2015 formstack form conversion report

T H E F O R M C O N V E R S I O N R E P O R T

201515

An in-depth look at how various online forms are converting

across ten industries and more than 650,000 form users. See

what inspires your web visitors to click from form fields all the

way through to “submit” buttons.

i The 2015 Form Conversion Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About this Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conversion Rates by Form Type and Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Embracing the Contest Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Be Careful What You Ask For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Average Number of Fields by Form Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Single Page Versus Multi-Page Form Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conversion Rates by Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Industry Conversion Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conversion Rates on Your Submit Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Peak Submission Times: Form Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Peak Submission Times: Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Team Behind this Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .User Demographics and External Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1 The 2015 Form Conversion Report

OUR BENCHMARK RESEARCH

Our team reviewed data from more than 650,000 anonymized form users to establish up-to-date benchmarks across industries and uses. For our second annual Form Conversion Report, we’ve expanded our research to incorporate more categories:

New industries: The 2015 report includes form conversion rate benchmarks for healthcare and retail/e-commerce, in addition to many of last year’s industries.

Additional uses: We’ve also studied conversion rates for lead generation forms—the ones typically used to accept webinar registrations, for example, or gated content downloads.

The findings on the following pages are designed to provide reliable, data-backed insights companies can use to discover new marketing goals and jumpstart conversion rate optimization.

THE VARIABLES

Our research includes mobile-responsive forms only. The benchmarks included in this report apply to web forms that are designed to be filled out easily on smartphones and tablets.

For three industries—government, religious, and technology—outliers with disproportionately high traffic volumes were removed to reveal more realistic benchmarks.

ABOUT THIS REPORT

The more your marketing efforts convince people to fill out your form, the more leads your sales team will have to nurture. Form conversion rates are a reliable way to see what’s working: you simply compare the number of people who visited a form against the total submission count.


CONVERSION RATES BY FORM TYPE & LENGTH

When it comes to conversion rates, the type of form you use matters. A lot. This year, we discovered that contest forms are converting at an average of 35%— a 7 point increase over last year’s rate. Contact form submissions, by contrast, dropped to a mere 1% conversion rate across all industries analyzed.

Survey conversion rates, while still high relative to other form types, experienced a 7 point drop. This might be due, in part, to the fact that they got longer: The average survey now contains 22 fields, compared with 21 fields in 2014. Often, it’s not just the type of form used, but the number of fields included, that makes all the difference.

FORM TYPE

Event Registration

Order/Payment

Contact

Survey

Donation

Contest

Lead Gen

2015

11%

9%

1%

14%

7%

35%

11%

2014

11%

6%

3%

21%

4%

28%

n/a

Average Form Conversion Rate

0% 50%

−

○

○

○

○

○

�

new for 2015 highest conversion rate for 2015


EMBRACING THE CONTEST FORM

People love having a chance to win. Which means contest forms are a great way to capture new leads and engage with your audience at the same time. Formstack customers can even make their contest forms social media-friendly, adding major advantages to their conversion rates.

Capture even more entries with these three quick tips:

When possible, embed contest forms on your Facebook page and other key social media channels. Conversion rates more than double (from 9% to 20%) when users integrate their forms with their Facebook pages.

Make it easy on your entrants by offering to pull information from their social media profiles. Our data shows a 189% conversion rate increase when form users take advantage of our Social Autofill feature.

Automate custom tweets to help spread the word and create a custom hashtag that’s unique to your contest or campaign. Tweets with hashtags tend to get twice as much engagement as tweets without them.1

USERS WHO PROMOTE THEIR FORMS ON FACEBOOK AVERAGE UP TO 122% MORE CONVERSIONS THAN THOSE WHO DO NOT.


BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FORGiving away something really valuable? You might be able to justify asking for names, addresses, emails, and permissions to send special offers. You’d have yourself a compelling contest, contact form, and email signup all rolled into one.

But proceed with caution. Adding too many fields can stop entrants in their tracks. Some of the most-used form fields (text, name, and email) are also the leading causes of bottlenecks—places where users choose to abandon a form rather than submit required information. Don’t require first and last names if an email address will do. And go easy on text fields. More than 50% of Internet access occurs on mobile devices, where tiny touchpad keyboards can increase how long it takes to type long answers.2

Minimizing use of radio buttons may also help. Our research reveals this quiz-style form field, which lets users choose just one option, is a leading cause of high abandonment rates.

Avoid Form Dropoff

NAME

E-MAIL

TEXT

SUBMIT


AVERAGE NUMBER OF FIELDS BY FORM TYPE

LONG FORMS A MUST? 4 WAYS TO “SHORTEN” THEM

Will a contact form asking for name, location, phone, email, job title, and favorite ice cream flavor get many submissions? Not likely. But an event registration form might. The type of form you use directly impacts the number of fields it’s safe to include.

