Duolingo · B2C · language learning app
Let trial users pick which day they get the reminder before being charged
Tested; added friction but built trust and delayed cancel decisions. No numbers given
What they did
What happened
In their words
How Clarity and Personalization Help Drive Duolingo’s Growth – Anmol Tiwari, Duolingo
Anmol Tiwari… and confidence to purchase. So the most effective way for users to be able to feel confident to try a trial is to know like, "Well, what does that really entail?" And that is anything from being able to explain in a timeline what happens on which day of the trial. We've seen even if, for example, when you're on one plan and you want to move to a different plan, trying to be clear about how much money are you going to get back, the refunds.
Anmol TiwariClarity is so important. And very recently, a great example of this is that we've had this functionality where when you sign up for a free trial, you'll get a reminder, a notification sent to you about two days before your trial expires. And we decided to test, "Well, what if we let you choose which day you get that reminder?" And counterintuitive, normally you would think that friction is probably not a good thing, but what we saw was that that drew attention to the fact that you can choose when you want your reminder and we're going to remind you, and so you can decide to cancel later. That buys us enough time so that you wait 'till that fifth day or sixth day to decide really, "Okay, am I getting value out of this?" And it was a really great way to increase confidence in the product that you're going to try.
David BarnardAny other lessons around clarity, in copy? I know Duolingo has done a lot with multi-step paywalls. Seems like another way to introduce clarity. Any other lessons there?
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More from this episode
- Show what happens on each trial day and exactly how refunds workGuest says clarity beats persuasion for trial starts; no numbers
- When users run out of hearts, offer a free trial so they keep their lesson progressUsers much more likely to start a trial; no numbers
- Ask new users in onboarding if they want to learn with or without adsSignificantly higher uptake; one of the biggest wins of the year
- Cut the free trial from 14 days to 7More conversions overall and experiment results twice as fast
- Offer the same user a free trial three or four times over timeEffective in aggregate across attempts, per guest; no numbers
- Give 3 free days of the paid tier, no card needed, even to current subscribersEffective for free-to-paid and for upgrading subscribers to the top tier, per guest
- Give users one free AI video call from the top tierEffective lever for getting people to try the feature, per guest
- Give the free 3 days as a reward right after a finished lessonFelt more rewarding than on the learning path; no numbers
- When free days end, say 'Your benefits have ended' and show how to rejoin
- Use each user's signals to pick between your own upgrade ads and paid adsGood wins, per guest; no numbers
- Let a bandit algorithm pick which upgrade ad each user sees after a lessonSome wins so far, still improving; no numbers
Tags: trial-reminder, trust, free-trial, transparency