08 Apr 2006

Serial Scrounger

Another experiment! I wanted to test my own theories/judgement about sites asking for donations (putting other people’s money where my mouth is, I suppose?), so I added the following text to the Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? quiz:

A ‘Make A Donation’ button led through to PayPal (no account required, as they accept immediate credit/debit payments nowadays). No payment amount was suggested, leaving it up to each person to decide what they felt was appropriate.

It was left up for a few weeks, and here are the stats:

• 1.1 million page views
• $15 donated
• 4 donors

Surprisingly feeble? Nope. You see, the majority of people viewing that page come straight to it from an email or link, it’s their first encounter with the site, and after trying out the quiz they’re off. There’s no ongoing relationship or affinity, no build-up of trust, not even a clear person or urgent need behind the request. Why hand over cash to a stranger who probably doesn’t need or deserve it?

So sponging off casual visitors to a site, no matter how high the traffic, doesn’t work; you have to earn deeper gratitude or offer a compelling plea before you can expect any significant financial generosity. Similar issues apply to e-commerce sites, where many are led astray by back-of-an-envelope statistical calculations and forget they’re dealing with real people with real concerns.

(Oh, and I’ll be putting the $15 towards a malevole prize/giveaway.)