Will offering a free membership trial leads to more membership activations?
NextAfter
Experiment Summary
Ended On: 12/01/2021
As we reconfigured what membership looked like, we were trying to figure out a way to get more people to activate a membership to the NextAfter Institute. So, we thought if we offered folks a free 1-month trial, it would allow them the chance to learn what membership is about and be able to access our resources right away. We ran this experiment on our membership landing page with a 50/50 split in traffic between signing up for the typical $49/month membership vs. the 1-month free trial.
Research Question
We believe that offering a free 1-month trial for landing page visitors will achieve more membership activations.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control | 1.2% | ||
| T1: | Treatment #1 | 4.0% | 246.0% | 90.8% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 237 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 344, and the level of confidence is not above 95% the experiment results are not valid.
Key Learnings
Something important to note is that metric tracking between all systems in this experiment was messy. We did our best to isolate variables, but they are not perfect.
Although the experiment did not validate, results point in the direction that the free trial is most effective in achieving more membership activations. However, something worth considering is if those folks will be retained as well as those who pay for the membership right away—more testing and analysis needs to be done to figure that out.