'Courses' dropdown in mobile header: +7.78% lead form submissions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a 'Courses' dropdown to the mobile header, with one-tap links to nine course categories, raised the lead form submission rate by 7.78%.
RMIT Online, the online learning arm of RMIT University, ran this split URL test, and it was published as a VWO case study.
Clicks through to category pages rose 35% across the site.
- Lead form submission rate: +7.78%. This was the primary goal.
- Category page click-through rate: +35% sitewide.
- Category page visits: +10.02%. The Courses dropdown drove 55% of these visits in the variant, against 40% for the course menu in the control.
- The split URL test ran for 14 days on mobile. Sample size and confidence level were not shared.
The change
A 'Courses' dropdown in the mobile header gives one-tap access to nine categories.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
On mobile, 'Courses & degrees' sat inside the hamburger menu among other items. Users had to open the menu and tap again to reach the course categories.
Variant
A 'Courses' dropdown sat right in the main mobile header. It listed nine categories, from All courses to Software Development, in a simple list that took one tap to use.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Mobile traffic had grown from 30% to 65% since 2022, so the mobile path to courses mattered more than ever.
- Earlier tests showed that focused category pages led to more course clicks than the full catalogue. The dropdown sent more people straight there.
- Each extra tap on mobile loses some users. Cutting the path to one tap kept more of them moving toward a lead form.
Caveats: The test ran for only 14 days and sample size and confidence level were not shared. It was run on mobile only, so the result may not carry over to desktop.
Who ran it
RMIT Online 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 RMIT Online →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we put a direct link to our key product or course categories in the mobile header, then more visitors will reach those pages and submit a lead, because they won't need to dig through the hamburger menu.
- Primary metric
- Lead form submission rate
- Guardrails
- Clicks on other menu items
- Bounce rate on category pages
- Header usability on small screens
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen sites with a large catalogue, such as education, B2B services or software with many products, and heavy mobile traffic. It probably won't help if most visitors land straight on the right page from ads or search.
Questions
Should key links sit outside the hamburger menu on mobile?
For your most important path, often yes. In this test, a visible Courses dropdown lifted lead submissions by 7.78% on mobile.
How many items should a mobile dropdown menu have?
RMIT Online used nine categories in a simple list.
Keep it short enough to scan without scrolling, and lead with the options people pick most.
What is a split URL test?
It sends visitors at random to two different page URLs, one for each design.
It suits bigger layout changes like a new navigation.