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Ask HN: Should a software free trial be behind an email sign-up wall?

5 points by robinhartley94 ↗ HN
Hey, I'm looking for people who have provided a free trial of digital download software before. Did you put your free trial download behind an email sign-up wall?

I currently have an application I'm working on that requires people to provide their email address into a form before they're allowed to download the free trial software.

I do this because it allows me to directly reach out to users, provide them with on-boarding emails/updates, and build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation (my domain of software).

However, I recently posted my software to Reddit and it got a very angry response from prospective users who didn't want to enter their email addresses. They said it put up a barrier and turned them away from downloading.

So in your experience, is the added barrier to entry of an email signup worth it, given the richness of interaction you can have with customers over email? Real world experience and examples would be excellent (if you have them).

Let me know your thoughts, experience and wisdom!

Cheers, Robin

13 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 48.5 ms ] thread
idunno246
The people who won’t put in an email address probably wouldn’t pay. It is a barrier, but it’s pretty low, and you’re better off spending time making the site more convincing the product is awesome than playing with collecting emails or not. Most times I’ve seen experiments run on this, more often on create an account, you increase the install rate and decrease conversion proportionally. So it’s a question of whether a bunch more nonpaying users provides value to you or not. Though every product is different so ymmv.
Nextgrid
> The people who won’t put in an email address probably wouldn’t pay.

Do you have any sources or stats for this?

I don't understand the logic here, how is "not wanting to receive spam" related with "willing to pay for software"? If anything I'd say it would be the opposite - someone who doesn't want to deal with spam is often busy and/or values their time and would be more willing to pay for software that saves them time.

idunno246
Not that I can share, just have had this conversation with product and run experiments at a couple places. And the conversation was me saying won’t increasing the top of the funnel increase the bottom since that seems most logical, and being wrong. The ymmv at the end was a weak way of saying this is anecdata so you’re right to question it.

I don’t think not wanting to receive spam is the right comparison. It’s more didn’t see value in the program by the website, therefore won’t see the value running it. They’ll try it for five minutes then forget about it. Assuming the emails are causing more engagement, whatever is getting them to use the program from emails should be in the website. To me this is the problem that is worth solving.

ziari
I completely agree with the negative feedback on your r/software post. [1] You should not require an email address in order to download free desktop software, especially when there is no accompanying web service.

> I do this because it allows me to directly reach out to users, provide them with on-boarding emails/updates, and build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation (my domain of software).

What if I don't want to be contacted? Am I expected to provide an email address, wait for the first marketing email (which I never asked for, BTW), and then unsubscribe?

> the richness of interaction you can have with customers over email

There's certainly some survivorship bias here. [2] You also need to consider all of the prospective customers that are turned away by this requirement. (Those who elect to sign up for the free trial are, by definition, willing to provide an email address and probably more likely to interact with the developer.)

Perhaps you should run an A/B test to investigate the effects of your email requirement. The data will speak for itself!

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/b86fsa/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

xkcd-sucks
It's a good way to get a collection of throwaway email addresses
thedevindevops
As a sociological experiment can you add 'How did you hear about x?', 'Type of User' (Student, Organisation, Other, etc) and 'Country' dropdowns to the email form and see what effect that has?
Nextgrid
Let's break down your reasons one by one.

* it allows me to directly reach out to users

What if I don't want to be contacted? You can add a "news" category to your website (or a subtle "what's new" link in your app's GUI) for people who do want news.

* provide them with on-boarding emails/updates

What if I don't want that, again? If I need help on-boarding I'll read the documentation or email you myself.

* build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation

How does that benefit me, as a user?

Bottom line is, you should be converting people by producing great software, not filling up their mailbox with crap. If your software doesn't convert, then email spam won't either.

Also, your current download form includes a "I am happy to be contacted by email" checkbox. If you're happy with people to opt-out, why are you asking for their email at all?

Finally you are using a third-party provider for emails and I'm not really comfortable with that and I do not agree to their privacy policy (I hate emails full of nasty stalking links and 1x1 pixels), so even if I wanted to receive news about your software, this would put me off.

soulchild37
From my experience, Reddit is not a good platform to promote stuff if it is not entirely free (requiring email address input doesn't cut it either).

As u/idunno246 said, the people who won’t put in an email address probably wouldn’t pay either.

I would advise making another webpage without email opt-in for Reddit, and use the one with email opt-in form as default.

robinhartley94
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and insight into this. You make some good points on why an email sign up may not be effective. Therefore, I am currently running a test to see how the website performs when the email signup is removed - it's a direct download.

Thanks for your time an constructive criticism!

Cheers, Robin

ziari
Good luck! Let us know if there's a change in your conversion rate!
robinhartley94
Update after 7 days:

I have removed the email signup and allowed a direct download. So far, the rate of downloads has gone up by a factor of between 5 - 10 times. Hard to know precise numbers at this time but it's looking good!

I don't have large enough numbers of users to know how this will impact on conversion, but it follows logically that if the product is the main selling point, getting users to engage with it in the easiest way possible can only be a good thing.

I'm now looking at replacing the on-boarding emails I was using with an in-app on-boarding process.

Thanks for your help with this one again!