| I develop browser extensions that require people to create an account on my website in order to customize the extensions' behavior. A while back, someone told me I should simplify the registration process in order to improve the number of signups.
So I only ask for an email address, first name, last name, and password. And there's no email validation. Turns out that about 50% of the account created are never used. So I email people a few times:
- after one week to ask them if there was a problem
- after two weeks to offer a free trial of the paid upgrade
- after one month with a short user survey It appears that less than 5% of these emails generate an action from the inactive users.
Is this normal ?
Are most people entering fake email addresses ? Are most of my emails blocked by spam filters ? Should I force user to click a link sent to their mailbox right after registering ?
Would that help my future emails go through their spam filter ? I would love to have your opinion on this...
Thanks! |
In general, if a site forces me to register, and I either (a) don't trust the site ownership/security, or (b) don't yet intend to become a long-term user, I will fall back to using a http://bugmenot.com/ login or sign up with a disposable email address obtained via a service like http://mailinator.com or http://10minutemail.com. In general, I find having to verify email addresses tedious and annoying, but it's not generally a deal-breaker.
In another post, you mentioned "i do not allow for email address change." That could be a problem for impulsive users considering making the switch from short- to long-term use. Churning email addresses out isn't that hard, if one is so inclined. Ironically, one of the places I think confirmation email might be helpful, is when changing email address. If you force the user to confirm from both addresses, you run less risk that they make a typo in their new address.
That's all personal, though. You may want to search for existing conversion/retention research or just conduct some A/B tests.
If spammer sign-up is a big concern, and you want to prevent them from mucking up your data, consider something like http://www.google.com/recaptcha to deter bots.