Button 'Price Guide' instead of 'Download' with price: +620.9% clicks
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsChanging a button from 'Download' with the fee beside it to 'Price Guide' with no price lifted clickthroughs by 620.9%.
PriceCharting, a site selling video game price data, ran this test itself, and it was published as a VWO case study.
The metric was clicks on the button, not purchases.
- Button clickthroughs: up 620.9% on the variant.
- The variant won after about a week at 99.9% statistical significance.
- Purchases and revenue were not reported, so the effect on sales is unknown.
- PriceCharting rolled out the new button.
The change
'Download' plus fee replaced by a 'Price Guide' button with no price
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Product pages had a 'Download' button with the price list fee next to it, for example 'Sega Genesis Price List for $2'.
Variant
The button read 'Price Guide' and the price was removed. Clicking it led to a page where users could build their own price guide.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- The founder thought the old button looked like a banner ad, so visitors ignored it.
- 'Price Guide' matched what visitors came for, while 'Download' did not say what they would get.
- Removing the price from the button meant the cost no longer put people off before they saw the offer.
Caveats: The metric was clicks, not purchases, and part of the lift may come from hiding the price until later. Sample size was not shared and the test date was not given.
Who ran it
PriceCharting 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 PriceCharting →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we rename the button to describe what users get and move the price off the button, then more visitors will click because the offer will be clear and will not look like an ad.
- Primary metric
- Paid conversions from the product page
- Guardrails
- Button clickthrough rate
- Drop-off on the next step once price is shown
- Revenue per visitor
- Who should test it
- Data, content and SaaS sites selling a paid add-on from a free page. It may not help if your button already names the offer clearly, and a click lift may vanish once buyers see the price.
Questions
Does button text really matter that much?
It can when the old text is vague.
PriceCharting's 'Download' did not say what users would get, and naming the product lifted clicks sharply.
Should you show the price on the button?
Not always. Hiding it can raise clicks, but check that purchases rise too, since buyers still see the price later.
Is a click lift the same as a sales lift?
No. More clicks only matter if more of those people buy, so track paid conversions as well.
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