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A tale of two funnels


Let’s compare the signup funnels for two SaaS startups - Shrugy™ and Parkstr™.

They both have the same steps:

For every 1,000 visitors to the Pick a plan page, here’s what happens:

A graph of two SaaS signup funnels

If you stare at it long enough, you’ll notice that Parkstr has way more dropoff at the Personal Info step compared with Shrugy.

So, based on this extensive industry benchmarking study, we can conclude that Parkstr should focus its optimization efforts on the Personal Info page. Maybe add some security logos or something.

Except …

Suppose we learn that to sign up for Parkstr, you have to upload a photo of your driver’s license and proof of insurance.

Now it makes more sense that so many visitors bail out at that step. It also makes it clear that comparing these funnels was a bad idea in the first place. (Sorry about that.)

Maybe the greatest opportunity for Parkstr really is the Personal Info page. But maybe there’s a limit to how many people will submit all that documentation, and it’s taken Parkstr months and months to get the page performing as well as it is.

Maybe their driver’s license upload experience is the best one on the entire internet, but their Create Account page is a nightmare.

We don’t know any of these things, but we do know that stacking up two companies’ seemingly similar funnels led to more confusion than insight.

I suspect comparing conversion rates across sites is always like this. I’ll try to make that case tomorrow, but if you have evidence to the contrary, please hit Reply and save me the shame of being publicly wrong 😁


    © 2024 Brian David Hall