# Free investment kit vs best-selling book incentive: -45% conversion

- Outcome: Lost
- Page type: Landing page (SaaS)
- Elements: Incentive
- Date shared: 2008-04
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/value-proposition/finding-the-ideal-incentive-2
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/me-financial-research-investment-kit-incentive/

Swapping a free New York Times best-selling book for a free investment research kit cut offer page conversion from 1.28% to 0.71%, so the book did 81% better. MarketingExperiments (MECLABS) ran this 37-day A/B/C test for a financial research company. It was one arm of a three-way test of incentives.

## Result

**-45% conversion**

- Conversion to sale: 1.28% (control) vs 0.71% (kit), so the book incentive did 81% better. A clear loss for the kit.
- Sample: 12,424 vs 10,592 unique visitors, with 159 vs 75 sales.
- A third arm offered the kit on the offer page and the book at checkout. It reached 0.81% and also lost to the book alone.

## Control

The subscription offer page promised a free New York Times best-selling book as the sign-up incentive.

## Variant

The same offer page promised a free investment research kit instead of the book.

## Why it likely lost (our reading)

- A famous best-selling book is easy to picture and value. A research kit has to be explained before visitors know what it is worth.
- MarketingExperiments advises against incentives you have to sell, because selling the incentive competes with the main offer.
- The kit may have felt too close to the paid product, so it added little extra value.

## Caveats

The test ran in 2008 and no confidence level was shared. The arms got unequal traffic, but the gap between 159 and 75 sales is large.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we offer a product-related bonus instead of a well-known general gift, then more visitors will subscribe because the bonus fits the product, unless the bonus is harder to value at a glance.
- Primary metric: Paid sign-up conversion rate on the offer page
- Guardrail: Cost of incentive per new customer
- Guardrail: Early cancellation or refund rate
- Guardrail: Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it: SaaS and subscription businesses that use a free gift to close sign-ups. It fits when you have two incentives with clearly different perceived value; it matters less when the core offer already converts without one.

---

Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/me-financial-research-investment-kit-incentive/).
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.