[00:00:00] David Barnard: Hello everyone, and welcome to the holiday edition of roast my paywall. So we’re going to be going over some promo paywalls here in a bit. Uh, but first I did want to introduce our lovely panel, Jason Van Der Merwe. Did I get that right? Jason, close enough. Uh, Jason, why don’t you just, uh, tell folks who you are real quick.
[00:00:23] Yeah.
[00:00:24] Jason Van Der Merwe: Hey everyone. I’m excited to be here. Um, I’m Jason. I’m a director of engineering at Strava, responsible for our growth org. I’ve been there for, um, eight and a half years now, um, kind of was a founding member of the growth org and, um, now we’re about over 80 people. So I’ve been here through a long journey.
[00:00:41] I’m excited to see some paywalls here today.
[00:00:44] David Barnard: Nice. And then Thomas and Owen, if you want to hear more from Jason, we did have him on this sub club podcast to go to sub club. com. Uh, similarly, Thomas has been on a lot of webinars and two or three podcast episodes now, but [00:01:00] Thomas, why don’t you introduce yourself real quick?
[00:01:02] Thomas Petit: Yeah. Hi everybody. Um, I’m an independent consultant with subscription apps, so obviously a lot of overlaps with the revenue cat features and content. Happy to be here and see with Jason if we can give some input to the community with some related payroll. Happy to. The first episode was really the bar, the bar is really high for us because the first one was both fun and insightful.
[00:01:28] So let’s try to keep
[00:01:29] David Barnard: the level today. Awesome. So what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna go through, uh, the submitted paywalls, um, uh, folks submitted them on the sub club community. You can go check that out@chat.subclub.com and we’ll be doing these more regularly. So keep an eye on the community for, uh, the next additions, and we’ll talk about the, the next one coming in January at the end.
[00:01:53] Um. But we had quite a few promo paywalls and then toward the end, we have a few that weren’t actually promos and if [00:02:00] we have time, we’ll get to them. So I’m going to introduce the paywall, read a bit of context that was shared by the developer, and then we’re going to roast away. Last time we got a little spicy here and there.
[00:02:15] We’ll see how it goes today, but it should be a fun time. So buckle up and let’s get going. So the first, uh, paywall we’re going to look at today is, and I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I’m going to give it my best shot, uh, Laoshi, Laoshi, um, Laoshi is designed for learning Chinese words and characters.
[00:02:39] Uh, we’ve shown paywalls. After onboarding and on session start, but no more than once a day and also users can call the paywall by clicking the premium button on the main or other screen. So it’s a little context around when you’re going to see the paywall conversion when user clicks by themselves as much higher.
[00:02:56] So I guess tapping on the like upgrade to pro button [00:03:00] gives a much better, uh, conversion. Um, user was already interested versus the situation when we forced them to see the paywall after onboarding or session start, we’ve also tried email and push marketing, but they show almost no results. So let’s kick it off with Thomas.
[00:03:16] Oh, a few little stats they shared. So 1. 13 percent paywall open to a transaction completion. Um, Now that’s, that’s probably a little on the low side because they are showing it so much when you show it on every app launch, you are going to get a lower paywall open to, uh, completion and the app has 18, 000 monthly active users.
[00:03:38] So Thomas, let’s kick it off. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, what can be improved in, uh, Laoshi’s paywall.
[00:03:47] Thomas Petit: All right, let’s get going. Um, the first thing I don’t like is. If you didn’t tell us what it is, there is absolutely no clue to guess what the app is doing. [00:04:00] I was quite, uh, I imagine they are mentioned in the onboarding and so on, but it’s kind of surprising that nowhere on the payroll, I see what I’m actually in front of, like, I see features and that’s, I think that’s the main problem.
[00:04:15] I see, oh, there are voice option and exclude words and support. Like they’re all. Unlimited transcription. They’re all features, but as a user, I want to see the benefits. So tell me you’re going to learn Chinese word. You’re going to improve your pronunciation. You’re going to be able to have a conversation.
[00:04:31] Like, tell me what’s in it for me because tone training for me is more of a pain than, than something great. It kind of, it starts with So it says learn faster, but learn faster is kind of very generic. So I would love to see something more specific about, okay, if you’re premium, you’re going to speak better Chinese, or you’re going to learn more words or something.
[00:04:54] Um, that would be the first one. The second one is, okay, there’s a gift, but it’s not [00:05:00] very, and there’s a few emoji, but it’s not very visual. I think, okay. That doesn’t really sound like a gift actually, if I need to pay, but it doesn’t matter. Um, and it’s more Christmasy thing, but yeah, I’m not a super fan of the, the, the, the visuals.
[00:05:14] Um, and okay, here we’re talking about sales, like kind of promotion, Black Friday sales, and I’m seeing up to 30 percent off. So first, it’s not very big, like this could have been made bigger if it’s not the normal paywall. It’s not very obvious. I think if you’re going to offer a discount, you could make it bigger.
[00:05:35] Uh, but mostly, why does it say up to 30%? It makes me almost cautious that, uh, there’s going to be a small star somewhere. And 30 percent in Black Friday is not even really a big discount. Even in normal times, it’s not a very big discount. So, I’m not feeling a lot of love for the seasonal compared to the normal, because I think it could have been made bigger.
[00:05:54] But this is, in my opinion, a bit secondary compared to the Feature versus [00:06:00] benefit comment than I did before.
[00:06:03] David Barnard: Yeah, that’s some good advice. Jason, what do you think? Ah,
[00:06:06] Jason Van Der Merwe: Thomas did a great job here. Um, I will say I like the yellow, um, continue button. I think the contrast there, it’s very clear from the UX, what you want a user to press.
[00:06:16] That has a lot of emphasis. I think that’s great. Um, we, we kind of, Thomas and I were talking before this a little bit about whether continue is, is okay. Apple, um, copy, um, we’ve discovered a Strava. We can’t say that we, we kind of, um, have subscribe or trial, um, per Apple on letting us know, but it sounds like, um, various active, different, um, experiences with Apple’s guidelines there.
[00:06:39] So that might be okay. Apple might come for you at some point on that. Um, and then generally, like the scrolling, like my general philosophy is, is to limit the amount of scrolling, either horizontal or vertical on an upsell, just because from our analytics, at least in my experience, um, users don’t scroll that much.
[00:06:55] Um, and so you put all this effort into developing this, like, you know, multi page [00:07:00] scrolling, which verticals actually not too bad in mobile development. Horizontal is a much bigger pain in the butt to do. And so, um, you do all this work and then no one actually scrolls or like, you know, 5 percent of people scroll.
[00:07:10] So, um, I think it’s all about like the top of, you know, the, the piece that you, above the fold, the piece that users see, like, how do you really sell that real estate and it’s, it’s hard. Um, so my one thought here is the black Friday sale of the big yellow contrast there brings your eyes there, but it’s a lot of screen real estate to use up without really, as Thomas said, without really saying anything, um, And generally graphics, in my experience, don’t have a great conversion because they’re almost distracting.
[00:07:37] Um, but again, I love that. I think that the bottom little bottom sheet there is kind of classic. It’s very clean. Um, very clear, you know, the continue what you’re paying for, that defaulting to yearly. So I think that’s really great. How do you,
[00:07:51] David Barnard: if you don’t have scrolling, like what’s your design philosophy, how would they kind of pack more, um, [00:08:00] benefits and stuff into a non scrolling view?
[00:08:03] I think
[00:08:03] Jason Van Der Merwe: it’s almost like the, you know, like an elevator pitch for your startup. Like you have, how do you sell your startup in the 30 seconds? Like, how do you sell above there? I don’t, I don’t think necessarily scrolling is, is a bad, bad thing to do. Once you’ve really optimized top of the fold. Um, and I think there’s just so much to do optimizing top of the falls.
[00:08:21] I think it really is that Excel that either the feature set or, you know, the, the promise of your product really upfront. Um, and then maybe keep your, the, the sale piece of that closer to where the, the, um, actual price is to make it clear, like what that 30 percent of, or maybe as, as the entry point is where you really sell the, the promotion as well.
[00:08:42] David Barnard: Dr. Thomas, you were going to say something.
[00:08:45] Thomas Petit: Yeah. Like, because you mentioned something about the continue button. Um. In some cases, it’s a bit of a double edged sword, uh, so in some cases you might get rejected, not others. Personally, I’m not a big fan, not just because [00:09:00] of the rejection, but also because it’s not a very big commitment.
[00:09:03] You’re not confirming the purchase here, you’re just continuing if you’re just losing. It looks like there’s going to be another screen after, and the other screen after is the model to confirm, so that’s a bit abrupt, and I suspect that you might get users with relatively low intent to get in, which could be good from an RPU point of view.
[00:09:21] But also you got like this particular call to action requires a lot of analysis on call to action to model model to confirming and also on cancellation and. And refunds because it’s it’s it’s a little bit less a little bit more confusing. Uh in a way otherwise, yeah I’m, not as extreme as jason about the the vertical scrolling.
[00:09:43] Uh, I don’t like the horizontal one from a huge point of view But the vertical is okay But I I fully agree here that you have to pack as much as possible and that the black friday sale occupies too much real estate Maybe because we’re seeing it’s kind of you’ve got both things here. It’s kind of It is seasonal, but it [00:10:00] still says what you get in it.
[00:10:01] And when maybe the ways to unpack it is that initially on the paywall, you wouldn’t put the Blackberry sale, and then you have to benefit or features or whatnot, and on specific triggers where the sale is actually happening, then maybe this is the whole realistic, like this is the sale, but because I already know.
[00:10:20] And there’s a last bit that, uh, I don’t know this because we focus a lot on over the fall, but like. If you click on view all plans, which I think is decently design on where it is. Then we look at the full screen here, and this one I find particularly loosey, like, because it doesn’t tell me nothing, like, it doesn’t compare me the price, and I don’t see the difference, is the, that’s the monthly other trial, that kind of, and there’s a lot of lost real estate on the screen, like, because it’s just grey out the whole top, and if somebody has clicked View All Plans, they’re curious about other offering, That’s an [00:11:00] opportunity to tell them more about it.
[00:11:02] Like, and here it’s, I feel it’s very, uh, unused all this, all this space over there.
[00:11:10] David Barnard: Yeah. And we may get to this in some of the other paywalls, but what do you, what do you think about, or what do both of you think about putting something related to the sale in the actual CTA? So instead of continue, like save 30 percent or like start now and save or, um, any, any kind of best practices there.
[00:11:33] Thomas, I’ll go with you. Yeah, go ahead, Thomas.
[00:11:36] Thomas Petit: I was waiting for Jason to start. Yeah, no, I think it’s a good idea. It makes the whole thing more seasonal. Personally, I’m not a fan of continue, but anything that starts with a verb is fine. Like you said, you know, I don’t know, what’s the exact wording you said?
[00:11:52] Don’t put just 30 percent off, but put a stop today and get 30 percent off or something. Some people do long copy on, [00:12:00] but I was not convinced until I see decent results here and there. Um, yeah, it depends how the elements combine on the rest of the screen. But, uh,
[00:12:10] David Barnard: and Jason, you were going to say.
[00:12:11] Jason Van Der Merwe: Yeah, I mean, we’ve, we’ve experimented, I’ve tried this in the past.
[00:12:15] I think it depends, like localization gets tough with your, your price. Um, and I think eventually we kind of moved away from it just because there’s a lot happening there. And what happens if it’s too long in certain languages like Russian? Um, so I think you could do more with obviously continue, like, you know, continue and save today or something like that.
[00:12:31] But, um, I think there’s more to do with in the real estate around the price that they have right above the button. Um, and Apple’s Apple’s tends to, to like that as well. Um, kind of all the pricing in one area.
[00:12:43] David Barnard: Gotcha. All right, well, let’s move on to the next one. So this app next run, um, it’s a new app for runners.
[00:12:52] It uses AI to generate a training schedule and give coach feedback. Uh, we get a lot of context here. So, uh, bear with me. [00:13:00] It is a hard paywall. That’s great to know. Uh, image one is auto scrolling with. Parallax. So I guess that horizontal scroll like Jason was talking about, that people don’t actually scroll.
[00:13:10] Uh, they’ve solved that with auto scroll. So that’d be an interesting thing to discuss. Uh, image two, as user scrolls down image three, when user clicks, um, view all features, um, I guess there’s that kind of. Call to action in the middle of the paywall to view all features. Um, and then image four is the bottom of the paywall and the frequently asked questions.
[00:13:32] Um, two challenges. There are a ton of features in this app. It’s hard to convey them all here, rather than immediately telling the user about all the features, they decided to try and paint a picture of what their life could be like with the app. Number two, this is a hard paywall. Most u most users are afraid to pay $80 up front without experiencing the app first.
[00:13:49] Outside of the holiday, I usually have a free trial. I may switch to a freemium. Model or have a free trial during the special while also getting a discount on your purchase. This [00:14:00] paywall shows early in the onboarding after some priming screens. I also tailor the images and messaging to the user type, male or female, running experience level, etc.
[00:14:10] The first time it shows in onboarding, there’s a dismiss button. It shows again at the end of onboarding, but the user cannot dismiss it the second time. All right, Thomas, we did you first. So Jason, why don’t you share your thoughts on this one? Oh, and they do have a 10 percent conversion rate, which is, uh, you know, with a, a hard paywall, you would expect a little higher conversion rate, but that actually sounds quite good.
[00:14:33] Jason Van Der Merwe: Well, um, I see the Strava logo in here. So clearly I think this is an amazing paywall with no issues. Uh, and Brandon, congrats. Um, uh, well, I’ll get, I’ll say that part because, you know, I’m going to come for you, Brandon, on the, uh, horizontal and, uh, vertical scrolling here a little bit. Um, I like, I like to hear the, the, um, the personalization on, um, on the images.
