Does a shorter loading spinner lift mobile form conversion?

Our mobile homepage form moved visitors straight to the next step. We tested a short loading spinner, with fewer steps than our first try, to match the wait visitors expect from a DMV task. Over 18 days, conversion was 3.1% lower, short of our confidence bar.

Not significant Mobile 18 days Not called

SURFACE

Homepage

DEVICE

Mobile

VERTICAL

Ecommerce (B2C)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

1

The hypothesis

By adding a short loading spinner after the mobile homepage form, we will meet visitors' expectation that a DMV task takes time, resulting in more confidence and a higher conversion rate.

Visitors expect a DMV task to be slow, so an instant result can feel too easy to trust. Our first spinner test ran 5 timed steps of 1 to 2.5 seconds each and came out flat against the original. For this round we cut the number of steps to see if a shorter wait would help.

What we changed

A shorter loading spinner after the mobile homepage form

Var A added a loading spinner between the homepage form and the next step. It used fewer timed steps than the spinner in our first round, so the wait was shorter. The form itself and everything else on the page stayed the same.

VAR A: SHORTER SPINNER

Loading spinner after the homepage form
Fewer timed steps than round 1

The result

Conversion was 3.1% lower with the shorter spinner

CONVERSION RATE

-3.1%

REVENUE PER VISITOR

-3.0%

Over 18 days, the shorter spinner converted 3.1% worse than the original, and revenue per visitor was 3.0% lower. The gap stayed well short of our confidence bar. Together with the flat first round, it showed mobile visitors did not respond either way to a built-in wait, so we paused the test and moved on.

What we would do next

Move on from the wait and test the form itself

2 rounds of spinner tests showed that mobile visitors did not respond either way to a built-in wait. Rather than try a third version of the wait, we would put the next test into the form itself, where visitors decide whether to go on.