# Responsive free-trial page beat a fixed layout on trial sign-ups

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Free trial (SaaS)
- Elements: Responsive design, Mobile
- Date shared: 2014-02
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/responsive-design-investment-experiment
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/news-media-responsive-trial-page/

A 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.

## Result

**Winner**

- 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)

- 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.

## How to run this test

- 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
- Guardrail: Desktop sign-up rate
- Guardrail: Trial-to-paid conversion
- Guardrail: 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.

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Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/news-media-responsive-trial-page/).
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.