[00:14:56] That’s good. Um, it’s very easy to be off putting [00:15:00] with images, um, you know, to, for, for women to see a male athlete or for us, it’s like a cyclist or seeing a runner or runner, seeing a cyclist like that can definitely, um, lower conversion significantly. So that personalization is really nice. And then your copy here being unlock your hidden potential, like.
[00:15:16] You know, that’s kind of the promise you’re selling. So I think there’s more you can do in there, um, to make that clear. Um, I think from a general UX perspective, I would try to clean up and kind of give yourself a lot more constraints and simplify, for instance, you have the floating button at the bottom with text behind it.
[00:15:33] Um, so that would be pretty distracting. Um, I would just create like what we saw on the previous paywall. And what’s pretty common now is just like a full bottom sheet kind of that sits on the bottom. Um, and then you kind of play with the real estate behind. Um, and you have a lot of text in different places, right?
[00:15:49] You have like text in the image 1 mile best. You have the text over the image. Then you have your black Friday offer. Um, and then you have, you know, save 70 70 dollars and price in the middle. And then I’m [00:16:00] guessing, um, you know, all your feature value, um, below. So, um, I think you can just kind of simplify up.
[00:16:06] Um, a little bit of the UX to kind of really either, you know, sell your feature sets and then have a really clear section for the price, um, below Thomas.
[00:16:18] Thomas Petit: Uh, yeah, those are all very good. The call to action itself is a bit surprising because there’s so much text in it. And it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because David was suggesting it, uh, before what we thought, uh, subscribe with 70 off.
[00:16:34] I’m not, I’m not sure Apple would really like it because the 70 is in bigger than the actual price, which is 79. 98 or something, which is usually the full price has to be at least as big as whatever else you’re writing. So I don’t know if that would stick. The, the, the pattern is a bit confusing, but maybe it’s because of what Jason said that if you manage to isolate it, it would look better.
[00:16:58] I’m not completely [00:17:00] against like so much tags, but it’s kind of, there’s a disturbing element. There is some text that is too much elsewhere. Uh, so behind the button is one. There is this thing that says best offer first, what, Oh, it’s first 12 months. Okay. That was like. What is best offer first? Like, uh, I know it’s first 12 months.
[00:17:20] Why, why is first 12 months? Is it, is it more expensive the second year or like something, tell me something is wrong here. Like, uh, I don’t know. It’s nice to select the best offer, but then there’s something with the text that isn’t quite right here. And then if I take one month, I’m saving on, on what it’s, it’s a Black Friday offer or it’s after, but it doesn’t matter at the end of the and and whereas there’s clearly too much text, in my opinion, is here on the second screen.
[00:17:45] Where it says schedule around you, the three lines below, which you go three lines below. If people click on view all features, then where, where’s the Strava logo and the six line below? It’s not that bad because people have shown an intent that they want to read about more features. [00:18:00] So I don’t think that’s a problem.
[00:18:01] But before I showed that I want to read stuff, uh, on the second screen, that’s, in my opinion, that’s too much. The, the below the fold is, is fine. It’s more the text disposition rather than the quantity. But yeah, on the second screen, the text quantity is just too heavy. Now we say all this, but 10 percent conversion rate on a hard pay wall?
[00:18:23] Eh, bring it on. Like, uh, sounds great. Yeah. I mean At that kind of price. It’s it’s not very common The the developer mentioned that it does offer a trial in normal times. It’s just a black friday offer You might want to verify the churn rate you got from that hot paywall. Um, even though now it’s it’s finished or something Uh, because this is not what you have normally so it’s a little bit dangerous an alternative could be you’ve remained with a hot paywall, but when people Try to dismiss it somehow, then they say, Oh, do you want a free trial instead or something like, so you [00:19:00] still catch the no trial list?
[00:19:01] I don’t know. Um, yeah, it was temporary, but, uh, we, we don’t have the churn numbers. It would be really interesting to see how moving from a free trial to no trial has moved, not just the monetization, but also, also, um, yeah, churn, I had one,
[00:19:17] Jason Van Der Merwe: um, I had one additional thought here. Cause I was thinking about the context of this as a hard paywall into your product.
[00:19:23] Yeah. Ideally, Brandon, you’re not selling your product only on the screen, right? You’ve used all your previous onboarding screens to tell a user about what they’re getting, right? They’ve downloaded with some intent, and then you’re educating them, even with the questions to get their personalization.
[00:19:40] Every screen at onboarding, whether you’re asking a user, For information or telling the user about something you’re giving them hints and clues into the value of your product or what you’re offering. So the time they get here, ideally, they’ve already got this like kind of excitement about getting into your product and using it.
[00:19:56] And so you can do less selling on this page because you’ve already been [00:20:00] selling the experience before. Um, as opposed, and if you’re not doing that, that’s something where you can adjust and kind of. You have more real estate because you’re using it across multiple screens.
[00:20:10] David Barnard: Yeah. I think, uh, to your point earlier, Jason, this is another good opportunity to kind of optimize the, the, uh, above the fold of the paywall.
[00:20:20] Um, it does feel like the vertical listing of the prices kind of takes up a lot of space, kind of not as much bang for your buck. Uh, so maybe experimenting with that being horizontal or just widening them a bit. So they’re not quite as tall. Um, and then it would be really interesting to track the, like how many people actually tap view all features and then do they actually convert more?
[00:20:45] And if the answer is very few people tap it and then you don’t see a higher conversion rate by people who tap it, then maybe. You know, you should work even some of those logos, like the fact that you work with Garmin and Strava and Apple health, like [00:21:00] maybe that should be more above the fold, like kind of, um, seeing those logos, you know, tells people you, you work with the best in the industry or whatever.
[00:21:08] Uh, and so maybe that, that part shouldn’t be hidden behind a view, all features, especially if you look at stats and you know, like Jason said, only 2 percent of people in some of their experiments actually scroll. So maybe only. You know, 2 percent actually tap view all features. And so you want to actually pull some of that, uh, some of your best copy out of that view, all features.
[00:21:28] And to Jason and Thomas’s point, like really highlight the value props, uh, a little better, uh, especially above the fold. So any other thoughts as we wrap up? Oh, and then I do think like Thomas was kind of talking about the button. Um. The since you have the price above the 79 for the 1st year, then. One 49 a year.
[00:21:52] Um,
[00:21:53] Thomas Petit: is that it’s an intro for, I didn’t see it’s an intro
[00:21:55] David Barnard: for, yeah, it’s a little conf, like, like we, [00:22:00] like we’ve said, uh, this, this is the roasting part. It’s, it’s just a lot going on. It’s so much text. It’s confusing. Um, I would say there’s a lot to kind of simplify here. It’s like you want, you want people to like understand what they’re getting into.
[00:22:13] Um, so I think there’s a lot of opportunity to remove a lot of this. Text and make, make things more clear. Um, and then, uh, you know, a call to, I don’t know. I mean, Thomas, you said you’ve done some experiments where longer call to action can work, but I never put that much. Yeah. I was going to say, this is a lot of call to action on a lot of texts for a button.
