total effective fundraising? If there is a very effective compact/delightful banner, and an even more effective large/ambivalent one, is there some internal calculus about the overal impact of running

the

former for longer vs. the latter for a short period? I'd like to think the best possible messages inspire and delight and draw on positive emotions while raising funds, including for those who don't donate, even if they do not yield the most donations per view. B) The tracking of whether I've donated, when choosing to show or not

show

me banners, is definitely lacking. Part of this is that we have taken an overly-paranoid approach to gathering and anonymizing user data. It is entirely possible to cluster users for the purposes of not-continuing-to-show-banners (maintain a dictionary of user-fingerprint-hashes-already-seen, check to see if the current user is in there, don't show banners if they are) without being able to see what pages a given user is viewing. I wrote more about this here:

https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2018/07/25/anonymizing-data-on-the-users-of-wi…

Please consider doing this; it is really hurting the user-experience of the wiki projects (not only in this instance -- in so many other basic instances of usage stats + testing over time!), for no benefit to anyone. _______________________________________________ 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>

-- Seddon *Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*

Reply

Amir Sarabadani

4:17 p.m.

Even I agree we need more donations from mobile but more aggressive banners doesn't usually lead to more donations coming. At least, if it's more aggressive than a certain threshold and I think these banners pass that threshold by far. Best On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 5:00 PM David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I've had people complaining to me personally about the multiple-page fundraising banners on mobile, like I can do anything about them ... this is really deeply pissing people off. On Tue, 11 Dec 2018 at 15:03, Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Hi James, As I mentioned in my original reply to Molly, 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 with future budget growth in mind and a desktop fundraising environment that will become increasingly difficult, we’ve

been

working hard to ensure that as user behaviors shift we are well prepared and that the future of the movement is safeguarded. Regards Seddon On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 5:14 AM James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>

wrote:

> For those of you who have not seen the mobile fundraising banner this > year, and thus are uncertain of what all the fuss is about, here is an > example: > > https://i.imgur.com/wL4Y5dl.png > > The fundraising message literally takes 4.5 screens that have to be > scrolled through to get to the article. I don't think its accurately > reflected with how desktop browsers render the example given by the > Fundraising team at > >

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA?banner=B1819_0701_mlWW_mob_p1_lg_templ…

> which is only a little over one screenful before the article text on > typical landscape-shaped desktop browser rendering. > > In years past, it seemed like the fundraising team was more > forthcoming about their choices and the reasons for making them. Has > anyone inside or outside of the Foundation seen any explanation of why > so much text, with such odd formatting, is necessary on mobile this > year? > > On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I love the focus on mobile and smaller format interfaces, quite > generally; > > it's increasingly how I use the projects too! > > > > A) This banner-text-series is clearly impactful, gave me a bit of a

jump

> > scare, and got me to read it to find out why. I'm still not sure how

I

> feel > > about it. > > ~ Visual effect: Messages that flow smoothly in and out of the

reading

> > experience are even nicer. > > ~ Message: Is there an estimate of the total impact on all readers,

as

> well > > as total effective fundraising? If there is a very effective > > compact/delightful banner, and an even more effective

large/ambivalent

> > one, is there some internal calculus about the overal impact of

running

> the > > former for longer vs. the latter for a short period? > > I'd like to think the best possible messages inspire and delight

and

> > draw on positive emotions while raising funds, including for those

who

> > don't donate, even if they do not yield the most donations per view. > > > > B) The tracking of whether I've donated, when choosing to show or

not

> show > > me banners, is definitely lacking. Part of this is that we have

taken an

> > overly-paranoid approach to gathering and anonymizing user data. It

is

> > entirely possible to cluster users for the purposes of > > not-continuing-to-show-banners (maintain a dictionary of > > user-fingerprint-hashes-already-seen, check to see if the current

user is

> > in there, don't show banners if they are) without being able to see

what

> > pages a given user is viewing. > > > > I wrote more about this here: > > >

https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2018/07/25/anonymizing-data-on-the-users-of-wi…

> > Please consider doing this; it is really hurting the

user-experience of

> > the wiki projects (not only in this instance -- in so many other

basic

> > instances of usage stats + testing over time!), for no benefit to

anyone.

> > _______________________________________________ > > 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>

-- 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>

-- Amir

Reply

James Salsman

13 Dec 13 Dec

1:37 a.m.

Thanks, Seddon. Why aren't the two mobile banners listed on https://frdata.wikimedia.org/campaign-vs-amount.csv -- or am I just not finding them? Also, how do you feel about measuring the extent to which you would have to run more single-line banners to match the donation volume of larger banners? I have a feeling that optimizing mobile might be in the smaller direction than either of the two you're presently running, and that very few people will care if they see single-line banners days to weeks after having dismissed them (e.g. with "not now".) Finally, was there a decision on measuring NextDoor, Reddit, and Google Ads? Best regards, Jim On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 11:47 AM Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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Dear all, The fundraising team genuinely hears and appreciates all the feedback we've received about this mobile banner. For the past week and a half - for the majority of our mobile campaign - we have been extensively working and acting on that feedback to reduce the length of this banner, emphasize the ability to skip the content, and improve accessibility across the board. For our mobile large banners, we've been focusing on three things: * Removing the bottom fixed element reminder banner - DONE * Reducing the length of the banner ---In Progress--- Last week we make some changes to the text reducing the appeal by 5% and over the weekend we reduced the overall length of the banner by 18% on phones through extensive but subtle design changes. There are more changes to come in this area. * Making it clearer to users that they are able to SKIP the banner ---In Progress--- We've already altered the language in the toolbar. There are more potential changes and tests to come in this area * Ensuring that the banners are suitable for users who access us through accessibility software. - DONE - The same options to skip the banner were always presented to users of accessibility software. We've also made changes to the underlying structure of the banner to improve navigation by these users. The fundraising team works extensively in a data driven manner but I must emphasise that doesn't mean that we don't listen to community feedback. The very opposite. It means that we work very hard to ensure that the changes the community seeks drives our work and this feedback has been the main focus of our work for much of the last week. I’ll update on further changes asap. 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>

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