3 Key Benefits of FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention Feature

1. It Prevents Abuse

Repeated exploitation of free trials can lead to revenue loss and skewed metrics, making it harder to gauge genuine interest in your product. FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature helps prevent users from repeatedly accessing free trials, protecting the integrity of your trial strategy and supporting healthier subscription performance.

2. It Delivers a Fair Trial Experience

Providing a free trial should be about allowing genuine users to explore your product and determine if it’s right for them. Trial hopping can undermine this experience by filling your trial funnel with non-serious users. Trial hopping prevention helps maintain a fair experience for customers sincerely exploring your product.

3. It Encourages Conversions

When free trials are limited to genuine first-time use, users who see value in your product are more likely to upgrade to a paid subscription to maintain access. By restricting repeated free trials, this feature can help support better trial-to-paid conversion outcomes.

How Does the Trial Hopping Prevention Feature Work?

FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature helps reduce repeated free-trial abuse by preventing the same email from being used for unlimited retrials, helping guide repeat trial attempts toward a paid plan instead. Businesses can enable the setting within their store’s subscription configuration as part of their broader subscription strategy.

Best Practices for Leveraging the Trial Hopping Prevention Feature

Communicate Clear Policies

Transparency is key to maintaining trust with your users. Clearly outline your trial policies, including any restrictions, in your terms of service and marketing materials. This helps set expectations and reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings.

Use Incentives to Encourage Upgrades

To complement the Trial Hopping Prevention feature, consider offering incentives such as discounts or bonuses for users who transition from a free trial to a paid subscription. Highlight the value of your paid plans, and demonstrate how they can enhance the user’s experience.

Monitor Trial Metrics

Track trial-to-paid conversion rates and analyze user behavior during trials. FastSpring’s Trials dashboard can help you monitor signup volume, conversion performance, and lifecycle trends so you can refine your trial strategy over time.

Combine With Other Retention Strategies

Pair the Trial Hopping Prevention feature with other retention-focused tools, such as Pause a Subscription or a cancellation survey, to maximize customer satisfaction and reduce churn.

Protect Your Business and Enhance Customer Experience

FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention feature empowers businesses to maintain the integrity of their free trial offerings while supporting stronger conversion outcomes. By preventing abuse, ensuring fairness, and encouraging upgrades, this feature helps you deliver value to genuine users and protect your subscription revenue.

FAQs

Partner With FastSpring

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment and subscription platform for thousands of SaaS, software, video games, and digital products businesses, including VAT, GST, and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. 

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post Maximizing Subscription Value With FastSpring’s Trial Hopping Prevention Feature appeared first on FastSpring.

What You’ll Learn by Connecting With FastSpring at APS NYC

Whether you’re building the next breakout productivity app or scaling a mobile app across multiple markets, FastSpring helps developers monetize smarter, scale globally, and future-proof their direct monetization strategies. 

When you speak with our team at the event, they’ll help you explore why direct web monetization is valuable for your business:

1. Improved User Acquisition Targeting: Linking ads to your website gives you better analytics and makes it easier to monetize directly.
2. Higher Revenue Margins: Web subscriptions reduce transaction fees compared to 15%-30% on the app marketplaces.
3. Access to Conversion Data: Gain improved visibility into performance metrics like session behavior, traffic source, and conversion rates.
4. Ownership of User Relationship: Selling directly from your website gives you full control over user data, marketing channels, and user engagement.
5. Freedom From Marketplace Limitations: You avoid restrictions on messaging, pricing, and steering users to external purchase flows.
6. Future-Proof Marketing and Monetization: A direct monetization strategy helps build user loyalty and engagement across mobile, desktop, and other platforms regardless of what happens to a third-party marketplace.

With 20+ years of experience in direct monetization for software and apps, FastSpring is a leader in direct monetization for some of the world’s top mobile developers. Here’s what you get:

• Global payment localization, sales tax and VAT compliance, and subscription management.
• Developer-first tools (APIs, webhooks, advanced JavaScript library) for custom integration.
• Consistently top-rated for support and reliability (G2, Stevie Awards, and more).

How to Connect With FastSpring

Come by Booth 1 and visit with the FastSpring team at App Promotion Summit NYC 2025! We’ll be there throughout the day, ready to talk about how your business is approaching direct monetization and how FastSpring can help.

Get tickets here.

Ready to Kick Off Direct Web Subscriptions?

Turn your website into a high-converting revenue engine for your mobile app. Visit fastspring.com/solutions/mobile-apps to learn more, or visit Booth 1 during APS NYC and talk to our team. Want to learn more sooner or schedule a personal demo? Request a demo here.

The post FastSpring at App Promotion Summit NYC 2025: Let’s Talk Direct Monetization and Global App Growth appeared first on FastSpring.

Understanding User Psychology in the Mobile Era

Our Senior Product Marketing Manager Braden Steel will join an elite panel at 11:25 a.m. for the session Conversion Masterclass: User Psychology Across the Funnel. 

This isn’t just another marketing discussion — it’s a deep dive into the psychological triggers that drive users from first impression to final purchase decision.

The panel will address a critical challenge facing mobile app developers and publishers: how to create conversion experiences that resonate with user psychology while maintaining sustainable business growth. From app store optimization to paywall design, every touchpoint in the user journey presents an opportunity to either build trust or create friction.

Why Mobile App Conversion Psychology Matters

The mobile app marketplace demands sophisticated conversion strategies that align with user psychology. As users become more selective about which apps deserve their investment, developers must understand the deeper psychological factors influencing purchase decisions across different markets and demographics.

FastSpring’s merchant of record platform processes millions of mobile app transactions globally, providing unique insights into conversion patterns that work across diverse user bases and monetization models.

FastSpring’s Mobile App Solutions Drive Real Results

Our platform specifically addresses the conversion challenges mobile developers face:

• Streamlined Checkout Experience: Reduce cart abandonment with localized payment methods and currencies that match user expectations for the most popular payment methods.
• Flexible Monetization Models: Support premium apps, freemium conversions, and subscription tiers with automated billing management that scales with your growth.
• Global Compliance Simplified: Automatically handle sales taxes, VAT, and regulatory requirements.
• Advanced Analytics: Track conversion metrics across different markets, payment methods, and user segments to optimize your monetization strategy.

Mobile apps require more than basic payment infrastructure. FastSpring’s solutions integrate seamlessly with app store ecosystems while providing direct monetization channels that bypass traditional marketplace fees. This dual approach maximizes revenue opportunities while maintaining user convenience.

Connect With FastSpring at App Growth Summit

Join Braden Steel’s panel discussion to learn how payment psychology impacts mobile app conversions, and discover actionable strategies for optimizing your entire conversion funnel.

The newly reimagined App Growth Summit format focuses on practical insights rather than theoretical frameworks, making it essential for mobile developers serious about conversion optimization.

Get your ticket here, and further explore FastSpring’s mobile app solutions here.  

Ready to optimize your app’s conversion funnel? FastSpring’s team understands the intersection of payment psychology and technical implementation. Let’s discuss how our platform can support your app’s growth strategy.

The post FastSpring Takes the Stage at App Growth Summit SF 2025: Mastering Mobile Conversion Psychology appeared first on FastSpring.

FastSpring is heading to Singapore on Sept. 4, 2025, to connect with innovators from across the mobile landscape and to share key insights into how smarter payments infrastructure is fueling the next wave of global app expansion.

Catch Us Live: Tech Talk at 12:45 p.m.

Session Title: The Direct Monetization Shift: Unlocking Global App Growth Through Smarter Subscriptions and Payments

Sept. 4, 2025
12:45 p.m. SGT
Main Stage

Speaker: Jay Jia, Head of APAC, FastSpring

In this 20-minute Tech Talk, Jay will walk through how mobile app developers and publishers can drive real, sustainable growth by rethinking their payments strategies — especially in the wake of growing direct monetization trends and evolving global policy landscapes.

What You’ll Learn

1. Emerging Growth Opportunities in 2025
Policy changes, privacy regulations, and platform shifts are pushing more mobile apps toward direct monetization models. Learn how this shift is creating new ways to monetize globally — and what you need to do to stay ahead.

2. Hidden Barriers to Scaling Payments and Subscriptions
Conversions and compliance aren’t just technical issues — they’re growth issues. Jay will highlight how small frictions in payments, from localization gaps to regional tax pitfalls, can quietly erode revenue.

3. Building a Future-Ready Payments and Subscriptions Strategy
What should mobile apps look for in a global payment partner? Discover the critical components — like fraud protection, subscription flexibility, and tax compliance — that are non-negotiable in 2025.

4. FastSpring in Action
See how FastSpring’s empowers mobile app developers to launch faster, localize seamlessly, and maximize global conversions — all without overburdening your internal teams.

Why This Talk Matters

Global growth isn’t just about acquiring users — it’s about converting and retaining them in ways that comply with evolving regulations while keeping the user experience seamless. Whether you’re a mobile startup scaling across Asia-Pacific or an enterprise app tackling global compliance hurdles, this Tech Talk will leave you with actionable insights to level up your monetization strategy.

