# Cleaner, on-brand checkout with no navigation: +40% subscriptions

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Checkout (SaaS)
- Elements: Navigation, Design
- Test run by: [MECLABS](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/meclabs/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/digital-subscription-optimization/checkouts-optimized-compounding-gains
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/gap-meclabs-media-subscription-checkout-cleanup/

Cleaning up the first step of a subscription checkout lifted subscriptions by 40%. MECLABS ran the test for a large media publication and published it on MarketingExperiments in 2014. The new page added the publication's logo, dropped the off-brand colour scheme and removed two rows of navigation, so several changes shipped together.

## Result

**+40% subscriptions**

- Subscriptions: +40% for the cleaned-up page. This is a win.
- Three things changed at once: the logo, the colour scheme and the navigation. The result can't be credited to any single one.
- Sample size, duration and confidence level: not shared.

## Control

The first checkout step, shown after the buyer entered a ZIP code, barely showed the publication's logo. It used green and grey colours that didn't match the brand and had two levels of navigation at the top.

## Variant

The same step with the logo added at the top, a plain design in place of the green and grey scheme, and all the navigation removed.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- With the logo back and colours on brand, buyers could tell they were still buying from the publication they knew. That likely cut doubt at the moment of payment.
- Removing two levels of navigation took away easy ways to click out of checkout.
- A simpler look probably made the process seem less complicated overall.

## Caveats

Several changes were tested together, so the lift belongs to the package. The publication's identity was blurred, and sample size, duration and confidence are not shared.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we make our checkout match our brand and remove site navigation from it, then more visitors will finish subscribing because they feel sure who they're buying from and have fewer exits.
- Primary metric: Completed subscriptions per checkout start
- Guardrail: Checkout abandonment rate
- Guardrail: Support contacts about checkout
- Guardrail: Refund or cancellation rate in the first month
- Who should test it: Subscription and SaaS businesses whose checkout runs on a third-party or legacy system that looks different from the main site. Less likely to move much if your checkout is already on brand and free of navigation.

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Credit: MECLABS ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/gap-meclabs-media-subscription-checkout-cleanup/).
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.