If you want as many users as possible to evaluate your trial version, it makes sense to make downloading it easy as possible, no barriers at all.
On the other hand, having the email address of your trial users lets you follow up with them, hopefully increasing your chances of converting them into customers.

Which approach will bring you more profits?
Public Download Links or Mandatory Sign Ups?
As always, there’s only one way to find out: an A/B split test.

The Collectorz.com situation

Of course, testing any form of sign up approach only make sense if your going to follow up, either automatically or manually. Otherwise the reduced number of downloads will only hurt your sales.
At Collectorz.com, we have been experimenting with autoresponder (AR) follow-up sequences for over a year. We are currently using a simple, but effective 4-message sequence, that is being sent out to people signing up for the free trial:

• Day 0: Welcome, $5 discount coupon, download link, link to Getting Started guide, testimonials.
• Day 2: Buying guide, standard vs pro, barcode scanners, iPhone app, testimonials.
• Day 6: Subscribe to newsletter invitation, benefits of cataloging your stuff, testimonials.
• Day 30: Outright invitation to buy, more testimonials.

Up until 2 weeks ago we used the soft approach, with the sign up being sort of optional. That is, our product home pages only showed a sign up box, no download link, but on the Download page one could still download the trial without signing up. (the Download page could be reached through our navigation bar at the top).

I have always been procrastinating to go for the mandatory sign up only, because:

• I was afraid I might loose sales.
• I wasn’t sure my AR sequence was good enough.
• I didn’t have a solution for existing customers yet. I mean customers who already own a license and are just looking to (re)download the latest version of their software.

But I have been optimizing my ARs in the past year, plus a few weeks ago I implemented a smart download link request form for existing customers.
So I figured, let’s go for the big test.

The test

In the past 2 weeks have been running the following A/B split test:

Version A

As described above. The product home pages showing a sign up box only, the download page allowing direct download, plus offering an optional sign up for the Getting Started guide:

Download Page - Version A

Version B

The Product homes as in A, but the download page having a Sign Up For The Trial box only:

Download Page - Version B

Note that in version B i have added the Download Link Request box for existing customers.

The results

These are the results after running the above A/B split test for 14 days. In these two weeks, the test counted 69,000 first time visitors and just over 600 sales.

• #Downloads: down by 33.6%
• #Sign Ups: up by 20.7%
• #Sales: up by 3.4%
• Average First Purchase Value: up by 13.5%
• Profits: up by 15.4%

Interestingly, the sales of the B group lagged behind during the first few days of the test, then began catching up fast, to end the test as the winner. The effect of the AR emails at work, i guess.
Another fact to notice is the most of the gain in profits is caused by the increase in the First Purchase Value, not so much by the number of sales. Maybe the AR is helping to build trust, convincing users to include a barcode scanner with their purchase, or to buy multiple cataloging programs in a bundle?

My advice?

First, don’t try this at home! At least not until you have a tried and tested AR follow-up sequence in place.
And even then, your results may vary. My customers are home users and my guess is that these people are more likely to willingly provide their email address. If you are selling to more tech savvy users or to businesses, your download counts may drop too much to be compensated by better AR conversions.
But then again, business users may be more serious about evaluating software and therefore perfectly willing to let you email them more info. And if you’re in a “low volume, high ticket” business, you could even send personal follow up emails manually. Or here’a a crazy idea, ask for their phone number and just call them.

Anyway, for us a mandatory sign up process seems to be workig. And I haven’t even implemented all our AR ideas yet. Obvously, that is at the top of my to-do list now.

I emailed all customers who were still using an older version of our software and offered them to upgrade to the latest and greatest for free using TrialPay. Plus, I included an alternative “pay anyway” option with an extra $10 discount on the upgrade ($14.95 instead of $24.95).

My Email

Here’s the email I sent out yesterday. Be warned, it’s looooonnnngggg!

Subject: Upgrade to Movie Collector 6 for free

Dear ~Contact.FirstName~,

This is Alwin, Overlord at Collectorz.com.

