GET A GIFT button turned out to be the best performer, even after the cost of sending the gifts was taken into account. For longtime newsletter subscribers who had never given money, PLEASE DONATE worked the best, perhaps appealing to their guilt. For visitors who had already donated in the past, CONTRIBUTE worked best at securing follow-up donations—the logic being perhaps that the person had already “donated” but could always “contribute” more. And in all cases, to the astonishment of the campaign team, a simple black-and-white photo of the Obama family outperformed any
