New B2B trend: email field on the home page to drive conversions
Examples from Rippling, Bizzabo, and Gong
In B2B marketing we all want more demo requests or “contact us” conversions. Besides influenced pipeline and revenue, it’s likely one of the more critical metrics your team uses to measure success.
The home page of a website often drives a significant percentage of those conversions, which makes it particularly worth testing and scrutinizing different approaches to get the most (and best) leads possible.
Just before signing in to Rippling recently (where I see paystubs, approve time-off requests, etc.), I noticed an email field in the top section of their home page right next to a "See Rippling” button. This isn’t exactly mind-blowing and probably isn’t a new idea, but most companies have just a standalone “Request Demo”-kind of button that takes you to a landing page with several fields to fill out.
The marketer in me saw this and thought, there’s no way they would only ask for my email then end the process there. I would almost respect it if they did – that would certainly be the easiest experience for the user. Still, most marketers don’t do this because it can make things harder for everyone by not having a person’s name and company info. Indeed, Rippling did not end the process there.
Rippling
I added an email address and clicked the See Rippling button
After the click – the landing page is pre-filled with my email address but asks me for more information
Cheeky? Kind of.
Effective? I wouldn’t be surprised if this approach generates more demo conversions than a home page with just a standalone CTA button. Here’s why:
It seems easy at first. As a user I see the single email field and think, “Oh cool that’s simple, just share my email and I’ll get to see how this works” as opposed to filling out a slew of fields and info. A low-friction ask on the marketer side, so it appears.
Even with the landing page as a second step, the user is already invested. By submitting their email they already said to themselves that they do in fact want to “See Rippling.” And at least they carried over the email address that I submitted already.
While doing some research about Wistia regarding a post I’ll publish soon about video marketing, I came upon Bizzabo (an virtual events company) who had a similar web experience:
Bizzabo
After the click on the home page - email is carried over to a longer form
The main difference between Bizzabo and Rippling is that Bizzabo uses the straight-forward “Request a Demo” call-to-action; whereas “See Rippling” is a bit ambiguous – if I click am I going to watch a video or what?
Finally, Gong. I’m already tired of citing them for inspiration but damn it they’re good.
Gong
After the click – no more form, I just pick a time, then the meeting is confirmed. What!?
This approach is quite different from Rippling and Bizzabo for several reasons. There’s nothing cheeky about this, no “wait just a bit more info”, just share the email and you’re done. The conversion rate has to be super high for this, but this is kind of crazy for two reasons:
Do they get a bunch of crappy leads from this because there’s basically no qualifying criteria in order to schedule with a rep?
Trying this approach could require blowing up your entire lead-MQL etc. process
After seeing Rippling, Bizzabo, and Gong use this approach I’d like to try it at Zenput. All three use the solitary email form on their home page, which tells me it’s working for somebody.