Convert 13% More with Improved Form Fills!
Written by Toonimo
Getting visitor approval
For those of us in the conversion business, adding a ‘legal’ tick box is just another obstacle to conversion.
While we argue about the importance of every new field in a lead capture, we go mad when we have legal obligations to get a visitor’s “express consent”. Legal demands we get express consent to email, or that a lead has read and approved the Terms of Service (see all the greatest TOS here).
While marketers are able to side step this additional tick box with a clever ‘By clicking this button I agree to the TOS’, there are so many instances where we need users to give us their ok.
In some instances, we need more definitive and legally validated approvals (see double opt in below).
Photo credit: www.tick-box.org.uk
WHY do we have Opt-in anyways?
Because there is no cost to junk email (vs. junk ‘real mail’), we see far more of it, and it becomes much more of a nuisance. In the internet world, that simplicity opens up a gap for people to add others to email lists – people who have not personally opted in. This leads to a bigger issue of spamming. To curb indiscriminate spamming, there have been many movements to ensure we have a users’ permission to contact them.
Opt In & Double Opt In
The ironclad way to ensure we have a user’s permission is to have a ‘double opt-in’ mechanism. We need users to approve and then reapprove our action. Of course, legal teams love the security of this solution, but marketers see that it’s overkill and killing their conversion. Marketers contend that once a user has given you permission once, it’s just annoying the lead to ask for it again.
So the discussion turns into how marketers can get visitors to ‘opt-in’ and whether they need to have proof of that opt in. Once a user has entered their email and hit ‘go’, they’ve opted in.
To meet the strictest legal requirements, marketers may lose 1/3 of their conversions! 1/3! Although the US CANSPAM Act of 2003 does not require the opt-in approach, it does require an easy opt-out, (read more here). Many European countries have made it the law.
And to prove compliance, marketers have needed to go for ‘double – opt ins’ where subscribers need to confirm their email address through a positive action to an email they’ve received. Recent stats show that this double opt in can cut email lists between 1/3 to ½, because subscribers lose those confirmation emails or don’t get around to checking. Losing 1/3 to half!!
That’s a marketing nightmare!
How bad is the Tick Box Terror?
Amongst Toonimo clients, we see that the average tick box failure rate (of single opt in) is 26%. Of those, 52% recover naturally – meaning visitors realize their mistake – and then go and tick the required box to proceed. They are frustrated, but then proceed.
However, the other 48% of users that miss the tick box are lost. That’s the tick box terror. Or as marketers argue with their legal advisors: “We lose 13% (26%*48%) of our leads because of that clause. Can’t we find a legal way around?”