Where to Get Tickets

Still need tickets? Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket and get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities, and a networking app that will maximize your experience even more.

How to Connect With FastSpring

We’d love to meet you at Unlocked: Mobile & App Growth Summit Singapore! FastSpring will be on the ground throughout the event — if you’re looking to simplify payments, navigate compliance, or accelerate your international expansion, let’s talk. You can request a demo here or stop by our booth at the event. 

FastSpring is how SaaS companies and gaming publishers sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need from subscription management to tax collection, remittance and more so your business can go farther, faster. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies — powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’ll manage your checkout, VAT and sales taxes, compliance, and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software. To learn more about how FastSpring is Powering the Digital Economy®, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post FastSpring at Unlocked: Mobile & App Growth Summit Singapore 2025 appeared first on FastSpring.

To succeed in these regions, businesses must support local payment methods–like debit networks, mobile wallets, and bank transfers that locals already trust. Doing so removes friction, increases conversion rates, and drives new revenue.

That’s why we’re launching several key updates in our Spring 2025 release, including:

• UPI Support.
• New Taiwan Dollar (TWD) Support.
• Hipercard and Elo Support in Brazil.
• Checkout Conversion Dashboard.
• Improved Checkout Customizations.

UPI Support Opens the Door to 350M+ Digital Buyers

As a mobile-first economy, and with Indian regulations that are unfriendly to foreign-made payment methods, India’s digital consumer market is heavily reliant on government backed payment rails like UPI. Easy-to-use on mobile, and used by more than 90% of India’s online buyers, UPI eliminates purchase friction for buyers and opens up the vast majority of the Indian market to outside companies. 

With UPI, FastSpring users can:

• Replace low-converting card payments with instant, secure UPI transactions.
• Comply with Indian financial regulations and avoid foreign card blocks.

Learn More about UPI.

Offer Localized Experiences in Emerging Markets With Local Brazilian Cards and TWD in Taiwan

Websites that localize pricing have twice the conversion rate of those that don’t. To further help businesses who are expanding across the globe, we’ve added additional payment methods in Brazil with support for local cards like Elo and Hipercard on top of the domestic only Visa and MasterCard cards as well as enabling TWD in Taiwan. (Coming Q2 2025)

Learn more about Brazilian Cards and TWD.

Track Conversions in Real Time With the Checkout Conversion Dashboard

When selling products, understanding key points in the buyer journey is essential to improving conversion rates. With FastSpring’s new Checkout Conversion Dashboard, get a clear visualization of your users’ checkout conversion journey through monitoring user Sessions, Orders, and Completed Orders. Plus, pinpoint where buyers drop off and why.

With Checkout Conversion Dashboard, FastSpring users can:

• Visualize performance of products across an Area and Funnel Chart.
• Filter data by timeframe, product, country, and segment.
• Understand key points in the buyer journey like Sessions, Orders, and Completed Orders.

Learn more about Checkout Conversion Dashboard.

Improve Conversion Rates With Popup Checkout Themes and New Embedded Options

Brand cohesion throughout the entire purchase journey is a key lever in improving conversion rates. To better support our users, we’ve released the first of our new themes: Dark Theme. This brings a dark mode checkout to our modal popup offering that can be enabled by a simple toggle in checkout settings. Plus, we’ve streamlined our embedded checkout to simplify data entry and remove unnecessary checkout steps.

With the Spring Checkout Improvements, FastSpring users can:

• Match their checkout theme to their site’s branding for a more cohesive buyer experience.
• Reduce required steps in embedded checkout with a single field for MM/YY, fewer input fields, and improved usability icons (Coming Q2 2025)

Learn more about Checkout Customization.

With support for region-specific payments and tools to improve every step of your funnel, FastSpring makes it easier to scale globally, no matter the market you’re expanding into. Ready to learn more? Schedule some time with FastSpring today.

The post FastSpring Launches Support for Indian Payment Method UPI and More Market Expansion Features With Its Spring Product Releases appeared first on FastSpring.

Need more information on any of the steps below? Visit our FastSpring Docs developer hub.

Step 1: Integration Setup

To automate follow-up emails for abandoned carts, integrate your FastSpring Checkout with an email marketing service like Mailchimp. This integration ensures that cart abandonment data is seamlessly communicated to your email service.

Step 2: Email Collection

During the checkout process, make sure to collect the consumer’s email address. This is a critical step, as it enables you to send follow-up emails to encourage cart recovery. You can also add an optional checkbox for consumers to subscribe to your mailing list. 

To force email address capture during the checkout process, you can configure the settings to ensure that the email address is collected. This can be done by enabling the “Get updates about our products and offerings” checkbox in the checkout process. This checkbox must be checked for the email addresses and cart data to be communicated to your email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp.

Here’s how you can configure this setting:

1. In the application, select Checkouts, then click the Settings button on the applicable Checkout..
2. Under Customer Information, there is a drop-down labeled Newsletter Subscription Checkbox.
   • Choose Show, Checked to include the checkbox for subscription emails and leave it selected by default.

This setup ensures that customers are prompted to provide their email addresses, which can then be used for marketing and communication purposes.

Stay current with FastSpring Checkout settings by viewing the Customer Information section in our Checkout settings documentation page.

Step 3: Identify Abandoned Carts

FastSpring considers a cart abandoned if no activity occurs for 30 minutes after the email address is recorded. The system flags the session as abandoned, creating a data point for follow-up. This Abandon point cant be recorded and tracked utilizing the webhook mailingListEntry.abandoned.

Step 4: Communicate Data

Once a cart is flagged as abandoned, FastSpring communicates the consumer’s email address and cart data to your email marketing service. This automated communication is essential for timely follow-up.

Step 5: Automate Follow-Up Emails

Set up automated email campaigns in your email marketing service to target consumers with abandoned carts. These emails should include:

• A reminder of the items left in their cart.
• Personalized messaging to re-engage the customer.
• Incentives such as discount codes or free shipping to encourage purchase completion.

Step 6: Verify the Integration

Ensure the integration is functioning correctly by checking your audience list in your email marketing service. Abandoned cart email addresses should populate this list, ready for follow-up campaigns.

Using FastSpring Webhooks for Advanced Tracking

FastSpring offers webhooks to provide real-time updates about cart activity. Here are three key webhooks to incorporate into your workflow:

• mailingListEntry.removed: Triggered when a customer unsubscribes and their email address is removed from your mailing list.
• mailingListEntry.updated: Triggered when a new email address is added to your mailing list, such as when a customer opts in during checkout.
• mailingListEntry.abandoned: Triggered when a customer enters their email address but does not complete the purchase.

These webhooks allow you to:

• Maintain an up-to-date mailing list.
• Monitor abandoned cart activity in real-time.
• Trigger personalized follow-up actions based on customer behavior.

To learn more about all of FastSpring’s developer tools — such as webhooks, REST API, and JavaScript libraries, visit our Developer Tools page.

Tips for Successful Abandoned Cart Emails

• Timing: Send the first email within an hour of abandonment to capitalize on immediate interest.
• Clarity: Include clear visuals of the abandoned items and a prominent call-to-action (CTA) button.
• Incentives: Offer discounts or free shipping to entice customers to complete their purchase.
• Testing: Test A/B test subject lines, email designs, and incentives to find the most effective strategy.

FAQs

• Why focus on cart abandonment? Reducing cart abandonment boosts revenue, enhances customer experience, and recovers potential lost sales.
• Must I use Mailchimp with FastSpring’s integration? No, you can use any email marketing platform, but Mailchimp is pre-integrated for seamless setup.

Boost Your Conversion Rates Today

By integrating FastSpring with an email marketing service and utilizing webhooks, you can effectively track and address cart abandonment. These tools not only help you recover lost sales but also enhance the overall shopping experience for your customers. Start implementing these strategies today to drive higher conversions and grow your business!

FastSpring is how SaaS, software, digital products, and video game companies sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need — from subscription management to tax collection, remittance, and more — so your business can go farther, faster. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself. 

The post How to Track and Address Cart Abandonment With FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

A good ecommerce website should be structured in a way that successfully communicates product features, value proposition, and market placement while eliminating distractions in order to reduce the time for the visitor to make up their mind.

The goal is to reduce friction in order to make it easy — or easier — to purchase. There are a few simple ways to help make this happen.

6 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

1. Appearance and User Experience of Your Website

Websites should be easy to navigate, featuring user-friendly, branded color schemes and fonts. They should balance text, images and illustrations, and empty spaces. We recommend following industry and product-specific design trends while keeping your branding in mind.

2. Menu and Pricing Page

Your website menu should be easily identifiable, with a direct link to a product page and a pricing page. 

The pricing page is a key element to the ease of purchase. For SaaS companies, most pricing pages will offer different tiers. Each tier should clarify what features are included.

The goal is to drive customers not just to purchase, but to purchase the most suitable product, which is why sellers should also highlight a “top pick.”

