This guide shares best practices for your Try Before You Buy program. While every merchant is different, these best practices apply across industry verticals.
If you'd prefer to see examples from other brands' strategies, click here for our Inspiration Library.
How to roll out your program to drive incremental revenue
We strongly suggest hiding TryNow from public web visitors and gating access to your TryNow program through TryLinks.
Benefits of this approach:
Drives incremental revenue since you can place TryNow in targeted ways
Allows you to use TryNow in targeted ways and expand gradually
Mitigates the return rate impact on your overall business
Hiding TryNow and gating access through TryLinks allows you to fully control the program and ensure that TryNow orders are incremental to your business.
Phase 1 — Steady and Controlled Flow of Incremental Orders
Days: 0 - 60
Shopper Opt-In Target: ~5% of orders
The goal of this phase is to generate a steady flow of orders as it allows us to begin gathering shopper feedback
Keep an eye on traffic through TryNow Landing Page entry points and begin driving additional traffic until you arrive at ~5% opt-in.
If traffic is too low, you can increase on-site visibility to the program
We recommend creating a TryNow entry point on collection pages and in your main navigation to begin
TryNow button is hidden on product pages from public web visitors, so we suggest that you pick two program entry points to start.
Many brands start with some of the following entry points because they're proven to drive incremental revenue:
TryNow entry point linked in main navigation — shoppers that seek TryNow out on your site demonstrate an interest in the program and ensure the program is driving incremental revenue
TryNow entry point linked in collection page — meet browsers during the discovery process as they browse collections
If more traffic is required to achieve ~5% opt-in target, add messaging on homepage towards first half of the page
The most important part of this phase is to gauge your shoppers' response to your Try Before You Buy program. A great customer experience is the input, and the output is incremental revenue.
Phase 2 — Launch
Days 60-180
Shopper Opt-In Target: 5-10% of orders
At this point, you have a steady flow of orders rolling in, you feel confident that your shoppers love TryNow, and your operations can support the expansion of your program.
You can create additional entry points to drive more incremental revenue:
VIP customers — share TryNow with your VIP customers. The response from this group of shoppers is a great indication of your program's success
Customer experience representatives sharing links with shoppers — in response to questions about your products, your representatives can share TryLinks to allow your shoppers to Try Before You Buy
Email sign-up welcome flow — by dedicating an email to TryNow towards the middle of your flow and inserting TryNow throughout the end of your welcome flow, you can ensure that TryNow sales are incremental
Launch email to your entire email list — brands launch a co-branded launch email to introduce TryNow, powered by TryLinks.
Insert TryNow into evergreen emails — you can add sections to your email templates featuring TryLinks or add TryNow to your header/footer.
Abandonment emails — provide your abandoned visitors with a brand-enhancing offer like Try Before You Buy
Retargeting ads — improve your ROAS with Try Before You Buy campaigns
Phase 3 — Expand and Optimize
Day 180 and beyond
Shopper Opt-In Target: while many of our brands target 15%+, you're in complete control
At this point, TryNow is becoming a key growth strategy, so you're looking to create additional program entry points to drive more incremental revenue.
To do so, drive additional traffic to your TryNow landing page throughout your channels.
Listen to customer feedback to refine your program
Some customers may want to try more items, so ensure that your cart limit is high enough to drive a great customer experience
Make sure that your return flow period is long enough to allow your warehouse to process returns. This ensures that shoppers aren't charged prematurely.
Some brands may consider adding a packaging insert to promote the program and drive education around how it works
Set up levers to optimize your program
We recommend looking at your Net Order Value After Returns by # of Units Ordered. You can export your TryNow orders and review this information. What we tend to see is that the Net Order Value After Returns increases as shoppers order more items. Some brands will add a cart minimum to encourage (aka Soft Minimum) or enforce (aka Hard Minimum) shoppers to try [X] or more items. For more info on cart limits, see this article.