Often, names and email addresses just aren’t enough. Use these tricks and tips to help users complete your forms faster, so you can get the data you need:

25

0

50%

0%

Event Registration Order/Payment Contact Survey Donation Contest Lead Gen

15

11% 9%1%

14%

7%

17%

34%

22 22

9

10

4

11

Average Fields Per Form: The average number of fields (name, email, etc.) included within each type of form.

Form Conversion Rate: The percentage of all visitors who successfully submit each type of form.

1. Build a “smart” form that automatically shows or hides questions based on how users respond.

2. Give your users a breather with an option to “save and resume.”

3. Use a horizontal layout for checkboxes and buttons to create the illusion of a shorter form.

4. Use the matrix field to ask several similar questions at once.

Form Conversion RateAverage Fields Per Form


SINGLE PAGE VERSUS MULTI-PAGEFORM CONVERSIONS

Surprise! Shorter isn’t always better. In fact, when it comes to online forms, conversion rates more than triple when fields are spread over multiple pages. Here’s why:

Longer forms often use page breaks to separate fields into different sections. This makes them easier to digest compared with forms that squeeze all fields onto one page.

Multi-page forms tend to include progress bars to let users know exactly how far along they are, making them more convenient and easier to complete.

Bigger fonts, longer fields, larger header images, and extra spacing all make forms less intimidating and easier to digest—and often cause them to extend beyond a single screen.

Tell us your thoughtsTell us your thoughtsTell us your thoughts

Page Two:Tell us your thoughts

Single Page: 4.53% Multi-Page: 13.85%


CONVERSION RATES BY INDUSTRY

Wondering how your company’s form conversion rates stack up to competitors’? You’ll want to look at not only the type of form you’re using, but overall averages in your sector as well. As you can see, benchmarks vary widely from industry to industry.

18% 8%

Government

9% NEW

Healthcare

10% 8%

Higher Education

13% 7%

Marketing/Consulting

7%17%

Media

14% 15%

Nonprofit

♥

20% 4%

Religious

11% NEW

Retail/E-commerce

18% 19%

Sports

17% 14%

Technology

2015 CR 2014 CR

Industry/Sector


While the sports, nonprofit, and higher education sectors remained steady, several industries experienced significant conversion rate fluctuations in the year since our inaugural Form Conversion Report. These swings may have been influenced by a number of industry-specific factors. For example:

Nearly 90% of marketers are placing increased emphasis on conversion rate optimization (CRO), according to a recent Econsultancy study. As a direct result, 73% of companies report more form completions and sales gains.3

The number one type of form used by government agencies and media publishers is surveys, the second-highest converting form type studied.

39% of religious organizations are now using advanced form-building plans that provide access to special features like social media integrations, form A/B testing tools, and a Google Analytics plugin.

INDUSTRY CONVERSION INSIGHTS

Quick Tip!

Looking for an easy way to meet or exceed form conversion rate benchmarks in your industry? Try changing up the types of online forms you use. Contests and events are among the highest-converting forms. Yet just three of the nine sectors studied use them regularly.

Enter to win!Enter to win!

Submit Registration

Register Below:Register Below:


CONVERSION RATES ON YOURSUBMIT BUTTON

Do cultural linguistics matter? Perhaps. The same variation (“send”) fared very differently across English, Spanish, French, and German web forms.

Submit Survey Submit Survey 44.08%

Next Next 43.58%

Continue Continue 24.6%

Submit Registration Submit Registration 15.59%

Register Now Register Now 13.31%

Submit Submit 10.49%

Checkout Checkout 9.99%

Place Order Place Order 9.25%

Submit Request Submit Request 9.19%


Next Next 43.58%









Next Next 43.58%








Send Send 5.85%

Enviar Enviar 7.55%

Envoyer Envoyer 19.91%

Absenden Absenden 21.06%

Ah, the submit button. It’s your last opportunity to capture a click. Which means the words contained within that one small space are arguably the most important for every online form.

Having a hard time deciding what words to use in your button copy? Keep it short (the top-ten converting buttons all contained two words or less) and use words that inspire action. Even a simple “next” or “continue” can help guide users through to completion of multi-page forms. Specific is better, too: Adding just one word after “submit” can boost conversion rates by as much as 320%.


