How increased urgency using a countdown clock affects email acquisition
NextAfter
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 12/16/2020 - 01/06/2021
In a previous experiment, we used a sticky bar to try and create a heightened sense of urgency around our ebook outlining strategies to increase giving during the last week of the year. But the sticky bar made no significant difference in conversions.
As a next step, we wondered if using a countdown clock lower on the page ticking down to the last week of the year would be a better means of conveying urgency and lead to more downloads.
Research Question
We believe that adding a countdown clock near the call-to-action for landing page visitors will achieve more ebook downloads.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 28.0% | ||
| T1: | Treatment #1 | 30.9% | 10.6% | 87.7% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 1,821 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 2,261, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
The countdown clock led to a 10.6% increase in conversion, although it didn’t quite reach our desired level of confidence. However, it’s a strong indicator that a countdown clock is an effective motivator to increase downloads in this context. We’ll continue to use countdown clock on acquisition pages when there is a relevant deadline – in particularly around year-end and the last week of the year.