Christmas landing page layout test: free trials 15% to 19.5%
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA new layout on Bingo Card Creator's Christmas landing page raised conversion to the free trial from 15% to 19.5%, about a 30% relative gain.
Nick Disabato of Draft Revise ran the test in VWO on Patrick McKenzie's behalf in December 2013. Patrick McKenzie reported it briefly on the Kalzumeus blog in a year-in-review post.
- Conversion to free trial: 15% to 19.5%, about +30% relative.
- Sample size, test length and confidence were not shared.
- Patrick McKenzie noted that the page gets little traffic, so the win was modest in absolute terms.
Control
The existing layout of the Christmas bingo landing page, which led visitors into a free trial of the bingo card software.
Variant
A rearranged layout for the same page. The write-up does not say what was moved or changed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Seasonal pages get less design attention than the home page, so there is often easy room for improvement.
- A layout change can put the main offer and sign-up action in front of visitors sooner, though we can't confirm that was the change here.
- Patrick McKenzie expected a layout test to lose, which suggests the gain came from something the team didn't predict. That is a reason to test, not assume.
Caveats: Only the before and after rates were shared. There is no sample size, duration, confidence or description of the layout, and the page was seasonal and low-traffic.
Who ran it
Nick Disabato ran this test and published the results (Kalzumeus (patio11) blog). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Nick Disabato →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we rearrange our seasonal landing page so the offer and sign-up are easier to find, then more visitors will start a free trial because the page will match their intent faster.
- Primary metric
- Landing page to free trial conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- SaaS and software businesses with seasonal or topic-specific landing pages that get steady search traffic. With very low traffic, the test may need a whole season to reach a clear answer.
Questions
Do layout changes on landing pages affect sign-ups?
They can. In this case a rearranged seasonal landing page moved free trial conversion from 15% to 19.5%.
Is it worth testing low-traffic landing pages?
It can be if the testing process is cheap and repeatable.
Small wins on many pages add up, but each test takes longer to reach confidence.
MarketingExperiments