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I once read that for every question you add to a form you lose 40% of the people viewing it. Putting it into action- currently working on a web development fir

I once read that for every question you add to a form you lose 40% of the people viewing it. Putting it into action- currently working on a web development firm with leads gathered via AdWords, and trying to optimize the deal pipeline. At first there was a "Click to Contact" button that then forwarded to a Wufoo form- just email, website, (optional) phone number, and a comment. I read that stat, and put up a "Quick Contact" form (also Wufoo- they rock :) ). It just had email, and website, and said "Plug in your email and website and we'll respond with a full proposal for the project." (We only provide one service so it's pretty standardized.). Whereas before we were getting about one lead every other day, we started getting 1.5 a day, an increase of 200%. We then removed phone number and website from the contact form, since the majority of respondents put that in the actual contact form- immediately, we went from 1.5 to 2 a day. When dealing with leads for development gigs at a couple thousand a pop, that extra .5 helps a lot. Anecdotal, evidence ahoy, but hopefully that helps some.

lakeeffect 18y ago
Point taken, I guess i am looking more for a formula. Such as: If total interest in application, x, results in willingness to provide, y, amount of information. This part i understand enough also assuming the constants being what is considered adequate. I guess the question was more relevant to persistency rates of usage as a result of y, the amount of information they have provided. If you have invested time and value in a system it would be difficult to just drop the system. Do these easy sign up places allow for the ability to add this information later. Since in most instances this information will make it easier to serve a better product by truly knowing who is the customer.
ScottWhigham 18y ago
I see that, yes, horrible signups are a barrier. Asking "normal" questions - name, how did you find us, password hint q/a - is so expected now that, as long as the site works and has what I want, I will do it. I question statements like "... for every question you add to a form you lose 40% of the people viewing it." because they don't take quality of the signup into account. You get into the question of which is better: quantity or quality? Is it better to have a database of 100,000 people who showed the minimum interest or of 10,000 people who are very interested? I say I'd rather be in charge of those 10,000 but I know there are many in favor of the 100,000.

lakeeffect 18y ago

Point taken, I guess i am looking more for a formula. Such as: If total interest in application, x, results in willingness to provide, y, amount of information. This part i understand enough also assuming the constants being what is considered adequate. I guess the question was more relevant to persistency rates of usage as a result of y, the amount of information they have provided. If you have invested time and value in a system it would be difficult to just drop the system. Do these easy sign up places allow for the ability to add this information later. Since in most instances this information will make it easier to serve a better product by truly knowing who is the customer.

ScottWhigham 18y ago

I see that, yes, horrible signups are a barrier. Asking "normal" questions - name, how did you find us, password hint q/a - is so expected now that, as long as the site works and has what I want, I will do it. I question statements like "... for every question you add to a form you lose 40% of the people viewing it." because they don't take quality of the signup into account. You get into the question of which is better: quantity or quality? Is it better to have a database of 100,000 people who showed the minimum interest or of 10,000 people who are very interested? I say I'd rather be in charge of those 10,000 but I know there are many in favor of the 100,000.