Whether you’re utilizing some kind of link bait to drive email signups or campaigning for large scale initiatives, always make sure that what you’re requesting of the user aligns with the benefit being offered. As an extreme example, requiring users’ Social Security numbers might be completely acceptable for a college application. The benefit of obtaining a college degree outweighs any risk of providing personally identifiable information. On the other hand, if you were to require Social Security numbers in return for a flimsy pdf download, then you’d likely have a lot of trouble obtaining leads! But, it may not always be this obvious. Even more common fields, such as a phone number or street address, could have the potential to negatively effect your form completion rates, depending on the benefit being offered. Take a look not only at your form fields, but at any hoops your users are being required to jump through in order to get to what they’re looking for.
Provide sufficient information
About 50% of purchases are not completed due to lack of information. There’s a reason why wildly successful online merchants like Zappos dedicate a huge amount of time to photographing every product from every imaginable angle, and even shooting video of their products. Ever gone to a brick and mortar store to check out a product before making the purchase online? We like to be able to see the item, hold it, flip it around, read the box, maybe talk to a salesperson about it or even try it out before we’re sold. We like to see and know exactly what we’re getting. And the product’s monetary value usually plays a role in how much information we require. How big is the potential loss if the product doesn’t work out? The bigger the risk, the more research you can bet will be done before a decision is made.