Despite attracting the wrong users, Fathom leveraged the high volume of signups to rapidly iterate on their onboarding process. This allowed them to achieve statistically significant results daily, ultimately improving their onboarding success rate from 30% to over 70%, turning a crisis into an asset.
Related Insights
Elevate Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) from tactical to strategic by treating it like a measurement system. A high volume of tests, viewed in context with one another, provides a detailed, high-fidelity understanding of user behavior, much like a 3D scan requires numerous data points for accuracy.
Mailtrap made a multi-step survey a required part of signup. Counterintuitively, this added friction had no negative impact on conversion rates. The collected data on user intent, role, and marketing attribution proved invaluable for segmenting users and focusing on high-value cohorts, informing both product and marketing strategy.
GoProposal viewed high-touch, proactive onboarding as part of their acquisition cost. Before a trial user even entered their credit card, the team would manually set up their account with brand assets. This "shock and awe" approach wowed customers and dramatically increased conversion.
Juicebox's initial product went viral, gaining 100 paid users overnight. However, high churn revealed the product was weak. The team correctly interpreted this not as failure, but as "message-market fit"—proof they were solving a real pain point, which gave them the conviction to keep building.
Foster a culture of experimentation by reframing failure. A test where the hypothesis is disproven is just as valuable as a 'win' because it provides crucial user insights. The program's success should be measured by the quantity of quality tests run, not the percentage of successful hypotheses.
Betterment treated the location of a sign-up click (top, middle, or bottom of the page) as a proxy for user intent. This allowed them to tailor the onboarding flow—from direct funding for high-intent users to research-focused experiences for skeptical ones—leading to a double-digit increase in fund rate.
Fathom's Zoom Marketplace launch attracted 100,000 signups, but they were primarily free users with no meetings. This resulted in only 100 daily active users, highlighting the danger of vanity metrics and the importance of channel-market fit, not just massive top-of-funnel.
By analyzing their customer journey, SparkToro realized a feature that motivated purchase decisions was introduced too late in the product experience. By moving its introduction to the early "adoption stage," they doubled their free-to-paid conversion rate without changing the feature itself.
Instead of focusing on grand projects that yielded little return, The Atlantic's subscription growth was driven by a culture of data science and iterative testing. They ran over 230 A/B tests in a single year on their paywall, proving that small, continuous improvements can create massive results.
As a freemium product with millions of users, Polly struggled to identify its true buyers. By adding simple "book a demo" links and feedback request emails into the onboarding flow, they generated hundreds of valuable conversations that clarified their monetization path and ideal customer profile.