A/B/C Test

Guided Subscription Choices with Badges

Having worked with this sports nutrition brand through their Redesign, and subsequently, their CRO Plus Program for over a year, we began 2025 by aligning testing strategy with key business KPIs, one of which was improving subscription rate to increase retention and reduce acquisition costs. 

As part of the Q1 roadmap, we conducted a deep-dive analysis into subscription behaviour using Recharge data, competitor benchmarking, and user interaction trends. This revealed an opportunity to influence customer preference on PDP subscription frequency by guiding their choice through visual cues, specifically, by applying “Popular” or “Recommended” badges next to delivery options.

We designed an A/B/C test on the brand’s highest-traffic PDP, testing two visual badge variants against the original (which had no badges).

  • Variant 1 used a “Popular” badge next to the 4-week delivery option, validated using 12 months of Recharge data.

  • Variant 2 displayed a “Recommended” badge next to the 6-week option, designed to nudge users toward a longer repurchase cycle.

This test allowed us to evaluate how social proof (“Popular”) compared with brand authority (“Recommended”) in influencing subscription choices.

The Results

The “Popular” badge (Variant 1) outperformed both the control and the “Recommended” version across key metrics, including a 14.81% increase in conversion rate and a 42.98% increase in users selecting the Autoship option. Interestingly, Variant 1 also encouraged broader exploration of the 6-week and 8-week options, suggesting that trust in other users’ choices built confidence across the board.

In contrast, the “Recommended” badge had only a marginal impact on purchase behaviour, reinforcing the influence of the Bandwagon Effect, where people are more likely to act when they know others have done the same.

Variant 1 was rolled out permanently.

  • 14.81%

    Increase in Conversion Rate

  • 28.95%

    Increase in Revenue per Visitor

  • 21.56%

    Increase in Checkout Visits

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