Dose #185: CRO to Fix Your Funnel

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

What an end to the year! I took some much needed time off with the family (we have a 13 month old who looks just like me). But we are back now, and better than ever! We’re jumping right into the meat of subscriptions by talking through CRO tactics for your website. We dive into making your PDP more of a sales page, putting more emphasis in the sub buy box, and finally how you should approach A/B testing.

This week’s dose is also an interview with Anthony Morgan, the founder of Enavi. He’s a CRO pro, so this one is worth the listen as we dive deep into conversions and website funnels.

📬 You’re Probably Underestimating CRO

If you’re working to grow a subscription brand, it’s easy to look at your product, pricing, and email flows as the most obvious levers for increasing retention.

But the truth is, if your site isn’t helping people get to the product in the first place - or if the page they land on isn’t doing any of the selling - then you’ve already lost them long before an LTV curve ever begins.

Over the past few years, I’ve spent more time thinking about how conversion rate optimization (CRO) plays into subscription growth. I’m more convinced than ever that there is a huge gap between brands that experiment systematically and those that just try “stuff.”

This isn’t about changing a button color. It’s about understanding what’s keeping people from buying and fixing it.

Here are three key takeaways I want you to sit with.

1. Your Product Page Is Probably Not Selling

Most of your traffic is landing on a product page. And most product pages aren’t doing much of anything to sell the product.

I’ve seen this in dozens of audits. A brand runs ads to a PDP, but when I land on it, there’s no headline. No compelling copy. Just a price, a couple options, and a tiny “subscribe and save” button with no explanation of why.

Here’s the problem: that visitor came from paid traffic. They’re cold. They don’t know why your product is different. They don’t even know if they want it yet. So if the PDP isn’t selling, it’s just a wall. (If you’re redirecting from a landing page or sales page, then that’s ok!)

What’s better? Move some of your sales pitch above the fold on your product page. Actual content near the buy box. Speak to your customer’s motivation and tell them what they’re getting and why it’s better than the rest.

That one change alone can meaningfully increase add-to-cart rate and downstream subscription take rate.

2. Most Subscription Offers Are Still Underselling

There’s no excuse for having a “subscribe and save” toggle with no real explanation.

Too many brands rely on a tiny price discount to do all the work. But if you’re not actively communicating the value of your subscription in the buy box, you’re losing opt-ins every day.

What do I mean by value props? Think about what actually matters to your customer:

• Do they save time?

• Do they get exclusive access?

• Do they get perks or early drops?

• Does it guarantee they never run out?

And more importantly: have you tested which of those things actually motivates them?

One of the most effective subscription tests I’ve seen was simply adding three bullet-point value props beneath the subscribe option. That change alone lifted subscription take rate by over 50% for that brand.

Once you know those value props, you should be putting them everywhere: on the product page, in the cart, in onboarding emails, in billing reminder emails, and especially in your cancellation flows.

Don’t assume people understand why your subscription is better. Make it obvious.

3. A/B Testing Is a Research Tool, Not a Party Trick

A lot of brands run A/B tests because they feel like they should. But if you’re not learning something that helps you long term, it’s not strategy - it’s novelty.

A button that converts better in November might flop in February. A low-stock countdown might drive urgency during BFCM, but it can feel gimmicky in March. If the win doesn’t tell you why it won, it’s not something you can build on.

CRO is about understanding your customer. That includes:

• Why they buy

• Why they don’t

• What job they’re hiring your product to do

You don’t need hundreds of tests to figure this out. You need to connect your qualitative insights (like survey responses, support tickets, and interviews) with your quantitative data (like average revenue per visitor, subscription take rate, and page-level conversion rate).

Then you test to validate. Not to guess.

👋 CRO isn’t a distraction from your subscription strategy. It’s a critical part of it. If your customers can’t find the right product, aren’t being sold on the PDP, or aren’t being persuaded to subscribe, no amount of backend magic will fix it.

If you’re not sure where your bottlenecks are, I’d be happy to take a look.

Until next Tuesday, that’s your Subscription Prescription. 💊

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc