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How to set up trial-to-paid conversion campaigns to increase subscription revenue

Implement a campaign using Segment to convert trial users to paid subscribers by creating personalized marketing based on their behaviors and preferences, highlighting appealing features and benefits.

 

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What do you need?

  • Segment Connections

  • An email tool like SendGrid

Easily personalize customer experiences with first-party data

With a huge integration catalog and plenty of no-code features, Segment provides easy-to-maintain capability to your teams with minimal engineering effort. Great data doesn't have to be hard work!

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The desired outcome is for businesses to increase subscription revenue by personalizing content that highlights the value and benefits of the paid service during the trial period, addressing potential conversion barriers such as pricing concerns or feature limitations, and offering timely, compelling incentives. This approach will help convert trial users into paying customers and ensure a seamless transition from trial to paid experience, fostering long-term loyalty.

Step 1: Add the required Sources: 

In your workspace, add a new prod or dev source for your website and (optional) another for your order processing system. This should be your website where checkout events will be tracked and the system that captures completed orders. These sources will be responsible for collecting the required Track Events and sending them to Segment.

  •     Sign Up or Log In to Segment

First, access the Segment platform by signing up or logging into your existing account.

  •     Create a Source for Your Website

A source in Segment acts as the origin of data you collect, such as user interactions on your website.

  1. In your Segment workspace, navigate to the Sources section.

  2. Click the Add Source button.

  3. From the catalog of sources, select JavaScript (for websites)

  4. Provide a name for your source, e.g., "i.e. Company Website - Dev or Prod".

  5. Optionally, add labels for organization.

  6. Enter your website URL.

  7. Click Create Source button
  •       Install the Segment Snippet

After creating your source, Segment will provide you with a JavaScript snippet.

  1. Copy the JavaScript snippet provided by Segment.

  2. Paste the snippet into the <head> tag of your site to install Segment.

If you need to connect your website, mobile app, or server as a source please refer to our documentation on these touchpoints. 

Step 2: Track your events 

In order to build the funnels needed to increase trial-to-paid conversions, you'll need to track two key events: 'Trial Started' and 'Subscription Started'. 

  • Trial Started: Manually add this event to your site (See Spec: Track documentation).

  • Subscription Started: Manually add this event to your site (See Spec: Track documentation).
Table listing required events for subscription tracking with conditions and props.
This table defines necessary events for starting a trial and conversion to a paid subscription with specific triggers and properties.

In this example, we're not only tracking the event 'Trial Started' but also sending the 'category' property, which provides important context about the event and can be extremely valuable in your analysis. Learn more about properties.

Step 3: Add Destinations

Choose where you want to send the collected data—for this use case we recommend using email, SMS, push notifications, or an email platform like SendGrid to send personalized emails with compelling incentives to encourage paid subscriptions.

  1. In your Segment workspace, add a new destination.
  2. Select your preferred tool from the catalog. This destination will receive the data collected by your source and use it according to your needs.

Step 4: Test your setup

Finally, test your setup to ensure data is being collected and sent correctly. You can do this by performing the actions you're tracking on your dev website and checking if the corresponding events appear in your Segment debugger and analytics tool.
 

The Source Debugger is a tool that helps you confirm that API calls made from your website, mobile app, or servers arrive to your Segment Source, so you can troubleshoot your Segment setup even quicker. 

Your data may not show up instantaneously and there may be a delay, but once the data is flowing you are ready to move to the next step. 

Step 5: Analyze and activate

With accurate setup and data flow:

  1. Analyze the data to understand user behavior throughout the subscription process.

  2. Identify trial users who haven’t converted to a paid subscription in the past 30 days.

  3. Address potential conversion barriers such as pricing concerns or feature limitations. 

To activate your email campaign, you can use a platform like SendGrid to send personalized emails with compelling incentives to encourage paid subscriptions.

Below is an ​​example of a conversion campaign for Skype that showcases an exclusive feature of the premium subscription model, incentivizing users to upgrade. By leveraging the events and properties you’re tracking, you can adopt a similar approach to deliver targeted messages to trial members, increasing conversions to paid subscriptions.

Screenshot of an email notifying about Skype subscription expiry and prompting to renew.
Email from Skype reminding the recipient to renew their subscription, including links for various account settings.

Final Thoughts 

When you convert anonymous visitors into registered users, you not only expand your user base but also deepen your reservoir of actionable data. This transformation from anonymity to known users enables more personalized interactions, which can significantly enhance user engagement and retention. With the rich data that registered users provide, companies can tailor their services and marketing efforts more precisely, resulting in higher conversion rates and a more robust bottom line.

 

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