Case study with Centricity Credit Union
We ran an experiment with Centricity Credit Union that showed the impact a clear CTA (call to action) and multistep lead capture experience can have on overall lead capture rates.
The goal
Centricity wanted to open more youth savings accounts. Before a user begins the full application, Centricity also wanted to collect information about the parental joint owner in order to speed up the eventual application process for the user.
The hypothesis
First, we looked at how many youth savings accounts Centricity was getting through it’s website to find opportunities for improvement. We saw that a low number of users that land on the youth savings page were starting applications. Our hypothesis was that if the CTA stood out more, that would drive more users to start lead capture. Furthermore, we believed that gradual lead capture questions will keep the user moving forward and, ultimately, get more people to open the account.
The a/b test
We ran an a/b test to see how featuring a clear CTA would impact clicks to the lead capture process. We designed the CTA to stand out significantly.
For the lead capture process, we leaned on a set of five studies on GoodUI.org showing that gradual engagement increases conversion by a median of 20%. If you design a website experience that invites users to engage just one little step at a time, then you could get 20% more applications. So, for the experiment version in our a/b test, we opted for short lead capture questions that demonstrate real progress toward opening your account.
The results
Let’s compare the results of the control vs the experiment.
For the CTA, the control version (i.e., what Centricity started with) got 20.25% click rate and the experiment got 34.96%. For the overall conversion rate, the control got 8.86% and the experiment got 25.2% (that’s 192.91% higher).
Note: These results scored 99% statistical confidence.
The takeaways
From this a/b test, we learn three big takeaways:
- Make your calls to action stand out visually
- Gradually engage users with easy lead capture steps (remember to date before proposing marriage)
- Usability testing can help you learn the truth about a page. As they say, “Don’t guess, test.”