The tests that transformed a welcome series

Your automations might be some of the least-tested parts of your email program.

You build them, and move on.

St Mungo’s, one of the UK’s largest charities for the unhoused, faced a version of this problem.

After someone made their first gift to St Mungo’s, they received a digital copy of the supporter magazine as a welcome. 

From there, supporters usually received just one email per month — but those emails were organizational updates, not fundraising or engagement asks. No real path to a second gift.

Here’s how they turned that around — and the specific tests that made the difference.

Rebuilding the welcome journey
St Mungo’s realized their welcome email was where that drop-off started. In November 2020, they launched a three-email automated welcome sequence for new donors.

Each email led with a case study and included a donation ask with specific price points. The final email pushed for a recurring gift.

But the goal wasn’t just to raise more from the welcome series — it was to learn what actually resonated with new donors and apply those insights across their entire program. 

So instead of setting the automation and moving on, the team split-tested and reviewed results every 6 months over the course of 17 months.

That kind of patience with a single automation is rare. St Mungo’s treated it like a living program.

Open rates increased from 32% to 52%, click-throughs from 3% to 5%, and revenue was up 180%.

What they found
The variables were simple, but high impact:

Moving the donation ask from the bottom of the email to just below the introduction increased donations by 62%.

Sending supporters to a donation landing page with context and impact instead of a generic donation form generated 190% more revenue, 127% more donations, and a 27% higher average gift.

Using “contribute” instead of “donate” in the recurring gift ask drove a 500% increase in donations on that send.

This one may surprise you: Longer copy outperformed shorter copy by 92% in donations.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: a one-off campaign gives you the lift of one campaign.

An automation test? That lift compounds across every donor who comes through that point moving forward.

How to apply this to your program
Audit your existing automations. When’s the last time someone looked at the welcome series, the thank-you sequence, or the lapsed donor re-engagement?

If the answer is “when we built it,” that’s your starting point.

Consider starting with the smallest possible tweak to test. Moving an ask or changing a single word can be faster than a full redesign and can deliver outsized results.

Give donors context before asking for money. St Mungo’s saw 190% more revenue when they sent supporters to a page that led with impact first instead of a generic ask.

Commit to a testing cadence. One variable at a time, reviewed on a regular cycle — that could be weeks or months depending on your volume!

The bottom line
Every organization has moments — a crisis, a leadership change, or maybe a platform migration that can expose weaknesses in your automations. 

The question is whether you keep experimenting after the dust settles.

Go check on your automations (myself included). I bet it’s been far too long since you have.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara