Getting free trial sign-ups is one thing—having them convert into paying customers is another. A free trial sequence converts only when you implement a strategy, and while your sequence is “getting the job done” at the moment, conversions are not where you need them to be.
Companies use an average of 130 SaaS apps, with each department juggling an average of 87 SaaS tools. That’s over 130 SaaS companies vying for your users’ time, attention, and dollars. As a CMO, how will you compete? How will you position your company as the one they need through one sequence?
Rather than settling for the rates you have, these are the B2B SaaS free trial best practices to help you achieve the rates you need in 2025:
The Free Trial Best Practices That Will Increase Your Conversions
It’s easier than ever to reach users, but getting (and keeping) their attention is getting harder. Especially when the average person receives over 120 emails a day.
Not only do you need their attention, but you also need to keep your leads engaged for the long haul. Every email is an opportunity to show your users how your software can radically change their business.
With over seven years of working with funnels and email marketing and being the free trial strategist for companies like Bitly and QR Code Generator Pro, these are free trial best practices we’ve utilized that can increase your conversions—and your overall LTV—this year:
#1. Personalized Content for Subscribers
Use the information you’ve gathered in your onboarding sequence. Reflect it back to them and make their experience feel personalized and relevant.
If you collect information about your leads when they sign up, don’t let that information go to waste. Use it to personalize their experience—whether it’s by their industry, company size, top feature they’re interested in, or tools they use.
#2. Give ONE Step in The First Email
Your users don’t want (or need) a laundry list of instructions to follow in their first email. Give them the ONE step they need to take that will move them towards the “AHA” moment—and if the “AHA” moment doesn’t require uploading a profile picture, then don’t waste their time
The only exception—when you can have more than one step in their first email—is if the second step is in the same place as the first one.
#3. Ask for Replies
An engaged user converts. Keep your subscribers engaged by asking for replies throughout your sequence. It’s a great way to collect VOC data and is also incredible for improving and keeping up your sender reputation, which is key to getting emails delivered without being marked as spam.
Keep it centered around your customers and what they need—not your app.
#4. Know When to Address FOMU
FOMU, or “fear of messing up,” can be addressed in your free trial onboarding, but knowing when to address it is key. If the person signing up for the trial is NOT the person making the purchasing decision, address it.
If you don’t know, take a step back and gather user insights to determine who is signing up for your free trial and whether that person will have to prove to their higher-ups that your software is the right choice for the company If they do, they’ll likely suffer from FOMU—so give them the information and support they need to fight for you.
#5. Give Your Users Information BEFORE They Have to Ask
You need to make it as easy as possible for leads to use your app. Gather data from outside your free trial sequence to influence the content and/or steps included in your emails.
For example, look at the performance analytics of the help articles. Which articles have the most page views? Include the information in your onboarding sequence so that your user doesn’t have to go searching for it.
#6. Prioritize Your Day 0 Experience
It is the most important day of the entire campaign; these emails will receive the highest amount of opens and is when 80% of users are most likely to take the action you’re telling them to take. This is the moment when they’ll start integrating your app into their company.
Start by addressing what your users are hiring your software for and linking the actions you’re asking them to take to that job.
#7. Segment Your List(s)
A segmented approach to your free trial sequence is one of the best practices you can implement this year. Right now, your segments are likely too broad, relying on basic metrics or targeting behaviors not necessarily tied to connections or conversions.
You can segment your users based on their industry, location, actions they take, or actions they don’t take (just to name a few things) during their free trial onboarding.
#8. Use Boxcars
To further personalize your user’s experience, use Boxcars to optimize your free trial onboarding sequence. Boxcars can change the emails sent and their timing intervals based on user engagement.
For example, the email a user who activates their account on day 0 can experience a different sequence compared to a user who does not and requires a follow-up email for that specific step.
Learn how to use Boxcars to get your free trial users to take action and increase the number of users who upgrade to a paid account in just 14 minutes here.
#9. Send More Than One Email on Day 0
First, your legally required confirmation email; next, your welcome email, sent as soon as they confirm their email address and moves them towards the “AHA” moment; and finally, a third email: an email that is relevant, helpful, and will — you guessed it — move them even closer to the “AHA” moment.
Yes, some people will be annoyed, and yes, some will unsubscribe, but you’re not writing for those people—you’re writing for the people who will fight for your app to be included in the budget.
#10. Split Test Your Emails
Unless your conversion rate is 100%, you should always be updating and testing your free trial sequence. Split test content, email intervals, delivery times, subject lines—test everything based on the data you’ve gathered and want to gather from your users.
Keep in mind that failure is a good thing when it comes to A/B testing.
How to Get More Trial Users To The “AHA” Moment and Increase Your Free Trial Conversions
Your free trial onboarding sequence needs to get your trial users to the “AHA” moment—to turn the initial curiosity of your users into long-term commitment. Implementing these free trial best practices will help, but they’ll only go so far without a strategy behind them.
As a B2B SaaS company, converting free-trial users into loyal buyers is a necessary step in your customer lifecycle—staying in the “at least it’s done” mindset won’t help with conversions, even if it got you this far.
Get your users to the “AHA” moment using data-driven emails that keep them clicking back into your tool, reduce your churn, and skyrocket your trial conversion rates—or hire Open Loop Studio to do it for you.
