GTM Sauce

Duolingo · B2C · language learning app

Give the free 3 days as a reward right after a finished lesson

Felt more rewarding than on the learning path; no numbers

Unknownupsell-expansionretention

What they did

Copy always states it's a three-day free period/preview and says 'Hey, you just earned this.' The reward chest used to sit on the learning path; moved it to after completing a lesson because earning it there felt more rewarding. Uses timers for urgency, and the subscriptions page says you can upgrade anytime and makes clear there won't be a surprise charge (so Super subscribers don't cancel).

What happened

Guest says reward framing signals a limited-time benefit; no outcome figures.

In their words

How Clarity and Personalization Help Drive Duolingo’s Growth – Anmol Tiwari, Duolingo

Play the episode

Anmol TiwariYeah. Well, the first thing is we usually always have copy that makes it absolutely clear that this is a three-day kind of free period or free preview. I think preview is another word phrasing that I've used in the industry.

Anmol TiwariThe other thing is we actually always position it as a reward and we say, "Hey, you just earned this." And one of the things that we used to initially have it on our... When you're learning through the course, there's a chest on the path, in your learning path. And we actually moved it towards after the lesson because it felt more rewarding to earn it after completing a lesson. And so I think when you position it as a reward, it helps signal that like, "Oh, I'm getting this as just a limited time benefit."

Anmol TiwariWe do use some type of timers or concepts of timers to help drive urgency. When you go to the subscriptions page, you'll also see that you can upgrade anytime, but it's super important to make sure that consumers understand that this is not going to suddenly charge you a different amount. One of the things that, of course... We talk about clarity, but clarity also is super important in just maintaining trust because if suddenly users don't trust …

Get tactics like this every Monday

New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.

More from this episode

Tags: reward-framing, free-taste, timers, copy