Free to Pay Conversion - Case Study

Q1. On the mobile app (Android OR iOS), identify the existing conversion funnels which
lead a free user to become a paid user.

Funnels:
● Home screen -> Click on topmost ad (har day special) or Hotstar VIP mini banner -> VIP
purchase screen
● Home screen -> Click on premium video -> Click on video play or get premium ->
Premium purchase screen
Similar funnels are also there from TV/Movie tabs where clicking on a VIP/Premium video (or
VIP ad) takes you to respective purchase screen. And when live sports are on, I’m guessing
similar funnels would also be there in sports tab.

There would also be funnel where user downloaded app for something particular and searched.
Search -> Click on Premium or VIP result -> Premium/VIP purchase screen.

There is also a funnel from main nav which takes you to ‘My Account’ -> Get Hotstar Premium.
(I was expecting some funnels in onboarding or login flow but didn’t see any)

Given the huge amount of free content on hotstar, there would be lot of users who keep the app
just for free content and could at later stage convert to paid, either via one of the funnels
mentioned above or via some notification prompts but while I received some notifications in last
2 days of being free user, none prompting me to subscribe.

Q2. Of all the above funnels that exist, if you have time/resources to work only on
improving one funnel: Which one will it be? Why did you pick this funnel and not others?
How will you improve it?

If I had to pick just one, I would pick the one which has the maximum upside, to find that, I
would need to look at data for the funnels. But in absence of data, my hunch is funnels from the
home screen have the maximum potential so I would pick those.

Aside, why are the funnels for VIP & Premium completely disjoint? Unless there is some solid
data backing this, keeping the two separate seems extremely counterintuitive to me. Even if VIP
subscriptions are easier to sell and are business focus, showing premium plans as comparison
on that page should potentially improve conversion for VIP too.

Broadly the funnel would be Home page (optimising subscription prompts & clickable paid
videos) -> combined (VIP & premium) buy subscription landing page.
The home page is currently structured as: Ad (usually for hotstar subscription but not always),
horizontal content carousel, VIP subscription ad banner, various content categories (horizontal
carousels). The biggest driver to someone buying subscription is finding content they want to
see. So, the most critical piece for optimising this funnel, I believe, is user seeing some
extremely relevant paid content on the home page. Ideally this requires personalisation, but
even before that simply optimising the page to show most recent content while maintaining
balance of various types would give a boost. To elaborate, it is currently showing me only sports
& Hindi tv (pre scroll), sports content is free & Hindi I don’t care for, so no motivation for me to
click (until I scroll further down to see some premium stuff). Also, even for a user who is
interested in Hindi, it just shows starcasts’ faces & says watch serials at 6am before it airs. If
instead, it showed a still from yet to be aired episode (along with the vip pitch), the conversion
would most likely be higher. And, sports content can perhaps be emphasised/de-emphasised
from home screen basis availability of paid content (live events).

The buy subscription landing page seems to have just way too much stuff, optimising it might
just be the lowest hanging fruit. This is a personal hunch which would need to be validated by
data but I would start by removing stuff (starting with FAQs), reducing distractions without
diluting the pitch. Also, preferably add comparison with premium plan on the VIP selling page
and experiment with eventually combining both pages (VIP & premium). It’s hard to predict for
sure what would work best & will require some UX iterations & A/B tests to arrive at the final so
not adding a wire frame or anything. (Aside, optimising this screen also has the added
advantage of optimising pretty much all conversion funnels)

Q3. If you had to create a new funnel altogether which will do better than all the other
existing ones: What will the new funnel flow look like? Please feel free to add wire-frames
if required. Why do you think this funnel will perform better than other existing ones?

Download a mobile app is a significant investment from the user (in engagement terms) which
makes for potentially much higher intent to convert (as compared to a casual web browsing).
And, the best way to convert this users is to have an awesome onboarding funnel which leads
them to subscription.

There is already an onboarding funnel but it just leaves users on home page instead of leading
them to subscription. Also, onboarding is an awesome time to capture user preferences & start
personalising their journey accordingly. And, while the current funnel asks for things like
language preferences it doesn’t seem to be using that. (I selected Hindi & English & its keeps
showing me lot of regional language tv shows nevertheless)

My solution would be improving/extending the current onboarding funnel to not just capture
language preference but also get a sense of what kind of viewer they are - do they like sports or
Hindi soap operas or English tv. Preferably even capture some genre preferences.
Arriving at final screens would be an iterative process but roughly in the current onboarding post
OTP it asks for language preferences. Instead, post OTP I would throw a beautiful splash
screen asking users if they would like to take few seconds to add their preferences which would
help them discover their favourite content faster (with an option to skip).
Roughly flow would be:
Post OTP -> Splash screen asking to set preferences or skip
A) On selecting set preferences -> Select languages -> What kind of tv shows do you watch
regularly (screen should be grid style 12 or so posters which would be mix of stuff like
Kasauti zindagi ki & GOT & documentaries etc while taking into account language
preferences from previous screen.). -> What kind of movies do you love (recent hit
movies with a mix of genre & basis language preferences) -> What are your favourite
sports (mix of recent live sports events & last option being I am not into sports) ->
Prompt to buy subscription (Basis selection on previous screens, it should be possible to
identify a dozen or so paid content that user would love and a few free shows). So, the
screen should show all of this content that user would love & prompt mentioning some of
the paid relevant content to buy (something like: for just 999/- a year, watch GOT,
Grey’s Anatomy same time as it airs in US or for just 259/- watch Kasauti zindagi ki 6 am
before it airs on tv. ) The idea behind this funnel is that the more relevant content users
sees, the higher his intent to convert and more personalised the pitch to convert can be.
B) On selecting skip -> go to home page but add one of the onboarding questions (select
language towards bottom of the screen, pre-scroll) and once the users answers same,
ideally content home should change basis that answer and question should be replaced
by the next one in the onboarding flow.

Given as onboarding (post install) is prime time for getting user to convert, this funnel should
lead to high conversions. That said, even if total converted users contributed by this funnel is
not higher then the current home page funnel, this funnel will also end up strengthening the
home page funnel further so net net it should lead to overall growth. And, all the funnels could
be further strengthened by adding personalised notifications basis the preferences captured.

Q4. If you were responsible for converting free users to paid users, what KPIs will you
measure?

● Conversions at various steps in various funnels would be the primary focus.

● That said, more the screens are optimised towards conversions, more would they start
cannibalising other metrics. Like for eg. having too much paid content on home screen
would improve conversion to paid but will reduce engagement or even cause churn of
free users. So, the secondary focus would be on the metrics that likely to be impacted
negatively (free user engagement, churn etc.) to ensure they don’t dip beyond
acceptable limits.
● Another focus area would be health of converted users by cohort (their engagement,
usage, nps, volume of complaints etc) to ensure the funnel is not so aggressive as to
 end up converting so low intent users that it could lead to massive (paid user) churn
somewhere down the road.
● Last but not the least, LTV of paid users (especially relevant with multiple plans),
upgrading/downgrading plan movement and ultimately paid user churn.