Does an urgent lead form headline lift conversion?

We wanted a more persuasive headline on the first step of our lead form. We tested a headline urging visitors to resolve their debt issues today. Over 18 days, conversion fell 6.9%, short of our confidence bar.

Not significant Responsive 18 days Not called

SURFACE

Lead form

DEVICE

Responsive

VERTICAL

Lead Gen (CPL)

PRIMARY METRIC

Conversion rate

VARIATIONS

1

The hypothesis

By using more persuasive, urgent language in the headline, we will encourage more visitors to start and finish the form, resulting in more leads.

Urgency can move hesitant visitors to act now instead of later. The headline is the first thing visitors read, so it was the place to test it.

What we changed

A headline urging visitors to resolve their debt today

Var A replaced the headline with one that urged visitors to resolve their debt issues today. The new headline used the word resolve rather than solve, and it ran over 2 lines.

VAR A: URGENCY

Headline urges visitors to act today
Headline runs over 2 lines

The result

Conversion fell 6.9% with the urgent headline, short of our bar

CONVERSION RATE

-6.9%

LEAD VALUE PER VISITOR

-5.1%

Over 18 days, the urgent headline converted 6.9% worse than the original, and lead value per visitor was 5.1% lower. Neither gap reached our confidence bar. High-value leads looked promising early on, but by the end neither high-value nor smaller leads had responded to the new copy, so we paused the test.

What we would do next

Test urgent copy that fits on 1 line

The new headline changed 2 things at once: the wording and the length, since it now ran over 2 lines. A next test would separate them, starting with urgent copy that fits on 1 line.