Feedback on Creator Landing Page Experiment

[mindy]

Hey folks! Thanks for all the interest so far.

Today we have our first update related to this series of upcoming product improvements! Soon you will see the first change to your landing page, the page your non-patrons see, while the membership page your patrons see will still look the same for the time being.

Long term vision

Through research and many interviews with potential patrons, our team has learned that the biggest opportunity to improve the landing page is to:

1. Showcase the value of your membership
2. Allow the emotional connection patrons feel with you and your work to shine through
3. Instill a sense of trust
4. Provide the necessary details for them to understand how membership works.

As a result our work will focus on highlighting the different membership levels, providing some way for visitors to sample the content that patrons receive, and highlighting social proof.

Coming soon…

The first small step we’re taking towards the vision for the landing page is a way to better represent your tiers. In a few days, some portion of your non-patron traffic is going to see the existing page, while some other will see one of the two versions shown below. In our interviews, these designs performed better, and we’re excited to see the results of this test.

That’s all for now! We’ll keep updating this thread as experiments and changes roll out. As always, feel free to share any questions or feedback below

[FutilityCloset]

In the second example shown, it looks like the About section isn’t shown? That’s a little problematic, if that’s the case. We not only kind of make our pitch there for why they should join, but we also explain that we have 2 campaigns (for a blog and a podcast) and which campaign this one is (we have sometimes had people sign up for the wrong one). So I’m hoping I’m not understanding it correctly and you haven’t cut out the About section . . .

[ursula]

Hi @FutilityCloset, the two versions are actually similar, outside of the order of things. In the second example the “About” shows below the tiers. We will test to see which version drives more pledges. Hope this helps! Ursula

[FutilityCloset]

Thanks! I just wanted to make sure that it would be visible on the landing page.

[sambeawesome]

Looking forward to seeing the results!

[JordanB]

I’m just watching the hangtime when this was discussed and I LOVE this idea!!

I feel like there are different ways that it will be successful for different creators and patrons. Patrons who fall more on the altruism side of the altruism/subscription spectrum might click more for the “How your support helps me” and the people on the subscription side might click more for the “these are the perks I offer”

Overall this looks awesome and I can’t WAIT to see these implemented!

[madameberry]

Having checked out the new designs (in incognito mode, I’ve been able to see both sides of the a/b test, where the about section is on top, and also when the tiers are on top) and my biggest takeaway from this is that while it would look nice on mobile, the desktop version on a widescreen is just a metric ton of wasted space around everything except for the tiers.
The similar column widths reduce the readability and ability to parse different sections - the “read more” under the about section makes it look like a regular post when it’s above the posts section.

All this to say, I don’t think this new design works very well in practice, given the complete lack of design for widescreen.

Some other idiosyncracies:
Why is the "x number of Patrons, [social media buttons] [share and follow buttons] attached to the top of the About section? That bit looks great when the about section is first - it reads more naturally, like “Madameberry is creating art, here’s how many people you’d be joining in supporting her, and also here are all the ways you can follow her” rather than when tiers are first, where it reads like “Madameberry is creating art, here pick a tier!, also here’s this tiny section btw she has this many patrons, so follow her maybe???” Dunno, but it seems like that section would be better suited just staying under the header.

When running a special offer, on the old layout the [Creator has a Special Offer until Date] header always displayed at the top, since tiers were a sidebar. On the new layout, when the About section is on top, there is zero indication of a special offer until you scroll down. This seems like something that should be a banner that displays above the about section, so it’s not under the fold.

[simrell]

i just saw the new layout in incognito as well and i’m with @madameberry on this one. the empty space is SO AWKWARD. what a waste. there’s an about section that’s a squished box in the middle and it says “read more” AND YET there’s TONS of open space on either side of it.

will we get the chance to add a pinned post next to the about section on the top? or change the order of the layout around ourselves (similar to what deviantart does with their creator pages)?

i just checked a page that i follow and all of her rewards are listed in an eye-catching image for the tiers. and now it looks bad and unreadable.

this sort of layout is perfect for mobile but is honestly kind of trash on desktop.

[tamberlane]

+1 to the wasted space. My About section starts with an image instead of text so it doesn’t LOOK like an about section. I actually scrolled up and down for a while trying to find where the About section is. It’s not well defined and just looks like another post. Would recommend a wide screen About section and the Patreon posts in a block-gallery-style display on desktop. Otherwise what you have is great for mobile

[simrell]

just discovered that this new layout is also hiding my most profitable/popular tiers. extremely frustrated by this development.

