user management platform for the social web
Five Best Practices in Online User Registration
MARKETING BRIEF
A common objective for a website is to convert an anonymous visitor to an engaged and
active registered user. The challenge is to make this process easy for the visitor while still
obtaining valuable demographic information that the site can then leverage to personalize the
user experience. The good news is there are established best practices in implementing user
registration, and it is possible to easily collect user data without sacrificing conversion rates.
This marketing brief examines real world examples of how leading websites from the LA Times to
LadyGaga have optimized online user registration processes.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | www.janrain.com | 888.563.3082 PG1
KEEP IT SIMPLE, DON’T HIDE IT
It may sound obvious, but the first step to improving registration rates is to make it obvious that
the site wants visitors to register. Instead of concealing the registration and login option within a
homepage, make it clear to visitors.
Habbo, a virtual world and global online
community, funnels visitors toward
registration immediately by placing the
registration form in a central part of the
home page and showcasing the option to
easily sign in or register with an existing
identity at a social network.
Simplifying the login and registration flows and avoiding lengthy registration forms, increases
the chance of a completed process. With the goal of engaging the user quickly, only ask for
data as needed. A great way to accomplish
this is by letting users leverage an existing
online identity. The Los Angeles Times is
an excellent example of a site that make
it obvious to readers that they can easily
register on the site using an existing identity
from Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, AOL
or MySpace. The LA Times actually only
Figure 1: Example of an obvious registration box on Habbo’s website.
Figure 2: The LA Times requires readers to sign in with an existing identity.
Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved.
user management platform for the social web MARKETING BRIEF
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved. PG2
offers login through an existing identity, going so far as to run a promotion to encourage users to
register with an account on a social network or from an identity provider.
Taking It Global, the largest online community of youth interested in global issues and creating
positive change, lets its visitors register and sign in via an existing social networking account, but
used to hide the option to do so “beneath the fold” on its login page.
After realizing that most visitors to
the site were not scrolling down far
enough to locate the option to sign
in with an existing identity, Taking It
Global redesigned its home page to
make the option to join the
community much more prominent.
Now, clicking the Favicons (small
icons) for any of the social networks on the home page triggers a lightbox window that invites the
visitor to sign-in with an existing account. The change resulted in an increase of existing users
signing-in eight times more often than
previously, and a five-fold growth in user
registrations from new visitors to the site.
Combining the login and register fields into one
interface for a single entry point into the system,
creates a simpler experience for the user.
Figure 3: Taking It Global’s before and after login screens.
PROVIDE A CHOICE
Figure 4: UserVoice’s login screen is an ideal example of how to present a clear and simple registration process.
The growth in social networks and third party identity providers such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo!
and Twitter means that a large majority of visitors to a website already have an established social
networking or email account that they regularly use. Websites can increase registration rates
and improve ROI by leveraging the existing accounts of their site visitors. It is important to keep
in mind that it may be difficult to predict user login preferences, and therefore breadth of choice
is equally important. Websites can capture the widest audience and boost conversion rates by
supporting multiple identity providers.
The following pie chart depicts which identity providers and social networks are most preferred
by users for signing-in to websites across a sample of 170,0001 websites worldwide and across
1. Websites using Janrain Engage for registration and login.
MARKETING BRIEF user management platform for the social web MARKETING BRIEF
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved. PG3
industries. The data in Figure 5 clearly demonstrates a lack of consensus in user preference.
Furthermore, user preferences vary significantly across vertical markets as shown by the sampling
of media companies2 in Figure 6.
Figure 5: Sign in preference across all Janrain Engage customer websites.
Figure 6: Sign in preference for sampling of media companies2.
User Interface Counts
How the registration screen is presented to the site visitor can impact willingness to fill it out and
complete the process. Marketers look to the conversion rate from site visitor to registered user
as a key metric, and how the user interface for registration is presented can make the difference
between a bounce and a conversion.
The website LadyGaga.com offers a traditional
username and password option, but showcases
the option to sign in via an existing account from
Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. This interface has
resulted in 89% of all new user registrations occurring via a social networking identity and an
overall conversion rate that is double the rate of sign ins via the traditional username and password
process.
Get Satisfaction, a community-
powered online support platform
chosen by 25,000 brands, uses an
intuitive tab-style interface to allow
users to select between Facebook,
Google, Twitter, Windows Live, OpenID
or a Get Satisfaction account for sign
in. The login user interface appears in
a sleek modal overlay window that
1. Sample set of media com-panies and technology plat-forms used Janrain Engage for login and registration.
2. Sample set of media com-panies using Janrain Engage for registration and login.
Figure 8: GetSatisfaction uses a tabbed login approach to get users to sign in via their preferred social network.
Figure 7: LadyGaga.com’s slimmed down version of the login setup.
user management platform for the social web MARKETING BRIEF
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved. PG4
makes it apparent to users that they can easily login, all while preserving valuable homepage real
estate and avoiding a full browser redirect.
