CD delivery companies (we have worked with SwiftCD and CustomCD) are always pushing us to have “Delivery on CD” pre-checked. Understandably, because this is bound to sell more CDs and thus bring them more business. And automatically adding a $10 Priority Support subscription is sure to result in more subscriptions to that service.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Making more money on each sale, who can say no to that?

Unless…
… the sudden addition of extra costs is putting people off. Some customers may even feel cheated. Sure, one can easily (?) remove the extras from the cart, but that’s all extra steps in your checkout procedure. Overall, making people opt-out on your up-sells may cost you sales.

Of course, it’s all about the bottom line: Will the extra profits per sale compensate for the lost sales?
Now we can all have long discussions about what will happen. And I could easily write several articles about the expected effects.

As always, there’s only one way to find out for sure: An A/B split test.

The test: Cart A vs Cart B

The test is pretty simple. The big blue buy buttons on my product pages (see below), either take the customer to cart Version A or cart Version B.

Version A is the opt-in version. The initial cart only contains the software the user select, then he can optionally add extras like the Delivery on CD and Priority Support.

Version B is the opt-out version. The cart automatically contains both extras, but these can be easily removed using the little red “X” buttons.

The results

After one week of testing and 232 sales counted, these are the results:

• Sign Ups: -2.4%
• Sales: -17.8%
• Average First Purchase: +5.6%
• Total Profits: -12.8%

As you can see, it confirms the expectations: the Average First Purchase went up and Sales decreased. But the extra money made per sale is not nearly enough to compensate for the loss in sales quantity.

What does this mean?

So does this mean we should not automatically add or pre-check extras like CD-Delivery and Support subscriptions?
Well, not like I did it in the above test. But I have not given up yet. Here’s a couple of ideas I would like to test later:

• Test with just the CD or just Support auto-checked. Maybe one of them is causing the lost sales. Looking at last week’s sales I am seeing a lot of CD Delivery sales, but very little Priority Support subscriptions. So most people are removing the support option. Is there hope for a design that has just the CD Delivery auto-added to the cart?
• Make it even easier to opt-out, e.g. by making the “remove from cart” buttons clearer and bigger.
• Offer both options as pre-checked check boxes right in the big Buy box on the product page, so that users can uncheck them even before clicking my big blue buy button.
• Offer a “Premium Pack” option on the product home page, that has both extras included in a bundle, with a separate Buy button and the total price of $69.95 listed right there. We have used a similar solution before for a barcode scanner bundle and that was working well.

The last time I did this, the main thing that struck me was all the Try/Buy “noise” on the right side of the screen. There’s a Sign Up for the Free Trial box, a Get it Free (TrialPay) option and five (!) different buying options (Standard, Pro, two “Pro + scanner” options, plus a “custom order” option). I realized that I had been replicating most of my shop page right there on the landing page.

So I started experimenting with a different approach, aimed at getting more people to sign up for the free trial. Then just let the trial edition and the autoresponder sequence do the conversion to sales. I didn’t want to remove all buying options though, because we see a lot of customers buying without trying. But it would have to be reduced to just one button, simply taking the user to our recently re-designed shop page.

The original design ( = Version A )

This is the A-version of my A/B split test, the original look of the product home page. The left side of the page offering lots of product information and screenshots (even separate screens for the Windows and Mac editions), the right side having all the try and buy options.

This layout has worked well for us for a long time, but for some first time visitors it may be a little overwhelming. Let’s see if we can make it a little easier on the eye.

The first attempt ( = Version B1)

Here’s my first “less is more” redesign. To reduce the noise on the right, I completely removed all the trying and buying boxes from the panel on the right, replacing them with 3 recent testimonials.
I rewrote the top part of the left side, aiming to give a full overview of the software with just 1 headline, 2 pictures and 3 bullets. Followed by two large boxes, one for the free trial, one for buying. Below these two call-to-action boxes I only placed a demo video and some more testimonials (not shown in the screen shot).

The results
Immediately after starting this test, the sign up conversion rate shot up. That was hopeful. But sales dropped.
Here’s the outcome of the A/B test after 7 days:

• Sign Ups: +12.3%
• Sales: -9.3%
• Average First Purchase: +8.6%
• Total Profits: -2.8%

After 7 days, sales in the B category had gotten stronger again, but were still 9.3 % lower than the A category sales. But interestingly, the average value of the purchases were 8.6% higher in B. So in the end, the drop in profits for version B wasn’t too bad: down by 2.8%.

What’s happening here? First, the removal of main call-to-action (buy!) from the top right seems to have resulted in the decrease of immediate purchases. The extra sign ups (and thus extra people on my autoresponder sequence) seem to compensate for this decrease later on. Maybe the autoresponder, and its Buying Guide on day 2, is also helping to increase the value of the first purchase.

The second attempt ( = Version B2)

I like the increase in sign up rate and the high value purchases of the B1 design, so it would be great if we could keep those and generate more sales at the same time.
That’s what I tried to accomplish in the in B2 version shown below, by adding two call-to-action boxes on the top right again, in the same style as the big ones on the left.

The results>

I tested this B2 version against the original A version, still my control. I let the test run for 18 days, so that the trial version and trial autoresponder would have the time to do their jobs.

• Sign Ups: +8.8%
• Sales: +5.9%
• Average First Purchase: 0%
• Total Profits: +5.9%

All numbers are green, so that’s great
But if we look more closely, we find two interesting numbers, especially if we compare these results with those of the previous test:
First, the increase in sign up rate is lower for B2. Which is strange because there are two sign up boxes now, one on the left and one on the right. Did version B1 have more focus on the two big boxes on the left, just because the panel on the right was more noise-free?
Also, we lost the increase in purchase values that B1 gave us. However, looking at the details I found that the average purchase was $50.30 for both B1 and B2. For some strange reason the value for A had gone down to $46.30 during the first test.

