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A payment CTA that matched the purchase intent

The payment form used "Place the order" for two different actions. The experiment tested intent-specific variants: "Try it now" for a trial and "Subscribe" for a subscription.

Trial
ControlPlace the order
VariantTry it now
Subscription
ControlPlace the order
VariantSubscribe

One button, two purchase intents

Starting a trial and subscribing are different next steps. The generic label asked people to "place" an order in both situations, even though one action started a trial and the other created a paid subscription.

The design rule made that distinction explicit at the point of action. The expected benefit was less uncertainty about the next step; that was the hypothesis, not a separately measured finding.

What the experiment showed

The A/B test included 164k+ users and reported a 5.4% increase in First Payments. Paid Users, Trials, and successful payment-form submissions also increased versus control. The winning variant was deployed on 6 March 2023.

Reported change vs control

+5.4% First Payments 164k+ users in the experiment
Paid Users
+4.78%
Trials
+4.46%
Successful payment-form submissions
+3.67%

PRO 1 month Recurring

Card number
MM/YYCVC
Card holder

Today’s charge:$99.95 (incl. tax)

All prices are in US dollars and include tax.

Your data is properly secured. We use SSL encryption and are PCI DSS-compliant

Variant

The change in context

Each CTA appeared in its real payment context—offer, charge explanation, fields, and terms—so the experiment tested the label as part of the purchase decision, not in isolation.

Trial

PRO 1 month Recurring

Card number
MM/YYCVC
Card holder

Today’s charge:$0.00 (incl. tax)

All prices are in US dollars and include tax.

Your data is properly secured. We use SSL encryption and are PCI DSS-compliant

Control

PRO 1 month Recurring

Card number
MM/YYCVC
Card holder

Today’s charge:$0.00 (incl. tax)

All prices are in US dollars and include tax.

Your data is properly secured. We use SSL encryption and are PCI DSS-compliant

Variant

Subscription

PRO 1 month Recurring

Card number
MM/YYCVC
Card holder

Today’s charge:$99.95 (incl. tax)

All prices are in US dollars and include tax.

Your data is properly secured. We use SSL encryption and are PCI DSS-compliant

Control

PRO 1 month Recurring

Card number
MM/YYCVC
Card holder

Today’s charge:$99.95 (incl. tax)

All prices are in US dollars and include tax.

Your data is properly secured. We use SSL encryption and are PCI DSS-compliant

Variant

How it was tested

HypothesisNaming the intended action would make the next step clearer.

The A/B experiment ran from 2 February to 6 March 2023 on live payment traffic and included 164k+ users. It compared the generic CTA with intent-specific wording. Trial and subscription were two expressions of the same treatment rule, not separate experiment arms or a sequence where one button changes into another.

  1. Draft
  2. Start
  3. Stop
  4. Deploy
Traffic split Equal allocation
Experiment groups and traffic allocation
GroupTrafficUsers
Control50%82,294
Variant50%82,294
Total100%164,588

What I took forward

The design decision was to make the action specific to the purchase intent. Trial and subscription no longer shared a generic order label. The broader principle is simple: at a consequential point in a flow, the action should describe the user’s actual next step.

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