[myrrh]

Even just trying to collect my thoughts on the new layout is confusing.

I can start another thread on this, but I’d really like, when I’m editing my page, to be able to preview at a glance how my page will look to Patrons, how it will look to Followers, and how it will look to new visitors. And I don’t understand why how it looks to ME is different from any of those. Having to make changes and frantically refresh in three different browsers and incognito windows is confusing & unpleasant.

Okay, but, on to the new layout: what’s with the narrow center column and all the unused whitespace? I know I got accustomed to the two column layout, but even disregarding that, this layout makes me feel like the CSS is broken. It just doesn’t look intentional.

[myrrh]

The version that displays the tiers before the “About” section is really frustrating me. It makes it look like my “About” is tied to my “goals” - which isn’t the impression I want to give potential patrons - and it makes it look like the page is asking for money first and explaining why later, which is a big turn-off for me, and doesn’t give me a lot of confidence as far as sharing it out.

I like the tier boxes. I really want the “About” section to stand out more, since that’s the area where we really have control & get to make our pitch.

[Temrin]

From the past feedbacks on these, wasn’t it pretty set that artists didn’t want the banner dimensions changing and screwing up what we had currently?

Also also, the tiers on top had arrows in the previous design options? They were all in one line. What happened to the ability to promote your popular tiers? Is that happening or no? Having them all show up (i have 7 on canvas swap and they aren’t centered and look terrible right now) pushes out about section which is really what people need to see, even further down. If this is how it’s going to be, the about section needs to be on top, even in its current “show more” way because if i can’t go to a page and find more info about a page (outside of whatever they use as a title) easily, (What if they have 10 tiers?! It will be sooooo far down) i will 100% click away. I viewed my own page and said to myself “I would have clicked away already.” Having more tiers shouldn’t stunt someones ability to get new patrons viewing and understanding what the project is about. Don’t force people to have less tiers just to accommodate.

I remember saying that as long as the “show more tiers” is really bold, than having 1 line is fine. While I’d prefer all the tiers to show up, in this format, it’s a big no no. People need to be able to read the page info quickly or they will leave. This is pretty clear with most site data and general good site practices. (Mind you, my about sections start with a video or image so this is screwing over my about sections entirely but I’ll make changes if i have to. Showcasing my art is important though! And having my designs unified across social is also important for keeping people on track when viewing my pages. Now all of that gets shafted.)

Also what is with all the blank space on the sides?! This is such wasted real estate and super disappointing coming from you folks. It feels like someone did an accidental push of content to the live server when they shouldn’t have. It looks so broken with the side bar when logged in. There’s just huge white space. Put the tiers back on the side if that white space is going to be there. It was better that way and didn’t look like i had accidentally clicked “view as mobile” instead of sitting at my desktop.

Seconded @madameberry about the about section/social buttons. Keep it at the top.

Also seconded on the special offers thing. You folks put this at the top for a reason: because it gets seen and the whole point is for new and returning patrons to see something is happening they should check out. Not get that notice shafted.

We definitely need image size info ASAP if our pages are going to even remotely work well with this in the meantime.

I’m just so disappointed.

[YuuriVoice]

There’s a lot to unpack with these tests going live. For me personally, the change (or at least one of the options) works out quite nicely because my tier images play well with the new dimension caps and such. However, I can see pretty clearly how it is negatively impacting other creators and I don’t quite like that.

I am nervous because on October 1st I’ve planned to launch a Special Offer alongside a brand new podcast, and the entire plan rests on the strength of converting non-patrons to patrons. These changes, and not being sure which version of the test people will be seeing, is now a pretty big source of anxiety when I should be feeling like I’m about to kick a ton of butt starting tomorrow.

I understand that the changes are meant to play well with the vertical nature of viewing on mobile, but the big blocks of unused space are a bit garish. I can live with that though because I know how many people are viewing on mobile vs. browser and I can deal with that unused space because I feel like it has little impact on the conversion of non-patrons to patrons.

I also seem to be in the minority when it comes to being totally okay with my tiers being above my about section. Everyone’s pitch is different, but in my case, people are coming to my Patreon because I’ve already made the sale. People are coming to my Patreon to make a transaction. They want to know what I’ve got, and what they’ve got to pay to get it, and I’m totally cool with the money being up front. You don’t go to Etsy wanting to read someone’s store description, and my campaign rests so heavily on the content, people are coming for the content. That doesn’t work for everyone, some people need that space to explain and describe what it is they’re doing on Patreon and so on. I don’t like that those particular creators are now put in a position where their potential supporters could be turned off by the financial aspect being thrust forward right off the bat.

