“Are we emailing too much?”

I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

In September, we unpacked Audubon’s frequency test with Stagecoach Digital where a higher-volume test group — receiving two fundraising appeals a day — raised 71% more revenue than the one-a-day control group.

It was a good reminder that “send more” can absolutely work.

But the inverse can also be true. Two campaigns from Human Rights Watch and the Museum of Science in Boston show that sending fewer, sharper emails can unlock more revenue — especially when every message is treated like real estate you can’t afford to waste.

Human Rights Watch: half the emails, higher Giving Tuesday revenue
When Human Rights Watch brought on MissionWired just weeks before Giving Tuesday, they didn’t try to brute-force results with a massive email blitz. 

Instead, they cut Giving Tuesday email volume by about 50% compared to the previous year.

The strategy was “less, but better”:

  • Every email had a single, direct call to give, with every link driving straight to a donation page.

  • Creative leaned on strong visuals, including a direct-to-camera GIF from HRW’s president that made the stakes feel immediate and human.

  • A top-performing appeal came from actress and advocate Alyssa Milano, pairing her personal story with a match to drive urgency.

  • Digital ads were tuned for direct-to-donate conversions, so inbox and ad channels were pushing toward the same goal.

The payoff:

  • 4% increase in Giving Tuesday email revenue year over year, despite sending about half as many messages.

  • 39% increase in total Giving Tuesday digital revenue.

  • 101% increase in digital ads revenue on the day.

In other words, they bought themselves breathing room in the inbox and then earned the right to be there with genuinely high-intent content.

Museum of Science: five Pi Day emails beat ten
The Museum of Science in Boston had been running Pi Day fundraising for years, but the campaign had drifted toward focusing on the 3.14 gimmick more than on the museum’s mission.

Working with M+R, they reimagined Pi Day as a mission-first moment:

  • Using message testing, they ran different images, taglines, and more, past several types of audiences to see what actually resonated.

  • They pulled multiple departments into a single cross-channel plan, aligning email, web, and offline promotions around a single core story.

Then they made the scary move: cutting from 10 email appeals down to 5.

Those 5 emails:

  • Raised almost 2.5x as much as the previous year’s 10 appeals.

  • Drove a 390% increase in revenue per appeal.

The museum didn’t win by going quiet — they won by stripping out filler and making every send count.

The bottom line
Taken together with the Audubon frequency test, these campaigns point to the same conclusion: inbox volume is not a moral question; it’s a testing question.

Sometimes your list rewards you for doubling down on appeals during a hot campaign. 

Other times, cutting your sends and pouring energy into clearer CTAs, stronger creative, and better cross-channel support will put more money in the door.

The only way to know which world you’re in is to:

  • Run real frequency tests (more vs. less).

  • Pair them with creative and targeting changes, not just a send-count tweak.

  • Measure total revenue, revenue per email, and complaint/unsubscribe rates — not just opens.

“Send more” and “send less” can both be right. The work is figuring out which answer your file is giving you right now.

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'Til next time!
Sara

P.S. How did Giving Tuesday go for you? We’d love to hear about your results. Reply to this email if you’d like to share.

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