← Grant Mortimer

Activation · CD Baby · 2022

Getting new artists to start their first release

New users landed on a page asking for their bank and tax details. I swapped it for a prompt to start a release, and more new users started, paid, and finalized.

34% → 47%

New users starting a release

+13 pts · 38% relative lift

20% → 29%

Paid for a release

+9 pts

16% → 23%

Finalized a release

+7 pts

Role
Product Manager. My idea, pitch, and launch
Team
Design, Engineering, QA, Data Science
Stakeholders
Marketing, Support
Effort
Reused an existing page with 2 tweaks

Context

CD Baby gets independent artists' music onto every streaming platform.

Signing up and starting a release is free. Artists pay a one-time fee to finalize and distribute it.

The CD Baby marketing homepage

Problem

Only 34% of new accounts started a release, even though starting is free.

Lots of signups, but most never took the first step toward value (and revenue).

Funnel conversion as % of accounts created
Accounts created
100%
Started a release
34%
Paid
20%
Finalized
16%
Activation funnel before the change. 40,290 accounts created; % of accounts created.

Diagnosis

Right after signup, we asked for an SSN and bank account.

The signup flow dropped new users on Payment & Tax Info. Talking with our Support team backed up the hunch.

We were asking for high-trust information before new users had seen any value.

The old post-signup landing page
The Payment & Tax Info page asking new users to add a payout method and a tax form
  1. Bank details before the user has done anything
  2. Tax form with sensitive personal information

Options

We mapped ideas by impact and effort, then picked the cheapest big win.

I brainstormed with design and PM peers. Repurposing the existing New Release page as the landing page was low effort and high impact.

Impact vs effort matrix with 'Repurpose New Release page as landing page' circled

Solution

Same page, two tweaks: the New User Submission Prompt.

The page's main action, starting a single or album, was already exactly what new users needed.

Before: New Release page
The existing New Release page
After: New User Submission Prompt
The New User Submission Prompt with a welcoming headline and an 'Explore the dashboard' link
  1. A welcoming headline for first-time users
  2. An escape hatch to the dashboard for people who just want to look around

Outcome

Every step of the funnel improved, not just the first one.

Started releases went from 34% to 47%. That momentum carried through to payment and finalization.

Funnel conversion as % of accounts created
Accounts created
100%
100%
Started a release+13 pts
34%
47%
Paid+9 pts
20%
29%
Finalized+7 pts
16%
23%
Before vs. after launch, as % of accounts created (40,290 before; 35,139 after).

Reflections

Small, cheap changes can move the whole funnel.

Low effort, high impact

Reusing an existing pattern got this live fast. There are more wins like this hiding in the funnel.

Build the testing muscle

A proper A/B testing program would let us ship optimizations like this faster, with cleaner reads.

It kept compounding

This prompt became the Choose your release type step in our later signup redesign. See the new flow →