On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 5:28 AM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
We've tried this before and so far it hasn't worked very well. See results from 2012-13 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Donor_engagement/Thank_You_campaign
Generally speaking, we're moving away from trying to use banners to blast lots of readers with the same messages. That's true in both fundraising (where they've learned to only show someone a donation request 1-2 times) and in editor engagement work. Our next work trying to convert unregistered people to become editors is going to be focusing on targeting anonymous editors, asking them to signup, and teaching them about the benefits of having an account so they can make an informed choice. See draft docs at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anonymous_editor_acquisition
Steven
Are you sure that's not because the banners are poorly suited for what you want to achieve? The "create account" link is hidden, the fact that the banner is trying to entice you to join and contribute is not obvious, it's content is similar enough to the regular fundraising banners that people accustomed to ignoring the banners won't notice any difference, etc.
It seems... obvious that those banners would not ultimately be very effective in converting readers to registered users, but I wouldn't use that as a basis to dismiss the entire idea of outreach campaigns. Certainly the WMF iterated the fundraising presentation many times before finding highly effective methods.
So, as has been suggested on this list before (by me, and others), maybe you should run a separate outreach campaign, with actually useful and targeted banners, and not make it an exhausting carry-on of the fundraiser or indistinguishably similar to fundraising banners.