Pricing pages are also where sellers can highlight testimonials, link to FAQ and cancellation policy pages, and display other elements strategic to the purchase. 

Need more pricing page recommendations and examples? Check out our blog for Pricing Strategies to Combat Stagflation or Best-in-Class SaaS Pricing Pages: 2022 Report.

3. Purchase Clicks

Reducing the number of clicks needed to complete a purchase is important for simplifying the buying process. This minimizes the time visitors take to decide by providing a seamless buying journey. 

Some sources say that the fewer clicks, the better. However, this may vary depending on your business. Experts recommend using heatmaps to understand how your audience is interacting with your website and making decisions based on that. 

4. Checkout Process

The checkout process should be simple while also increasing the buyer’s confidence in the purchase. FastSpring offers three customizable checkout options: the web storefront, the popup storefront, and our latest and more native checkout type, the embedded storefront. All checkouts allow you to add a logo, specify the amount of customer information required, and much more.

We process payments securely on your behalf, giving your buyers access to a wide range of payment options to choose from, which are displayed based on their location.

5. CTAs

Clear and strategically placed calls to action (CTAs) are also important. These buttons need to provide a clear indication of the action they will trigger when clicked. 

Single buttons are preferable to multiple buttons. For example, the most successful designs don’t include a “Go back” option but only allow users to move forward in the process.

The placement of buttons depends on what you want the user to see first. Since left-to-right reading people generally read in an F-shaped pattern, and since most users are right-handed, the button should be placed in the bottom right corner if it needs to be at the end of a section.

We recommend encouraging the buyer to make a purchase whenever feasible. Having a Buy button on the homepage — and potentially on every page — is a great way to enhance conversions.

6. Website Localization

Website localization is very important when it comes to targeting a larger audience and increasing the confidence and trust of visitors. 

• Language Localization: Most sellers will simply route their customers to the localized website based on their IP address. Others will have a menu with the option to select a different language or region. FastSpring allows merchants to customize the checkout language (as well as the language used for buyer emails) in order to provide a localized experience. 
• Currency Localization: It is important to rely on a partner like FastSpring that will localize the payment experience for your buyers, both on the pricing page (using our Store Builder Library options) and on the checkout (by offering the local currency and relevant payment methods options). 

You can discover more about our language and currency localization options here. 

Ongoing Conversion Rate Optimization

Once a customer arrives on your website, maximizing conversion chances is crucial. An effective ecommerce site clearly communicates product features and value propositions while minimizing distractions. By simplifying navigation, using clear CTAs, and optimizing the checkout process, you create a seamless experience that encourages quick and confident purchases. This approach enhances user satisfaction and boosts conversion rates, contributing to sustained business growth. 

Each business and customer is unique, so continuously A/B test website changes and analyze data to find the best solutions for you.

Not yet benefiting from the award-winning support FastSpring provides for software companies and their customers? FastSpring handles the entire payment process, from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post 6 Essential Strategies for Maximizing Conversion Rates appeared first on FastSpring.

At FastSpring, we believe it’s never too early to start preparing for this peak sales season to ensure a smooth and profitable experience. Here’s your comprehensive guide to gearing up for Cyber Weekend 2024.

9 Tips for Preparing Great Cyber Weekend Support

1. Optimize Website Performance

• Thorough Performance Checks: Ensure your website can handle increased traffic without slowing down or crashing. Run load tests and optimize server capacity.
• User Experience Enhancements: Simplify navigation and streamline the checkout process. An intuitive design keeps customers engaged and reduces cart abandonment.

2. Conversion Optimization

• Store and Product Optimization: Analyze your store layout and product pages. Implement A/B testing to find the best layouts, calls-to-action, and product descriptions that drive conversions.

3. Fulfillment Planning

• Analyze Past Data: Review previous Cyber Weekend sales to predict demand for popular products. Ensure you have sufficient licenses uploaded.
• Fulfillment Infrastructure: Make sure remote fulfillment systems are robust and ready to handle the increased demand.

4. Craft Compelling Deals

• Exclusive Offers: Stand out with attractive deals. Consider product bundles, discounts, or limited-time promotions.
• Coupons and Discounts: Set up and test all discounts and coupons. Utilize FastSpring’s Combine Discounts setting to maximize promotional impact.

5. Ecommerce Testing Is Crucial

• Comprehensive Testing: Test every ecommerce-specific aspect of your site, from product pages to checkout paths. Ensure that all features, including coupons and discounts, work flawlessly.
• Testing Tools: Use FastSpring’s resources for thorough testing:
  • Testing Orders.
  • License Keys.
  • Coupons.
  • Product Discounts.

6. Proactive Promotions

• Early Marketing Campaigns: Launch your marketing efforts well in advance. Leverage social media, email marketing, and other channels to build anticipation.
• Awareness Building: Create buzz around your deals to attract and engage customers.

7. Robust Security Measures

• Enhanced Security: With increased traffic comes a higher risk of cyber threats. Ensure your website has strong security protocols to protect customer data.
• Risk Management: FastSpring’s risk management tools help safeguard you from fraud during checkout.

8. Customer Support Readiness

• Prepare for Inquiries: Anticipate a surge in customer inquiries. Train your support team to handle common issues efficiently.
• Support Resources: Utilize FastSpring’s support resources for seamless customer interactions. Learn more about contacting FastSpring’s Customer Support.

9. Managing Payment Issues

• Expect Declines: Higher transaction volumes can lead to payment issues. Be prepared to address declined or canceled payments calmly.
• Resolution Strategies: Guide customers to use alternate payment methods and consult their banks for issues. FastSpring’s fraud assessment system will protect you from risky transactions:
  • Declined and Canceled Payments.
  • Machine-Learning Fraud Engine.

FastSpring Is Your Partner for Cyber Weekend Support

Preparation is essential for a successful Cyber Weekend. By following these steps, you’ll provide a positive experience for your customers and maximize your sales potential. Remember, the impression you make during Cyber Weekend will shape your customers’ perception of your brand throughout their journey.

Are you ready to take on Cyber Weekend 2024? With FastSpring by your side, success is within reach!

Not yet benefiting from the award-winning support FastSpring provides for software companies and their customers? FastSpring handles the entire payment process, from checkout to remitting end-of-year taxes for SaaS companies. To learn more about how FastSpring can help you scale quickly, sign up for a free account or request a demo today.

The post Gear Up for Cyber Weekend 2024: Your Ultimate Preparation Guide appeared first on FastSpring.

In this episode of Growth Stage, we interview Sahil Patel of Spiralyze about his thoughts on: 

• Special considerations for B2B CRO.
• The best way to think about your B2B test data approach.
• Winning strategies Sahil has found helping clients like BambooHR, Okta, and Harvest with their B2B CRO. 

If you’re scratching your head wondering what you’ll test next with your B2B CRO strategy, don’t miss this episode!

Jump to video.  |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

Transcript

David Vogelpohl (00:04)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Growth Stage podcast by FastSpring, where we discuss how digital product companies can grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their business. I’m your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community here in my role at FastSpring. And I love to bring the best of the community to you here on Growth Stage. In this episode, we’re talking about a topic that I’m really excited about: proven AB testing winners for B2B CRO, and joining us for that conversation is Mr. Sahil Patel. Sahil, welcome to Fast — I’m sorry, welcome to Growth Stage.

Sahil Patel (00:42)

David, really glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

David Vogelpohl (00:45)

Excellent. Well, thanks for bearing with me while I stumbled over your name there a little bit in the beginning; with a last name like Vogelpohl I should be better at that. But thank you for joining. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And so for those watching and listening, what I wanted to share with you is kind of what we’re going to talk about today, which is Sahil’s thoughts on the special considerations for B2B CRO (what’s different about B2B versus B2C),

Sahil Patel (00:54)

Hey, we’re here. It’s good.

David Vogelpohl (01:12)

the best way to think about your testing data when you’re doing B2B CRO, and winning strategies Sahil has seen with clients like Bamboo, Okta, and Harvest. And so those are some really meaty B2B puzzles, Sahil. And so I’m really curious about what you’ve seen there. So I’m going to kick it off by asking you the first question I’ve asked every guest, which is, what is the first thing you bought online?

Sahil Patel (01:41)

What a great question. I’m gonna age myself a little bit. Probably it was in the 90s.

Buying stuff was not super common…

It probably was some kind of Star Wars related collectible on eBay.

David Vogelpohl (02:04)

Nice, do you still collect Star Wars collectibles?

Sahil Patel (02:08)

I do, yeah, but I have a decent amount. So there’s like a household cap on adding new Star Wars stuff.

David Vogelpohl (02:16)

I like it. I like it. Is it like one in one out the kind of thing at this point or have you hit the cap?

Sahil Patel (02:21)

Well, it’s pretty close. My kids are into it now, which gives me a little bit of leeway, which means I can get things that are for them, but aren’t really for me.

David Vogelpohl (02:32)

Nice, nice. I like it. Well, that’s a great first thing you bought online story. Thanks for sharing.

Sahil Patel (02:37)

What about you, David? What was the first thing you bought online?

