Does secure wording near the form lift desktop conversion?

Our desktop homepage form had no message about keeping details safe. We tested the same secure wording and padlock we tested on mobile. Over 14 days, conversion was down 6.1%, short of our confidence bar.

Not significant Desktop 14 days Not called

SURFACE

Homepage

DEVICE

Desktop

VERTICAL

Ecommerce (B2C)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

1

The hypothesis

By adding secure wording and a padlock beside the desktop homepage form, we will give visitors more confidence to share their details, resulting in more completed orders.

A trust message at the last checkout step had not reached our confidence bar, so we tried reassurance earlier, at the first form. We ran the same change on mobile and desktop as separate tests.

What we changed

Secure wording and a padlock icon added beside the desktop form

We added the same short line of secure wording and padlock icon used in the mobile test next to the desktop homepage form. Nothing else on the page changed.

VAR A: SECURE WORDING

Secure wording added beside the form
Padlock icon added

The result

Conversion was down 6.1% over 14 days, short of our bar

CONVERSION RATE

-6.1%

FORM SUBMITS

-11.1%

Over 14 days, the desktop version with secure wording converted 6.1% lower than the original, and form submits were 11.1% lower. Neither gap reached our confidence bar, and desktop traffic was much lower than mobile. The same change won on mobile over the same period.

What we would do next

Give the secure message more room on the larger screen

On desktop, the small line that worked on mobile was easy to miss beside a wider form. We paused this version and redesigned the test so the secure message got more attention, since desktop has more space to work with.