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Obama Used Conversion Rate Optimization to Win

By: Chris Goward
Date: November 7th, 2008

Let me start by giving a big ‘Congratulations!’ to Barack Obama and his team for what will likely be the biggest win of their lives. They ran an incredibly disciplined and sophisticated campaign and deserved to win.

A great web marketing campaign

There have already been plenty of articles written about how well Obama’s online marketing campaign was planned and executed. If you haven’t heard, check out here, here, here, here, here and here.

Obama raised an incredible amount of money in $30 and $50 increments and Conversion Rate Optimization played a part in maximizing their fundraising.

Barack Obama Uses Conversion Rate Optimization

If you’ve donated to the Obama campaign, you probably didn’t realize that you were included in a Conversion Rate Optimization test. Obama’s web team used Google Website Optimizer to run multivariate tests on various pages of their site. There are still fragments of code showing that tests were run on the home page and others and there’s one still running today on the Donation page.

The current Donations page test

As of Nov 6, 2008, there is still a test running on Obama’s Donations page at barackobama.com. Although we don’t know the results yet, let’s take a look at what they’re testing.

The red dashed line below shows the placement of the SwapBox on the page (ie. the Website Optimizer section script).

SwapBox Placement

Donation page SwapBox location
Red dash shows SwapBox placement

As far as I can tell, there are four variations being tested. There may be more, but these are the only ones I was able to pull up:

Control: Dual dark-blue t-shirt
One of the variations must have been the original or ‘Control’ page. I don’t know which one was the original so I’ve chosen an arbitrary variation to act as the Control.

Donation offer Control
Offer test Control

Variation A: Single t-shirt

Donation offer Variation A
Offer test Variation A

Variation B: Modified lighter blue

Donation offer Variation B
Offer test Variation B

Variation C: Dual white t-shirts

Donation offer Variation C
Offer test Variation C

Variation D: No offer

Donation offer Variation D
Offer test Variation D

Which offer variation works best?

I don’t know. But I would very much like to find out.

While this is clearly a simple offer test, it appears that there was a lot more testing going on. There are certainly other things on the page I would have tested. As soon as I can find some more info I’ll share it here.

Do you know Joe Rospars, Obama’s online director?

We hope to interview the people responsible for the online marketing plan and learn more about the types of tests they were running. If you can introduce me, please email chris dot goward at widerfunnel.

Edit: We now have information about a home page test that the Obama campaign was running.

Learn more about outsourced Conversion Rate Optimization services to optimize your website:

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Posted in: Case Study | conversion rate optimization

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15 Responses to “Obama Used Conversion Rate Optimization to Win”

  1. Technology news - Techvibes Blog Says:
    November 7th, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    [...] a huge number of donations, many in small amounts from individual donors. Chris Goward on the WiderFunnel blog points out how the Obama Campaign used Google Website Optimizer to maximize conversion. Website [...]

  2. william azaroff Says:
    November 9th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    Thanks Chris. I know Obama’s campaign was the first time email marketing worked on me in a long, long time.

  3. Barack Obama: Wahlsieg dank systematischem Website-Testing? » Testland-Blog Says:
    November 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am

    [...] durch Website-TestingDurch diesen Blogeintrag bin ich darauf aufmerksam geworden, dass die Aktivitäten anscheinend auch systematisch durch [...]

  4. Chris Goward Says:
    November 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    The combination of passion and intelligence in the campaign was remarkable, William.

    It doesn’t hurt that they had a ton of money so they didn’t have to cut corners, either.

  5. contort.com - tighten up Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    [...] Obama Used Conversion Rate Optimization to Win via LinkedIn Lead Gen Group permalink humdrum DEFINITION: (adjective) Lacking variety or excitement; dull. SYNONYMS: unglamorous, commonplace, prosaic. USAGE: So here I shall end my days; and I must say, Dorothy, my dear, t… [...]

  6. Ms. P Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    I find it a sad day in America when a man who ball faced lie not only to John McCain but the American public about public funding flip flops to Private funding and bought his way to the Office…
    God Help US ALL!

  7. Chris Goward Says:
    November 11th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    @Ms P. We’re simply interested in the marketing learning here. There are always going to be differences of opinion in politics and our intention is to separate that from marketing learning as much as possible. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.

  8. Madeleine McBride Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Interesting topic of which I will read more!

    Ms. P: The expression is actually “bold-faced” lie or, less preferred, “bald-faced” lie. But never ball faced lie….Even if it was, in your context, it should have been “ball faced (sic) lied”

    I’m glad Obama won and I gave more than I’ve ever given to a campaign before. But I wish I would stop getting requests for MORE money. I thought he had what he needed?

    The hard work for the nation is only beginning. We’ve got 15-20 years of hard work and sacrifice ahead of us, as a nation. I wish I felt more confident that America had that kind of fortitude. So many people have NO IDEA of what a mess we are in.

  9. Kath Burke, copywriter Says:
    November 13th, 2008 at 5:17 am

    Hi Rachel – this is fascinating. I tried to get a client to go with two versions of web copy using this free Google Optimiser tool. I was fascinated to find out which version would work better.
    But the client didn’t go for it – probably suspected me of trying to add more expense! This is a great example though to show them that testing web copy and offers could help win you the US presidency no less.

  10. Raquel Hirsch Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    Kath,

    Thank you for sharing your experience… and what is turning out to be a rather common experience for many people. I was inspired to write a blog post on the reasons why I believe “selling” Testing and Optimization in an organization is still hard. Stay tuned!

  11. Adrian Eden Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

    Obama’s campaign was great, but it was not revolutionary, it just seemed that way because of how bad the Republicans are at utilizing Social Media and Technology. Everything Obama uses in Social Media, so does Soulja Boy or Tila Tequila, it is just that a President has finally jumped on board with the times, so now Social Media gets noticed by the mainstream more.

    Social Media and Social Networking move at the speed of thought.

    Also, website optimization and conversion optimization is what many great companies use to streamline their business’s. It is called the conversion funnel.

  12. Chris Goward Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    Certainly Obama’s campaign was exceptional because of the contrast with the Republican approach, but also because social media require releasing control, which is opposed to how most *successful* political campaigns are run. It is indeed an interesting case study, which will be written about for the next 4-8 years, at least.

    And, yes, we know all about the conversion funnel, Adrian. There’s a reason for our company name :)

    Thanks for your comments!

  13. How Obama’s team used A/B testing to improve fund raising- 90 Percent of Everything Says:
    February 10th, 2009 at 11:59 am

    [...] it’s an interesting enough tidbit to deserve being shared around. Back in November ‘08, Chris Goward of Wider Funnel noticed that Obama’s team used Google Website Optimizer to run an A/B test on [...]

  14. Barack Obama använde webbanalys och tester för att vinna valet | Webbanalys Says:
    March 10th, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    [...] november 2008 pågick det, enligt Widerfunnel Marketing Optimization, ett test på insamlingssidan för barackobama.com. Testet avsåg det rödmarkerade området [...]

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