What’s next

I am preparing a 3rd test now. Version B2 will be my new control ( = my new version A). For the new challenger I am reintroducing the big screenshots of my iPhone apps (because these has gotten lost in the redesign).

First, here’s my thoughts of what a trial edition is and what it is for.
A trial edition is:

• A marketing tool, designed to convert website visitors into customers.
• An evaluation version, a way for prospects to try your software before they buy.
• Not free software.

So, how does this impact the design of your trial edition?

• Make it absolutely clear that it is “just” a trial edition. Remind the user as often as possible. Don’t nag him, don’t annoy him, just make him aware. For example, have a Buy Now button on the toolbar, a reminder at start up and/or when the app closes.
• A trial edition should be limited or at least crippled in some way. Remember it is not free software, it is only meant for evaluation purposes. Preferably, it should not be of any practical use.
  Releasing a fully functional version with just a nag screen may have worked for WinZip, but in general, this is not the best way to make money. At least not anymore… Even WinZip saw the light…
• Make your trial user run into this limitation quickly, if possible during the first hours of usage, that’s when he’s most likely to buy (the impulse purchase). And again, just a nag screen doesn’t count.
• If possible, make sure trial users can evaluate all features of your product, that is, all features that the full edition has. If you have to exclude features from the trial edition, it must be absolutely clear what the missing features are, what they will get EXTRA when they buy the full edition. Yes, it sounds like this contradicts the earlier points, but it doesn’t have to.
• Try to create a “lock-in” situation. Give them enough time to make them feel that they have invested time in your software, too much to switch to a competitor. Or allow them to create enough files or enter enough data to make them regret not being able to access them when the trial expires. Or, get them hooked. Indeed, this may conflict with the “quick limitation” point.

Now let’s look at some common ways to do trial editions:

30-day trial

Now, surprisingly, the most common trial limitation is the 30-day trial.
Why am I surprised? Because it does not encourage impulse purchases at all. It allows full usage of the software for 30 days, during which the user may loose interest, find an alternative.

Or even worse: he may have accomplished what he needed to do, he used your trial edition as free software. Ouch…
An example is the excellent Microangelo Icon Editor. It has a 21-day trial and during that trial period lets you create (and save!) icons at will. Now, I am a developer and indeed have a need to create icons for my programs. But how often do I need to do that? For me, that can’t be more than once a year. So whenever I need to create icons, I download the latest trial edition of Microangelo, do my thing and then forget about it. I never get to the point of buying it. I know, my bad… but hey, they let me do what I needed to do with their trial edition. For my purposes, their trial edition is free software.

The only benefit of this method is that it may result in a “lock-in”, depending on the type of program. For a game or a time-saving utility, you may have your user hooked. For a productivity tool, the user may have created lots of files that he cannot open without your software.

Limited Number of Uses

This is a bit better. It at least makes the user run into the trial expiration sooner if he uses the software more often. But still, if your program is not something that people use on a daily basis, you are missing out on the impulse buy.

One-hour trial

Sounds brutal, but works well for some types of games. One hour is long enough to get hooked, but too short to get bored
A good way to push impulse purchases. We use this for our Canasta card game.

Crippled output

For instance, watermarks in printed output or in created image files, or a little “created with the trial edition of… ” footer in generated reports, etc…
This works great for “creation” type software, programs for making images, reports, websites, etc… or programs
It ensure that the user can fully evaluate your product, but at the same time cannot use the output for any practical purposes. And he’ll probably run into this limitation quite quickly.

Disabled Save Feature

I love this one. If it is possible for your app, go for it. Why? Because it lets trial users see what they can do or create, but not save it for any practical use. A classic example of leaving a feature out without limiting the user’s abilities to evaluate your entire program.
We did this in the trial edition of the jigsaw puzzle creator software we have sold for a while. It allowed users to create their own computer jig saw puzzles from digital photos, view them on screen, even play them, but it did not allow saving the created puzzle.

Limited Number of Entries

The idea here is that all features are fully functional, until the user hits a set number of entries. After that, the Add or Create feature is disabled.
This can be a great limitation for database type apps, if you choose the limit right. Set it:

• Low enough to make the trial edition unusable for any practical purposes
• Low enough to make an enthusiastic user run into the limit within the first hour(s) of use
• High enough to allow full evaluation of the software.
• High enough to create a lock-in. Make the user feel he has invested too much time adding entries to give up now.

You guessed it, this is what we use for the Collectorz.com programs. For example, the trial edition of our DVD cataloging software is limited to 50 DVDs.
When the user hits the 50 DVD limit, the Add Movie, Edit Movie and Export features get disabled, the program goes into “view only” mode.

Recommendations

If you are looking for a way to limit the trial edition of your new software (or a better way for your existing program), here’s my recommendations:

• Don’t just go for the “default” 30-day trial system. Use that as a last resort, if you really can’t think of anything better.
• Try to limit functionality without taking away the user’s ability to evaluate all features.
• Don’t let them use your software for free, make em pay before they can do or create anything useful.
• Make em pay quickly, go for the “wow factor” within the first hour and pull in the sale.
• And if you can pull it off, go for the lock-in.

Finally, try to think about a limitation that is specific to your type of software, something original, or an original twist on one of the above methods.