Enquiry form above the fold: other leads +159.52%, form leads fell
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsMoving the Send Enquiry form above the fold with a testimonial lifted Ask an Expert leads by 159.52%, but leads from the redesigned form itself fell.
Compare Courses, an Australian course search site, ran this split URL test on its Bachelor of Accounting page, and it was published as a VWO case study.
The gain came from a call to action that was only moved, not the one that was redesigned, so treat this as a mixed result.
- Ask an Expert leads: +159.52% at 99.99% confidence. This box was moved, not redesigned.
- Request Brochure leads: +13.3% at 99.99% confidence, though this button did not change at all.
- Send Enquiry leads: down. The source reports a 53.87% drop, but its own rates (9.71% vs 9.52%) suggest a much smaller fall, so the size of the loss is unclear.
- The source says the drop cost more than 100 enquiry leads.
The change
Enquiry form moved above the fold with a testimonial; Ask an Expert moved
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A course page with three lead options: a Send Enquiry form, an Ask an Expert box and a Request Brochure button, all in their original spots.
Variant
The Send Enquiry form moved above the fold on the right, with a testimonial beside it. The Ask an Expert box moved into the form's old spot. The Request Brochure button stayed the same.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Putting the Ask an Expert box where the form used to be may have given it a more visible or more natural spot on the page.
- Making the form look nicer and adding social proof did not make more people fill it in. Visual symmetry is not the same as clarity.
- When several lead options share a page, a change to one can shift people between them instead of creating new leads.
Caveats: This was a bundled change to three elements, and the redesigned form itself lost. The reported 53.87% drop doesn't match the published conversion rates, and visitor counts and dates were not shared.
Who ran it
Compare Courses ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Compare Courses →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we move our main enquiry form above the fold and add a testimonial, then total leads will rise because the form is easier to find and more credible.
- Primary metric
- Total leads per visitor across all lead options
- Guardrails
- Leads from each individual call to action
- Lead quality or enrolment rate per lead type
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen sites with several lead options on one page, such as education, finance or property directories. Track every option, not just the one you change, and judge the test on total qualified leads.
Questions
Does putting a form above the fold always increase leads?
No. In this test the form moved above the fold and got a testimonial, yet its own leads fell.
Position helps only if the form also matches what visitors want at that moment.
Why track calls to action you didn't change?
Changes to one part of a page can shift visitors to other options.
Compare Courses only saw the full picture because they tracked all three lead types.
Should I add a testimonial next to a lead form?
It's worth testing, but it isn't a sure win.
Here it came with a redesigned form that lost leads.
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