David Vogelpohl (02:39)

The first thing I bought online was a product called Zanfel. It was designed, it is still sold today, but it’s a poison ivy cure. So I was at the end of like a three or four day stint of just being miserable with poison ivy. And I Googled a cure for poison ivy. Zanfel came up and it actually did work for me. It doesn’t necessarily work for everybody, but it was like a magic cure for me. So, late nineties. So yeah.

Sahil Patel (03:03)

And when was this? How early days internet was this? Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (03:09)

I might have done something before that, but that was the first one I remember. All right, cool. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit, kind of get get closer to the topic at hand. Could you quickly tell me about what Spiralyze does and what you do there?

Sahil Patel (03:26)

Yeah, thanks. I’m the CEO of Spiralyze. We’re an A-B testing company. There are 34,000 websites that run A-B tests somewhere on their website. We scrape all of them. We find the best A-B tests in the entire internet, then we run those for our clients.

David Vogelpohl (03:43)

Nice. So you’re detecting the sites that are running those tests. And then how do you know the ones that are best from sites you don’t control? I’m just kind of curious about this.

Sahil Patel (03:52)

Yeah, great question. How do we know which ones are best? Because all we can see is that they run a test and which version of the page, the A or the B, they chose at the end of the test. The first thing. No, go ahead, please, David.

David Vogelpohl (04:06)

So you’re, go ahead. I was gonna say, so you basically detect a test that’s happening and then when you figure out which one won in the end, you mark that as like that was the better one.

Sahil Patel (04:18)

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. We’re doing those things digitally, but that’s a really nice way to describe it. If we.

David Vogelpohl (04:20)

very cool.

Nice, nice. I like the very simple explanation I needed to understand sometimes.

Sahil Patel (04:31)

We do this thousands of times a day. So what we’re looking for is not kind of one company running one test. If they do it, so what? It’s an anecdote, I’m not running out, tell them, I gotta say, you should go run this test. But for example, if we see 10 companies all run the same test and they converge on an answer, it’s what we call a proven winner. Those are the kind of tests that we like to run for our clients.

David Vogelpohl (04:59)

Right, because things are so specific to a specific company, I guess. So if you can look at multiple data points across multiple companies and find that common factor, you could identify something that would be, kind of in a sense, universally applicable to lots and lots of companies. Is that the gist?

Sahil Patel (05:15)

That’s right. That’s right. And you don’t have to look far to find one. I’ll give you an example of something that’s actionable for everyone listening at home if they say, well, hey, I’d love to try one of these. What have you learned that I could do right away? A great one to try is to show— But here’s the context. We’re talking about B2B SaaS companies.

And the problem many of them have is go to the home page. They have a picture of a happy person at the top of the page. Marketers call this the hero section of the page. This happy person costs you a ton of conversions. It doesn’t tell you anything about the product. It’s boring. And when someone is looking at your website, they’re there to buy software, which is to be really clear. They’re there to feel good about themselves.

They’re looking for product, and they’re somewhere on their buying journey. Some are early, some are ready to buy. That’s where they are. And the answer is, the A-B test I would run is, instead of showing a picture of a happy person in the variant, I would show a screenshot of your product.

And then run that test. Our data shows that just doing that can get you about 12 % more conversions from your website, from the traffic you already get, which is the beauty of conversion rate optimization, CRO. Take the traffic you already have, you run a split test, and you have the data to show whether it works for you or not. And you’re not blindly copying. You’re running the test. You’re not just doing it. But we’ve now seen this test run hundreds of times and has a high, high likelihood of

outperforming the picture of the happy person, that stock imagery of the person with a nice looking shirt looking or peering at a laptop looking at me. Who are all these happy people, by the way? Like what makes them so happy? I guess it’s better than sad people, but happy people don’t really convert that well. Pictures of your product convert much better.

David Vogelpohl (07:23)

Yeah, this debate actually is raging and FastSpring right now, which is like, okay, do we favor product images or people images and what degrees do we do that? Which one’s in the hero? Which one’s not like that kind of thing.

Sahil Patel (07:35)

And what’s the debate? I love that you’re sharing that, because my guess is people who are listening to this podcast are probably inclined to show the product. They get it. They maybe hear some this, this anecdote for me that there’s data behind it. But the reality, the messy reality is they have to then go convince some people internally. They may not be able to unilaterally run this AB test or just make the change. So what’s that? What’s that debate like internally? What’s the other side for the people that are.

in favor of showing more people on the website.

David Vogelpohl (08:08)

I think it connects to what I’ve seen is a shift in marketers mentality around CRO relative to optimizing favoring for emotion versus optimizing favoring for information. I heard this recently at Winter Games, but folks were talking about like people are there to buy products and features, not necessarily the outcome.

And so the outcome to me is an example of an emotion, right? Rest easy, do good at your job because of our product, hit your targets because we’re going to help you do that versus I need an ad network. I need an analytics platform. And so I think internally, what I think is at the root of the debates and many of these debates I’ve been in in the past is the blend between.

optimizing for emotion versus optimizing for information. So that’s my off the cuff version. How do you think about that, Sahil?

Sahil Patel (09:10)

Well, so first of all, thank you for sharing, because I think this is the messy reality of conversion rate optimization. So we don’t operate in a vacuum of a pristine laboratory where the only thing that matters is there’s a data set that tells us you should run this test. We’re human beings with, we come with baggage, good baggage, bad baggage, prior experience, a perspective.

And changing anything in an organization is hard. You have to do the work of selling it. Here’s a couple of ways I might sell it. One is through an analogy. I think the second is putting yourself in the point of view of your audience. And both of them are helpful. The first one I would say is this is sometimes if you want to actually make an emotional win the argument or persuade people through an emotional argument, I’d say this.

Think about, and I’ll ask David, I’ll post it to you. Let’s pretend that I was on one side of this, you were on the other. And I was saying, we need to show more product. And you’re saying, no, we’re giving you motion. I ask you this. Can you think of the last car commercial you saw? What was it? And I’m asking for real. What was it?

David Vogelpohl (10:25)

You’re asking the wrong person. I probably haven’t seen a commercial in like two years.

Sahil Patel (10:28)

Okay, well, think back two years. What was the last car commercial you saw? Okay, Ford. Can you picture the commercial in your mind? Like what was happening?

David Vogelpohl (10:32)

Let’s just say Ford.

It primarily pictures images of the truck that I saw.

Sahil Patel (10:42)

Yeah, if it was an F -150, it shows the truck driving up a mountain, probably going over some water and rocks. Maybe the people are putting their stuff, their camping gear. There’s probably some emotion. Maybe it shows them doing some happy activity that they’re only able to do because the Ford truck got them there. Fair? Is that?

David Vogelpohl (11:02)

But the person is often obfuscated, which you could argue is like that gives you room to be the person in the truck basically. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (11:10)

Yep, that’s right. That’s right. Now, if you reran that commercial and you digitally erased the truck, just think about what that commercial would look like. What would it be? What would you see?

David Vogelpohl (11:25)

smiling people at the beach enjoying their outcome of a trip and a hard to reach place because they had their trucks, something like that.

Sahil Patel (11:32)

Yeah, and you get the scenery, right? You see the camera panning, the bridge, the rocks, the mountain. Now, the little subtitle at the bottom says, closed course, do not try this at home, would make absolutely no sense. And the commercial wouldn’t work. You’d be like, what is this? Is this for a camping? And the emotion is there, but people buy a car. They buy it for a lot of reasons.

functional reasons, emotional reasons, value reasons. And you don’t know on any one day who is going to watch that commercial, just like you don’t know on any one day who’s coming to your home page. But if you wouldn’t run a car ad, I mean, no one in their right mind would run a car ad without showing the car. I don’t know why anyone would, when you put it that way, would anyone do a home page for a B2B SaaS company, not show the product? So that’s the analogy.

David Vogelpohl (12:26)

Yeah.

Yeah, if I was making a web page for a truck, I’d have a picture of the truck in the hero, not a picture of a smiling person. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (12:34)

There you go. Number two, this is the more, I would say, trying to be a pragmatist. Put yourself in the perspective of the random person that comes to your website. You’ve got about one second to convince them to stay. That’s the job of the hero section of the home page. It’s not to sell the product.

It’s not to explain the value of the product. It’s not even to convince them to read and educate, much less convert. Convert here means they maybe click, see a demo.

just to get them to stay. You’ve got about a second. So it can’t be complicated. It can’t be nuanced. And it has to cut through the noise. Your brain processes images faster than words. If you just ask yourself, does the happy person, which, by the way, could appear on any website on Earth, is it going to convince someone to stay? My guess is that FastSpring, you have competitors. Every company does. It’s got to be something that’s going to be to be

I always assume that they’ve looked at five competitors before they get to my home page. There’s got to be something in under a second that tells them, OK, let’s stay.