[00:22:38] Uh, so I think it’s because kind of reducing some of that. It’s because
[00:22:42] Thomas Petit: it’s a, it’s an intro offer. So they have to mention at some point that the second year is not the. The same price, but then this would fit very nicely in the price description on top, rather than in the bottom, like, it’s kind of, you could stick with the same offer, but the disposition of the [00:23:00] different element between save the 70 first 12 months, the price that is like, kind of, there’s something wrong with the element organization, I think.
[00:23:12] David Barnard: I don’t know. And what, when the other thing I was going to say is that, um, um, with a hard paywall, you probably do get more people scrolling and more people reading and paying a little more attention. Um, but you want to verify that’s actually true. So, uh, you know, my hypothesis would be, and I’m actually launching a hard paywall in one of my apps soon.
[00:23:36] And. You know, I do have a longer paywall for that. And the idea being that, you know, if people just kind of skip the onboarding or, you know, don’t realize what’s going on and then they get to a hard paywall, you do want to at least let them have some opportunity to really understand what the app is about.
[00:23:53] Um, but again, you know, if you’re using a hard paywall, you, you do want to track like, are people scrolling? Are people tapping through [00:24:00] all features? Oh, you know, is this actually leading to better conversion or even with a hard paywall, um, You know, the, the optimization is probably best done in the above the fold side of things versus, um, having quite so much text.
[00:24:16] Um, and even like the train with confidence, reach your goals at one of the things I’m going to try with, with my heart paywall is actually have some like dropdowns. So it’s like, you can just have trained with confidence, reach your goals, schedule around you. But then if they want to tap a little dropdown, then they can read the explanation.
[00:24:33] Um, and then that’ll kind of like compress it to where you, they can really scan. And, and it’s just not this like giant, massive scrolling list. Um, yeah. Any other thoughts as we wrap this one up?
[00:24:48] All right, let’s move on to the next one. Next one is Brandon
[00:24:52] Thomas Petit: from being here. Like the, the developer was in the chat. So thanks for submitting. [00:25:00]
[00:25:00] David Barnard: Uh, next one is any tracker by Shervin. Um, the app lets you track any number on any website, making it the perfect price tracker, uh, image one is a promo paywall screen with a countdown.
[00:25:12] Clicking a benefit gives more info image to when the user clicks all plans. I don’t send a lot of notifications to users of the app, but those I send have a big impact. Promotions are not run very often. To make sure no one misses out, I send a specialized notification each time I run a promotion. In the notification title, I will often associate the promotion with an ongoing holiday event.
[00:25:37] All right, Thomas, why don’t you kick us off on roasting this paywall?
[00:25:44] Thomas Petit: Well, from, from far, there’s a lot of things that Look good to me. Like, uh, contrast. There’s not too many elements, just the right amount of it. I think there’s a bunch of things that are good. Uh, we’re seeing for the first time a countdown, which in seasonal promotional [00:26:00] events is sometimes very effective.
[00:26:02] Like this offer ends in 50 minutes. I think it could be even a little bit more obvious, or I don’t know if it gets dynamic, but if you don’t state seconds, we’re not going to see it. And very often what works is to see the countdown actually move because I’m not going to stick on the paywall for three minutes and look at this tiny text move.
[00:26:21] So maybe add the seconds and make it dynamic. Could, could like push the rush for the offer limited time offer. Personally, I would have put this, this timer on top where it says limited time. Uh, The lifetime premium is just a tap away. It’s kind of a bit of a weird angle, like to me, but, uh, I don’t know, like this one was a bit of a surprise.
[00:26:43] The part that I like is the disposition of the elements, like kind of. This logo, that means nothing to me, but our premium benefits, I think that that copy could be improved, uh, tell me what’s in it for me. Don’t tell. I know what you’re going to list all the benefits, but so you don’t have to say it. [00:27:00] You can use this line for something else.
[00:27:02] A little bit like the first paywall. I think it’s not very specific in terms of what’s in it for me. It’s okay. I’ve got unlimited tracking and shorter update. Shorter update could be, for example, more specific. Tell me how much time I’m gonna, I’m gonna get or how, like, how often compared to the other one.
[00:27:19] I think, like, the general disposition is good, but it lacks a little bit of craft on On copywriting, in particular, uh, on the design itself, uh, uh, I’m, I’m fine with that. I like the go premium, uh, kind of, uh, text. I’m not seeing the little, uh, cross like skip button. So I don’t know. I’m seeing it on the second screen.
[00:27:41] Do I have to go on old plans to skip it? It’s kind of, it feels a little bit hard. I’m not completely sure. And the second screen. I’m not too sure about this choice of gray on the icon, but I think the three plans are relatively okay in there in how they are displayed. I don’t know why you would pre select the [00:28:00] monthly one.
[00:28:00] That’s kind of weird. Like, it’s very rarely that you would want to default on the monthly, especially here. I don’t know, like, kind of, I’m trying to think about the ratios between monthly, yearly and lifetime. Um, So lifetime is about a year and a half, uh, a year and two third. That’s all right. Uh, yeah, no, uh, that’s more okay.
[00:28:20] Tap for more info. So here, I guess we can see what the faster updates, uh, means. There’s also something that probably nobody’s gonna notice, but I do believe it’s weird, is in the first screen, you’re saying, so tracking, sync, and interval. But then when I click, the order has changed. And now it’s tracking, interval, and sync.
[00:28:40] And it’s. Those tiny details, sometimes they work against you, like of going against the logic of the brain, of changing the disposition of the element. Uh, I don’t think it would impact much, but try as a general philosophy to follow like the same patterns so that you don’t confuse the few people who have read through a text.
[00:28:59] Um, [00:29:00] I’m going to say, I do like the overall contrast and stuff, but I typically do not use red on my price. Red is like bad, danger, wrong, like something is not going right with this, and so I don’t think that like red is bad on, on, on black and with this yellow, but by itself, I tend to avoid it for something like the price, or maybe you could put in red the hundred dollar.
[00:29:25] And then find another color to, for the promotional price, but not put the end price in red, which could be sometimes off putting. And I’m even reading in a chat that in some culture, it could even be offensive.
[00:29:39] David Barnard: Jason, what are your thoughts?
[00:29:41] Jason Van Der Merwe: Uh, yeah, Thomas did a great job here. I think, um, I would nitpick on the, um, all plans screen.
[00:29:47] The point of tapping all plans is to choose your plan. You know, and so having other buttons that go into details about the features just seems like the wrong place. That’s not where you’re selling the features. That’s where you’re letting a [00:30:00] user pick their plan. So let them pick the plan and that’s it.
[00:30:02] Um, I think you could, I like kind of the font, um, UX that you have on all plans at the top where it’s any tracker premium. Um, I would bring that type of like bolder text to the first screen, get rid of the limited time offer and say, like, get the best of any tracker. Um, and then on the line below it, you can bring up what Thomas said, which is, um, this limited time offer ends in, you know, today or 52 minutes.
[00:30:25] Like you could, you know, combine that. And then you’ve, um, had a bolder title, um, and you’ve gotten rid of some text to allow you more space to spend talking about your feature sets. Um, I’m not a huge fan of the icon. Um, I know it’s pretty typical to throw some type of icon or image in the middle. Um, I know it can look boring not to have something there, but.
