Test

What motivates consumers to pay more for sustainable products?

3.3k participants

Setup

The focus of the test was how brands can most effectively market high-end sustainable products. To that end, the two assets were designed to test performance across the following A/B split:

  • AMessaging that foregrounds the product's environmental impact
  • BMessaging that foregrounds the product's quality

Test Results

Attention Share and Engagement Share reflect the percentage of test-wide scoring accounted for by individual variants or demographics. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 3,294 Gender: Male: 2,086 Female: 1,129 Age: 18-24: 138 25-34: 489 35-44: 557 45-54: 765 55-64: 740 65+: 573
Natural Materials Durable Materials
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

56% 44%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

59% 41%

Aggregate Insights

Environmentally focused messaging about "natural materials" produced more attention at the top of the funnel and even more engagement deeper down the funnel.

The strength of engagement around "natural materials" relative to its attention score suggests that general interest in products made with eco-friendly materials is matched by genuine consumer enthusiasm as well — i.e., natural products win hearts as well as eyeballs.

Further testing could compare attention and engagement shares for product descriptions with alternative eco-friendly terms — e.g., "natural materials" vs. "organic materials" — to determine which language resonates most strongly with consumers.

Gender-based attention and engagement shares reflect the relative attention or engagement per gender for each variant. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 3,294 Gender: Male: 2,086 Female: 1,129 Age: 18-24: 138 25-34: 489 35-44: 557 45-54: 765 55-64: 740 65+: 573
Natural Materials Durable Materials
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

Male
27.5% 12.4%
Female
28.5% 31.5%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

Male
25.7% 4.7%
Female
33.2% 36.5%

Gender Insights

The test population skewed toward male participants, who showed a strong preference for natural materials messaging across attention and engagement metrics.

With a smaller sample size, female participants paid significantly more attention to and engaged much more readily with the durable materials messaging than did the male audience.

Further testing could specifically target the female audience with alternative eco-friendly terms — e.g., "natural materials" vs. "organic materials" — across different product types to determine whether the directional data from this sample holds true at scale and across categories.

Age-based attention and engagement shares reflect the relative attention or engagement per age bracket for each variant. Read more below in the Methodology section.

Sample Size
Total: 3,294 Gender: Male: 2,086 Female: 1,129 Age: 18-24: 138 25-34: 489 35-44: 557 45-54: 765 55-64: 740 65+: 573
Natural Materials Durable Materials
Attention Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. Read more in the Methodology section below.

18-24
3.4% 0%
25-34
11.9% 4.6%
35-44
7.6% 3.9%
45-54
10.8% 8%
55-64
12.4% 11.2%
65+
14.8% 11.5%
Engagement Share

This measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful reaction from the audience. Read more in the Methodology section below.

18-24
1.6% 0%
25-34
13.8% 0%
35-44
5.3% 0%
45-54
17.9% 8.3%
55-64
13.3% 7.3%
65+
22.7% 9.9%

Age Insights

Participants across every age group paid more attention to and engaged more readily with the natural materials messaging.

Participants under 45 paid far less attention to durable materials messaging than did participants in older age cohorts and didn't engage with the durable messaging at all.

Further testing could specifically target audiences under 45 with alternative eco-friendly terms — e.g., "natural materials" vs. "organic materials" — across different product types to determine whether the directional data from this sample holds true at scale and across categories.

Methodology

This test was conducted with two message variants and a prequalified TCD audience of 3,294 likely adopters. Among those participants, 4.3% paid measurable attention to the test assets, and 1.2% registered measurable engagement.

Attention Score measures the likelihood that a message will capture eyeballs in the wild. It’s calculated using the rate at which test participants respond to a CTA to learn more about the subject.

Engagement Score measures the likelihood that a message will elicit a meaningful response from the audience. It’s calculated using a proprietary algorithm that weights measurable metrics — shares, saves, likes, etc. — in a way that has proven to be meaningfully correlated (r > .5) to real-world conversion behavior.

Attention Share and Engagement Share reflect the percentage of test-wide scoring accounted for by individual variants or demographics. For example, an engagement share of 25% means the variant or demographic in question accounted for 25% of the cumulative engagement score produced by all segments in the test.

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