Does a shorter contact step lift lead form conversion?

Our lead form asked for contact details over several steps. We tested combining them into 1 step with 3 or 4 fields. Over 8 days, conversion fell 27.6% with 3 fields and 19.5% with 4.

Lost Responsive 8 days Called at 90%

SURFACE

Lead form

DEVICE

Responsive

VERTICAL

Lead Gen (CPL)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

2

The hypothesis

By combining the contact questions into 1 shorter step, we will reduce worry about the length of the form, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

A similar change, moving contact fields onto the name step, had lifted conversion on another form in our program. We expected a shorter funnel to help here too.

What we changed

Contact questions combined into 1 step with 3 or 4 fields

Var A moved the email field onto the name step, for 3 fields: first name, last name and email. Var B moved the phone and email fields onto the name step, for 4 fields: first name, last name, phone and email.

VAR A: 3 INPUT CONTACT FORM

Email moved onto the name step
Fields: first name, last name, email

VAR B: 4 INPUT CONTACT FORM

Phone and email moved onto the name step
Fields: first name, last name, phone, email

The result

Conversion fell 27.6% with the combined 3-field contact step

CONVERSION RATE

-27.6%

LEAD VALUE PER VISITOR

-17.2%

VAR B CONVERSION

-19.5%

Over 8 days, the 3-field step (Var A) converted 27.6% worse than the original and cut lead value per visitor 17.2%. The 4-field step (Var B) converted 19.5% worse, with lead value per visitor down 5.0%. Both losses cleared our confidence bar, so we paused the test after 8 days rather than keep losing leads.

What we took from it

Users preferred the original, step-by-step contact questions

Visitors were comfortable with the original form length. Asking for several details on 1 screen made that step feel heavier, even though the form had fewer steps overall.