'Popular' badge on 4-week delivery option: +14.81% conversion rate
Test run byBlend CommerceCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a 'Popular' badge to the 4-week subscription delivery option raised conversion rate by 14.81%.
Blend Commerce ran this A/B/C test for a sports nutrition brand on its highest-traffic product page.
A 'Recommended' badge on the 6-week option had only a marginal effect.
- Conversion rate: +14.81% for the 'Popular' badge.
- Revenue per visitor: +28.95%. A larger gain than conversion alone.
- Auto-ship selection: +42.98%. Many more shoppers chose to subscribe.
- Checkout visits: +21.56%.
- The 'Recommended' badge on 6-week delivery had only a marginal impact.
The change
The variant adds a 'Popular' badge to the 4-week delivery option.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The product page listed subscription delivery frequencies with no badges or guidance on which to pick.
Variant
A 'Popular' badge sat next to the 4-week option, which 12 months of subscription data showed was the most chosen. A second variant put a 'Recommended' badge on the 6-week option instead.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A 'Popular' label is social proof. It tells shoppers that most people like them chose this option, which makes the choice feel safe.
- Badging one option reduces the effort of picking a frequency, so fewer shoppers stall at that step.
- 'Recommended' reads as the brand's opinion, which may carry less weight than what other customers do.
Caveats: Sample size, duration and confidence were not shared. The test ran on a single, high-traffic product page, so results may differ on other products.
Who ran it
Blend Commerce ran this test for a sports nutrition brand and published the results (Blend Commerce A/B test). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Blend Commerce →
How to run this test on your store
- Hypothesis
- If we add a 'Popular' badge to the most chosen delivery frequency, then more shoppers will subscribe because the label makes the choice feel safe and easy.
- Primary metric
- Conversion rate on the product page
- Guardrails
- Subscription selection rate
- Revenue per visitor
- Subscription cancellation rate
- Who should test it
- Subscription brands that ask shoppers to pick a delivery frequency. Only badge the option your data shows is really most popular; this does not apply if you offer a single frequency.
Questions
Do 'most popular' badges increase conversions?
In this test a 'Popular' badge on one delivery option raised conversion rate by 14.81%.
It works best when the label is true and backed by real order data.
Is 'Popular' better than 'Recommended'?
Here it was. The 'Recommended' badge had only a marginal effect, which suggests shoppers trust what others chose more than the brand's advice.
Which subscription frequency should I highlight?
The one most customers already pick. This brand used 12 months of subscription data to choose the 4-week option.
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