Does explaining the carrier approval process help a lead form?
Many carriers who started our sign-up form never finished the approval steps that followed. We added a short note beside the form explaining how carrier approval works. Sign-ups measured -1.7% over 15 days, with no clear change either way.
Not significant Responsive 15 days Not called
The hypothesis
By explaining the carrier approval process before the form, we will screen out carriers who are unlikely to be approved, resulting in fewer incomplete sign-ups and more approved carriers.
Signing up as a carrier was only the first step. After the form, carriers still had to complete an approval process, and many dropped out along the way. A sign-up that never becomes an approved carrier has no value to the business.
We expected that telling carriers up front what approval involves might lower total sign-ups a little. We were willing to accept that if more of the carriers who did sign up went on to be approved.
What we changed
We added a short explanation of the carrier approval steps beside the form.
The control showed the carrier sign-up form with its standard heading. The variation added a short block of copy beside the form that explained the approval process carriers go through after they sign up. The form fields and button stayed the same.
- Added copy explaining the approval steps
- Copy placed beside the form
- Form fields unchanged
The result
Sign-ups measured -1.7% over 15 days, with no clear change.
Form submissions barely moved, which matched our expectation that the copy would not cost many sign-ups. The test did not show the lift in completed approvals we were looking for, so we paused it after 15 days. We planned a second round with the same copy placed inside the form, then moved our focus to other funnels before it ran.
What we would do next
Put the approval copy inside the form, not beside it.
Copy placed beside a form is easy to skip, so many carriers may not have read it before filling in their details. Placing the same message inside the form, as part of the first step, would make it harder to miss. Approval rate, not form submissions, is the measure that would show whether setting expectations works.