Case Study Conversion Optimization for Saas Startup 47.2% Subscription Conversion Rate Lift Business: Sector: Optimized Conversion: Solution: Expense Tracking and Reporting Business Services New Member Subscription Signups Conversion Optimization Strategy and Implementation
Saas Startup Passes 1 Million Members Using This Conversion Optimization System Expensify is a fast-growth startup with a lean team facing large competitors. When they needed to improve the signup conversion rate for their freemium business model, they came to WiderFunnel. WiderFunnel applied their Marketing Optimization System to test and improve Expensify s marketing effectiveness. The result has been massive lift in new user signups, now surpassing 1 million users. Here s how we did it. WiderFunnel Case Study: Iron Mountain 2007-12 WiderFunnel Marketing Inc. Call +1 (604) 800-6450 or email: Hello@WiderFunnel.com
Background Expensify members easily submit their expense reports directly from credit card receipts imported from their bank, e-mail receipts, or by taking a photo of a paper receipt. The tool integrates this data into bookkeeping software and can act as the payment gateway for direct reimbursement payments. The company uses a freemium business model to attract users with a free account and offers an upgraded paid version with advanced features and additional seats. The expensify.com home page is the company s primary landing page for free online signups and it needed to be improved to produce more signups. Page 1
Startup Challenges The home page had been developed with clean design best practices but the Expensify team believed it could be improved. While their 15-member team was expert at developing an industryleading application, they did not have conversion experts on the team who could build and execute a conversion optimization plan. They faced very large competitors with larger budgets and brands and needed to be selective in their resource investments. With aggressive membership growth targets, Expensify hired WiderFunnel to lift the conversion rate for free account sign-ups from the home page. Conversion Rate Optimization Tip Focus on your company s core competency and bring in conversion optimization experts to get better results, faster. Page 2
Solution: The Conversion Optimization System WiderFunnel s Conversion Strategists began with a heuristic analysis of the marketing messages, combined with web analytics data to identify barriers to conversion. WiderFunnel s strategists use their proprietary LIFT Model to evaluate the pages and create hypotheses for scientifically testing new page designs. During the LIFT analysis they identified headline alternatives, copy combinations, and design treatments that could increase Relevance, Clarity and Urgency while decreasing Anxiety and Distraction and reinforce the most important Value Proposition points. The Strategists found 16 LIFT problems with the most important being a lack of message Fig. 1: WiderFunnel LIFT Model and value proposition Clarity. WiderFunnel prioritized to top 12 hypotheses including the following: Creating a high contrast box for the action will lift signups Page 3
Presenting specific features will make the action will be more compelling and lift signups Reducing page scrolling will reduce Distraction and lift signups. The team translated the hypotheses into four test variations to test the major hypotheses and isolate several factors. WiderFunnel s design team brought the wireframes to life, then developed and launched the first test to the Expensify s home page. Conversion Rate Optimization Tip Research shows that a structured process for conversion optimization doubles a company s chance of producing large increases in sales. Page 4
Results: Multiple Rounds of Success During the first round of Expensify s testing the Conversion Analysts were particularly successful, because all four test-pages produced positive validations of the applied hypotheses, and 3 of 4 were statistically significant. Variation Conversion Rate Lift Control -- A 15.6% B 28.0% C 13.5% D 17.7% Variation B produced the highest signup conversion rate by combining a stronger visual call-toaction with more feature-driven copywriting. Page 5
Improved Clarity: Added a headline to anchor the eye Added actionable CTA subhead Increased prominence of CTA area Increased the prominence of Free Rewriten product features to be more compelling Adding a secondary CTA bar when scrolling through features Reduced Anxiety: Added no credit card required Reduced Distraction: Removed the rotating carousel Removed links that navigate off the page In addition to producing a variation that increased total sign-ups by 28% the team isolated four specific test factors to identify their conversion rate influence with interesting results. Page 6
Isolated factor contributions: Displaying Brands Using Expensify +1.7% Product Image -1.5% Scroll Reduction +15% Feature Based Copy +11% After the final analysis of the first test round, the Strategists combined another LIFT Analysis with their robust learning and identified new hypotheses for a second round of testing. In the second round of testing, our Funnel Experiment included five variations testing removal of the features section, change in layout, use of light box, usage description, and change of headline. The second test round generate an additional 15% increase in conversion over the first round for a total conversion rate lift of 47.2%. The accelerated signup rate from the tests also helped Expensify surpass their 1,000,000 th customer benchmark, which they achieved during the second test round. Page 7
About WiderFunnel The Original Marketing Optimization Agency, since 2007. WiderFunnel provides full service Conversion Optimization including: strategy, web analytics, wire framing, copywriting, design, development and website redesign. You get more leads and sales from the same website traffic. Get more information at www.widerfunnel.com Connect with us: Twitter: Google+: Facebook: Blog: @widerfunnel & @chrisgoward bit.ly/widerfunnelplus www.facebook.com/widerfunnel www.widerfunnel.com/blog / WiderFunnel, the WiderFunnel logo, Kaizen Method, Funnel Experiment, FunEx, L.I.F.T. and Landing page Influence Function for Tests are trademarks or registered trademarks of WiderFunnel Marketing Inc. All rights reserved. Page 8