Despite email alert systems having a large reach, email can be a difficult platform to spread awareness. BETA partnered with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) to find ways of boosting the impact of an email alert system. We applied behavioural insights to the email design to bolster its effects, and tested these different design aspects using a randomised controlled trial. Subscribers were randomly assigned to receive an alert with one or more of our new design features (or a business-as-usual alert with the standard branding). We trialled two new behaviourally informed design features: salient icons at the top of the page designed to give readers information about the urgency or action required at a glance, and a banner calling upon users to share the alert with their contacts. We found including icons increased email open rates and interaction with the alert, and encouraging subscribers to share the alert with others increased forwarding rates.
This is part of a series of reports on applying behavioural insights to improve cyber security advice for individuals and small businesses in Australia. Other related reports are available here:
Intervention start and end date
27th February 2020 – 5th March 2020
Ethics approval
Bellberry Human Research Ethics Committee, BETA-ETH-2019-04, 11 September 2019.
Experimental design including randomisation
The trial is a 2x3 factorial design with two independent variables. One with two levels relating to altruism, the other with three relating to salience.
Seeded random number allocation at an individual unit level.
Intervention(s)
This trial is an individually randomised email experiment conducted online as part of a cyber-security alert service. This trial aims to test the effect of different behavioural concepts to see whether email design elements increase the likelihood that people will engage with the advice, and share it with their friends and family.
Control condition
An attentional control, a business as usual form of the email with no icon at the top and no ‘call to share’ banner.
Outcome(s)
There are two primary outcomes, both of which are binary and from which we will calculate sample proportions.
- Sharing = 1 if an individual clicks on the link to share the email, 0 otherwise.
- Engagement = 1 if an individual clicks on a hyperlink for more information, 0 otherwise.
Expected sample size
The existing mailing list of 60,508 subscribers (roughly 25,900 after expected exclusion of missing data)