How a New Onboarding Increased LTV by 61% for Grit

The Old Onboarding had Low Payment Rates and Faced Conversion Challenges

Despite a promising app concept, the existing onboarding process was falling short:

• Low Payment Start Rates: Only 9% of users progressed from app open to starting a payment.
• Conversion Challenges: Just 3% of users converted to paying customers.
• Missed Potential: The brief, generic onboarding failed to communicate the app’s unique value proposition and build trust effectively.

This led to a clear opportunity: redesign the onboarding process to address these critical gaps and unlock the app’s potential.

Personalization and Engagement in the Onboarding can be the Key to Success

We hypothesized that a longer, personalized onboarding experience emphasizing user engagement and trust would:

1. Increase trial starts by making users feel more invested in the app.
2. Foster commitment through customization and reaffirmation.
3. Deliver an early “Aha” moment that highlights the app’s value.

Reimagining Onboarding: From Hypothesis to Execution

We designed a new, extended onboarding process focused on user engagement, personalization, and trust-building. We revised the process to include:

Personalization:

To create an onboarding experience that resonated with each user, we began by gathering key insights through targeted questions. For instance, the question “What is your main goal?” allowed us to understand our users and was a really useful information throughout the onboarding.

Using this data, we personalized the journey by highlighting features and benefits that directly aligned with their goals while building trust. This level of customization ensured users felt understood and increased their trust in the app as a solution tailored to their needs.

Clear Value Propositions:

Personalization played a critical role in showcasing the app’s unique benefits. By framing the value proposition around each user’s data, we made the messaging more impactful.

For example, if a user struggled with motivation, the onboarding emphasized specific features like streaks or curated in-app data that could help them stay on track. This approach ensured that users clearly saw how the app could address their unique pain points, making the benefits tangible and immediately relevant.

This strategy is rooted in contextual relevance, which is the use of context-aware technologies that allow to design and build experiences, personalized to the user.

Commitment Screen:

We introduced a commitment screen to encourage users to take ownership of their goals. This screen leveraged two key psychological principles:

• Cognitive Dissonance: When users make a commitment, they are motivated to follow through to maintain consistency with their stated intentions, reducing the discomfort of breaking that promise.
• Foot-in-the-Door Effect: By asking for a small initial action, such as committing to their goals, users became more likely to engage further and take larger actions within the app.

These principles worked together to reinforce motivation and build accountability, leading to greater long-term retention and conversion.

“Aha” Moment:

Our onboarding aimed to either trigger an immediate “aha” moment or prepare users for it by showcasing the app’s value and its specific impact on their lives. We used data-driven elements, such as real-life metrics (E.g. Average time spend with minds wandering, …), to highlight the app’s transformative potential.

Length with Engagement:

The onboarding’s 18-page length achieved an impressive 83% completion rate, a notable improvement compared to the control group, which had an 80% completion rate with just 8 pages. This success highlights the careful application of UX principles.

One key principle was the Endowment Effect, where users assign greater value to experiences they feel ownership over. By personalizing the onboarding journey based on user responses, we made the process feel uniquely tailored, increasing engagement and fostering a sense of investment in the app.

We also leveraged Hick’s Law, breaking the process into smaller, digestible steps to reduce cognitive load. Each page was concise, visually appealing, and purpose-driven, ensuring users remained engaged while absorbing the app’s value.

From their first interaction with this approach, users feel seen, understood, and equipped to achieve their goals with Grit.

The Redesigned Onboarding Flow led to tripled conversion rates and 3x more payment starts

The reimagined onboarding flow delivered remarkable results:

Paying Users: Increased from 3% to 9.97%, tripling the conversion rate.

Payment Start Rate: Improved from 9% to 34.5%, a significant boost in engagement.

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Forecasted LTV: Increased by 61% compared to the classical short onboarding control group.

These results validate the hypothesis: an onboarding experience that invests in user engagement and personalization yields substantial returns.

Key Takeaways from the Experiment

1. Personalization Drives Engagement: Tailored experiences make users feel valued and aligned with their goals.
2. Trust-Building is Critical: Reinforcing clear value propositions and encouraging user commitment builds trust and reduces friction.
3. Length with Value Works: Users are willing to engage with longer onboarding flows if the content is relevant, valuable, and engaging.
4. “Aha” Moments Early: Showcasing the app’s power and benefits within the first few screens makes a lasting impression.

The reimagined onboarding flow for Grit, driven by thoughtful design and data insights, boosted forecasted LTV by 61%. By engaging users from the first screen, we improved key metrics and set the stage for lasting satisfaction and retention.

‍Kovalee can help you improve your app’s performance!

Whether you’re working with iOS or Android, we have a team of specialists at Kovalee who would be delighted to help you take your app to #1. We partner exclusively with subscription apps for mobile devices, building ad-hoc teams of experts in user acquisition, ASO, product optimisation, UX/UI design and more to bring your app the success it deserves. The best thing about working with us? You won’t have to pay us a thing upfront!

Learn more about how our partnership works here, or check out some of our use cases with partner apps here.

References

1. The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Endowment Effect. Retrieved from https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/endowment-effect
2. Laws of UX. (n.d.). Hick’s Law. Retrieved from https://lawsofux.com/hicks-law/