# Two-step billing form made one vertical form: +36% bookings

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Checkout (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Checkout steps, fields & flow, Add-to-cart & CTA buttons
- Test run by: [MECLABS](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/meclabs/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/e-commerce-marketing/checkout-test-sells-vacations
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/gap-meclabs-vacation-rental-vertical-checkout/

Swapping 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.

## Result

**+36% bookings**

- 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.

## 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)

- 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.

## How to run this test

- 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
- Guardrail: Payment failure rate
- Guardrail: Booking data errors
- Guardrail: 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.

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