Does showing a today only message once lift checkout conversion?
Our checkout repeated a valid through today only message in several places. We tested showing it once, near the order button. Desktop conversion rose 4.0% over 15 days, short of our confidence bar.
Not significant Desktop 15 days Not called
The hypothesis
By showing the valid through today only message once, near the order button, instead of in several places, we will keep the urgency without the anxiety, resulting in more completed checkouts.
The checkout told visitors their price was valid through today only. That line adds urgency, but it appeared in more than 1 place on the page, which can start to feel like pressure. An earlier mobile test suggested the message worked best lower on the page, close to the order button.
This test kept the message in that lower spot and removed the copy higher up.
What we changed
We moved the today only message to 1 spot near the order button.
In the control, the valid through today only wording showed up in several places on the checkout. The variation kept 1 version lower on the page, near the order button, using the wording from our earlier mobile test, and removed the copy that sat higher on the page.
- Today only copy kept near the order button
- Copy higher on the page removed
The result
Showing the message once lifted desktop conversion 4.0% in 15 days.
Desktop conversion was 4.0% higher than the control over 15 days. The lift showed up at the step we changed, but it did not reach our confidence bar. The same change ran on mobile at the same time. We paused both to make room for other tests and kept the wording for the next round of checkout tests.
What we would do next
Keep 1 clear urgency line and retest it with more traffic.
Cutting the repeats did not hurt, and desktop leaned positive. A single well-placed line appears to carry the urgency on its own. Because traffic was needed for other tests, we carried the single message into the next checkout round rather than running this test longer.