Five Best Practices in Online User Registration

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1 Five Best Practices in Online User Registration A common objective for a website is to convert an anonymous visitor to an engaged and active registered user. The challenge is to make this process easy for the visitor while still obtaining valuable demographic information that the site can then leverage to personalize the user experience. The good news is there are established best practices in implementing user registration, and it is possible to easily collect user data without sacrificing conversion rates. This marketing brief examines real world examples of how leading websites from the LA Times to LadyGaga have optimized online user registration processes. KEEP IT SIMPLE, DON T HIDE IT It may sound obvious, but the first step to improving registration rates is to make it obvious that the site wants visitors to register. Instead of concealing the registration and login option within a homepage, make it clear to visitors. Habbo, a virtual world and global online community, funnels visitors toward registration immediately by placing the registration form in a central part of the home page and showcasing the option to easily sign in or register with an existing Figure 1: Example of an obvious registration box on Habbo s website. identity at a social network. Simplifying the login and registration flows and avoiding lengthy registration forms, increases the chance of a completed process. With the goal of engaging the user quickly, only ask for data as needed. A great way to accomplish this is by letting users leverage an existing online identity. The Los Angeles Times is an excellent example of a site that make it obvious to readers that they can easily register on the site using an existing identity from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, AOL or MySpace. The LA Times actually only Figure 2: The LA Times requires readers to sign in with an existing identity. JANRAIN PG1

2 offers login through an existing identity, going so far as to run a promotion to encourage users to register with an account on a social network or from an identity provider. Taking It Global, the largest online community of youth interested in global issues and creating positive change, lets its visitors register and sign in via an existing social networking account, but used to hide the option to do so beneath the fold on its login page. After realizing that most visitors to the site were not scrolling down far enough to locate the option to sign in with an existing identity, Taking It Global redesigned its home page to make the option to join the Figure 3: Taking It Global s before and after login screens. community much more prominent. Now, clicking the Favicons (small icons) for any of the social networks on the home page triggers a lightbox window that invites the visitor to sign-in with an existing account. The change resulted in an increase of existing users signing-in eight times more often than previously, and a five-fold growth in user registrations from new visitors to the site. Combining the login and register fields into one interface for a single entry point into the system, creates a simpler experience for the user. Figure 4: UserVoice s login screen is an ideal example of how to present a clear and simple registration process. PROVIDE A CHOICE The growth in social networks and third party identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Twitter means that a large majority of visitors to a website already have an established social networking or account that they regularly use. Websites can increase registration rates and improve ROI by leveraging the existing accounts of their site visitors. It is important to keep in mind that it may be difficult to predict user login preferences, and therefore breadth of choice is equally important. Websites can capture the widest audience and boost conversion rates by supporting multiple identity providers. The following pie chart depicts which identity providers and social networks are most preferred by users for signing-in to websites across a sample of 170,000 1 websites worldwide and across JANRAIN PG2

3 industries. The data in Figure 5 clearly demonstrates a lack of consensus in user preference. Furthermore, user preferences vary significantly across vertical markets as shown by the sampling of media companies 2 in Figure 6. Figure 5: Sign in preference across all Janrain Engage customer websites. Figure 6: Sign in preference for sampling of media companies 2. User Interface Counts How the registration screen is presented to the site visitor can impact willingness to fill it out and complete the process. Marketers look to the conversion rate from site visitor to registered user 1. Sample set of media companies and technology platforms used Janrain Engage for login and registration. 2. Sample set of media companies using Janrain Engage for registration and login. as a key metric, and how the user interface for registration is presented can make the difference between a bounce and a conversion. The website LadyGaga.com offers a traditional username and password option, but showcases the option to sign in via an existing account from Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. This interface has Figure 7: LadyGaga.com s slimmed down version of the login setup. resulted in 89% of all new user registrations occurring via a social networking identity and an overall conversion rate that is double the rate of sign ins via the traditional username and password process. Get Satisfaction, a communitypowered online support platform chosen by 25,000 brands, uses an intuitive tab-style interface to allow users to select between Facebook, Google, Twitter, Windows Live, OpenID or a Get Satisfaction account for sign in. The login user interface appears in a sleek modal overlay window that Figure 8: GetSatisfaction uses a tabbed login approach to get users to sign in via their preferred social network. JANRAIN PG3

