Responsive free-trial page beat a fixed layout on trial sign-ups
Test run byMarketingExperimentsResearch publisher
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA responsive version of a free-trial sign-up page produced significantly more trial sign-ups than the old fixed layout, though the exact lift was not shared in text.
MECLABS ran this multifactor A/B test for a large news media organization, and it was published on MarketingExperiments.
- Free trial sign-ups were higher for the responsive design, and the source says the gap was significant in aggregate.
- The exact numbers appear only in a results image, so we can't quote a lift.
- Results by device were discussed in a separate webinar, not in the article. We don't know whether desktop, tablet or phone drove the gain.
Control
The free-trial pages used a fixed, non-responsive design. Tablet and phone visitors saw the desktop layout shrunk down.
Variant
The same pages were rebuilt with responsive design, so the layout adapted to desktop, tablet and phone screens.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- On a phone, a shrunk desktop page makes people pinch and zoom to read the offer and fill in the form. A responsive page removes that effort.
- A trial sign-up asks for details. Form fields sized for touch are easier to complete.
- The team was weighing whether responsive design was worth the build cost. A test gave them their own answer instead of relying on expert opinion.
Caveats: This was a multifactor test, and the figures are only in an image, so the size of the lift is not shared. The data is from around 2014, when far fewer sites were mobile-friendly than today.
Who ran it
MarketingExperiments ran this test for a large news media organization and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MarketingExperiments →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we make our trial sign-up page fully responsive, then more mobile and tablet visitors will start a trial because the offer and form will be easy to read and use on their screen.
- Primary metric
- Free trial sign-up rate, split by device
- Guardrails
- Desktop sign-up rate
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Page load time on mobile
- Who should test it
- Subscription and SaaS businesses whose sign-up pages still don't adapt to small screens. Most modern sites are already responsive, so for them the useful test is a mobile-specific layout, not responsive versus fixed.
Questions
Does responsive design increase conversions?
In this test it did: the responsive trial page won on sign-ups overall.
The size of the gain was not shared, and it will vary with how much of your traffic is mobile.
Should I test responsive design or just build it?
Today, responsive is the baseline most visitors expect.
Testing is more useful for choices within the mobile layout, such as form length or where the button sits.
How should I read a test like this?
Look at results by device, not just the total.
A gain on mobile can hide a drop on desktop.