David Vogelpohl (13:56)

And this is intuitive and it’s interesting to hear how you’re looking at multiple tests, including those you’re not personally running to determine like who’s running these kinds of tests and what is like this universal signal. And that’s interesting to hear about featuring products over people. To dial it in a little bit on the B2B side of the CRO equation, what does that mean to you? Like, what are you optimizing? What are you trying to drive when you…

run a B2B CRO test?

Sahil Patel (14:27)

What I’m optimizing, great question, is can I get more people from the traffic you already get to turn into a sales prospect?

full stop.

Now, let’s unpack what a sales prospect means. But let’s be real simple, crisp definition. Traffic you already have, get more people to turn into a sales prospect.

Sales prospect if you’re a product -led growth company it can be that sign up for that 10 -day free trial If you’re a sales led company it’s Get a demo talk to sales get a quote some variation of it that’s for your highest intent audience. It’s the most valuable audience. That’s what everyone craves. It’s the hand raisers that go Hey, I may not be ready to buy but I’m ready to move towards the purchase

David Vogelpohl (15:20)

Thanks.

Sahil Patel (15:26)

That’s what I focus on. That’s what most of my clients, that’s where the value is, it’s what moves the needle. If you fully optimize that, then you start moving higher up the funnel for things like downloading a white paper, signing up for a webinar, reading some content. You should do all those, by the way. But you should start with the highest value, highest intent conversion on your website. And B2B SaaS, it’s a good idea.

Get a demo slash talk to sales or start your free trial. It’s almost always one of those two things.

David Vogelpohl (16:03)

I’m assuming for those metrics you’re excluding disqualifieds and things like that. Like it’s obviously more than just a form fill. When you think of quote prospect.

Sahil Patel (16:09)

Yeah.

Yeah. You should rate your lift based on the quality of the lift. Getting more lift, I don’t want to say it’s easy because nothing in life is easy, but you can do parlor tricks to just get more form fill. Cut out all the fields. Make it a single field. Sure, you should get garbage. You should track first. Did you get more of your traffic to fill out the form fill? Because if you can’t do that, none of the other stuff matters.

David Vogelpohl (16:40)

You didn’t –

Sahil Patel (16:40)

Once you do that, then say how, go ahead, David, sorry, please, you’re about to ask a question.

David Vogelpohl (16:44)

I was going to say what I didn’t hear you say is like your initial thing you’re optimizing for the primary thing is the softer leads, like the webinar, ebook download type stuff. A lot of folks place a lot of value in that one. We’ll even mention that as the primary thing they’ll optimize for, for B2B CRO. Why didn’t that make your cut for your top KPI?

Sahil Patel (17:07)

It doesn’t make my cut for two reasons. I’m going to put my CEO hat on.

I’ve got a revenue and a profit target I gotta hit. That target is on my back and I wake up every day thinking about it.

demo requests, free trial starts, or account sign -ups is what gets me to my target as soon as possible. It’s the highest intent, highest value, closest to revenue conversion you have on your website. Now, if you fully optimize that and you’re hitting diminishing returns on your A-B testing efforts, by all means, work on those softer, lower intent. Use some marketing speak.

top of the funnel or tofu type of leads. Sure, you should do it. I’m not saying there’s not value. You shouldn’t do that. But always, always, always start with your most valuable, highest intent conversion.

David Vogelpohl (18:04)

Yeah, it makes sense. Like they’re the most likely to emerge as pipeline and bookings. And so even if you’re optimizing those top of the funnel leads, you’re trying to get them to spit out the pipeline and bookings eventually. And if you’re putting too much value on the top of the funnel leads, then you may not even be representing real pipeline and bookings basically. Is that kind of the gist of how you think about it?

Sahil Patel (18:29)

100%, 100%. Let’s also go back to something I love that you raised at the beginning, just a few minutes ago, which is you’re having this internal debate about showing the product versus showing the people. I think if you have to sell people on just running the test, then you have to sell them on the outcome. Like here’s the results of the test.

I think if you are a CRO person, whatever your title is or function, you’re an agency or an in -house, you’re VP of digital, you’re an analyst, at some point you have to go to the senior people and say, we ran this test, here’s the outcome. And we got.

20 % more qualified sales leads. I validated them with the sales VP or the chief revenue officer and she’s thrilled.

Her pipeline is bigger, right? Yeah. Now, no, no, no, please go ahead.

David Vogelpohl (19:20)

So validating the quality of those as well. Right, because if I’m, go ahead.

If I’m only optimizing for raw qualified leads, but they don’t, they’re not quality as the sales team sees them. Cause qualified leads typically follow like a data pattern, right? Or a DQ from a rep. But then behind that, there’s still like a quality layer. And so what you’re saying is that by having the sales leaders validate those leads even further, it can help strengthen the case for why you should go with X or Y variant.

Sahil Patel (19:40)

That’s right.

It’s a, I’ve seen it happen and it’s a cautionary tale. You’re someone that works in marketing. You take a victory lap because you had this huge lift and then the sales leader goes, yeah, but they’re sh*t leads.

takes all the air out of the balloon. It’s not a fun moment.

David Vogelpohl (20:14)

Yeah, so take, so.

Yeah, I have fun in those moments because I learned something I learned. We didn’t work so try the next thing, but I know there’s like that sunk cost fallacy thing. People feel like when they spend a bunch of time testing something and it doesn’t work like all my ideas are bad or my execution was bad. Maybe, but like sometimes it just doesn’t work and like knowing that it’s valuable.

Sahil Patel (20:26)

Of course, of course.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is.

really your sales team, your revenue team, whatever you want to call them, ought to be the biggest proponents of conversion rate optimization for the website. They are the biggest beneficiaries. In fact, they should be not just willing, but asking to ante up and put their budget towards CRO because they’re the main benefits. What salesperson wouldn’t want 20 % more qualified leads inbound?

Now let’s go ahead, please.

David Vogelpohl (21:18)

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (21:23)

If we contrast that with you, I’m going back to the root question. Why do these type of conversions versus webinar signups? Because I think if you go to the sales leader and say, hey, we got you 20 % more webinar signups, I think he or she first goes, well, great, you got me from 30 people on an average webinar to 20 to 25. I’m not super excited about that. Also, if they say, well, what was the quality of that? Well, it’s going to be.

three months because we know from webinar sign up to drip campaign to nurture to sales demo takes three months and we know like one out of 50 actually turn into an opportunity. Just who’s going to get that excited about it? You got to do it. That’s an important part of the equation. It’s just not where I would start.

David Vogelpohl (22:12)

Earlier you said that sales leaders and salespeople should be the biggest advocates of CRO. I can think of a situation where it makes them very nervous and that is where you’re optimizing around lead gen.

Versus self -serve. Like I worked at a company called WP Engine We had like self -serve signups on the website and then like, you know schedule or demo or get a quote for like bigger services and If you want to you’re gonna test the the heartiness of your team start that debate around how you should change your pricing and packaging page with the blend of self -serve versus Lead forms and that the company was great. Everybody worked with is awesome

But obviously, this creates tension. So how do you think about that? How do you think about that blend in a B2B scenario where you have both the PLG self -serve motion and the sales -led motion?

Sahil Patel (23:07)

Ooh, you’re stepping. You’re opening a door. That’s tough to walk through, but it’s a really good one. Glad you asked it.

And let’s just assume for a moment that’s the right strategy for any particular company. You want to offer both. It fits your business model. I think the first thing is, I think you run different tests on both of those. And here’s why. They have very different down funnel conversion rates.

Because what you’re trying to do most of the time with PLG is make it as easy as possible to sign up and then give people really rewarding, fulfilling experience when they’re trialing your product. And industry average, what I read is somewhere between 8%, 10 % of free trials turn into a paying customer. And if you’re in that 15 to 20, you’re an all star. And I’ve seen some companies that are in like 3 % to 5%.

That’s a very different game versus the sales motion, which trying to do is just get people to talk to sales, but you don’t want to waste the sales team’s time. And you want to be a little bit more discerning with, hey, if you’re Sahil’s laundromat, why are you signing up for this enterprise software package? You’re going to waste my sales team’s time. So very different set of tasks. The first one is almost primarily about removing friction, getting people.

into that free trial as quickly as possible. And on the sales motion, I often run tests that are much more about improving the quality of the conversions so that the sales team goes, hey, my dance card is full of great prospects, real prospects. They’re in our ICP. They want to talk to me. They’re the kind of people I want to talk to. They have the headcount. They’ve got the revenue. They’ve got the problems that we can solve for.

David Vogelpohl (25:15)

If you separate your tasks on a page like that, obviously what’s good for self -serve and what’s good for sales assisted could be two totally different things, right? The best thing for sales assisted is to just delete the self -serve tiles. And the best thing for self -service is also to do that. The other way.

Sahil Patel (25:25)

Yes.

That’s a different strategy. That’s probably outside of CR conversion rate optimization.

David Vogelpohl (25:37)

Well, I mean, I really love extreme examples in business because it shows the tension. And so then obviously the answer is in the middle, right? And so I’m just curious, like if you have seen anything in the clients you’ve worked with or had any observations, it would be helpful about how to think about that tension. Like the way I’ve approached it in the past is, well, look, it’s all a revenue game. How much revenue did the A or the B shoot out? And…

Who cares about the mix of self -serve and sales assisted? So that’s one way I’ve approached it. I’m just curious like how you’ve seen it then.