Just as critical as the first time registration is ensuring a positive return login experience. Once
you have a registered user, the goal is to
encourage them to always login when
they come back to the site. The best way
to do this is to provide a one click login
experience through an authentication
solution that remembers the user’s
preferred login provider and immediately
prompts the user to login.
Figure 9: An Example from DallasNews.com showing a repeat visit response that remembers the user’s login information.
Watch, Learn, Adjust – the Power of Analytics
On a macro level, tracking daily site traffic and registrations have become de facto metrics. By
tracking conversion and drop off rates, as well as user preferences among identity providers,
websites can make adjustments to how the registration page is presented. For example, if over
time, a significant percentage of site visitors register with a few specific providers, highlight those
on the homepage. Divine Caroline,
a media site for women, calls out
login through Facebook, Twitter and
Yahoo! on the homepage, and then
offers additional choices through a
login pop-up.
WetPaint, a popular platform for building community sites and wikis, chose to make Windows Live
the most prominent option for users.
There is additional opportunity to drill further
down into analytics to learn more about a site’s
audience and influence decisions. Websites
that accept social identities for login can track
which identity providers are most popular for
login, and through a scoring system (based on
number of comments left, number of purchases
made, number of friends invited, or other
metrics), determine the percentage of users
Figure 10: Divine Caroline showcases the top three social network providers that the majority of their users tend to login with.
Figure 11: An Example of making MSN the prominent login choice.
user management platform for the social web MARKETING BRIEF
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved. PG5
from each service that become active users on the site. This can help a website further refine its
offerings to a specific audience, adjust its registration user interface, or create an outreach strategy
to reach even more prospective users at a particular social network.
Make the Most of User Profile Data
The primary objective of collecting registration data is for marketers to better understand their
audience and customize their content and/or offerings to their users, ultimately improving ROI. A
commerce site, for example, might recommend products to its users based on past purchasing
behavior, gender, age or interests. A content site might serve targeted advertisements to users
based on demographics. A community site would want to recommend friends to users based on
their existing social graph or their geography and stream the activities of a user’s friends on the site.
These are all engagement metrics, and while they
differ by site type, all require prior knowledge
about the user in order to better personalize the
experience. As mentioned earlier, one challenge
is getting user data without sacrificing conversion
rates by requiring completion of a lengthy
registration form. A second challenge is collecting
accurate data. Consumers today are increasingly
impatient and uninterested in repeatedly entering
personal information. As a result, user databases
are often full of outdated information or spam.
The good news is that internet users tend to maintain an accurate and updated profile on their
preferred social networks or web mail accounts. By leveraging these accounts for authentication, a
site can instantly gather rich profile data. And, in most cases, the data is more accurate than if the
website collected the information through a registration form.
Leading record label Interscope Geffen A&M, for example, presents users with a pre-populated
registration form after they sign in with an identity from Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, MySpace or other
networks.
Because the user has agreed to share his or her profile information with Interscope Geffen A&M,
the site can pull the profile data from the existing social network account and pre-populate the
registration form. This expedites the signup process and helps ensure that the website will gain the
most accurate and updated set of information on users when they register.
Figure 12: An example of an up-to-date rich dataset of valuable information about a user that is hosted on popular
social networks.
user management platform for the social web MARKETING BRIEF
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Keep it simple, don’t hide it
Provide a choice in how a user registers
User interface counts
Watch, learn, and adjust
Garbage in, garbage out
JANRAIN MARKETING BRIEF | Copyright © 2010 Janrain Inc. All rights reserved. PG6
Since users are more diligent about maintaining
their profiles on Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and
other networks, websites can help keep their
user database current by collecting an updated
set of data each time the user authenticates. If a
Google user changes his or her email address or
location, the website can acknowledge that change
without being dependent on the user to update the
information on the site.
Google user changes his or her email address or
location, the website can acknowledge that change without being dependent on the user to update
the information on the site.
Conclusion
The process to get users through the front door of a website and engaging with content needs to
be as simple and seamless as possible if an organization wants to win and keep mindshare. The
growing popularity of social networks gives marketers an opportunity to leverage a user’s existing
profile for better customer insight, to inform decisions, increase registration rates and engagement,
and ultimately yield a more positive return on investment from online activities.
Figure 13: Profile data that has been pulled into the IGA registration process from an existing social network
account.
Janrain helps organizations succeed on the social web with its user management platform. A key
component of the platform is Janrain Engage, an enterprise-class, software as a service (SaaS)
solution to enable a website to expedite the registration and login processes with a user’s third
party account, import user profile information and address books, and make it easy for a user to
publish website activity back to multiple social networks. Companies enjoy higher registration
rates, increased brand awareness and qualified referral traffic. The end-user benefits from a faster
login and a more customized online experience. Janrain Engage is the only solution to support
16 identity providers and social networks including, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo! Janrain
customers include industry leaders such as Universal Music Group, Kodak, Fox News, National
Geographic Channel, and PayPal. Founded in 2005, Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon. For more
information, please call 1-888-563-3082, or visit www.janrain.com.
About Janrain
