[chrisdbanks]

Email registration is the gateway drug to conversion. We AB tested this. Requiring users to sign up meant we got fewer sign ups but a higher conversion rate to premium. So although we had fewer users, more paid. Giving your email is a committment. Maybe once you've made a small committment it's easier to make a bigger committment. If you're running a commercial product, especially freemium, it's not just about number of signups.

[edmundsauto]

How do you know that it wasn't caused simply by selecting for more serious trialers? What makes you think the cause was "committing", and not a selection thing?

[chrisdbanks]

Because the conversion rate was higher from no sign-up to paid. So we were probably selecting more serious trailers, but they were then more likely to pay as well. If it was just the conversion rate from sign-up to paid then you would be right, but we looked at the conversion across the entire funnel.

[snowwrestler]

"More serious trialers" will be more likely to commit by entering an email; people who are not willing to enter an email are obviously not very serious trialers. It's just two different ways of saying the same thing.

[black_puppydog]

No, one implies a causality that the other doesn't.

[snowwrestler]

"More serious trialer" is not a fixed attribute or category that you can select for. A person fits this description based solely on their behavior; they become a more serious trialer by the act of putting in their email address. From that point the causality is the same.

[edmundsauto]

Yes - my point was that the narrative of "why" isn't useful. A/B tests tell you what happened. They do not provide insight into why. Yet everyone has a story they tell to fill in the why, and these stories are harmful to making good decisions.

[edoceo]

It's not a causality, it's a pre-filter. So, of the people who passed filter A more are likely to pass filter B.

Today's XKCD was basically about this (in the Alt text)

https://m.xkcd.com/2357/

[dependenttypes]

desktop version: https://xkcd.com/2357/

[teej]

> We AB tested this

[franga2000]

> Maybe once you've made a small committment it's easier to make a bigger committment.

It's definitely not the whole story, but this is a pretty well-studied thing in psychology. A similar trick in social engineering is to ask your mark for a small favor, which will make them more likely to do you a bigger favor later. I've read about it many times, but can't for the life of me remember what it was called...

[amatecha]

You're just trying to get someone to do you a favor by looking up what that phenomenon is called! We're onto you! heheh ;)

[electricviolet]

I've heard it called the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/compliance.html

[Beldin]

Perhaps one of the 6 principles of persuasion?

From a google search:

Theses 6 principles are reciprocity, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity.

[rygine]

perhaps this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect#:~:text=Th....

[ticmasta]

I also don't understand the value in giving away more than you need to get someone to commit. If your product has any type of cost associated with converting you may be better to filter poor prospects early, i.e. those who won't even give out an email. This is likely better than carrying them farther down the process with more promising conversions.