4 makes it apparent to users that they can easily login, all while preserving valuable homepage real estate and avoiding a full browser redirect. Just as critical as the first time registration is ensuring a positive return login experience. Once you have a registered user, the goal is to encourage them to always login when they come back to the site. The best way to do this is to provide a one click login experience through an authentication solution that remembers the user s preferred login provider and immediately prompts the user to login. Figure 9: An Example from DallasNews.com showing a repeat visit response that remembers the user s login information. Watch, Learn, Adjust the Power of Analytics On a macro level, tracking daily site traffic and registrations have become de facto metrics. By tracking conversion and drop off rates, as well as user preferences among identity providers, websites can make adjustments to how the registration page is presented. For example, if over time, a significant percentage of site visitors register with a few specific providers, highlight those on the homepage. Divine Caroline, a media site for women, calls out login through Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! on the homepage, and then offers additional choices through a login pop-up. Figure 10: Divine Caroline showcases the top three social network providers that the majority of their users tend to login with. WetPaint, a popular platform for building community sites and wikis, chose to make Windows Live the most prominent option for users. There is additional opportunity to drill further down into analytics to learn more about a site s audience and influence decisions. Websites that accept social identities for login can track which identity providers are most popular for login, and through a scoring system (based on number of comments left, number of purchases made, number of friends invited, or other metrics), determine the percentage of users Figure 11: An Example of making MSN the prominent login choice. JANRAIN PG4

5 from each service that become active users on the site. This can help a website further refine its offerings to a specific audience, adjust its registration user interface, or create an outreach strategy to reach even more prospective users at a particular social network. Make the Most of User Profile Data The primary objective of collecting registration data is for marketers to better understand their audience and customize their content and/or offerings to their users, ultimately improving ROI. A commerce site, for example, might recommend products to its users based on past purchasing behavior, gender, age or interests. A content site might serve targeted advertisements to users based on demographics. A community site would want to recommend friends to users based on their existing social graph or their geography and stream the activities of a user s friends on the site. These are all engagement metrics, and while they differ by site type, all require prior knowledge about the user in order to better personalize the experience. As mentioned earlier, one challenge is getting user data without sacrificing conversion rates by requiring completion of a lengthy registration form. A second challenge is collecting accurate data. Consumers today are increasingly impatient and uninterested in repeatedly entering personal information. As a result, user databases Figure 12: An example of an up-to-date rich dataset of valuable information about a user that is hosted on popular social networks. are often full of outdated information or spam. The good news is that internet users tend to maintain an accurate and updated profile on their preferred social networks or web mail accounts. By leveraging these accounts for authentication, a site can instantly gather rich profile data. And, in most cases, the data is more accurate than if the website collected the information through a registration form. Leading record label Interscope Geffen A&M, for example, presents users with a pre-populated registration form after they sign in with an identity from Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, MySpace or other networks. Because the user has agreed to share his or her profile information with Interscope Geffen A&M, the site can pull the profile data from the existing social network account and pre-populate the registration form. This expedites the signup process and helps ensure that the website will gain the most accurate and updated set of information on users when they register. JANRAIN PG5

6 Since users are more diligent about maintaining their profiles on Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and other networks, websites can help keep their user database current by collecting an updated set of data each time the user authenticates. If a Google user changes his or her address or location, the website can acknowledge that change Figure 13: Profile data that has been pulled into the IGA registration process from an existing social network account. without being dependent on the user to update the information on the site. Conclusion The process to get users through the front door of a website and engaging with content needs to be as simple and seamless as possible if an organization wants to win and keep mindshare. The growing popularity of social networks gives marketers an opportunity to leverage a user s existing profile for better customer insight, to inform decisions, increase registration rates and engagement, and ultimately yield a more positive return on investment from online activities. About Janrain Janrain helps organizations succeed on the social web with its user management platform. A key component of the platform is Janrain Engage, an enterprise-class, software as a service (SaaS) solution to enable a website to expedite the registration and login processes with a user s third party account, import user profile information and address books, and make it easy for a user to publish website activity back to multiple social networks. Companies enjoy higher registration rates, increased brand awareness and qualified referral traffic. The end-user benefits from a faster login and a more customized online experience. Janrain Engage is the only solution to support 16 identity providers and social networks including, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo! Janrain customers include industry leaders such as Universal Music Group, Kodak, Fox News, National Geographic Channel, and PayPal. Founded in 2005, Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, please call , or visit JANRAIN PG6