After 8 months of A/B testing and several iterations, Le Monde‘s marketing team has decided on (for now at least) the French publisher’s new subscription offers page. I met Virgile de Tassigny, Growth Marketing Manager at Le Monde, who told me all about this major project.
> Le Monde designed its offers page for mobile first, where 75% of traffic sits, then adapted to desktop. Tunnel entries rose 26% on desktop and 18% on mobile against the old page > Annual plans were pulled off the landing page and moved into the purchase tunnel. Annual conversions fell 16%, monthly rose enough to more than cover it, and total conversions went up > Simplification overshot. Stripping out offer names and cutting to three benefits left readers unsure they had clicked the right thing, because the funnel still showed the old longer lists > The fix was consistency rather than more copy. Offer name, account count and benefits now match on the landing page and in the tunnel. A page redesign is a journey redesign > Student offers sat below the fold and were hard to find. Surfacing them lifted student conversions 25%. A black CTA also lost to the historic yellow readers already associate with subscribing
The original (or control)
Launched in 2020, at the same time as their new conversion funnel, the “control” displays 3 offers, with one (the “Duo” offer, ideal for couples needing 2 accounts) centered and highlighted as “Recommended”:
But after 4 years of existence, this page needed a thorough refresh.
1. Too much text kills the message (and conversion)
The old page was dense, with repeated information and several scattered CTAs. The result was a high cognitive load and an unruly user experience.
The first priority of Le Monde‘s redesign was therefore to simplify the offering. From now on, each formula will highlight a maximum of two to three key benefits (instead of a long list) with the aim of speeding up decision-making.
They also decided to elimination the little-understood labels, such as “Essential” or “Family”.
The first iteration led to this version:
