Two-step billing form made one vertical form: +36% bookings
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSwapping a two-step billing form for a single vertical form with fewer fields raised conversion from billing to confirmation by 36% for a vacation-rental company.
MECLABS ran the A/B test and reported 98% confidence, and published it on MarketingExperiments in October 2012. The new form also had a single "Book My Vacation" button in place of two.
- Conversion from billing information to confirmation rose 36% (relative) at 98% confidence.
- No sample size or test length was shared.
- MECLABS called it a multi-factor test: layout, field count and button changed together, so the lift belongs to the whole form.
The change
Two-step horizontal billing form becomes one vertical form with a single 'Book My Vacation' button
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A two-step horizontal billing form. Step 2 stayed shaded until the visitor clicked "Continue", then a second button, "Submit Reservation", sent the booking.
Variant
One vertical form with fewer fields and a single "Book My Vacation" button.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A greyed-out second step tells visitors more work is coming. One form shows the whole task at once.
- Fewer fields mean less typing and fewer chances to quit.
- "Book My Vacation" names what the visitor gets, while "Submit Reservation" sounds like paperwork. This is our reading; the test did not isolate the button copy.
Caveats: Travel booking from around 2012, with no sample size or duration shared. Several form changes were tested together.
Who ran it
MECLABS ran this test for a consumer vacation-rental company and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MECLABS →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we combine a multi-step billing form into one vertical form with fewer fields and one benefit-led button, then more visitors will confirm, because the task looks shorter and has one clear action.
- Primary metric
- Billing-to-confirmation conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Payment failure rate
- Booking data errors
- Cancellation rate
- Who should test it
- Booking and checkout flows that split billing across steps or ask for fields you don't need. If your form is already short and on one page, expect less.
Questions
Are vertical forms better than horizontal ones?
Vertical forms are easier to scan top to bottom, and here one helped lift bookings by 36%.
The test changed field count and buttons too, so it doesn't prove layout alone.
Does checkout button copy matter?
It can. Naming the outcome, like "Book My Vacation", is a common test idea, but test it on its own to know its effect.
Similar tests
@DaveDiederen
Convertibles
Surefoot