Asterisks on required trial form fields: +5.89% form completions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding asterisks to the required fields on its free trial form, plus a short 'required field' note above it, lifted form completions by 5.89%.
Micro Focus ran this A/B test on its own free trial page, and it was published as a VWO case study.
- Form completions: +5.89% for the variant over the control.
- The test ran on all traffic to the free trial page, split 50/50.
- No confidence level or visitor count was shared, so treat the size of the lift with some care.
The change
Variant marks mandatory fields with asterisks and adds a note above the form.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The free trial sign-up form gave no sign of which fields had to be filled in before it could be submitted.
Variant
The same form, with an asterisk on each mandatory field and a 'Required field' note placed above the form.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- People can see up front what they must fill in, so fewer hit an error on submit and give up.
- Clear markers make the form feel more predictable, which lowers the effort it seems to take.
- It follows a common form convention, so visitors do not have to work out the rules for themselves.
Caveats: Ran for 20 days. The sample size and statistical confidence were not shared, and the result is reported in a vendor case study.
Who ran it
Micro Focus ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Micro Focus →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we mark required fields with an asterisk and add a short note explaining the marker, then more visitors will complete the trial form because they will know what is needed before they submit.
- Primary metric
- Trial form completion rate
- Guardrails
- Form validation error rate
- Trial-to-activation rate
- Lead quality (share of completed forms that are real prospects)
- Who should test it
- SaaS teams with a multi-field trial or demo form that mixes required and optional fields. It probably won't matter much if every field is required, or if the form only has one or two fields.
Questions
Should I mark required fields or optional fields?
Either can work, as long as the form is clear.
Micro Focus marked required fields with asterisks and explained the marker in a note, and form completions went up.
Does marking required fields really change sign-ups?
In this test it lifted trial form completions by 5.89%.
The effect is likely to be bigger when a form mixes required and optional fields.
Do I need the explanation note as well as the asterisks?
Micro Focus tested both together, so the effect of each one alone is not known.
A short note costs little and removes any doubt about what the asterisk means.
MarketingExperiments