One of my minions just told me that you seem to belong to the small
minority of users that is still using an older version of Movie Collector.

Which makes me sad, because it means that you are missing out on all the
new stuff that my team here has worked so hard on in the past 12
months. The programmers have improved the software, and the content guys
have pushed our online movie database to an entirely new level.

I understand that money may be an obstacle. Even with our regular
50% upgrade discount, we’re still talking about a $24.95 upgrade fee.

However, I have great news for you today: you can now upgrade to v.6 for free.

How’s that possible? Well, that’s a long story:

(Can’t wait? No time? Prefer the short story? Then just click here:
http://www.trialpay.com/productpage/?c=8f53c97&tid=9ahMBIh )

About a year ago, my wife Sytske and I were attending a software conference
in Boston, USA. We love going there, it’s fun to meet old friends again.

One of these friends is Edwin (you guessed it, he’s Dutch too), who happens
to be the president at WinZip. And Edwin told me that I should really go
talk to these “TrialPay guys”, as they had a brilliant system which would
let me give my software away for free, while still making some money.
Edwin was using TrialPay for WinZip too, and it had worked out great.

So I followed Edwin’s advice and met with the TrialPay people (they had a
booth at the conference). Really nice folks. I always like meeting people
face to face before I do business with them, so this was a great start.

I spoke with TrialPay’s Julia Pluss and she explained their system to me.
And Julia convinced me to try it for Collectorz.com.
(that took about an hour because I must tell you I was a bit skeptical …
… in my book, there’s no such thing as a free lunch…)

Here’s how TrialPay works:

* You try or buy one offer from one of TrialPay’s advertisers.
* You get the Movie Collector 6 upgrade for free.
* TrialPay then pays us a small amount, using money from the advertiser.

In the weeks after the conference, Julia helped me set up a “Get it Free
with TrialPay” option for our Standard editions (you may have seen it on
our website). And it was a huge success. Since then, thousands of users
have received a free Standard license for one of our programs.

So we figured, why not use the same system to allow our users to *upgrade*
their software for free? This way, you guys and gals can finally enjoy the
latest and greatest and we still make some money (way less than $24.95 but
I don’t mind).

You know what, I’ll even give you the PRO edition of version 6, even if you now
own a license for the Standard edition (two upgrades for the same $0 price!).

To take advantage of this free upgrade deal, click this link now:

http://www.trialpay.com/productpage/?c=8f53c97&tid=9ahMBIh

** What if you can’t find a suitable offer at TrialPay?

Mmm, good question. Let me think …

How about this: I’ll give you an extra $10 discount on the upgrade fee,
*on top of* the standard 50% discount. This means you can upgrade to the
PRO edition of Movie Collector 6 for only $14.95.

To get this special deal, use the following upgrade link:

http://collectorz.com/up.php?product=movie&key=123456789123

then, during checkout, use this discount coupon: CLZUPGRADE

** Worried about your existing data or about having to learn new stuff?

No worries! When you upgrade to the new version, all your existing data will
be preserved and automatically available in the new software.

And if you know how to use your current version Movie Collector, then you will
feel right at home in version 6. Basic usage is exactly the same, the new
features will in no way make it harder or even different to use.

** Here’s a reminder of What’s New in Movie Collector 6 **

* Synchronize your data with Movie Collector Connect:
http://connect.collectorz.com/movies
* Export your collection to the Clz Movies app for iPhone and iPod touch:
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/iphone-app.php
* Choose your own screen fonts and font size.
* Improved Movie Collector MCE viewer.
* Super-easy Add Movies Automatically screen, which uses the Collectorz.com
movie database only. Just search, select your movie, click Add.
* New Print screen with a simpler, easier to use layout.

More details and screen shots can be found here:
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/upgrade.php

Okay, that’s it for today. Thanks for reading my long story
I hope we can welcome you into the happy v6 crowd soon…

Alwin Hoogerdijk
Collectorz.com

http://www.collectorz.com/

The results

I must say I had no idea what to expect. The last major versions were released in December 2008 and we have been pushing the upgrades hard and often. So I wasn’t sure if there was any chance of converting the users who apparently had decided to keep using the older versions.

