Increasing Free Trials 10x by Repositioning a Feature

A Premium Feature Almost Buried by a Preset Finally Sees the Light

Earlier this year, the subscription squad launched a premium "Sign-Matching mission" corresponding to the existing free "Math mission". Since it adds a fun twist to standard math calculations, we expected it to make a solid contribution to subscription conversion.

01. How should we structure the depth?

During the product spec phase, one of the main items on the agenda was how to set the hierarchy for this Sign-Matching mission. This was our first time releasing a premium mission that corresponded directly to an existing free one, making it a pretty important decision point.

We could position it on the same level as the existing missions as just another mission type (Option 1 in the image below), or place it under the Math mission as an advanced feature in a separate hierarchy (Option 2 in the image below).

Looking further ahead, we figured that showing too many missions at a single depth would cause cognitive overload. So we decided to split the hierarchy by adding a depth level, going with "Option 2". Thus, inside the Math mission settings screen, we set the existing free mission as "Calculate numbers" and the new premium mission as "Match signs".

02. What should be the preset in the Math mission settings screen?

For this, we chose the free "Calculate numbers" mission as the preset. While setting "Match signs" as the preset would have been better for the subscription conversion rate, "Calculate numbers" was already our most popular mission, and we didn't want to accidentally mislead users into thinking the entire Math mission had become a paid feature.

So we launched the new feature,

and the results were disastrous.

Only 1 to 3 users a day ended up starting a free trial to play "Match signs", and a mere 0.13% of users even attempted to change the setting in the first place. (The purchase screen is shown when a user tries to change the setting.)

What went wrong?

Since users didn't even try to adjust the settings, we concluded that the overwhelming power of the preset was the biggest culprit. The fact that users rarely change preset values is something we've covered before in our post about boosting revenue by 30% with a 30-minute preset experiment, and it's a phenomenon easily spotted across various settings screens in our product. This case was likely no different. Plus, with the most popular "Calculate numbers" mission set as the preset, there was even less incentive to change it.

That being said, changing the preset to "Match signs" just to increase subscriptions would inconvenience our users—a move that would put the cart before the horse from an overall product perspective.

Left with no other choice, we decided to remove the depth. Instead of dividing the hierarchy into sub-missions, we placed it on the same level as the other missions. Originally, we opted for a hierarchy out of fear that too many missions at one depth would cause cognitive overload. But since we were only adding one new mission right now, we figured we could ease any cognitive overload later by tweaking the UI of the mission list itself, rather than relying on depth separation.

So we made the following changes.

The results were solid.

Users initiating a free trial for "Match signs" jumped to 10~30 users a day, and the proportion of users attempting to configure it skyrocketed by about 25 times. That effectively meant a 10x increase in free trial users compared to before. When looking at all the other free trial conversion points (entry points) combined, a 10x boost from this specific entry point might seem modest. However, if we scale this kind of strategy across other entry points, it becomes a whole different story. We started re-evaluating whether each premium feature is currently placed in its most optimal location.

Additionally, the number of users who dismiss their daily alarms using the Sign-Matching mission (the actual daily active users) also grew tenfold, meaning it started to meaningfully catch up to the alarm dismissal numbers of existing premium missions. As new subscription users accumulate, we expect it to close the gap quickly. Hopefully, this will also increase subscription satisfaction and positively contribute to our subscription retention rate.

And that’s the story of how a premium feature, once left in the dark behind the shadow of a default preset, finally saw the light by repositioning it to better highlight its value. The end!