Buy-one-get-one first subscription order: CPA ~$80 to ~$10
Test run byConversion FanaticsCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSwitching to a buy-one-get-one first order took daily sales from about 35 to almost 400 and cut cost per acquisition from about $80 to about $10. Conversion Fanatics made this offer change for a seller of a physical subscription product priced under $20. It was measured before and after the switch, not as a split test.
- Daily sales: from about 35 to almost 400.
- Cost per acquisition: from almost $80 to about $10, so new customers paid back almost at once instead of after about five months.
- An earlier free-trial offer cut CPA as low as $0.25, but most of those customers cancelled after the trial.
- These are before-and-after numbers, not a controlled split test.
The change
The first-order offer changes from one unit to two for the same price.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
New subscribers got one unit on their first order. At a CPA near $80 and a price under $20, the brand took about five months to profit from each customer.
Variant
The first order became buy-one-get-one: two units for the price of one. A free trial was tried earlier but brought in customers who mostly cancelled.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Two for the price of one is an easy offer to understand and feels like a clear deal.
- Unlike a free trial, buyers still pay up front, which tends to bring in people who mean to keep the product.
- For cold paid traffic, a stronger offer can matter more than page tweaks.
Caveats: This was a before-and-after change, not a stated split test, and ad changes over the same period may also have played a part. No timeframe or sample size was shared, and the data is from 2015.
Who ran it
Conversion Fanatics ran this test for a seller of a sub-$20 physical subscription product and published the results (Conversion Fanatics blog case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Conversion Fanatics →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we give two units for the price of one on the first subscription order, then more visitors will subscribe because the first purchase feels like a clear deal.
- Primary metric
- Cost per acquisition
- Guardrails
- Cancellation rate after first order
- Gross margin on first order
- Customer lifetime value
- Who should test it
- Subscription brands with low unit costs and slow payback on paid ads. It probably won't fit if your margin can't absorb a free unit, or if retention is the real problem.
Questions
Is buy-one-get-one better than a free trial for subscriptions?
In this case it was. The free trial drew sign-ups who cancelled, while the buy-one-get-one offer brought paying customers at about a $10 CPA.
Can an offer change beat page design changes?
It can. Here changing only the offer took daily sales from about 35 to almost 400, though it was not a controlled test.
How do I test an offer fairly?
Split the same traffic between the old and new offer at the same time.
Before-and-after comparisons can be skewed by ad or seasonal changes.
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Blend Commerce