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Couldn’t agree more regarding his point on landing page optimization. At TechLoaf, we experimented with a lot of different, elaborate, shiny landing pages that

Couldn’t agree more regarding his point on landing page optimization. At TechLoaf, we experimented with a lot of different, elaborate, shiny landing pages that expounded on how amazing our newsletter was, etc... And after falling flat on our face for months, we realized that an incredibly simple, borderline-mysterious landing page converted users far more effectively. About 35% of all visitors to our site end up subscribing. (For the curious, this is the landing page: https://techloaf.io https://techloaf.io)

athenot 8y ago
This is intersting. From a UX perspective, you're basically forcing the user into making a choice on the spot: to subscribe or not. You're in or you're out. It takes away the non-commital mind wandering, nudges those who are favorably on the fence to sign up ("why not; I might forget about this site so let's do it now") and weans out those who don't immediately see the value. For this use-case, it's probably a good thing.
- LiterallyDoge 8y ago
  I think it's basically a paywall mental model, but without the pay part.
- ccantana 8y ago
  Exactly. It’s also kind of jarring in a world where content is unlimited, free, and available on every channel. It piques some people’s curiosity to land on a site where it’s semi-restricted.
  - mkirklions 8y ago
    I run into the issue that I would much rather give away my money and time saving advice completely free, than charge money. I started my website to help people, not make a petty few grand in profits or grow an email list. However, I know this is bad capitalism. I just don't know if I want to restrict access.
    - graeme 8y ago
      The email list is free though. You just have to take affirmative action to get it. OP meant that this "restriction" piques interest instead of merely closing the tab on ten articles you skimmed the headlines of. No need to charge for the emails or profit from them. But people will give you more attention if your writing is in their inbox.
      - ccantana 8y ago
        Exactly. And if somebody subscribes, you have the chance to reach (and thereby help) them many more times in the future than a fairweather fan who forgets you as quickly as their feeds refresh.
    - mobjack 8y ago
      You don't have to restrict access behind an email to improve signup rates. Have a simple landing page asking for an email address when someone first visits, but provide a way to bypass it if they don't want to give it out. A simple direct ask up front is more effective than having lots of distractions on a page.
      - markhopkins 8y ago
        > Have a simple landing page asking for an email address when someone first visits, but provide a way to bypass it if they don't want to give it out. That's exactly what is there. You can click View The Archive, if you don't want to give your email.
  - xapata 8y ago
    BTW, I think you meant "pique" not "peak".
    - ccantana 8y ago
      Good catch, thanks :)
noname120 8y ago
Could you host or give a screenshot of your previous landing pages? This would make a good learning experience for us. Thanks!
- ccantana 8y ago
  I wish I had saved them — but, essentially, our early landing pages were feeds of content that were restricted after x stories at which point you were prompted to subscribe. They were very similar to the CNN or NY Times home pages, but with less content visible and more (obnoxious) calls to subscribe to the email. We also experimented with a minimalist landing page similar to the current one, but with screenshots of the email in the background. In hindsight, it was distracting and slightly confusing.
spullara 8y ago
By posting here your numbers are going to tank! Have to do your next report with HN referrals removed :) Edit: I take that back. I went to the page after writing this and signed up. Well done.
- ccantana 8y ago
  Glad you dug it :) And agreed, conversion numbers are highly dependent on how thoughtful our targeting is. We generally shoot for almost laughlibly small, but super targeted, outreach. Certainly factors into our unusually high conversion.
nielsbot 8y ago
Wonder how many people stay subscribed tho? And also what's the click through rate on the newsletter for subscribers? (And how that compares to the "shiny" landing pages)
- ccantana 8y ago
  Open rate: 60% (+- 5%) Click through: 7% (+- 2%) Unsubscribe rate: <1%
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
I think this is probably dependent on where the traffic is coming from and to what extent they’ve been primed. I’d also be curious what percentage of subscribers clicked on preview or archive before subscribing.
- ccantana 8y ago
  100% is. We’ve mostly done super targeted, smaller scale marketing. When we have something get huge on Reddit, for example, conversion drops off because it’s a general crowd. About 50% of visitors click either the “preview” or “archive” link
btilly 8y ago
You should double-check it again every few years. User behavior around forced signups is not constant. In the early 2000s at Rent.com we found that forcing an email address to get content gave us a great conversion rate, and fit our business model. But over time people came to be less and less willing to hand over email addresses, and more and more convinced that equivalent content was available elsewhere without the prospect of spam. Our conversion rate therefore slowly slid. A decade later the conversion rate slid so much that Rent.com eventually abandoned its business model.
- ccantana 8y ago
  Great insight. Only caveat would be that our core product is the email newsletter (not sure if that was true of rent.com back in the day).
  - btilly 8y ago
    Our business model was to help people find apartments and also acquire evidence that we really had. We'd then ask the apartment owner for a finder's fee, and pass $100 to the renter. To do this we needed to present the apartment owner with evidence that we really were the ones to find the renter. Which means that we needed all of the touch points. And we also needed to help renters find an apartment then tell us. (We had data indicating that only half of renters we placed actually came back to us to tell us so that we knew to tell the apartment owner to pay up.) We needed the email both as a login to track and tie back to that user, and to send people apartment listings and convince them to report their lease to get the $100. So emails weren't actually the core product. But they were very, very important.
WalterBright 8y ago
It is refreshing to see a page that is simple and straightforward these days.
mobjack 8y ago
Learned the exact same thing in a different industry. We had a landing page that always won the AB test for over a year, but our lawyer wanted us to change the chart on the top. We didn't know what to replace it with so I decided to test what will happen for a week if we removed it to better understand the value it provided. It turned out that removing the chart increased email capture by 20% and we now have a bare bones landing page. It isn't always the case, but often times less is more.

athenot 8y ago

This is intersting. From a UX perspective, you're basically forcing the user into making a choice on the spot: to subscribe or not. You're in or you're out. It takes away the non-commital mind wandering, nudges those who are favorably on the fence to sign up ("why not; I might forget about this site so let's do it now") and weans out those who don't immediately see the value. For this use-case, it's probably a good thing.

