Two-step email signup and preference center: +120% submissions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsFerguson Enterprises rebuilt its email signup and preference center and saw form submissions rise 120% year over year.
Ferguson, a large US distributor of plumbing supplies, ran the project and it was published as a MarketingSherpa case study.
Several changes shipped together and the result is a year-over-year comparison, not a split test, so no single change can take the credit.
- Form submissions: +120% year over year for the signup and preference center.
- Site visits from the preference center: +117%.
- Data quality improved too. Before, more than half of subscribers left the default answer in place, so the team could not trust it.
- Both figures compare one year with the previous one, so seasonality and traffic changes may play a part.
The change
One long defaulted form becomes two short steps with first-person buttons.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The signup and preference center repeated questions across two similar pages, preselected default answers and ended with a 'Complete Customer Profile' button.
Variant
A short signup came first, then a preference center with questions based on the chosen industry. Defaults were removed, buttons used first-person copy ('Sign Me Up', 'Customize My Preferences') and a privacy notice was added.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A short first step asks for the minimum, which lowers the effort needed to subscribe.
- Questions tailored to each industry feel relevant, so people are more willing to fill them in.
- First-person buttons and a privacy notice may reduce doubt at the moment of submitting an email address.
Caveats: This is a before-and-after comparison, not an A/B test, and many changes shipped together, including a new opt-out page. Raw counts were not shared, and the data dates from 2017.
Who ran it
Ferguson Enterprises ran this test and published the results (MarketingSherpa case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Ferguson Enterprises →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we split our email signup into a short first step and an optional, tailored preference step, then more people will submit the form, because the first step asks for less and the second feels relevant.
- Primary metric
- Completed email signups
- Guardrails
- Share of subscribers who complete the preference step
- Unsubscribe rate in the first 30 days
- Email click rate by segment
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen and B2B businesses that serve several distinct customer types and want better segment data. If you have one audience and one newsletter, a preference center adds steps without much payoff.
Questions
Should an email signup form ask for preferences up front?
Usually it works better to ask only for the essentials first, then offer preferences as a second step.
Ferguson took this approach and saw submissions rise, though alongside other changes.
Are default selections bad on signup forms?
They can ruin your data. Ferguson found more than half of subscribers left the default in place, so it was unclear what they really wanted.
Do first-person buttons like 'Sign Me Up' convert better?
They can, but Ferguson changed its buttons along with many other things, so this case does not prove it.
Test the button copy on its own to know.