# Buy-one-get-one first subscription order: CPA ~$80 to ~$10

- 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-product-bogo-first-order/

Switching 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.

## Result

**CPA ~$80 to ~$10**

- 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.

## 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)

- 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.

## How to run this test

- 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
- Guardrail: Cancellation rate after first order
- Guardrail: Gross margin on first order
- Guardrail: 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.

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Credit: Conversion Fanatics ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cf-subscription-product-bogo-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.