New CTA plus email field: +24% paid subscriptions per visitor
Test run byMarketingExperimentsResearch publisher
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsChanging the call-to-action button and adding an email capture field on Encyclopaedia Britannica Online's article pages lifted paid subscriptions per unique visitor by 24%.
MarketingExperiments (MECLABS) ran the test as part of a two-year program with Britannica and published it on MarketingExperiments.
Two things changed at once, the button and the new field, so the gain cannot be split between them.
- Paid subscriptions per unique visitor: +24%.
- Free trials per unique visitor: +13%.
- Clickthrough fell 30%, a negative signal on its own, as the email field added effort.
- Free trials per clickthrough rose 61%, so the people who did click were far more likely to start a trial.
The change
Variant recolors and rewords the CTA and adds an email field
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Article pages showed the original call-to-action button for the subscription offer, with no email field.
Variant
The button got a new color and new copy, and a simple email capture field was added next to it. The field was there to collect leads and recover people who dropped out of sign-up.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Asking for an email up front filtered out casual clickers, so fewer but more serious visitors moved on.
- Capturing an email let Britannica follow up with people who started but did not finish sign-up.
- The new button color and copy may have made the offer clearer, though its share of the gain is unknown.
Caveats: Two changes shipped together (button color and copy, plus the email field). The test dates from 2008, and sample size and duration were not shared.
Who ran it
MarketingExperiments ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MarketingExperiments →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we add an email field to the trial CTA on content pages, then paid subscriptions per visitor will rise because we qualify intent earlier and can follow up with people who drop off.
- Primary metric
- Paid subscriptions per unique visitor
- Guardrails
- CTA clickthrough rate
- Free trial starts
- Email unsubscribe rate
- Who should test it
- Subscription and content businesses that sell trials from article or content pages and have an email follow-up flow. Skip it if you have no way to nurture captured emails.
Questions
Can fewer clicks mean more sales?
Yes. In this test clicks fell 30%, but paid subscriptions per visitor rose 24%.
Measure the final outcome per visitor, not clicks.
Should I ask for an email before a free trial?
It adds friction, but it lets you follow up with people who drop out.
Test it against trial starts and paid conversions, not just clicks.