Guide choice plus one extra form field: significant drop in leads
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsOffering a choice of three free guides while adding one more required form field significantly lowered form conversions.
MarketingSherpa ran the test with Act-On around Lead Gen Summit 2013, and it was published on MarketingExperiments.
The version lost to both the original single-guide page and the choice-only page.
- Form conversions dropped significantly compared with the original page. This is a loss.
- It also lost significantly to the choice-only version, which had kept four fields.
- Exact rates and sample sizes were not shared.
The change
Variant adds topic tabs and a fifth required form field
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A landing page offered one free Lead Generation Quick Guide for four required form fields.
Variant
Visitors could choose one of three Quick Guide topics, but the form asked for five required fields instead of four.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- The extra field added effort, and the choice of topic did not add enough perceived value to make up for it.
- The choice-only version was flat, so the choice brought little extra pull, leaving the extra field as the main difference.
- Most visitors picked the default guide, which suggests the choice was not something they valued much.
Caveats: No exact conversion rates, sample sizes or confidence levels were shared. The test is from 2013 and ran on email traffic from MarketingSherpa and Act-On lists.
Who ran it
MarketingSherpa ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MarketingSherpa →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we offer a choice of free resources, then visitors will accept one more required field because the choice raises the value of what they get.
- Primary metric
- Form conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Lead quality from the extra field
- Form abandonment rate
- Who should test it
- B2B SaaS and lead-gen teams that want more data per lead and are weighing what they can ask for. If you have no evidence your offer is unusually valuable, assume each extra required field costs leads.
Questions
How much does one extra form field cost in conversions?
It depends on the field and the offer.
In this test, a single extra required field caused a significant drop even with a choice of incentive added.
Can a better incentive justify a longer form?
Sometimes, but the incentive has to feel clearly more valuable.
Here, a choice of three guide topics was not enough to offset one more field.