Sahil Patel (26:15)

Is the question, David, like, how do you decide whether to hide one or the other? I think I lost you there.

David Vogelpohl (26:22)

I think the question is, if you’re a CRO in a scenario where you have both self -serve and sales assisted, what are some ways to deal with your test to get the most value for the company?

Sahil Patel (26:34)

to get the most value for the company.

David Vogelpohl (26:41)

I mean, how do you make the call? How do you know which one won or lost? If you tank the sales team’s leads with a B, that increased the total revenue, do you call that test? Yeah.

Sahil Patel (26:53)

I would. I would. Now, let me say, so let’s take that use case. You run an A-B test, and it shows why you’re getting fewer conversions. The conversions you do get are higher quality. Higher quality mean they fit the ICP, and the sales team says a higher percentage of these are turning into sales accepted or sales qualified leads. I think that’s the scenario you’re talking about. Is that right? Yeah. So first of all, I think most companies will take that all day long.

David Vogelpohl (27:17)

Yeah, basically.

Sahil Patel (27:22)

and I would call it a win.

Now the answer is there’s a trade -off that you have to measure. Is 10 % fewer leads for 10 % more qualified leads better? Most salespeople will take that.

David Vogelpohl (27:40)

What if you got 10 % less everything for sales, but total revenue went up? These are the types of decisions that I feel CROs have to make. And obviously, if you tank the leads for the sales team, that probably means somebody is going to get laid off somewhere along the way. So that’s a bad thing for the business. And then if you increase revenue but decrease the number of people signing up,

Sahil Patel (27:41)

There’s some extreme though that’s not. Go ahead, please.

Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (28:06)

then your total addressable market will start going down. And so these are the pressures I felt in similar roles in the past. I’m just curious, like, if you, how you think about it. We can keep going too. I was just curious.

Sahil Patel (28:16)

That’s a good one. It’s a good one. Here, I’ll answer this one. Let’s keep going. Let’s assume you mean you can actually attribute the change in revenue to that particular AB test. Is that right? That’s what you’re saying? OK. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I would tell everyone to throw just a word of caution. The further you get from the whatever activity you measured in your CRO test, you should take it with a bigger grain of salt. So.

David Vogelpohl (28:28)

Yeah, let’s assume that I get how tricky that yeah.

Sahil Patel (28:46)

you know, the form fill total, I think 100 % attribution, the impact on sales acceptedly pretty strong. Sales qualified lead also pretty strong. Opportunity, yeah, I’d put a lot of stock in that. Now, you know, kind of the value of the deal.

the whether it closed or not and the rate at which it closed, I would want to see a really big effect size before I drew a conclusion. Like a small nudge.

David Vogelpohl (29:15)

And the further you get.

Sahil Patel (29:19)

I would be hesitant to then claim a big conclusion about the impact. Because there’s so many other things that could have affected it. Do a trade show. You got a bunch of better leads. There’s some seasonal affect, all kinds of things.

David Vogelpohl (29:26)

Yeah, that’s a real…

Yeah, it’s a really good point, especially as you get further down the funnel in those metrics. And of course, those metrics get smaller and smaller. So it makes it, yeah.

Sahil Patel (29:44)

Yeah, your n is smaller. Yeah, I mean, a word of gosh, verily is like, don’t take your statistical significance on your conversion, like the form fill, and just assume that that’s true all the way down the funnel. It’s usually not.

David Vogelpohl (30:00)

Yeah, it definitely gets tricky, especially if you have like wildly different pipeline amounts or something per deal, like average deal size is like some whale will come in and you’re like our B1 and you’re like, well, not really. Just look at the op. You just got lucky. Yeah. So,

Sahil Patel (30:12)

is heavily tilted by this one. Yeah. Great point.

David Vogelpohl (30:19)

So that kind of brings up my next question, which what are the benefits or drawbacks of actually using pipeline and bookings? Like if I go to our CEO and ask about some test, he’s always like, well, how much pipeline and bookings sped out the other side of it? And rightfully so. But like, what are some other drawbacks and benefits to using those down funnel metrics?

Sahil Patel (30:38)

Well, I think that the main benefit is it gets the attention of the C -suite and it increases the likelihood that they will invest in CRO activities on an ongoing basis. That’s, I think, the most important thing and the best reason for using what CRO people call down funnel metrics. The impact not just on the form fill, but on sales, qualified lead, activation, account sign -up, whatever those things are, eventually revenue.

And you got to do it, and you should do it, and you shouldn’t shy away from it. I would lead with it, number one. And number two, the more you talk about it, the more you present it, the more space you have to then put caveats and just say, hey, let’s be realistic about what we know and what we think we know is the impact. And some of this is we have to speculate.

or we have to make a lot of assumptions for these realistic assumptions. But I would not shy away from it. When we do, I’ll say when I work with my clients, the impact on pipeline and on revenue is one of the first things we show them.

David Vogelpohl (31:53)

Yeah, it’s so important because there’s the politics of getting your testing invested in, getting the resources you need, the attention you need. And then as you pointed out earlier, kind of selling the results internally. And if your CEO or other leaders are asking about pipeline or bookings, it’s great to lead with that. I like that. Kind of reminds me of the trick of using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to convince your boss your website should be faster. See, Google thinks it’s slow. Yeah.

Sahil Patel (32:19)

Yes.

It’s good. It’s objective. It’s good. And I think that maybe the lesson learned, the actual insight I would tell everyone is spend a lot of time, maybe more than you think you need to, on testing the assumptions behind your estimated impact of an experiment on pipeline and revenue.

David Vogelpohl (32:44)

So earlier, you had mentioned that in your tests you’ve done and the kind of analysis you do of the 30 ,000 sites doing A-B testing, that product images are beating people images. You tend to. Yeah, I get it’s not absolute. Thank you for that clarification. What are a couple of other winning tactics you’ve detected that people could write down and go try on their own?

Sahil Patel (32:58)

They tend to, yes. They tend to.

Yeah, great question. Let’s do some actionable insights that people can take away. The second one I would do is, this is a great one to do on a home page or a landing page, is a quantitative bold claim headline.

I’ll give you an example. We’re in a client’s landing page, and it said something like this. Next gen.

financial reporting software.

It was just so bland. What does next gen mean? It says what it is. There’s no hook. There’s no benefit. It’s soft. I don’t think it persuades anyone. Just as bad as, you know, the number one financial reporting software. Just number one at what to whom? And no one 10x better than everyone else. No one believes that. It’s just not credible. There’s no benefit.

Now a better headline might be like, close your books 20 % faster than with spreadsheets.

I’m talking about this financial reporting software package. It’s specific, it’s quantitative, and it’s believable because it’s clear it’s 20 % better than what. Maybe it’s 20 % faster than using SAP, if you’re allowed to say it. You may not be allowed to say that. This is a great test to run, one, because it doesn’t require a heavy investment to run the test. You don’t have to do a lot of software development or designers or fancy graphics.

And you can run these tests very quickly at a low cost. Number two, it forces you to really articulate what is the value of our product? What is the hook that gets someone to stop scrolling and say, hey, this is the value to me. It’s not the emotion. It’s the benefit. So that’s number one. Number two.

is go on your website and find anything that’s more than two lines, like two line breaks. Turn it into bullet points. We call that skimmability.

David Vogelpohl (35:26)

is the benefit that you feel there? Like I feel like, I guess you’ve seen this in test results, that there’s different schools of thought on this. One thought is there’s skimmers and there’s readers and long form content is good for the readers and bulleted bold content is good for the skimmers. And there’s tension here too, when you create a landing page, cause you’re like, well, wait a minute, some.

Sahil Patel (35:32)

Mm -hmm.

David Vogelpohl (35:52)

I know our technical buyers, they like to read, you know, things like that. How do you how do you think about that? Like that’s that’s a bold claim even even in and of itself.

Sahil Patel (36:02)

So I’ll put some context around it first. I’m talking about a landing page, a home page, product page, not a blog, which is a blog should feel a little bit more conversational, a little bit more prose. You’re trying to get some people to think. But I think for everything else, home page, pricing page, demo request page, solution page, landing page especially.

No one is reading. Exactly 0 % of your audience wants to read. They’re all skimmers. And if you have any doubt about it, just go to YouTube. Go to TikTok. There’s a place for long -form content. It’s very valuable, high engagement. That’s why they call it long -form content. That is not what people are doing on your website. You’re fooling yourself if you think that’s what people want to do. Now.

David Vogelpohl (36:56)

So it’s.

Sahil Patel (36:56)

If you want to put that, I’ll just add a part. If you want someone to skim, and they like, and they want more, then take them to a place with more detail. Put that below the fold. Find a link. Read more here. You take them to your blog page or your detail page. Yeah, there’s a part of your audience that wants that when they’re ready for it. But don’t start there. No one wants a wall of text.

