# 'Double Your First Order' subscription offer: CPA ~$25 to ~$13

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Landing page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Pricing, discounts & savings display, Subscriptions & subscribe-and-save
- Date shared: 2015-09
- Test run by: [Conversion Fanatics](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/conversion-fanatics/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://conversionfanatics.com/specific-sales-conversion-strategy-to-improve-results/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/cf-subscription-double-your-first-order/

Framing the first subscription order as 'Double Your First Order' cut cost per acquisition from about $25 to about $13. Conversion Fanatics made this change for a seller of a monthly physical subscription product, and active paying subscribers doubled within 45 days. It was measured before and after, not as a split test.

## Result

**CPA ~$25 to ~$13**

- Cost per acquisition: from about $25 to an average of about $13.
- Active paying subscribers: doubled in 45 days.
- New customers became profitable almost right away instead of after about 2.5 months.
- These are before-and-after numbers, not a controlled split test.

## Control

New subscribers saw a standard first-order offer. At a CPA of about $25, each customer took around 2.5 months to become profitable.

## Variant

The offer was framed as 'Double Your First Order', a close cousin of buy-one-get-one with different wording.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- 'Double' is a simple, concrete promise that is easy to grasp in an ad or on a landing page.
- It raises the value of the first order without cutting the price, which may protect how the product is perceived.
- A stronger first offer helps most with cold paid traffic that has no reason to trust the brand yet.

## Caveats

This was a before-and-after change, not a stated split test, so other changes in the same period may have contributed. The data is from 2015, and no sample size was shared.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we frame the first subscription order as 'Double Your First Order', then more visitors will subscribe because the first purchase feels like more value for the same price.
- Primary metric: Cost per acquisition
- Guardrail: Cancellation rate after first order
- Guardrail: Gross margin on first order
- Guardrail: Active subscribers at 90 days
- Who should test it: Subscription brands with low unit costs and slow payback on ads. It is less likely to fit products with thin margins or where customers don't want twice the amount.

---

Credit: Conversion Fanatics ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cf-subscription-double-your-first-order/).
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.