Registration conversion rate | Hacker News Reader

Registration conversion rate

6 pointsburgalon2 comments

Hey everybody, I've been working for some time now on my private project called 9folds, and have been trying to understand conversion rates for users, and why users seem to drop out mainly on the registration/login phase, and how can I improve on that.

Currently I'm using Google Accounts login since I thought it's the easiest and most safe (to avoid spam). However, it seems like people are somewhat intimidated by the Google Account signup form. My idea is that people mostly do not understand the difference between a Google Account and GMail and end up thinking that by signing-in they give access to their mail account, which is of course spooky but completely untrue. Also of course there are people that do not have Google Account or prefer to avoid using it for different reasons.

So I was thinking... maybe I should add Facebook Connect? Would that have better signup conversion? It seems to me that for some reason, people are pretty comfortable with that option even though it exposes much more private information than any other.... I couldn't find any statistics to support these assumptions.

Finally I was thinking I should just add a built-in registration... This flow is widely familiar for users... however people are mostly lazy going through the process and shut off the window as they see such a form...

So now I'm thinking which of the options should I choose: 1) leaving the current Google Account implementation 2) Adding Facebook Connect 3) Adding internal registration 4) Adding both

I'd appreciate any feedback or insight

I think you are attempting to create rationalizations for users' behavior from numerical data. This is dangerous. Low conversion rates do not necessarily imply any particular reaction to the signup form -- for that matter, the entire notion of a "low" conversion rate is suspect unless you have a thorough understanding of the domain and the traffic mix you are seeing, which is rare for an early stage startup.

On the basis of several years of dealing with non-technical users and their reactions with OpenID and other single signon technologies, my opinion is that in aggregate non-technical users are very confused by them and confusion leads to failure to convert. The most common user behavior is to create a username/password at your site and use the same credentials they always use. This is what they've been doing for over a decade now. The newfangled options have not been explained to them and they do not understand the fundamental "Facebook Connect replaces having an account with this service" value proposition. For that matter, many of them have a severely broken mental model of what having an account means in the first place. (I have some users who are convinced they need one bingo account for the blue Googles and one for the green Googles.)

I would certainly implement accounts for your service, and test that against Google. This assumes you have 100+ visits a day, which you'd want for A/B testing. If not, I'd implement accounts and deemphasize the Google option (e.g. give it a simple text link when the signup form was prominently visible with big colorful buttons). You can always test later after you have some traction.

With regards to technical users, I have no data which I can share with you but I strongly, strongly suggest rethinking any strategy which does not have internal accounts unless you are committed to customer acquisition via spam-early-spam-often viral mechanics.

Hey Patio, Thanks for your insight... indeed you are correct, I do not have enough data to actually conclude that the Google Accounts is what actually hurting the conversion. I have less than 100 visits a day. However what I do know is that I can see in the raw logs people forwarded to the Google Accounts signin and never come back... which is a bit frustrating.. however it is possible that they are reluctant anyhow, any would probably fail to convert in just the next step.

Indeed I agree that OpenID is confusing for most users.

I guess I will follow your advice and implement an on-site registration.

Thank you

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