Do fewer answer options and no social proof lift lead forms?
Our tax relief lead form opened with a long list of answer options and a social proof notification. We tested cutting the options to 5, with and without the notification. Results came in 2.5% below the control over 14 days, short of our confidence bar.
Not significant Responsive 14 days Not called
The hypothesis
By cutting the first step to 5 options and removing the social proof notification, we will reduce effort and distraction, resulting in more visitors moving through the form.
Fewer choices on the first screen should help visitors decide faster and with more confidence. The 5 option layout came from an earlier test on a sister funnel.
In a usability study, many visitors took the social proof notification for an ad. Removing it would also save its cost and some load time.
What we changed
We cut the first step to 5 options and removed social proof.
Var A reduced the options on the first screen to 5. Var B made the same cut and also removed the social proof notification that appeared on the page.
- First screen cut to 5 options
- First screen cut to 5 options
- Social proof notification removed
The result
Results came in 2.5% below the control over 14 days.
Neither version reached our confidence bar over 14 days, and the headline result was 2.5% below the control. Rather than pause 1 variation partway through, we stopped the test and restarted it with only Var B, unchanged, against the control.
What we would do next
Give the social proof change all the traffic and read it alone.
With 2 variations splitting the traffic, neither could reach our bar in 14 days. Our next step was to rerun Var B by itself against the control, so it got all of the test traffic and we could read it sooner.