Ahhh landing pages, why so difficult? The problem is that they designed their site and then created the ad. Then, they tried to figure out the best possible landing page.
Then they thought "if we land them on the home page, they get more info. But if we land them right on the sign up form, there are fewer clicks to get to the action page".
Landing pages should be one of the top priorities when design both a site and ad campaign. This post is a pretty good lesson in what to do right through an example of failure.
Of course, in defense of Forbes, perhaps they were testing different pages? But still, bit of a wasted test with a landing page that bad.
Given that Facebook ads keep offering me cheap wedding rings whenever I happen to be looking at the profile of any one of my female friends, I'm pretty jaded by ad suckage already.
I'm not convinced at all that this strategy (immediate sign up form) is not yielding more registrations than if they pursued the author's strategy (describe it in a page and then have you click through to the sign up form).
From experience, curiosity is a major emotional driver. And if already there, a good % of average people will probably fill out the form. Now certainly the average Hacker News reader would not. So the question is then whether the average blogger is more like the average person or the average Hacker News reader? It is an empirical test (splash page vs sign up page) that they may or may not have run. Of course, there are other options too: combine both pages into one, varying levels of program description (down to one sentence), etc.
I agree that my suggestion might not be the optimal solution (only practice can tell you which is ideal), but I can't imagine any way anyone would fill in all those detailed form fields out of curiosity. Even if some people do, they'll be a tiny, tiny proportion.
Agreed, their form is way too long. They do not need all this info up front, and would certainly increase registration if they shortened it.
That being said, now looking at the form, there is another emotional incentive to finish (without knowing what it is): chance of getting money. The one message they convey with this is that you may make money off of it. As Charlie Munger has pointed out (http://vinvesting.com/docs/munger/human_misjudgement.html), when you start combining multiple strong emotional drivers, you can get some startling results.
In any case, I don't think it would be a tiny, tiny proportion. You are making assumptions about the average person based on your beliefs. Again, only empirical results would be useful here. Every case is different.
To the poster who said curiosity is a strong emotional driver...
Nonsens.
You are not taking into account the other side of the equation. People will not click because there is another emotion : fear. Fear of being ripped on the internet, fear of wasting money, fear of the unknown. Besides the "average" persons as you say do not let people reach into their pocket that easily. Curiosity can only go so far.
Then they thought "if we land them on the home page, they get more info. But if we land them right on the sign up form, there are fewer clicks to get to the action page".
Landing pages should be one of the top priorities when design both a site and ad campaign. This post is a pretty good lesson in what to do right through an example of failure.
Of course, in defense of Forbes, perhaps they were testing different pages? But still, bit of a wasted test with a landing page that bad.