Which of Cildini’s influence principles gives most of the notifications?

At the beginning of September, we decided that we wanted to carry out an activity focused on getting more entries for our newsletter, the Effect. After a little discussion in the office about what this activity could be, we found that we wanted to set up an experiment in Facebook Ads that started with Cildini's influence principles to compare how different angles in messages and creatives affected the number of alerts generated.

What are Cildini's principles of influence?

Robert Cildini is an American psychologist and professor of psychology and Marketing, known for his experimental studies where he identified the following 6 principles of influence: The Sympathy (Liking) principleThe sympathies principle is basically about being like, the more someone likes you, the greater the chance that you can persuade them to do something. Authority: The principle of the authority refers to the tendency of people to obey the authority figures. Either dental practitioners recommend toothpastes or public officials, such typical authority figures increase the probability that we accept what the person says. Mutuality (Reciprocity): The principle of reciprocity is about giving something to get back. This principle is based on the natural obligation of people to return a service they receive from others. Many will f. ex feeling pressure to give something back if you receive a gift from someone. This is precisely the principle of mutual treatment. Social Proof (Social Proof): Social proof means doing what you observe others do. This principle is particularly effective if the recipient is uncertain of himself or if the recipient identifies himself and recognises himself in the observations. The principle of subsidiarity (Scarcity): The principle of principle of principle is the opinion of people that something more attractive is more attractive if accessibility is limited. This can f. ex be an offer of a good over a limited period of time. Consistence principle (Commitment): The principle of consistency is about making someone commit. This principle is based on the need for people to be considered consistent. If we commit ourselves to something or someone, the probability is greater that we implement and deliver on what we have committed.

The principles are used both deliberately and unconsciously to persuade others to do a particular act, purchase a specific product, or in our case - get someone to sign up for a newsletter.

Experiment

We decided to set up an experiment in Facebook Ads that was based on four of Cildini's principles, including the sympathy principle, the principle of mutuality, the principle of consistency and social evidence. The experiment consisted of four different advertisements that we designed according to the different principles, targeted at marketers in Norway. We gave each ad a budget of NOK 2000 and left the experiment for 20 days.

So the ad looked like this:

Social Proof (Social Proof) Here we use the number of registered newsletters as social proof that other market participants keep up to date with Power every week.

The Sympathy (Liking) principle The idea here was to show off the faces of everyone who works in INEVO and contribute to sharing content to Power every week, so that recipients get a better idea of who's behind Power.

Mutuality (Reciprocity) Here we decided to set up a carousel with some content from Effect, where the last image in the carousel invited the receiver to sign up for the purpose of keeping up to date on similar issues. The idea behind this was that if we shared this information, the recipients would become more likely to sign up.

Consistence principle (Commitment) In this advertisement we tried to get the recipient to commit to becoming the smartest in the market department. The idea here was that we would challenge the recipient and present Power as a tool to achieve this goal.

Results

In the last place, the principle of reciprocity has been the least effective in the four adverts. In fact, it made it so bad that we chose to turn it off after approx. 10 days, after generating only 2 new subscribers with a sizable high cost of 539.2 kr per entry.

It is worth pointing out that this principle was a little tricky to design in a good way, which may have made the message a little unclear and influenced the results. What's the reason this made it so bad is it's hard to get a concrete answer to it. This does not necessarily have to be its error, but that we may not have been able to reflect the principle in a good enough way in this format. For example, this could be because of. The carousel format, the tips were not enough to get people to sign up on or that the ad simply did not capture the attention of the recipients in the feed.

In second and third places, we find the principle of consistency and sympathy with 24 and 26 entries, respectively, at a cost per registration of 73,2 kr and 79,5 kr. The one in the test that did the most desidered, however, is social proof with 36 entries and a cost per registration of 58,7 kroner. So, about 38% more entries than the second place for the same budget!

Conclusion

We can conclude the experiment that social evidence worked best to get people to report on the Effect. Which principle is best for your case doesn't necessarily have to be the one that was best for us. And when it's said, this was a funny experiment that has given us input into what works well for us, which we can take on in the design of future advertisements.