[00:30:46] Uh, I don’t see what it does, um, unless there’s like a significance to it from the rest of your product that we just don’t see, um. But other than that, I mean, I think it’s, um, I think on the old plans, you could show like how much you’re saving [00:31:00] by choosing one or the other options to help them push towards lifetime premium.
[00:31:03] Because it seems like you want them to do that. So, you know, you can have a little like, um, little badge that says, you know, save 50%. Um, so even though like, obviously you’re saving 50 percent by saying 49. 99 instead of 100, yeah. You could let users know 50 percent because users kind of everyone loves a good sale.
[00:31:19] 50 percent sounds really awesome. Um, humans are kind of irrational and from that perspective versus like the absolute money, absolute dollar value of the money, that’s
[00:31:29] David Barnard: it for me. Yeah. My, my, my only thoughts here are, and we kind of hit on this before, but. Ideally, people are coming in with a lot of intent and kind of understand generally what your app does.
[00:31:40] And they’ve gone through some onboarding, but maybe they skipped the onboarding. Maybe they barely scanned it and didn’t actually read anything. Um, And so you did actually did a really great job in the description text that you sent us saying the app lets you track any number on any website, making it the [00:32:00] perfect price tracker.
[00:32:01] I feel like that kind of like real clear, like this is what the app is all about still probably should be on the. On the paywall so that it, it, anybody who skipped or still doesn’t get it or, you know, if you show this, you know, they randomly open the app after kind of forgetting that it was there or whatever.
[00:32:21] I think, um, yeah, I think that text should be on this paywall somewhere and probably a little bit more prominent because it. It’s a, I thought it was great. Yeah. Jason said in the comments. Yeah. It’s like, it’s great. Copy, uh, track any number on any website, making it the perfect price tracker. So you use that copy right here on your paywall.
[00:32:40] All right, let’s move on to the next one. If I can click the right button. All right. This is a fit 52 with Carrie Underwood. Um, uh, Kim, I believe as a CEO there, uh, we’ve chatted before. So the app is workout routines inspired by Carrie Underwood. And actually with Carrie [00:33:00] Underwood, I believe she’s in most of the videos and kind of it’s, it’s the coach of the app challenges doesn’t perform as well with install source of paid ads versus email campaign or previous installs or subscribers, as they have awareness of the app and are typically price sensitive, waiting for holiday offers have tested paywall at startup onboarding and hard paywall.
[00:33:22] But trial start rate wasn’t as high as later in onboarding paywall user journey. It’s 13 screens into onboarding. Uh, doesn’t require account. Sign up can click X and then display two options. Monthly and annual user can progress. Progress to the app home screen to see available workouts, but can’t start a workout without starting a free trial.
[00:33:44] All right. Lots of context. And they do have a 32 percent install to trial start rate with that. That’s actually really good. Uh, and then they’re getting a 4, 000 monthly downloads. Uh, Thomas, why don’t you kick us off on this one?
[00:33:59] Thomas Petit: [00:34:00] I quite like it. I mean, for once we’re not overwhelmed by text. Um, uh, so that’s pretty good.
[00:34:06] I, having worked in the, in the fitness space, uh, I know planks are always a great seller, so I think like, uh, I’d question a little bit turning the head during the plank, but I’m not a fitness trainer, so I’m going to shut that one down. I think now the whole visual was like kind of the, the background is nice.
[00:34:26] They put very front and center the countdown, which makes it very clear. It’s a special offer and being a seasonal offer like promotional offer. I think they, they make actually a nice, a nice call to action here, which is action claim my offer, but it’s sufficiently engaging with the price just above the price.
[00:34:48] I’m from between it’s both good, but at the same time, there’s a lot of numbers on this page first, because there’s a number in the brand. You repeat the brand twice at the very top. And then there’s a number of [00:35:00] the countdown number of the 14 days free trial. There’s the number of the price, the bar price, the equivalent by week.
[00:35:06] So. I don’t know if the numbers thing is not there’s so little text that I’m just seeing numbers everywhere. Like, uh, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a tiny bit too many numbers, but, uh, but it’s fine. Like, uh, the condom is cool. The general coloring and all is good. I wonder what this little arrow at the bottom does.
[00:35:24] Is it for scrolling or is it just for the subscription terms? I’m going to assume it’s not for this. Um, yeah, 30 percent install to trial start rate is, is really impressive. I would argue maybe for the other developers that listen to our roasting on the other paywall, that here they’re not talking about any of the benefits.
[00:35:44] And I assume is one, because it’s a promotional paywall, not the general one. Two, because there is a long one boarding, so they had the intent before. It’s very different from. Others and three fitness apps with, uh, influencers or trainers who are well known have a complete [00:36:00] different, uh, logic to normal app.
[00:36:04] I was about to say, um, I was, I was analyzing last week a, a fitness app that has done $3 million from 15,000 downloads just because the intent has been made before people even get the app. So that’s why our comment here that. Uh, the very clean layout I know may be working very differently for this context with Kari, uh, than it is working for the previous app that we had seen.
[00:36:32] David Barnard: Jason? Um,
[00:36:34] Jason Van Der Merwe: I mean, this is great. Um, I would get rid of the restore button at the top, um, and assume you, you know, your users can find that elsewhere. You know, the more things you have on your page, the more distracting you can be. Um, and then I would, I would do a lot of A B tests around the copy in the button for claim my offer.
[00:36:51] Um, I don’t have any data to say that this is bad copy. It just doesn’t, like, doesn’t feel to me like it. Yeah. I would just AB test this a lot to see, you know, you know, [00:37:00] try it today or subscribe or get the best, something like, you know, something different than just about the offer, maybe about the promise of, of the, of the product.
[00:37:07] Um, and then maybe I think Apple might come for you. It kind of seems like the saving, the 77 cents a week is larger text than the price above it, which, um, I would just make the price more prominent and clear. Um, and then the contrast of what the original price was, the 69. 99. Um, I don’t think that passes accessibility, um, guidelines on the background.
[00:37:30] So I would just make that a little pop out a little bit. Um, but overall, I think that’s a very clean. Um, simple paywall and, uh, I hope it performs, continues to perform well.
[00:37:41] David Barnard: Yeah, I think this is a great paywall. I think you’re right. The restore button, ideally you preemptively restore and, and, and can kind of bury the restore button.
[00:37:50] And then. You know, unless you’re, um, you know, as long as you have some care taken to not allow them to double subscribe, then [00:38:00] even if they already are a subscriber and they go through the flow, it’s just going to say you’re already subscribed. So having that is kind of a prominent call to action on. Your kind of main above the fold paywall.
[00:38:11] Probably. I like Jason’s idea of just, just getting rid of it, bearing it, putting it somewhere else. Um, yeah, I, I don’t know, Jason, I actually kind of like the 77 cents a week being higher. I mean, if, if apples. Okay. With it. I think that draws your attention because it is, uh, in that blue text that draws your attention a little stronger and, and, you know, a fitness app for 77 cents a week, like that sounds like a really great deal, um, 40 a year.
