# New CTA plus email field: +24% paid subscriptions per visitor

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Other (SaaS)
- Elements: Cta copy, Form fields
- Date shared: 2008-05
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/simple-tests-significant-gains
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/britannica-cta-email-capture-article-page/

Changing 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.

## Result

**+24% paid subscriptions per visitor**

- 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.

## 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)

- 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.

## How to run this test

- 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
- Guardrail: CTA clickthrough rate
- Guardrail: Free trial starts
- Guardrail: 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.

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Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/britannica-cta-email-capture-article-page/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.