David Vogelpohl (37:20)

So it seems like you’re kind of positioning, and I’m going to paraphrase a little bit, that your home page and pages like that kind of have two jobs, to give you the gist and to point you in the right direction, where.

Sahil Patel (37:31)

Actually, I might change that a little bit. Your home page is there to get people to stop scrolling.

Full stop.

Once you’ve done that, then you do those other two things.

David Vogelpohl (37:48)

Ooh, I like that variation. And then my other follow -up question real quick on your bold claim one, I thought it was interesting the way you described that, you know, close your books 20 % faster. I feel like most people think of bold claims as like representing their scale, you know, over 2 million businesses trust whoever, you know, like that kind of thing over like an outcome oriented bold stat. Did you choose that example like that on purpose or do you think, okay.

Sahil Patel (38:13)

I did. I did. Bolt claims should be a direct benefit to the user. You then support that claim with the copywriting on the page. One of those points can be social proof.

Our data shows bold claim, especially when it’s quantitative and specific, with support. And one of those support things is social proof, like 2 million happy customers, whatever, quadrant leader according to Gartner, five stars on Capterra. Those help people believe the bold claim. But the reverse is not as effective. If you lead with a,

you know, four stars on Capterra and then the sub bullet is close the books 20 % faster. It doesn’t perform as well. Yeah.

David Vogelpohl (39:05)

It doesn’t make sense as a story, even. Yeah. All right, that’s cool. Last question. If someone wants to get in touch or see what you’re up to, how should they do that?

Sahil Patel (39:17)

The best place is on LinkedIn. I post every Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 .30 AM Eastern.

David Vogelpohl (39:25)

Ooh, very scheduled there. I like it. Sounds like you.

Sahil Patel (39:28)

It is, and I try to keep everything short, sweet. You can get something from it in about 60 seconds.

David Vogelpohl (39:37)

Excellent, excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining and sharing today, Sahil. So glad to have you here.

Sahil Patel (39:43)

David, thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun.

David Vogelpohl (39:46)

If you’d like to learn more about what Sahil is up to, you can also visit spiralyze.com. Thanks everyone for joining us on the Growth Stage Podcast. Again, I’m your host David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community here at FastSpring, and I love to bring the best of the community to you here on the Growth Stage Podcast. Thanks everybody.

The post EP22: Proven A/B Test Winners for B2B CRO appeared first on FastSpring.

After signing up, most users will cancel, deactivate, or never log in and use the free account. In other words, they churn. And unless you send out a post-trial survey, there’s a good chance you’ll never know why that user didn’t complete a purchase.

Sure, sometimes you’ll run into an “it’s not you. It’s me” situation. But most of the time, it’s because you need to make some changes.

If you’re looking to convert more free trial and freemium users, focusing on marketing and user experience is the way to go. Let’s explore a few solutions for 4 of the most common reasons trial users churn.

1. The Product Doesn’t Meet User Expectations
2. The Activation Process Only Focuses on Conversions
3. The Onboarding Experience is Inefficient or Broken
4. The Pricing Doesn’t Match Perceived Value

1. The Product Doesn’t Meet User Expectations

In an effort to get new customers, you may be tempted to exaggerate your product’s capabilities. While this can help you get more users to sign up, it won’t help you win fans or paying customers. It’ll probably do more harm than good.

This also goes for companies with software that serves multiple use cases or has too many features. Without a clear picture of how you deliver on specific promises or what purpose a feature set serves, it’s easy for customers to get confused or miss out on some of the best parts of your product.

How to solve this:

Work on your messaging. When listing results your users can expect, be honest and think of problems and solutions vs. features and benefits. If one of your customers happens to get amazing outcomes, don’t just sit on it or share it internally. Use their story as a case study and show off their results! The important part here is to not over promise and tell everyone that they can expect the same results. Instead, show them what’s possible when users use your product.

Talk to specific people with niche use cases. When companies say they can solve nearly every problem, most people think it won’t solve any problem completely. Because it sounds like you lack the nuance! Remember, every industry and business model has different pain points, no matter how similar they are. Instead, call out a few different personas and get really granular about the environment they’re used to, the challenges they face, and how your solution uniquely solves for their needs in a personalized way.

2. The Activation Process Only Focuses on Conversions

Digital businesses love data and analytics. Clicks, traffic, conversions, form fills – if there’s a metric, we’re probably tracking it. And why wouldn’t we? By now, we’ve all been programmed with sayings like, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

But sometimes we need to jump out of the data and focus on user experience. When it comes to free accounts, it’s chess not checkers. Think about the long game. After that initial click and that signup, what happens next? This is when it’s time to focus on the buyer journey and providing ROI.

Without this, most of your users will never realize those proof points you list on your website. When you say you can “supercharge your ______”, your customers are going to expect those results. So how do you go beyond conversions and help customers get a win?

How to solve this: 

Create habits and become indispensable. After a sign up, your most important task is making your product part of the user’s daily workflow. The easiest way to do this is by optimizing your marketing email nurtures and product tours toward a single action. Remove all the friction after sign up and add value within the first 30 minutes, if possible. Our CMO (Andy Jolls) calls this guiding users toward a magic moment, which can happen over email, a Pendo guide, product tour, GIF, etc. The idea is to make them remember your product and see the value, fast.

3. The Onboarding Experience is Inefficient or Broken

Your onboarding experience is where you build on those magic moments and help your users develop habits around your product. There are way too many brands that use the onboarding process as a checklist to get data from users, and while data is valuable, it’s not the point of onboarding.

Think about it this way: when you onboard to a new job, the whole point is for the company to set you up for success in your new role. Onboarding to a product should be no different. 

Here’s an example of what a broken onboarding experience might look like:

1. You sign up for an image editing tool that promises tons of editing options while being super easy to use. 
2. As you make your way to the user interface, you realize all the features they promised were actually only part of the paid version. You’re already frustrated. 
3. But you forge ahead and try to upload an image to edit… and can’t find how to upload the image, because the interface is too complicated. 
4. You close the tool, cancel your trial, and start researching competitors. 

How to solve this:  

Focus on habits, not timeframes. Because a lot of free trials and freemium accounts have time-based constraints, many people think onboarding is limited to the first few steps or first few days that someone starts using your software. But the truth is, onboarding should last as long as it takes a user to become comfortable and confident using your tool. If that takes 30 days and your trials only last 7 days, then focus on getting users comfortable faster.

If no matter how hard you try, you can’t do that, then it’s time to look at the product or length of your trial/freemium account. Here’s how to decide the length and format of a trial/freemium program:

1. Factor in how complicated a product is and what features to start with
2. Consider what plan users start with and what they need to do to unlock other tiers
3. Decide which features require data or additional information to work

Add limitations to fast-track value. I know it sounds weird to provide less in order to increase value, but the truth is that your free plan only needs to have enough to give users a taste of the full service. Tease the premium features and position them in a way that explains what they’ll be able to do with the product. Another approach is to limit how many times they can use a feature or how long they can use it for. 

Consider Zoom vs. Google Meet. Zoom shows you all the features up front, and lets you use them, but only for a limited amount of time. As a result, users who need longer meetings will upgrade their account. Google Meet on the other hand has a TON of powerful features, but they don’t even show them in the basic tiers, so most people have no idea that it can go toe to toe with Zoom on so many levels.

The easiest way to figure out what to limit is by talking to your customers and asking them what they wish they could do differently at work.

4. The Pricing Doesn’t Match Perceived Value

SaaS pricing is truly a science. It can be so difficult to determine what your product is worth, or better yet, what your customers are willing to pay for it. If you price it too low, people will think your product is low quality and not worth the investment no matter how small. If you price it too high, people will think you’re trying to rip them off.

How to solve this: 

Test, test, test. Run tests to see what price points work for your product. If your product has lots of different features, you may want to consider offering tiered products, so people can pay more based on additional features and functionality. But before you do any testing, I’m going to risk contradicting myself and say you need to consider how you’re going to track baseline metrics like conversion rate, churn, average deal size, lifetime value, etc. but keep in mind that not every test will be successful. Keep testing every few months and eventually you’ll move in the right direction.

Use customer-focused frameworks. If you’re deciding pricing by talking amongst a few of your coworkers and creating some slides for your CEO, then you’re headed in the wrong direction. This guesswork will almost inevitably lead to you leaving a ton of money on the table. Instead, use a framework that leverages data from your target customers to “quantify” your buyer personas and understand who they are, what they want, and ultimately how much they’re willing to pay for what they want from your product.

There are three main pricing surveys industry professionals rely on for this:

• Van Westendorp Pricing Studies (our recommendation)
• Gabor Granger Pricing Analysis
• Conjoint Analysis

Need help increasing conversions?

If your trials aren’t producing the results you want, don’t worry. You have options. It’s all about understanding the customer—how they interact with your product, what they value, and their expectations. And if you need an extra pair of eyes or some help smoothing out the process, FastSpring is always here to help.

The post 4 Common Reasons Why Free Trials and Freemium Users Don’t Convert and How to Solve Them appeared first on FastSpring.

