Doubling embedded form activation with in-app education

Bar chart: about 49% of orgs that used a guide started taking donations, versus about 22% of orgs that did not — The comparison is on first donations, not clicks, so it shows whether the guidance did its job.

My role

I led the education program: finding where organizations stalled, designing and producing the guidance across video, Academy, in-app, and live webinars, and analyzing the results.

The problem

Embedded Studio lets nonprofits place a donation form on their own website. Interest was strong, but only about a third of the organizations that created an embedded campaign went on to collect a donation with it.

The drop-off came after publishing. To install the form, admins had to edit code on their own website — something many had never done.

Before: the Install page showed a block of JavaScript for a modal embed and asked admins to paste a CSS selector where it said SELECTOR GOES HERE. Callouts read: What's a modal? Code can be intimidating. Editing it is even scarier. — The old Install page led with raw code and asked admins to edit it before pasting.

What I did

Found the stall point. Usage data showed organizations publishing and then stopping before installation. The barrier was a knowledge gap, not a product bug.
Rewrote the Install page and pushed for more. As the content designer, I replaced raw code with copy buttons and plain-language steps, and pushed for more ways for admins to customize their form. When that was cut for time and budget, I proposed an education pilot instead.
Taught code editing at scale. I prioritized the three most common website builders — WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix — and made a video for each, an Academy walkthrough, and in-app walkthroughs using GIFs cut from those videos. One production effort fed three channels.
Taught the hardest steps live. Because installation was the most technical part of setup, I hosted webinars that walked admins through it and answered their questions as they went.
Put help at the moment of need. The in-app guides appeared right after publishing, when installation was the admin’s next task. A launcher on the Install page let admins pick their website builder and start the matching walkthrough at any time.
Measured activation, not clicks. I compared organizations that used a guide with those that didn’t, on the outcome that mattered: their first donation.

Flow from create to publish to install to first donation, with install guidance appearing at the install step — Guidance appears right after publishing, the step where admins were stalling.

After: the Install page split into a one-time Install snippet step and an Embed step with Donate button and Inline donation form options, each with a copy button and a help link. Callouts read: Removed code and added copy buttons. Launches in-app education with options for your specific web builder. Separated one-time install and embed steps with headings. Used simple language familiar to our users for their options. — The new Install page swaps raw code for copy buttons, and each step links to help for the admin's website builder.

Install page launcher asking which website builder the admin uses, with WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix options — Admins pick their builder and get the matching walkthrough, cut from the same footage as the videos and Academy lesson.

Results

Over a 90-day window:

Organizations that used at least one guide were about twice as likely to start taking donations (roughly half, versus about a fifth).
Their median time to first donation was about 4 days faster (12 days down to 8).
About 3 in 4 organizations that published used at least one guide.
Short, single-task guides performed best. The Wix guide reached few organizations with no clear benefit — a reminder to keep checking reach after launch.

This compares organizations that chose to use guides with those that didn’t, so motivated organizations may be overrepresented. It’s a strong association, not proof of cause.

What’s next

We’re now improving the install experience in the product itself, building on what the pilot showed about builder-specific help.

What I learned

Timing beat volume. Help that arrived right after publishing — when the admin’s next job was installing — did more than any broad announcement could.