Form length doesn't matter
That variable is a function of the legacy lead gen approach
I know I know - everything is “dead” and everything is a “hot take” right now, but one thing I’ve noticed the past year or so is the general mindset that shorter forms = higher conversion rates.
But last year proved to me that it’s simply not true. It depends on your marketing strategy.
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Short forms are required for legacy lead gen to work, not modern demand gen
This one has a little more to do with buyer psychology than marketing practices, so I’ll keep it short + simple.
Legacy lead gen is a volume-based strategy. “How do we get as many prospects in our TAM to give us their information so we can bombard them until they buy?”
It was viewed as a transaction. I give you something of value (side note: “value” is clearly a relative term) such as an ebook, exposure to knowledge in a webinar, etc. and you give me some information about you + your company.
But with that value being nominal at best, marketers learned that form friction was one of the biggest variables keeping more people from filling them out. So we shortened forms more and more and more so we could keep getting those “leads.”
For some reason, this logic was viewed as a generalized best practice for all forms, not just lead gen forms. So organizations would apply this same thinking to pages such as their “talk to sales” or “get a quote” pages.
And this is exactly where I’ll put my stake in the ground saying we’ve been doing it wrong.
First, some quick stats
Hubspot released a study after analyzing over 40,000 landing pages from their customers in 2021 (aka, the height of the lead gen strategy). The very first variable they covered in the study was the conversion rate by the number of form fields, noting that 3 fields had the best conversion rate, and every additional field added afterward led to a decrease in form conversion rate. This became gospel in B2B.
According to this Unbounce survey, the median landing page conversion rate in SaaS is 3.8%. Across all of industries they surveyed, it’s 6.6%. Not so great…
And because I like to look at multiple data sources before debunking long-held beliefs, I also saw Hockeystack published a similar report looking into these conversion rates. More specifically, honing in on demo and pricing pages which is where the modern demand gen strategy revolves around.
To my surprise, they shared that the average demo page conversion rate wasn’t much better - that it was 5.5%
Call me crazy, but thinking that removing a few fields from a form is going to drive a significant increase to the conversion rate on these pages is a bit naive, no? Especially when thinking about the modern demand gen approach where the goal is for prospects to come to you when they’re ready to buy vs. forcing them to this page prematurely.
Which led me to this conclusion…
Form length doesn’t matter (note: at least to a reasonable point) when you’re running a modern GTM approach.
Our demo form has 8 fields on it. In 2024, our demo page conversion rate was 33%. Not 3.3%, but 33%.
10x higher than the median in the Unbounce study
6x higher than the average in the Hockeystack study
And with 2.5x more fields than what Hubspot deemed as “best practice”
So what’s the magic to having such a high conversion rate? By letting prospects come to you when they’re ready.
If you’ve been following my thoughts for some time now, this shouldn’t be new news to you. This is the GTM approach I’ve been helping to champion for 5 years now. And this is actual data I’m seeing with our GTM approach.
As stated earlier, the legacy lead gen approach is volume-dependent. Get more people to squeeze pages and hope that they can be converted to MQLs to pass along to Sales. So what do you think happens when you not only increase the number at the top of the funnel, but that number is also full of people not actively wanting to buy anything or talk to you? You get a bigger denominator (bottom part of the fraction) without having a bigger numerator (top part of the fraction), aka a very low conversion rate.
Yes, reducing the fields from 5 to 3 might help increase that numerator slightly, but not much. But what happens when you stop playing the legacy lead gen (volume) game and take the modern GTM approach? Your denominator is made up only of people who are voluntarily coming to this page vs. being forced to it. And your numerator increases because the modern GTM approach caters to educating, building trust, and leading a prospect to understanding why they should choose you when they are ready to buy. You now have a smaller denominator and and a bigger numerator, aka a significantly higher conversion rate.
It’s not just me seeing this
Go look at some of the leading companies out there and see how they’re handling their demo request form today. It might surprise you.
Hubspot
Remember that study earlier on from Hubspot talking about how 3 fields is the ideal number to have in a form? Well, they clearly have a different internal dataset that they use (or just take a modern GTM strategy 😉) as they have 8 fields in their form.
Dropbox
“Sam, what about companies that have a dual-motion GTM where they have both product-led and sales-led offerings?”
Glad you asked. So I checked out Dropbox, led by marketing visionary + dual-motion GTM queen Elena Verna. And guess what, they have 11 (!!!) fields on their “Contact Sales” form.
UserGems
And for a more “normal” representation of a typical sales-led SaaS company that follows a modern GTM approach, we have UserGems. They have 7 fields on their “Book a Demo” form.
Takeaway
Few “best practices” are fundamental (read: timeless) best practices. Keep this in mind any time you hear someone say something like “because we’ve always done it this way” or any time you find yourself going back to the things you’re comfortable with and have been doing for years.
Times change
Strategies change
Markets change
Behaviors change
And many of the “best practices” we follow are simply variables, NOT constants, tied to each of those.
See you next Saturday,
Sam
Seen the same thing - 8 fields on demo form here. We did an A/B test before going from 5 —> 8 and there was no impact.
If someone has decided they want to enter your sales process (as opposed to an impulse download of an asset) then it makes no sense to think that a few extra fields is going to be a deterrent.