[00:38:41] You know, it is not that much money. I mean, especially for a fitness app. Um, but I don’t know, I kind of like the 77 cents a week. So, uh, you know, who knows, you know, it may be something worth, worth experimenting with, but, um, I might try that.
[00:38:56] Thomas Petit: I would argue. Yeah,
[00:38:57] David Barnard: it does feel very
[00:38:59] Thomas Petit: [00:39:00] cheap, especially when it’s backed by, by a celebrity where you can expect a little bit more, more or celebrity or trainer or like where you can expect more intent and usually less.
[00:39:11] Um, kind of price sensitivity, uh, maybe the community is not a very wealthy and that makes sense to price it this way. I haven’t tried, but I did notice that fitness apps who have like, kind of, uh, well known people in front and center tend to offer much higher price. The one I was mentioning before that is, that is led by a fitness influencer, uh, was, uh, 25 per month.
[00:39:36] So it’s kind of the gap is really, really massive, like compared to this 40 annually, so that might be something to try on because if there’s the intent, we think there is. And that 30 percent is, is really nice testing the sensitivity to pricing would be one.
[00:39:53] David Barnard: Yeah, for sure. All right. Great paywall. That is a, I feel like that is a very strong, [00:40:00] uh, holiday promo paywall.
[00:40:01] So good, good job, uh, Kim and 52 team. All right. Next up is bookshelf. So, uh, Alex is a solo creator. The app is an AI assisted reading tracker app that helps you track your library, improve your reading habits, and actually remember what you read. So they have a 20, 000 monthly active users, 2. 8 percent promo install to paying customer.
[00:40:27] Um, so Jason, why don’t you kick us off roasting this one?
[00:40:34] Jason Van Der Merwe: I think there’s, um, you know, from the, the good, you have your nice bottom sheet with the clear CTA, start the free day trial, then the clear price Apple’s not going to come for you on this one. Um, that’s really nice. Um, the UX of your titles is a bit confusing. You have, you know, one kind of your, you know, large primary text at the top, but then you also have, you know, text above that, which is a little funky.[00:41:00]
[00:41:00] Um, you know, that, that sale could maybe be below just to make it a little bit clearer. Um, and then again, you have, you know, the starting of your feature sets below and then the long scroll, um, trying to get some type of value prop sell above your prices, I think would be good. Cause you’re kind of going from telling a user, Hey, this is going to end.
[00:41:19] Then you’re like primary big text, then your prices, then your feature sets, like you’re, and then you see your, you know, the button at the bottom, there’s a lot of like jumping between different concepts on your, on your paywall. Um, there’s a, you know, I think there’s a lot of really good stuff on the, um, on the feature cells there.
[00:41:38] Um, I think the kind of legibility here, I would question, I would run this through, um, an accessibility guideline. Um, I think kind of white text on yellow background can be tough and that stuff does matter. Um, accessibility matters for everyone, not just those who have, you know, um, have heart or who are hard of reading.
[00:41:55] Um, and then I would question just how long people actually scroll for. Um, [00:42:00] but yeah, I mean, overall, I think it’s like a good, it’s good template here. I think there’s probably some, some work to do. And I think some of the like. Kind of, uh, colors are a little bit clashy here. You have like this gold gradient, which, um, you know, my is nice, but it might be really hard to play with.
[00:42:17] I know it kind of does give a premium feel, but it can be really hard. Cause then you have. White with black text, you know, black button with white text. There’s it doesn’t feel super continuous here from a, kind of a color’s brand guidelines perspective.
[00:42:33] David Barnard: Yeah. Jason, you mentioned kind of the titles being off and stuff.
[00:42:36] Alex in the chat said the hierarchy of messaging first read, second read, et cetera. So key, do you have any tips, Jason, on how to like, do you, do you do like usability testing where you like do I scan or like, are there ways to like really understand how What people are drawn to and how to structure those titles.
[00:42:55] Jason Van Der Merwe: The best, one of the best things you can do is run these paywalls or any of your [00:43:00] pages through usertesting. com or a similar product and get, get kind of those video recordings back of people just. Reading and understanding and asking people, okay, can you tell me what you think about this? Like, you know, speak out loud.
[00:43:12] Like, what, what do you see? What do you understand? Um, and then you can start to see how people speak out loud and how they’re reading the screen. Um, so that’s 1 way of doing it. It’s not perfect because obviously it’s like a kind of a controlled environment where people are being paid to test your product.
[00:43:27] But I think hearing people talk out loud as they read. Through your paywall, you can see where people will jump to. They might just completely ignore the top Christmas sale ends because it’s hard to see, and they might just jump straight to the price. Um, and that’s okay if that’s what you’re intending for them to do, but it’s probably not what you want.
[00:43:43] You want that hierarchy and think, keep like, keep it simple. I think people overcomplicate like title, couple subtitles of your feature set price. Pave on it, like it’s boring, but it works. Um, and then you can also easily AB test around that versus if you go super [00:44:00] complex first, it’s really hard to AB test around a very complex UX.
[00:44:04] It’s easier to, you know, add something to something that’s very simple. Um, I have a blog post about negative testing, um, that goes, kind of goes into why you should kind of remove stuff and go simple, um, before, um, as, as, uh, as a method, other than trying to. Kind of optimize something complicated.
[00:44:22] David Barnard: Yeah, that’s a great point.
[00:44:23] I don’t think we even brought that up on the last paywall roast, but do usability testing actually show your paywall to real people and get some feedback on it as a good first step as you’re designing your paywall to actually like get some eyes on it. And, and you will in that kind of user testing, even though it’s a little contrived, you’ll learn things that you won’t learn just AB testing and looking at your analytics.
[00:44:46] So it is a really good idea. Even, you know, if you have the resources and if your holiday promo is expected to do really well, like if you have a lot of folks coming in, I mean, you know. Maybe a lower hanging fruit is just [00:45:00] working on the product, but for a bigger team with more resources and with a higher expectation of, of revenue being generated off the promo paywall, maybe you even use your test, your promo paywall before you, you put it out there and start AB testing.
[00:45:13] Jason Van Der Merwe: And honestly, like, even if you say you can’t afford, go to Starbucks, offer someone in line. I’ve done this before offer someone in line. Hey, I’ll pay for your coffee. Can you just give me five minutes while we wait for your coffee? Here’s my phone. Can you just tell me, like, just talk me through what you see here.
[00:45:27] Um, like just do that. Like you can always visit, like test things with people live and AB testing tells you what is happening and doesn’t tell you the why, right. You really have to hear people talking. And start to kind of read between the lines to understand the why. So always remember that and always remember that like your AB test results.
[00:45:44] Um, it’s good. Things are going to change and you’re going to like, you need to, you’re trying to learn more and more. So don’t ever take too much stock and also in a single AB test result.
[00:45:52] David Barnard: Thomas, what are your thoughts on this
[00:45:54] Thomas Petit: paywall? I think it’s brilliant to ask in the queue of the Starbucks, because I [00:46:00] remember, um, Mathieu from PhotoRoom saying he was testing in the queue of the McDonald’s, but then your phone gets all greasy, so the Starbucks one is a better one.
[00:46:10] Uh, no, I, I, I have some, like, there are some good points on display. Well, I like the disposition of the, the three plans, uh, how they’re made. Uh, the contrast of the button, uh, for me, the fundamental problem here is the, is the goal, like Jason said it, but like this, this, the contrast of the text versus the background is, is a problem, like, uh, uh, and, and I can read properly.
[00:46:34] It’s just, uh, yeah, uh, it’s not, I don’t like it is that it’s problematic for reading. Uh, and yeah, I understand your plan is called gold, but there are other ways to, to bring it up and. And make the contrast a little bit better. I like this at some of the parts on the third screen is cool. We’re here to roast so that we find like little bits that can improve.
[00:46:55] So we’re passing very fast on the good stuff. But the other parts that I was [00:47:00] not sure of is I like the disposition of the three plants. And so but if I look at the numbers, something just doesn’t stick like 29 99 is not 50 percent off 71 88. It’s not saving 41. It’s saving 42. So it’s kind of like something is weird with the exact numbers.
[00:47:20] And I guess the intention was to simplify a little bit. You’re not going to put, get 50 or 52 percent off, but it’s kind of, I don’t know, something was, was where, uh, maybe it doesn’t matter to everybody, but then. And the lifetime price, which is just 2 more than the regular price is an interesting one. Um, me, I would just keep most of it, uh, work on the contrast and then work on the other elements after once the contrast is solved.
[00:47:48] For me, that’s the number one thing here. That’s problematic.
[00:47:52] David Barnard: All right. We’ve got 12 minutes. Let’s try and get through two more paywalls. I’m sorry to folks who submitted. Um, and actually this is a great time to, [00:48:00] to point out if you go to chat, don’t do it now. They pay attention. We got 12 minutes left, but chat.
[00:48:06] subclub. com there’s a roast my paywall section. And I’d love for folks to take some of the comments from here or any additional comments, especially there’s, I think, going to be probably five or six that we didn’t, didn’t get to roast here live and jump out the community and share your thoughts with, with the.
[00:48:23] Especially for the paywalls that we didn’t get to roast here. Um, and then I may even me and the revenue cat team might go back into sub club and add some of the thoughts from the paywall from the, from this conversation here, back to the, the sub club community so that it’s there in writing and people can go back over time and kind of learn from what we shared here.
[00:48:42] So yeah, go, go, uh, help us out and give some of your comments. The chat’s been great by the way. I don’t usually follow the chat, but I’ve been trying to follow it a little more this time. A lot of. A lot of great insights there. So thanks for, uh, participating as well. Um, all right, so let’s try and get through two more.
[00:48:59] [00:49:00] This is on water fish, uh, by Shane stalling. Uh, we help anglers make more informed fishing decisions with interactive fishing maps, property boundaries, access points, conditions, and more. Images one through three are the scrolling paywall image for paywall pops up after account. Uh, creation hurdle. We couldn’t offer a trial with our promo being purchased directly through the app.
[00:49:24] All our paid marketing efforts were promoting the sale, mostly meta. It was the largest discount we’ve ever given. Uh, Jason, why don’t you kick us off on this one?
[00:49:36] Jason Van Der Merwe: I’m guessing that screen three means that the actual button to subscribe is all the way at the bottom of a scroll event. Cause I don’t see it in screen one.
[00:49:46] So that to me is like the first big alarming piece is like, don’t, don’t make people scroll for it. Um, uh, I kind of like the, I kind of like the big fish, big savings. Um, I, I’ve fished like twice in my life, so I have, I have [00:50:00] no concept of, uh, of this world, but, uh, I chuckled at that. I kind of liked the playful copy here.
[00:50:05] So it’s kind of fun to do that. Um, and then your title here is 40 percent off. I mean, I think that’s pretty clear what you’re trying to do. Um, so that’s great, but I would really kind of figure out your plan and your, um, uh, and your kind of, uh, subscribe button, get that anchored to the bottom of your screen, expand it.
[00:50:24] So you, you know, you can hide, I would like, not really show the structure plan here. If you have 2, I would just have. Subscribe the annual one, and then you can have a button below that says, you know, see all plans like we’ve seen elsewhere. Um, and if you go to the Strava paywall, we have the same, that same concept.
[00:50:40] And then you can have a lot more space to bring up this, um, really long, um, checklist. Checklists work great. I’ve seen them work great. Uh, checklists that are too, almost too full screen scrolls, probably not as great, so maybe just simplify to your top features. Um, if you’re doing NPS, um, any kind of NPS promos, and this is kind of a [00:51:00] comment for everyone, like you can go look at, like, what are the top features your users like to talk about when you do an NPS survey to them?
[00:51:06] Um, or what are they talking about in the app store? Um, or just go, you know, email a couple of them, do some user research. Like, what do they say is when they’re telling their friends, oh, you should go get this app called on water fish. It’s great for X, Y, and Z. Um, once you start to see the kind of continuity of those things that people talk about, those are your main things to sell, not everything else.
[00:51:26] Um, and so you can kind of really condense there on your three big, you know, big features or it doesn’t have to be three, but, um, that’s something to kind of, kind of short, tighten up here. I also just don’t think the UX of the Excel spreadsheet white, then dark gray, then white and dark gray is probably great.
[00:51:43] You can probably do a little bit more fun there. Go with kind of, again, the, the funnest that you have in this title, which is go fish 40 percent off. Um, you can probably bring that UX fun to the rest. Yeah, I’m
[00:51:54] David Barnard: a speed run.
[00:51:56] Thomas Petit: Yeah, no, uh, the goldfish is great. The [00:52:00] table here is super problematic and the scroll is problematic.
[00:52:02] So I think Jason covered a good one. There’s one thing that I was curious. It keeps repeating for your first year. Does it mean that the price raise after it’s kind of a little bit fishy, if I can say. Uh, to not say how much is going to be the second year, but uh, and the fonts here, the fonts are something is, is off with the font.
[00:52:22] I particularly don’t like the fact that it’s in italic in the call to action. It kind of really looks a little bit weird in there. The selector plan is also cut off. I imagine it’s not,
[00:52:34] David Barnard: uh, yeah, that was just that’s our template. Sorry. That’s our template for the slides.
[00:52:38] Thomas Petit: Yeah, I imagine it’s not like this, but I don’t know the font.
[00:52:41] The font is not sexy and I did up with this, uh, double gray thing in the middle. I mean, feature comparison is hard, but like here, it’s really improvable, like, because it’s hard to read, it takes so much space, and I have to go through it before I choose, just let me pay, like, uh, you, you [00:53:00] start so good, and, and then that second string is really terrible, but, uh, yeah, the, uh, so same as JSON plus the fonts.
[00:53:08] David Barnard: Yeah, and then I’ll, I’ll just wrap up saying, I think this one definitely could use some kind of best practices on visual design. So, you know, go, go look at paywalls that, that perform well, you know, some of the bigger apps that can do a lot of AB testing. I mean, you know, the best practices for, you know, Calm and Strava and some of these others aren’t necessarily going to work for your app, but at least when in doubt, those are good starting points to, to.
[00:53:37] Reference for your design. And so, you know, all the things that have been pointed out here with like the, the, the checkerboard and, um, being really long and stuff like that. I think if you look at other apps are doing checklist, you’ll, you’ll get a better feel for what the best practices around checklists are to make them, you know, visually understandable.
[00:53:57] Without having to scroll so much and that sort of thing. So I think [00:54:00] this could definitely use, uh, some time kind of studying best practices and other great paywalls. Um, all right, last paywall for today. We’re going to have to really speed run this one. Prehab by Michael. Um, 4, 000 average monthly downloads, uh, 10 percent or almost 11 percent promo paywall conversion rate, uh, pre.
[00:54:19] The prehab app is a state of the art physical therapy solution, offering personalized programs, expert led workouts, and extensive resources to eliminate pain and prevent injuries. Our holiday promo was 25 percent off our holiday, our annual plan, not monthly. That also included us sending. You free bands and shirts.
[00:54:38] Wow. Our app is if is freemium and the paywall shows up anytime the user tries to access any premium content after onboarding upon success, subsequent uploads and through various other opt ins or normal evergreen pricing is seven day free trial on annual plus monthly plans. Annual plans are one 99 a year.
[00:54:58] Monthly is 49 99 a [00:55:00] year. Our goal with the holiday offer was to fold, make an amazing offer to get to pass up price reduction on the plan, plus actual physical goods to get a clear ad spend row as by eliminating a trial and getting payment right away. This allowed us to scale and spend significantly during black Friday.
[00:55:17] So Thomas, why don’t you kick us off on a speed run of this paywall? Yeah, I
[00:55:22] Thomas Petit: like that. The developers show us that it was included in the app as an element that we see on the, on the first screen, like the black Friday offer, um, I mentioned, I’m not a big fan of red on the paywalls, but here, because it looks, it’s the color of the app, maybe it’s less problematic, the paywall itself sort of.
[00:55:39] Okay. The button is very clear. The preselection is very clear. Um, uh, Jason doesn’t like visual, so that’s fine. That’s all fine. Um, I think 20 percent off is not very, uh, sexy, but 50 off is. So maybe you want to put that in bigger than 25 percent in this case, because in Black Friday, many people would do 50, 70.[00:56:00]
[00:56:00] So put that it’s 50 and like the fact that the year is only the equivalent of three months of the monthly plan is something that for me is a much bigger discount than 25 percent off like here you can easily put a 70 percent off and not be lying. Uh, can probably shorten a little bit the text after the call to action, which is continue, which will really cover.
[00:56:22] And the last bit I’m going to say is I like that they included, uh, video reviews. They’re a bit double swirl edge because on the paywall, I don’t want people to look at a video. I want them to click on the pay on the button, uh, same reason why I don’t put videos on the app store, but at the same time, if people have scrolled back down there, uh, could be So this one, I would be curious to hear how many people click to read them and what if these people who click actually convert or not, definitely want to check in the analytics.
[00:56:52] David Barnard: Jason.
[00:56:54] Jason Van Der Merwe: Yeah. I mean, Thomas, Thomas did a great job here. I think, um, I, I want to call out something that I haven’t seen on, I think [00:57:00] any of the other paywalls today, but, um, the copy underneath continues as cancel risk free if you’re not satisfied. Um, I’ve got some great data from experiments where actually telling a user you can cancel any time.
[00:57:11] Um, is actually really, really great. Um, one of the things that we so often don’t do in paywalls is to design from a trust, um, perspective. And how are you showing trust with, um, your user? And that’s why it’s kind of a, the classic more recent, um, uh, trial paywall, which is like telling a user how the trial is going to work is doing so well because you’re, you’re creating trust with the user that you’re not trying to scan them.
[00:57:36] Or get them to click something that they don’t want to click. So I really like the cancel anytime text. I think that’s great. Um, the whole top of the top of the fold is all about just prices. That’s it. Um, you have like under, you have special offer. Then underneath that you have some discount and then.
[00:57:52] Yep. You talk a lot about the annual thing there and then you have monthly. And so, and it doesn’t even, it’s not even obviously scrollable. Um, so you have this [00:58:00] great, you know, whether or not you should scroll, um, you probably have to for, for a page like this, but it’s not obvious you should scroll and if there’s something below there, so I would really try to tighten up the annual thing, maybe hide monthly if annual is your, your big.
[00:58:14] Um, offer, then don’t even show monthly. There’s no reason to do that. Um, sometimes again, you, people feel like you have to show these things. You don’t have to show these things. You could show like show all plans as an abundant, but don’t show monthly. Just tighten it up, bring the membership includes those five check marks.
[00:58:29] Those are great. Bring those, figure out how to get those into, um, into the offer. Um, you know, black Friday special offer like that takes with almost a third of the screen. Um, so tighten that up and then just generally. This gives a very much like a gym bro vibe. Maybe that’s the vibe of the app. Um, but if you’re trying to expand your audiences or you’re seeing like, Oh, it’s mainly just men, um, clicking continue, then I would think about kind of just general your branding and how you’re kind of coming off to it, to a user here that [00:59:00] black and red is very aggressive branding, which might be exactly what you want.
[00:59:04] Um, so that’s not a criticism, that’s just a, a thought.
[00:59:08] David Barnard: Yeah, I think that’s a, a great place to wrap up. Um, again, uh, all these paywalls and more are on, uh, chat dot sub club.com. Um, you can find Jason at his website. He actually does a lot of great blogging from learnings at Strava. Uh, Thomas shares all sorts of great stuff on Twitter and LinkedIn and other places.
[00:59:30] Um, sub club is where. Uh, with the community, the podcast, the newsletter, where we at revenue cat share a lot of our learnings. So there’s a QR code on the screen. If that’s easy, or just go to revenue cat. com slash sub club. Um, a couple of other things. Uh, we are having a revenue cat launch party on 20, the 21st of December for a live demo and Q and a on new revenue cap features.
[00:59:58] So, um. I believe you [01:00:00] can get to that just at revenue cat. com slash events, or Peter, if you want to share the link there in the comments, and then we are having another roast, so this has been a very popular and I really enjoy doing this. And folks, uh, it’s just such a high point of leverage, uh, the, the paywall.
[01:00:18] And so, um, on January 17th, we’re going to have another, uh. Roast and Jake Moore and our very own Jacob Eiding will be roasting paywalls. I think that’s going to get a little extra spicy with Jake and Jacob. Uh, so don’t miss that one. And then again, we will announce, uh, submissions being open there on chat.
[01:00:41] subclub. com. Uh, so if you, uh. I feel like there were fewer submissions this time because it was specific to promo paywalls, but if you have a regular paywall, you want to get roasted in that webinar, um, definitely post it to chat. subclub. com once we open those submissions. So [01:01:00] thanks everybody for joining Jason Thomas.
[01:01:01] Thank you so much for, for, uh, being panelists here. A lot of great insights and thanks everyone for showing up.