An ecommerce business without conversion rate optimization is like a car without wheels — it won’t take you anywhere. How are you qualifying leads and converting leads to customers? Do you have a solid process in place to reduce abandoned carts?

The best-in-class brands make $4 for every $1 spent on marketing and advertising by localizing their checkout and using add-ons to drive up average order value.

If you want to learn how to 2x your conversion rate, we’ve curated 12 tactics you can use to convert more visitors into paying customers. We’ve also included time estimates for each task to help you prioritize your time and use your resources wisely.

Table of contents:

1. Add “Buy Now” Button to Homepage
2. Reduce Number of Clicks
3. Optimize Page Speed
4. Feature Localized Currency
5. Use Localized Call-to-Action
6. Offer Multiple Pricing Options
7. Keep Your Online Shopping Carts Secure
8. Implement Localized Carts
9. Optimize for Mobile
10. Minimize Number of Pages
11. Send Abandoned-Cart Emails
12. Reduce Number of From Fields

Ecommerce Optimization Basics

When it comes to increasing conversions on your site, you want the customer experience to be as simple as possible. Here are the first things you should consider when optimizing your conversion process.

1. Add “Buy Now” Button to Homepage

Don’t make your customer search your website for specific product pages in order to complete a purchase. By featuring a “Buy Now” button on your homepage, you reduce friction and get your customers one step closer to completing a purchase directly from your home page.

Benefits of a “Buy Now” Button on Homepage:

·      Improved speed of purchase

·      Reduced number of clicks and pages before completing a purchase

·      Simplified checkout process

Estimated Time to Add a Buy Button to Homepage: 1-2 hours

2. Reduce Number of Clicks

More clicks mean more opportunities for prospects to bounce. The best way to reduce the number of clicks when completing a purchase is to streamline the checkout process. With adjustments to only the checkout process, CaptureOne experienced a 40% increase in conversions using FastSpring’s easy-to-use localized popup checkout.

So, before you get your developers and designers ready for a complete checkout overhaul, take a look at some of FastSpring’s checkout examples.

Benefits of Reducing Clicks:

·      Reduced speed to purchase

·      Decreased cart abandonment

·      Increased conversion rate

Estimated Time to Streamline Checkout Process: The timing depends on if you redesign your checkout process internally or use one of FastSpring’s templates. In general, FastSpring’s checkout flows can be implemented much faster than if you start from scratch.

3. Optimize Page Speed

Load time has a huge impact on the user experience. In fact, 79% of online shoppers say they won’t go back to a website if they’ve had trouble with page load speed. In short, faster is better. But to give you a better idea of the types of speeds we’re talking about, a two-second delay in web page load time increases bounce rates by 103%.

Benefits of a Fast Website:

·      Better customer experience

·      Improved speed to purchase

·      Decreased bounce rate

·      Better website ranking 

Estimated Time to Increase Website Speed: 1 to 7 days

How to Optimize Your Store and Products for Conversions

Improving your online store and product pages is all about catering to your audience as much as possible. That means customizing when possible and offering localized options.

4. Feature Localized Currency

When selling to a global market, especially software and SaaS products, it’s important to localize your checkout experience with the correct local currency and language of your potential buyers.

Surveys have shown that 60-70% of people are likely to abandon an online purchase if they don’t see the product’s price in their native currency. Localized pricing has also proven to increase international conversions by up to 40%.

Benefits of Using Localized Currency:

·      Improved customer experience

·      Decreased speed to purchase

·      Reduced cart abandonment

Estimated Time to Implement Localized Currency: 0.5 to 5 hours

5. Use Localized Calls-to-Action

Did you know that 49% of the world’s Internet users are in Asia and almost 4.2 billion people in the world are now online? So, if you want to increase your global footprint, you should consider expanding beyond the US and possibly into Asian markets.

But as you’ve probably guessed, there are language barriers when selling to foreign markets. Which means you need to be aware of differences in language and culture. Luckily, FastSpring already has automated tools available that allow online stores to expand to foreign markets with localized best practices.

Benefits of Using Localized Calls-to-Action:

·      Improved customer experience

·      Reduced cart abandonment

·      Improved speed to purchase

Estimated Time to Implement Localized Calls-to-Action: 0.5 hours

6. Offer Multiple Pricing Options

Customers like options, especially when it comes to subscription products. They want to be able to customize the features they pay for, the length of their term, and payment frequency.

The trickiest part of offering multiple price points is determining how to price each of your products. Once you’ve decided on features and prices, FastSpring makes it easy to list and manage your subscriptions.

Benefits of Offering Multiple Pricing Options:

·      Increased customer retention

·      Improved purchase experience

·      Reduced speed to purchase

Estimated Time to Add Multiple Pricing Options: 0.5 hours

How to Optimize Your Shopping Cart for Conversions

When potential customers reach your shopping cart, they’ve already passed the biggest hurdles in the purchase process. Now you just need to make sure your checkout process is as seamless and simple as possible.

7. Keep Your Online Carts Secure

Customers want to know their personal information is protected. With FastSpring’s optimized and secure carts, online businesses are able to minimize fraudulent transactions, gain access to up-to-date global compliance, and improve privacy and security. These security measures not only keep customer data safe, but they help prevent the loss of revenue due to fraud.

Benefits of Securing Your Online Shopping Cart:

·      Increased customer trust

·      More control over your shopping cart

·      Trusted and secure checkout experience

Estimated Time to Secure Your Online Shopping Cart: 1-24 hours per product

8. Implement Localized Carts

Build a native shopping experience for your customers based on their physical location. Make sure your carts display the appropriate currency, payment method, language, and overall look that aligns with local preferences.

Online stores that don’t localize their checkout process run the risk of losing the 60-70% of people who say they are likely to abandon an online purchase if they don’t see the product price in their native currency.

On the other hand, it’s been shown that happy customers—those who are given a customized buying experience—spend more.

Benefits of Using Localized Carts:

·      Increased average order value (AOV)

·      Consistent buyer experience

·      Improved speed to purchase

Estimated Time to Implement Localized Carts: 1-2 hours

9. Optimize for Mobile

Did you know that 43% of smartphone users worldwide use their phones to shop online?

And, not surprisingly, those customers prefer their mobile shopping experience to be in their native language.

To keep your mobile customers happy, make sure your online store is mobile responsive. That means adjusting landing pages to fit different mobile devices, making call-to-action buttons legible, and allowing customers to checkout on-site.

Benefits of Optimizing for Mobile:

·      Consistent buyer experience

·      Reduced bounce rate

·      Higher customer satisfaction

Estimated Time to Optimize for Mobile: 1 to 7 days

How to Optimize Checkout Experience for Conversion

10. Minimize Number of Pages

The longer your checkout process, the more likely your customers are to bounce. In order to decrease bounce rate and increase conversion, you need to minimize the number of steps in your checkout process. In other words, reduce the number of clicks before they push the “Complete Purchase” button.

For example, Fireshot was able to increase their conversion rate by 40% with FastSpring’s Full-Stack platform. The platform helped them streamline their checkout process by optimizing each page in the checkout process.

Benefits of Reducing Steps in the Checkout Process:

·      Improved speed to purchase

·      Decreased bounce rate

·      Simplified checkout experience

Estimated Time to Reduced Number of Pages: 1-24 hours per product

11. Send Abandoned-Cart Emails

Studies show that the average abandonment rate is 79.17%. While this number can vary by industry, it’s also been shown that abandoned-cart emails can recover up to 30% of lost sales.  

And sending out abandoned-cart emails has never been easier. FastSpring now captures customers’ email addresses, which means FastSpring can automatically add potential customers who have abandoned their carts to a specific remarketing list within your third-party mailing list (like MailChimp). You can then design remarketing emails to convert potential customers into actual customers.

Benefits of Sending Abandoned-Cart Emails:

·      Reduced cart abandonment

·      Increased customer loyalty

·      Increased sales

Estimated Time to Set Up Abandoned-Cart Emails: 1 to 2 hours

12. Reduce Number of Form Fields

Online shoppers don’t want to spend a ton of time filling out form fields, especially if they’re shopping on a mobile device. So, in order to increase conversions during your checkout process, reduce the number of required form fields. In other words, don’t ask shoppers to fill out information that isn’t absolutely necessary to complete a transaction.

We’ve found that conversion rates can increase by as much as 40% just by streamlining the checkout process and reducing the number of clicks and fields required before clicking the “Complete Purchase” button.

Benefits of Reducing the Number of Form Fields:

·      Improved speed to purchase

·      Decreased bounce rate

·      Simplified checkout experience

Estimated Time to Reduce Number of Form Fields: 1-2 hours

You can increase your online store’s conversion rate by simply adding a “Buy Now” button to your homepage or by overhauling your entire website. Either way, there’s a conversion strategy to fit every budget and time frame. For more ideas on how to improve your online store, check out our FastSpring solutions.

The post 12 Helpful Ways To Increase Your Ecommerce Conversion Rate in 2021 appeared first on FastSpring.