How Couchsurfing achieved a 23% improvement in click-to-convert rate through copy A/B testing

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Case study - Couchsurfing
⏱ 2 minute read
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How Couchsurfing achieved a 23% improvement in click-to-convert rate through copy A/B testing

Executive summary

Couchsurfing is a free service connecting travellers across the globe who share experiences ranging from hosting one another in their homes, to having a beer and becoming close friends and travel companions.

Couchsurfing is now a global community of 12 million people in more than 200,000 cities who share their life, their world and their journey. Couchsurfing connects travellers with a global network of people, making travel a truly social experience.

“Sendwithus’ team is incredibly responsive, and simply know their stuff. Their sales team, their support team, their CEO — all of them not only know their product, but they know email, they know marketing, and they know growth.”

-Alli Shea, Head of Growth Markerting

The challenge

Couchsurfing connects people all over the world to share accommodations in their homes. Verification, Couchsurfing’s paid membership, allows the site to confirm your phone number and address. As a result, verified members have an easier time finding hosts. Alli Shea, head of growth marketing, is always looking for ways to make sure Couchsurfing members have the best experience, and increasing verification is one way to positively impact surfer success.

The Sendwithus solution

Conveying value of product features (especially paid/upgrade features) can be a challenge, so when testing the messaging around new verification features, Alli opted to begin by A/B testing copy within an email.

The results

There was a 23% improvement for send-to-convert rates between these two emails. The copy from the winning version (Version B: “Verification makes it 2x easier to find a host”) was then passed onto the landing page for the verification feature.

Email is a primary driver for engagement for most brands, including Couchsurfing. Not only can A/B testing be used to determine the best messaging strategy for a product, those learnings can also be carried on to other marketing and product assets including landing pages, one pagers, in-app messaging and more. According to Alli, “before we make product decisions, if we can test it in email, we will. It’s low-friction and dependencies are minimal. It’s infinitely easier to make recommendations to product teams when you already have data in hand!” Sendwithus allows marketers like Alli from Couchsurfing to A/B test email elements to make data driven business decisions that make an impact.

“Sendwithus’ team is incredibly responsive, and simply know their stuff. Their sales team, their support team, their CEO — all of them not only know their product, but they know email, they know marketing, and they know growth.”

-Alli Shea, Head of Growth Markerting

About Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing, a global service to connect travellers, uses Sendwithus A/B testing to hone product messaging strategy. Learnings from email are then applied to other mediums and future product innovations.

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