LiterallyDoge 8y ago
I think it's basically a paywall mental model, but without the pay part.
ccantana 8y ago
Exactly. It’s also kind of jarring in a world where content is unlimited, free, and available on every channel. It piques some people’s curiosity to land on a site where it’s semi-restricted.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  I run into the issue that I would much rather give away my money and time saving advice completely free, than charge money. I started my website to help people, not make a petty few grand in profits or grow an email list. However, I know this is bad capitalism. I just don't know if I want to restrict access.
  - graeme 8y ago
    The email list is free though. You just have to take affirmative action to get it. OP meant that this "restriction" piques interest instead of merely closing the tab on ten articles you skimmed the headlines of. No need to charge for the emails or profit from them. But people will give you more attention if your writing is in their inbox.
    - ccantana 8y ago
      Exactly. And if somebody subscribes, you have the chance to reach (and thereby help) them many more times in the future than a fairweather fan who forgets you as quickly as their feeds refresh.
  - mobjack 8y ago
    You don't have to restrict access behind an email to improve signup rates. Have a simple landing page asking for an email address when someone first visits, but provide a way to bypass it if they don't want to give it out. A simple direct ask up front is more effective than having lots of distractions on a page.
    - markhopkins 8y ago
      > Have a simple landing page asking for an email address when someone first visits, but provide a way to bypass it if they don't want to give it out. That's exactly what is there. You can click View The Archive, if you don't want to give your email.
- xapata 8y ago
  BTW, I think you meant "pique" not "peak".
  - ccantana 8y ago
    Good catch, thanks :)

noname120 8y ago

Could you host or give a screenshot of your previous landing pages? This would make a good learning experience for us. Thanks!

ccantana 8y ago
I wish I had saved them — but, essentially, our early landing pages were feeds of content that were restricted after x stories at which point you were prompted to subscribe. They were very similar to the CNN or NY Times home pages, but with less content visible and more (obnoxious) calls to subscribe to the email. We also experimented with a minimalist landing page similar to the current one, but with screenshots of the email in the background. In hindsight, it was distracting and slightly confusing.

spullara 8y ago

By posting here your numbers are going to tank! Have to do your next report with HN referrals removed :) Edit: I take that back. I went to the page after writing this and signed up. Well done.

ccantana 8y ago
Glad you dug it :) And agreed, conversion numbers are highly dependent on how thoughtful our targeting is. We generally shoot for almost laughlibly small, but super targeted, outreach. Certainly factors into our unusually high conversion.

nielsbot 8y ago

Wonder how many people stay subscribed tho? And also what's the click through rate on the newsletter for subscribers? (And how that compares to the "shiny" landing pages)

ccantana 8y ago
Open rate: 60% (+- 5%) Click through: 7% (+- 2%) Unsubscribe rate: <1%

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

I think this is probably dependent on where the traffic is coming from and to what extent they’ve been primed. I’d also be curious what percentage of subscribers clicked on preview or archive before subscribing.

ccantana 8y ago
100% is. We’ve mostly done super targeted, smaller scale marketing. When we have something get huge on Reddit, for example, conversion drops off because it’s a general crowd. About 50% of visitors click either the “preview” or “archive” link

btilly 8y ago

You should double-check it again every few years. User behavior around forced signups is not constant. In the early 2000s at Rent.com we found that forcing an email address to get content gave us a great conversion rate, and fit our business model. But over time people came to be less and less willing to hand over email addresses, and more and more convinced that equivalent content was available elsewhere without the prospect of spam. Our conversion rate therefore slowly slid. A decade later the conversion rate slid so much that Rent.com eventually abandoned its business model.

ccantana 8y ago
Great insight. Only caveat would be that our core product is the email newsletter (not sure if that was true of rent.com back in the day).
- btilly 8y ago
  Our business model was to help people find apartments and also acquire evidence that we really had. We'd then ask the apartment owner for a finder's fee, and pass $100 to the renter. To do this we needed to present the apartment owner with evidence that we really were the ones to find the renter. Which means that we needed all of the touch points. And we also needed to help renters find an apartment then tell us. (We had data indicating that only half of renters we placed actually came back to us to tell us so that we knew to tell the apartment owner to pay up.) We needed the email both as a login to track and tie back to that user, and to send people apartment listings and convince them to report their lease to get the $100. So emails weren't actually the core product. But they were very, very important.

WalterBright 8y ago

It is refreshing to see a page that is simple and straightforward these days.

mobjack 8y ago

Learned the exact same thing in a different industry. We had a landing page that always won the AB test for over a year, but our lawyer wanted us to change the chart on the top. We didn't know what to replace it with so I decided to test what will happen for a week if we removed it to better understand the value it provided. It turned out that removing the chart increased email capture by 20% and we now have a bare bones landing page. It isn't always the case, but often times less is more.