Now, one day (and few hours) after I sent the email, we have processed just over 130 TrialPay transactions, with an average of $15 per transaction. Not bad at all.
However, the alternative $14.95 offer was used 430 times.
This is after emailing about 50 thousand customers. Which is a 1.1% conversion rate, after just one day.

The numbers are higher than I expected, but what I am most surprised about is the number of users who opted to pay anyway.
Maybe they couldn’t find a suitable offer at TrialPay? Or they assumed that a free upgrade was too good to be true?

BTW: the above numbers are not final yet, at the moment I am still seeing a steady stream of upgrades. I’ll try to post the final results later.

User Feedback on TrialPay

Finally, here’s some examples of emails we received today, just for fun. Please don’t see these as reasons *not* to use TrialPay. I mean, email 100 people and there will always be one that complains.

sounds like a scam to fill email with spam and my computer with spyware

I got your trialpay offer email. I’ve been thinking I should upgrade
and get a scanner, so I followed the link to trialpay just to see what
is involved. But to be honest, it sounds like a scam to fill email
with spam and my computer with spyware. And I could not get past the
first page with out entering my email address, NO THANK YOU. If I
have to enter personal information, even an email address before I can
even find out the details of what is being offered, there is no way
I’m going to continue. I’ve managed to keep my email relatively clean
with this mentality.

wholesale ripoff

I definitely do not like this stupid idea of TrialPay. That is a wholesale ripoff.

is this ligit?

I recieved this email, and want to know if your
aware of this, and if this upgrade is free from you —with no strings
attached. I currently own the lic to movie 5.6 Pro version—Please
Read the following email that i recived to confirm. Is this a free and
ligit permanent update that you will back??

don’t lose your dignity

I love the program and respect the way you do business. Don’t get
involved with people like trial pay. I know times are hard the market
sucks for luxury software, but it doesn’t mean losing your dignity to
losers like Trial Pay.

Times are hard? Market sucks? Ehm… not here

We have received notification from several Internet Service Providers that your recipients are reporting your emails as spam at a rate which exceeds their allowed thresholds. In order to prevent any further spam complaints from your contacts and to protect your email sending reputation, we have temporarily disabled all email sending capabilities.
To restore email sending service to your Infusionsoft application and learn how you can prevent future spam complaints, please contact the Infusionsoft Customer Care Staff at the information listed below.

FYI: this threshold is normally set at 0.1%, which means that you are allowed one spam complaint for every thousand emails you send.

We did send out our monthly Collectorz.com Newsletter on Wednesday, but this newsletter is quite popular among our subscribers. So I am surprised if we would suddenly get a lot of spam complaints about it.

Of course I checked my Spam Complaints reports inside the InfusionSoft system. It showed 12 spam complaints for this newsletter, for about 100 thousand emails sent! That’s not too bad, is it? At least way below the 0.1% threshold.

Maybe one or more ISPs did get a higher percentage of spam complaints, fine.
But what bothers me is that InfusionSoft just disabled my email sending capabilities without waiting for my response. And then their email just tells me to “contact them”, without any hint as to what exactly has caused the problem, what actions I should take to resolve it or what information they need from me in my response.

Of course, I did reply to their email right away, giving them as much information as possible, about my list, my autoresponder sequences and the newsletter we had just sent out. But no reply from InfusionSoft until now, other then a reminder of the disabled state on Saturday.

Guess they are not working weekends. I am though and my business is continuing in the weekends too, for us these are the best days of the week. But not now, because my autoresponders are not working.

Anyway, looks I will have to call them tomorrow. Sigh…

Sorry for the rant, just had to vent my frustration. But there is a lesson here too:

Autoresponders are a great way to raise conversions, both on the front-end and on the back-end. But make sure sure your business does not fully rely on them. Because one spam compaint too many, and you’re out.