Clearer integration step in onboarding: +50% funnel completion
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsDashThis made the add-integration step of its free-trial onboarding easier to find and use, and onboarding funnel completion rose 50%, with first-step completion up 25%.
The story was published as a Hotjar (now Contentsquare) customer story.
Several UX changes shipped together and were measured before and after, so no single change gets the credit.
- Onboarding funnel completion: up 50%, reported within a couple of months.
- First onboarding step (adding an integration): completion up 25%.
- NPS-based satisfaction rose 140% over the same period, but this is a separate metric and was not tied to the onboarding change alone.
- These are before-and-after figures for a bundle of changes, not a controlled split test.
The change
Hidden, pale integration buttons and a messy list replaced by bold buttons, search and guidance
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Trial users had to add an integration first, but the buttons were pale and on some small screens sat out of view at the bottom. The list of 30+ integrations was hard to scan, and about 60% of users hit some difficulty on this step.
Variant
Buttons became bigger and bolder and were added higher on the page. The integration list was reorganised with a search bar, and pop-ups, videos and other guides walked users through each step, along with other simplifications.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Users could not connect data if they could not find the button, so making it visible removed a hard stop.
- A searchable, better-ordered list cut the time it took to find the right integration among 30+ options.
- Step-by-step guidance helped new users who did not know what to do next.
- The fixes came from watching session recordings, so they targeted real points of friction.
Caveats: Several UX changes shipped together and were measured before and after, over about 10 months of using Hotjar. The story is published by the analytics vendor, and no sample size was shared.
Who ran it
DashThis ran this test for marketing reporting dashboard software and published the results (Hotjar / Contentsquare customer story). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on DashThis →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we make the first setup action in onboarding visible on every screen size and easier to complete, then more trial users will finish onboarding because they will not get stuck before seeing value.
- Primary metric
- Share of new trial users who complete onboarding
- Guardrails
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Support tickets during onboarding
- Time to first connected data source
- Who should test it
- SaaS products where users must connect data or set something up before the product is useful. If your product works on first login with no setup, look elsewhere for gains.
Questions
How do I find where users get stuck in SaaS onboarding?
Look at step-by-step completion rates, then watch session recordings of users who drop off.
DashThis found users simply could not see where to click.
Which onboarding step matters most?
Usually the first one that unlocks value, such as connecting data.
If users fail there, nothing after it matters.