I think that what we’re finding very quickly is that there’s no one size fits all approach that works. Giving creators the tools necessary to present their page in the way that they feel works best for them by giving them options to select from rather than a few rigid options may be the best option.

There are some good changes here, I think for someone like me a few of these changes are actually really strong. But, it’s not worth it if a bunch of other creators are going to suffer because their presentation doesn’t play well with these changes.

Also, why would you change the banner dimensions? We asked you not to! All of our banners look like crap! I think that’s legitimately the one thing that really bugs me because that’s something a ton of us brought up. And having the icon hover over the bottom of the banner, didn’t we just change that on the regular layout? Wasn’t that a unanimously praised change?

And image dimensions in general, tier images included, are pretty broken with this update. That’s a big deal because some people put a ton of work into those and they’re extremely effective, but are now just little specks of nothing and it makes the page look like amateur hour. That’s really rough.

I think it might be best if there was an opt out option at this point, and it should probably happen soon because October 1st is the big “promote your stuff and get patrons!” day.

Anywho. There’s a lot of valuable changes here, but they need to be implemented in specific ways, at the discretion of each creator.

[grifkuba]

Can I recommend a beta subdomain for live tests, and/or opt-in for people who are fine with being Guinea Pigs?

[thelatestkate]

I was really excited to stumble across this testing on my page last night! Having my tiers showcased at the top of the page is great. I’ve honestly just been sending people directly to the “join” link rather than my Patreon page, because, like @YuuriVoice mentioned, I’ve already been pitching my benefits to my audience, and I’m just looking to provide a direct sign up space. I think for my audience specifically, benefits are more the driving force rather than altruistic intent, so this change works well for me.

I do think it would be helpful to notify creators soon of these tests/changes-- specifically because their tier images may no longer look good in this format. I’m lucky that mine translate well, but I haven’t been using any text, just a cute GIF to showcase the benefits.

[ursula]

Hey everyone,

Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful feedback. Just from reading all of these responses, you can see the challenge: creators are all unique, so designing a page that works perfectly for everyone is very difficult. The longer term vision is to give creators options to customize certain aspects of the page in a way that works for you. But to get there, we need to try out some ideas to see how potential patrons respond. Keep in mind that while we do so, only a portion of page visitors are seeing the new designs, not everyone. And none of these are the final state.

We’re testing these variants for a short time and will report back on what is working. Rest assured we’re looking at not only what leads to more patrons, but also the tiers patrons are selecting (higher priced vs lower priced). We’ll only roll out new designs to everyone if we have proof that they are working better than the old one to help you grow your business. And we’ll let you know so you can make changes to your page if needed. We will continue iterating on the version that works best, with your input.

This thread has provided some really valuable feedback which we’re taking to heart. We’re actively working on fixing the banner height. And we’ll make sure we don’t disrupt anyone’s Special Offer. Only one of the page variants has the Special Offer callout below the About section, but it’s still quite prominent, and we will work on updating that variant so it’s even more visible. Thanks again for all your feedback.

[Watsup]

I’m actually fine with most of the layout changes.

My biggest issue is probably that the banner is truncated in this view and it cuts off text on both the campaigns I’m involved in.

Also, in the past Patreon has made a point in saying they understand that overlapping icons and text on the banner creates issues with banner visibility, because Patreons banners dynamically resize based on browser window width. They fixed this issue pretty recently in a series of updates so that the icon was moved down below the banner, but here we’ve gone back to the overlapping icon which blocks portions of the banner, including titles on our campaigns.

[SuitCase]

I support the testing. I assume you’re figuring out what converts better and that’s fine. Next time write a popup for creators that says “just so you know, we’re testing…”, though! And probably an opt out if you don’t want as much backlash.

If you want specific feedback, though, it definitely looks wrong to have that much white space on the sides. It honestly looks like my browser sent you a mobile user agent by mistake, or something. To have that gut feeling when looking at the page is a bad thing!

[Onyrica]

I don’t know what the reasoning was behind hiding things under the fold, but it’s UX 101 that once you make people click on something, the chances of people doing so are close to 10%. For me, this means that my most profitable tier - the one that most people have started on - is now hidden, which could really damage my income going forward.

I would much prefer two lines even if there’s space to the right, than hiding my top tiers behind a button.

Also, like everyone else said, to test this without letting your creators know is irresponsible and harmful. Let people opt in or out or at least give some notice so that those of us with image banners can change them to text before you push something that renders them obsolete.