PEAK SUBMISSION TIMES: FORM TYPE

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

8 pm

7 pm

6 pm

5 pm

4 pm

3 pm

2 pm

1 pm

12 pm

11 am

While few forms are filled out between 5 p.m. and 7:59 p.m., contest entries—the highest-converting kind of form—start to roll in at 8 p.m.

Order / Payment Forms

Contact Forms

Event Registrations Surveys

Donation Forms

Lead Gen Forms

Contest Forms

You’ve built a “smart” form, fine-tuned the button copy, and enabled Social Autofill to optimize for conversions. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could now pick precisely the right moment to promote it? With form conversion data, you can. Our research indicates there are, in fact, peak days and times when people are most likely to fill out forms, and they vary widely by both industry and form type.

Whether you want to broadcast your contest through a sponsored social post or send an email invitation to take your survey, selecting the right day and time can have a big impact on conversions. Basing the decision on past form submission data may help.

*Based on Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

8 pm

7 pm

6 pm

5 pm

4 pm

3 pm

2 pm

1 pm

12 pm

11 am

While few forms are filled out between 5 p.m. and 7:59 p.m., contest entries—the highest-converting kind of form—start to roll in at 8 p.m.

Order / Payment Forms

Contact Forms

Event Registrations Surveys

Donation Forms

Lead Gen Forms

Contest Forms


Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

5 pm

4 pm

3 pm

2 pm

1 pm

12 pm

11 am

10 am

9 am

Peak Hour *based on Eastern Standard Time (EST)Peak Time Frame

♥ ♥

♥

♥

Higher Education

Retail/E-commerce

Government

Healthcare

Technology

Religious

Nonprofit

Media

Sports


PEAK SUBMISSION TIMES: INDUSTRY

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

5 pm

4 pm

3 pm

2 pm

1 pm

12 pm

11 am

10 am

9 am

Peak Hour *based on Eastern Standard Time (EST)Peak Time Frame

♥ ♥

♥

♥

Higher Education

Retail/E-commerce

Government

Healthcare

Technology

Religious

Nonprofit

Media

Sports



CONCLUSION

The 2015 Form Conversion Report was created as a free resource to help companies of all sizes set their own conversion rate goals. It can be used as a frame of reference when setting benchmarks, analyzing competition, and identifying areas for improvement.

To further optimize web forms for conversions, we encourage you to dig into your own form analytics to reveal the roots of field bottlenecks, identify peak promotion times, and uncover all kinds of other juicy data you can use to turn website visits into new leads.


THE TEAM BEHIND THIS REPORT

The 2015 Form Conversion Report was prepared by Formstack, a robust form-building tool for converting more website traffic. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create professional, mobile-ready web forms without writing code. Convert more leads on any platform with social media plugins, advanced analytics, and form A/B testing. For more efficient lead nurturing, pass your lead data to one of Formstack’s many partner applications.

Form Builder:Easily capture leads by customizing fields, colors, fonts, headers, and more. No coding required!

Marketing Analytics:A/B test your online forms, identify friction points, and integrate with Google Analytics for more insights.

Social Media:Automate tweets, embed Facebook surveys, and let users autofill forms to optimize conversions.

Seamless Integrations:Incorporate into email marketing, CMS, payment processing, and CRM software for comprehensive marketing strategies.

READY TO USE FORMSTACK IN YOUR CRO STRATEGY?

I want to increase conversions!

https://www.formstack.com/conversion-rate-optimization


TOTAL USER ACCOUNT CONTRIBUTIONS :

665,000

USER DEMOGRAPHICS

INDUSTRYSports

Nonprofit

Technology

Government

Higher Education

Marketing / Consulting

Media

Religious

Healthcare

Retail / E-commerce

FORM TYPEEvent Registration

Order / Payment

Contact

Survey

Donation

Contest

Lead Gen

ACCOUNTS939

2,919

2,960

595

1,192

5,379

1,781

530

939

1,469

AMOUNT6,198

16,182

76,426

6,943

6,634

2,318

2,876

TOTAL INDUSTRY ACCOUNTS ANALYZED: 18,703

TOTAL FORM TYPESANALYZED: 117,577


EXTERNAL RESOURCES

1. Quicksprout, How to Use Hashtags to Increase Your Online Presencehttp://www.quicksprout.com/2014/04/04/how-to-use-hashtags-to-increase-your-online-presence/

2. CNN Money (on Nielsen Study), Mobile Apps Overtake PC Internet Usage in U.S.http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/28/technology/mobile/mobile-apps-internet/

3. Econsultancy, Conversion Rate Optimization Report 2014https://econsultancy.com/reports/conversion-rate-optimization-report/

Date post:	24-Jul-2016
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2015 formstack form conversion report

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