Crowdfunding
campaigns are widely designed based on intuition rather than strategy. This
systematic review gathers scattered knowledge on the elements that influence
crowdfunding performance. The review provides guidance for practitioners on how
to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, and it suggests topics and themes to
advance the field further. The review identifies four main categories that
affect crowdfunding performance: (1) campaign-, (2) crowdfunder-, (3) crowdfunding
platform-, and (4) fund-seeker-related factors. Empirical research findings
within these categories are synthesized and evaluated. It was found that there
are still substantial gaps in our knowledge of crowdfunding performance, which
opens avenues for future research. In addition, the review reveals
methodological shortcomings in the field and calls for further research on the
topic in general. In particular, many intuitive suggestions made by
crowdfunding platforms need to be subjected to rigorous academic research.