Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, I was brought in as a freelance consultant for a B2B SaaS that was drowning in signups but starving for paying customers. Their metrics told a frustrating story: lots of new users daily, most using the product for exactly one day, then vanishing. Almost no conversions after the free trial.
The marketing team was celebrating their "success" - popups, aggressive CTAs, and paid ads were driving signup numbers up. But I knew we were optimizing for the wrong thing.
What I discovered next goes against everything you've heard about user engagement. Instead of reducing friction to boost signups, I added more friction - and doubled their engagement rates while drastically improving conversion quality.
Here's what you'll learn from this real client case:
Why optimizing for signup volume kills actual engagement
The counterintuitive strategy that filters for serious users upfront
How to implement qualification-based onboarding that actually works
Real metrics from adding friction instead of removing it
When this approach works (and when it doesn't)
Industry Reality
What every growth advisor tells you about engagement
Walk into any SaaS growth meeting and you'll hear the same advice repeated like gospel. Reduce friction at all costs. Make signup easier. Remove form fields. Eliminate barriers. Get users into your product as fast as possible.
The standard playbook looks like this:
Simplify signup - Ask for email only, maybe a name
Skip verification - Get them in immediately
Aggressive CTAs - "Start Free Trial" everywhere
No credit card required - Remove all purchase friction
Gamified onboarding - Progress bars and achievements
This advice exists because it works for consumer products. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok - they optimize for maximum user acquisition because their revenue model depends on scale and attention. The more users, the better.
But here's where most B2B SaaS founders get it wrong: your business model isn't TikTok's business model. You need users who will pay $50-500+ per month, not users who will scroll for ad revenue.
The problem with the "reduce friction" approach is that it optimizes for quantity over quality. You get lots of signups from people who were never going to buy anyway. Your engagement metrics look terrible because you're measuring the wrong users.
When you make signup too easy, you're essentially inviting tire-kickers to waste your onboarding resources while drowning out signals from actual buyers.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
My client's situation was a perfect example of this broken thinking. They were getting 200+ signups per week from their marketing efforts. On paper, this looked amazing. The marketing team was hitting their numbers. The growth charts were trending up.
But when I dug into the actual user behavior data, the story was different:
85% of users logged in once and never returned
12% of users returned for a second session but didn't complete onboarding
3% of users actually used the core features
Less than 1% converted to paid plans
The client was a project management SaaS for consulting firms. Their product required users to set up projects, invite team members, and configure workflows. It wasn't a simple tool you could understand in 30 seconds.
Like most product consultants, I started with the obvious solution: improve the onboarding experience. We built an interactive product tour, simplified the UX, reduced friction points. The engagement improved slightly - nothing dramatic. The core problem remained untouched.
That's when I realized we were treating symptoms, not the disease. The issue wasn't that our onboarding was bad. The issue was that we were onboarding the wrong people.
Most users came from cold traffic - paid ads and SEO. They had no idea what they were signing up for. The aggressive conversion tactics meant anyone with a pulse and an email address could sign up. We were spending resources onboarding people who were never going to buy.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
I proposed something that made my client uncomfortable: make signup harder, not easier. Instead of optimizing for maximum signups, we'd optimize for maximum qualification.
Here's exactly what we implemented:
Step 1: Credit Card Upfront
We added a credit card requirement before the free trial. Users could still try the product for 14 days without being charged, but they had to provide payment information upfront. This single change eliminated 60% of signups immediately.
Step 2: Qualification Questions
We lengthened the signup flow with qualifying questions:
Company size (1-10, 11-50, 50+ employees)
Current project management solution
Primary use case selection
Timeline for implementation (immediate vs. researching)
This added another 2-3 minutes to the signup process. More tire-kickers dropped off.
Step 3: Onboarding Commitment
Instead of throwing users into the product immediately, we required them to schedule a 15-minute onboarding call. Users could choose their preferred time, but they had to commit to a specific slot.
The messaging was: "We'll help you set up your first project in 15 minutes." This positioned it as value, not friction.
Step 4: Progressive Information Gathering
During signup, we collected information that would be useful for the sales team later:
Current team size
Biggest project management challenge
Budget range for tools
Each piece of friction served a purpose: qualifying intent, gathering sales intelligence, and setting expectations for a higher-touch experience.
The result? We went from 200 weekly signups to about 45. My client almost fired me when the signup numbers dropped. But I asked for 30 days to prove the quality improvement.
Critical Insight
Users willing to provide a credit card and answer qualification questions are fundamentally different from users who just want to "check it out"
Onboarding Strategy
Scheduled onboarding calls created accountability and ensured users actually experienced the product's value
Quality Over Quantity
45 qualified leads proved more valuable than 200 unqualified signups for revenue generation
Sales Intelligence
Qualification questions provided the sales team with context before every conversation, improving close rates
The results spoke for themselves after 30 days:
User engagement increased by 127% - Average session time went from 3 minutes to 12 minutes
Trial completion rate improved by 89% - More users actually completed the onboarding flow
Trial-to-paid conversion doubled - From 0.8% to 1.7% of signups
Support tickets decreased by 40% - Qualified users needed less hand-holding
Average deal size increased 35% - Better qualified leads led to larger purchases
More importantly, the sales team finally had engaged users to work with. Instead of chasing cold leads who'd signed up on impulse, they were talking to people who had demonstrated genuine interest by jumping through qualification hoops.
The onboarding calls revealed another benefit: users who scheduled calls showed up 73% of the time. When people commit to a specific time slot, they're much more likely to follow through than with generic "contact us" requests.
Six months later, the client's revenue had increased by 40% despite having fewer total signups. The cost per acquisition actually improved because they were spending marketing budget on higher-intent prospects.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience taught me seven crucial lessons about user engagement that most SaaS companies get wrong:
Engagement quality beats engagement quantity - 10 engaged users are worth more than 100 casual browsers
Friction can be a feature, not a bug - Strategic friction filters for intent and commitment
Department KPIs create perverse incentives - Marketing optimizing for signups without considering downstream quality hurts overall business performance
Self-selection is powerful - Let users opt themselves out instead of trying to convert everyone
Onboarding starts before product usage - The qualification process is part of onboarding, not separate from it
Context improves conversion - Knowing why someone signed up helps you serve them better
High-touch can scale - Scheduled onboarding calls seem expensive but improve lifetime value dramatically
The biggest mistake most companies make is treating all signups equally. But a user who finds you through a competitor comparison and schedules an onboarding call is fundamentally different from someone who clicked a Facebook ad on impulse.
When you optimize for the wrong metrics (total signups), you get the wrong results (low engagement). When you optimize for the right metrics (qualified engagement), everything downstream improves.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups looking to implement this approach:
Start with qualifying questions during signup to understand user intent
Consider credit card requirements for trials over $50/month price points
Implement scheduled onboarding for complex products requiring setup
Track engagement metrics, not just signup volume
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, this translates to:
Use qualifying pop-ups to understand visitor intent before showing offers
Implement account creation requirements for high-value purchases
Add product recommendation quizzes to filter serious buyers
Focus on customer lifetime value over conversion rate