Conversion rates are one of the most important metrics to track after launching your SaaS business.
Why? Because you’ve spent time and money building strong marketing campaigns and a user-friendly website that engages visitors from the moment they land. You need to know whether all that has been effective and, if not, identify how to change it.
Improving conversion rates for your SaaS business can be time-consuming and complicated, but it’s definitely doable. You just need to find solid ways to guide visitors to the point of conversion, as we explored in our post on different ways subscription commerce can help you maximise your conversion rate.
How do you do that? Here are some great ideas to inspire you.
7 Ways to increase SaaS conversion rates
Each of these tips can help you increase SaaS conversion rates in a specific way. Let’s look at what they are and why they’re worth your time.
Offer a free trial
Free trials are common in the SaaS industry — for good reason. Some of the biggest SaaS companies in the world offer free trials, including Dropbox (30 days free) and Shopify (3 days).
Why are they so popular? They offer potential new subscribers a chance to experience a product/service (either partially or in full) without paying. Anyone interested in a particular product can get a feel for how it works and how it could improve their life.
A free trial is your opportunity to wow users and encourage them to sign up for a paid plan. You can offer free trials with or without requiring subscribers to supply their payment information.
Make it easy to purchase
Potential new subscribers flock to your landing page via a paid ad, check out your plans, and decide on one that suits their budget. Fantastic!
But there’s a problem: your checkout is a mess. It’s clunky. It’s confusing. And it’s vague with essential details (e.g. when payments are collected).
If they really want to experience your product, a new subscriber might persevere. Otherwise, they’re likely to abandon their cart and look elsewhere.
Make it simple for newcomers to buy their preferred plan. Your checkout should be easy to navigate, understand, and use.
Have abandoned cart capabilities
We mentioned potential new subscribers abandoning their cart above. That’s a common issue facing businesses in all industries, with an average cart abandonment rate of 70.19%. Reasons include:
- High extra costs (like taxes or hidden fees)
- Website errors
- Complicated checkout process
- Limited payment options
- Required to create an account
But abandoned cart capabilities can help you bring cart abandoners back to your site and drive them towards conversion. For example, you can send an email reminding them of what they left behind or even offer a discount.
Simplify the purchase process for add-ons
Sometimes, a basic plan might not be enough for some of your subscribers. They could be on the lookout for extra components that help them boost the functionality of their subscription.
Add-ons offer them more bang for their buck, generate increased revenue for you, and demonstrate your commitment to giving subscribers the solutions they need. But if purchasing add-ons is too complex, you and your subscribers will both miss out.
If you make it quick and easy to buy add-ons, though, you can improve conversion rates for subscribers who want a little bit more. Limio can help you do that with a simple configuration process.
One of the simplest ways to improve conversion rates for your SaaS business is to provide a small, competitively priced plan for newcomers. This makes it easy for subscribers to get a feel for your SaaS product, experiment with it, and understand how they can use it to achieve their goals (whatever they may be).
If subscribers decide they want to pay for more functionality, it should be easy for them to upgrade from within their account whenever they’re ready. Don’t expect them to wait hours to speak to an agent by phone or live chat, or to send an email to formally request a change. Let them do it in just a few clicks instead.
With Limio, you can set up personalised switch pages that empower subscribers to upgrade or downgrade their plans easily.
Get your sales team involved
Communicating and collaborating with your sales team can help you increase SaaS conversion rates. How?
Share data with sales agents to help them understand what subscribers in specific demographics prefer, and what common issues they run into. That can help them understand potential new subscribers and create better pitches.
But make sure they share data and questions they receive with you in return. That way, you’ll know what potential subscribers are looking for from your business. And you can refine your product to meet, and ideally exceed, expectations.
Personalisation
Implementing more personalisation into your product can increase conversion rates. Providing subscribers with an experience that suits their needs, goals, and preferences will make them feel as if they’re getting unique value out of their subscriptions. As a result, they’ll be more likely to convert and stay loyal.
One aspect of personalisation is segmenting your subscribers into groups based on key factors (behaviours, disposable income, age, etc.). Then, define what subscribers within those groups prefer.
Additionally, collect and analyse subscriber feedback. That will help you align your product with subscriber needs, expectations, and trends.
Use Limio
Ok, it's a bit cheeky to add us here, but finding effective ways to increase conversion rates isn't easy. We have productised all the best ecommerce practices for maximizing conversions for SaaS subscriptions.
Our subscription commerce platform offers a wide range of features and integrations that allow you to experiment fast with the conversion optimization above. To see it in action, request your Limio demo today.