Back to Blog List

Illuminate Your Year-End Campaign with a Lightbox

Looking for a way to turbo-charge your year-end fundraising or membership results? Consider use of a lightbox. Sometimes referred to as a homepage takeover, a lightbox allows you to display content as an overlat atop a main page while the content of that page is darkened and inactivated in the background. It's a proven tactic to help raise campaign awareness, drive membership and increase donations. 

A lightbox will put your organization’s most urgent message front and center providing an easy means for your most engaged audience – your web site visitors – to act.

They’re big, they’re prominent and they work.   

Light boxes can drive an increase in daily conversions especially when used in association with an acquisition or lead generation campaign. Yes, sometimes they’re considered an irritating digital tactic, but – in our experience – lightbox use doesn’t typically result in elevated bounce rates. Client tests have also indicated that the number of page views often increases during lightbox campaigns.  

When using a lightbox it’s important to keep some best practices in mind:

Paint a picture - Use compelling imagery that illustrates the need for donations or the benefits of being a member.

Craft a strong CTA - Make the call to action clear, urgent and to the point.

Use in moderation - Control the number of times each individual is served the lightbox and how often. Use a lightbox for an individual campaign and no longer than 3-4 weeks.

Create an easy exit - Make the exit easy to see for people who want to access content on your home page.

 

Above, you'll see an example of a successful lightbox campaign we ran for the Wounded Warrior Project over Veteran’s Day. Note the compelling image, strong call to action and clear indicator of where to enter the site. In the two weeks it ran, of the individuals that clicked, more than 50 percent donated. Page views and bounce rates remained constant.  

So what are you waiting for? Ring in the season and meet your end-of-year goals with a light box. 

Tori Richards

Director, Business Development