Up Your Headline Game

Editor's Note: LinkedIn doesn't allow co-authors. This piece is by IniOluwa Abiodun edited as part of a series by Molly Norris Walker .

Dear Readers,

Last year, I led breakthrough conversion rate optimization?(CRO)?experiments at Creditspring. This newsletter will focus on one CRO tactic—headline testing—that drove results.

Effective headline writing goes beyond mere catchiness; it demands an in-depth understanding of audience psychology and the triggers that propel people into action.?

Happy testing,

IniOluwa Abiodun , Senior Growth Designer and Mentor

About Creditspring

Creditspring is a UK FinTech company that helps its members improve their credit and access on-demand loans. Last year, I was on the Growth Taskforce at Creditspring where I led onboarding, activation, and engagement by bridging user understanding with the value proposition.

Rolling with Strategy Shifts

We started our CRO in response to a decline in website signup conversion rates after a rebrand and a reduction in paid advertising.?

The team needed to deeply reevaluate our audience understanding given the changing funnel dynamics. The decline in conversion rates wasn't just a number; it was a signal that our audience's needs and behaviors were evolving.

Through a research program, I asked: How have these motivations shifted? Are we communicating better how the business helps them? Is there a perceived shift in our reliability or service quality following the rebrand??

These questions prompted the initial headline experiments to see what changes to the messaging resonated with our audience.

The A/B Test

Overall, I launched eight headline tests.?I drilled down using headline formulas?and user understanding to?ship experiments?using MixPanel, Pagesense?and an in-house A/B testing tool.

The highest-performing test was for the homepage headline:

??? - Control/Orignal: “Money when you need it, peace of mind when you don’t.”

??? - Test Variant: “Never worry about high-interest loans again.”

B improved the clickthrough rate by 6.2% and contributed to a 14.9% conversion rate increase across the entire program of CRO work. The new headline worked because it tapped into user psychology of pain avoidance of high-interest rates loans, which we had discovered as taking on increasing importance through our audience research.

Conclusion

The Growth Taskforce urgently needed to stabilize signup conversion rates after the drop in advertising spend and a rebrand. Rigorous headline testing was a powerful tactic in our CRO initiative. We also targeted other elements, such as call-to-action buttons. I believe we were successful in regaining short-term losses because we did the work to re-evaluate our audience's evolving psychological needs and translated those into new copy and design.