Trial Activation vs. Trial Conversion: Reviewing Your B2B SaaS Conversions

Your trial conversion dashboard is staring you in the face with numbers you’d rather take to your grave than let anyone see. You’re asking the obvious: “Why aren’t people converting?” 

Except, before you can start optimizing your B2B SaaS trial-to-paid emails or tweaking your sign up page, you need to figure out if your users are even activating in the first place. 

Most teams put activation and conversion together—or assume they’re closely related. But, understanding the difference between your trial activations and trial conversions will help you improve your numbers (rather than just throwing more ‘tactics’ at the problem and hoping it’ll solve itself).

What is Trial Activation? 

When we talk about trial activation, we’re talking about users actually engaging with your software—logging in, setting things up, taking the key actions that move them toward discovering your product’s value. 

Not the technical account confirmation step, although that matters too if your users aren’t even making it that far.

What is Trial Conversion?

Trial conversion is the percentage of trial users who upgrade to a paid plan during or at the end of their trial period. But conversion is the end result of a successful activation process. If your users aren’t activating, they’re definitely not converting.

Wondering what a “good” conversion rate looks like or how to navigate industry benchmarks? Check out our guide on B2B SaaS free trial conversion rates.

The Relationship Between Trial Activation, Trial Conversion, and The “AHA” Moment

Think of it like this: trial activation is when people start to use your software—it’s what leads them to the “AHA” moment (when they realize your software is one they can’t live without); trial conversion is when they decide to pay for it.

Trial Activation → “AHA” Moment → Trial Conversion

The connecting piece? Your free trial emails. Your free trial sequence is what guides users through your software’s specific activation events. If your sequence isn’t strategically designed to get users to use your software in the way you need them to use it, you’ll have low activation rates—and low activation rates mean low conversion rates, no matter how good your “sales” emails are.

How to Use Activation Events to Get Closer to the “AHA” Moment

You can’t solve the problem (low activation rates) if you don’t know why it’s happening. The first step in improving your activation rates and brining your users closer to the “AHA” moment is to figure out where in your sequence users are dropping off and making adjustments to your sequence and overall strategy to prevent them. 

Here’s what you can do to improve both your trial activation and trial conversion rates for your B2B SaaS:

• Utilize boxcar emails to create an experience targeted to the user’s behavior and interest.
• Identify the specific actions that correlate with conversion (your leading indicators) and build behavioral triggers that guide users toward those actions.
  • The early actions that users take are likely your activation events—let the DATA tell you what those things are instead of forcing users into actions they don’t care about/don’t actually need to do.
• Use the information collected during sign-up to personalize your user’s experience. For example, if they tell you they use certain software or tools, help them connect those specific software and tools with your app instead of giving them a guide on how to connect ALL software and tools. 
• Create strategic sequences that bring users back into the app to complete key tasks.

And this is simply a starting point! There are many other things you can do to improve your free trial sequence. You should also be regularly gathering data and improving your sequence!

The truth is that most of your new users are likely “shopping around”—signing up for five different project management, HR, or payroll (etc) tools at once. If your activation experience isn’t as smooth as your competitors’, they’ll never make it to your “AHA” moment because they found theirs (and then converted) elsewhere.

Don’t Optimize What You Haven’t Defined

You can’t optimize what you can’t measure, and you can’t measure what you haven’t defined. Don’t start tweaking your conversion strategy until you know what’s happening, where it’s happening, and why.

Separating and understanding the relationship between your trial activation and trial conversion is just one part of your overall strategy. Blindly taking action in an attempt to improve your activation and conversion rates will use time you don’t have, team members you can’t spare, and lose potential die-hard fans (your users).

Need help building email sequences that actually drive activation? We’ll audit your current trial flow and show you exactly where users are dropping off—and how to fix it.Ready to turn your trial users into paying customers? Book a free consult.