DE
BRHow Vandebron Used VWO to Find and Fix Drop-Offs on Their Sign-Up Form
Registration form sign-up rate
Executive Summary
Challenge
Vandebron noticed many visitors were abandoning the registration process at the final step, where they needed to confirm personal details like their date of birth. Since these visitors already had a high intent to initiate sign-up, losing them at this stage was a missed opportunity.
Result
With VWO, Vandebron identified and optimized the most problematic form field on the final registration step. They uncovered technical limitations in the calendar dropdown that required users to click manually through months. The resulting optimization delivered measurable improvements:
Registration form sign-up rate
16.3 %Exit rate on the registration step
8.5 %Drop-offs on the date-of-birth field
80 %Interaction time on the date-of-birth field
77 %Business Objective
Vandebron is a Dutch green energy company based in Amsterdam that connects consumers directly with local producers of green electricity and gas. Vandebron’s mission is to accelerate the transition to 100% sustainable energy in the Netherlands by offering transparent, locally produced green electricity, where customers can choose their own producer.
The digital experience on their website is central to this mission because:
- Most new customers sign up online
- The registration funnel is the key path from awareness to contract activation
- Every drop-off at the final step represents a highly engaged prospect who nearly converted
Thus, any friction in the online journey translates directly into fewer people signing up for a green energy contract.
Vandebron’s CRO approach centers on data-driven decision-making, where user behavior analysis directly informs optimization priorities.
The company chose VWO as its experimentation partner because it combines user behavior analysis and experimentation in a single platform, making it easier to move from “we saw this in recordings and Form Analytics” to “we validated a solution through an A/B test” without switching tools.
Feature Spotlight
Clickmaps
Challenge addressed
To identify which elements of the final registration step attracted disproportionate attention and might be creating friction rather than helping users move forward.
How it was used
The team used Clickmaps in VWO Insights on the final registration page to visualize where users clicked most often. This quickly revealed that the ‘date of birth’ field accounted for 15.69% of all clicks on the page, significantly more than comparable fields.
Key insights
High click concentration on the ‘date of birth’ field indicated struggle, not engagement. The field was drawing an unusual amount of interaction for a simple personal detail, flagging it as a likely friction hotspot.
Form Analysis
Challenge addressed
To quantify which form fields were causing users to refill, hesitate, or abandon the registration process.
How it was used
The team set up Form Analytics in VWO Insights for the entire registration form, especially the final step. They tracked refill rate, drop-off rate, and average interaction time for each field.
Key insights
Form analytics revealed alarming metrics for the ‘date of birth’ field:
- 98% refill rate indicated users were repeatedly correcting their entries
- 42% drop-off rate, the highest abandonment point in the entire form
- 17.9 seconds average interaction time, which was significantly longer than any other field
These metrics quantified the severity of the problem and provided concrete evidence to prioritize this optimization.
Session Recordings
Challenge addressed
To understand why the ‘date of birth’ field was underperforming and how user-friendly the form actually was.
How it was used
The team reviewed session recordings of users interacting with the registration form, specifically focusing on behavior around the date of birth field. They watched how visitors attempted to complete the field and where they encountered obstacles.
Key insights
Session recordings uncovered two critical usability flaws:
- Most users attempted to use the calendar dropdown, which defaulted to the year 2000. Users born in earlier years (like 1957, for instance) had no option to jump between years, but only arrows to navigate month by month. This meant clicking the arrow hundreds of times, creating massive frustration.
- The text input field provided no automatic formatting during typing, forcing users to manually insert slashes between day, month, and year values.
From Insights to Action
Simplifying the date-of-birth experience and validating it with A/B testing
The comprehensive behavioral analysis with VWO Insights revealed that the date of birth field’s poor usability was directly driving form abandonment. The team hypothesized that simplifying the input method and removing technical barriers would reduce friction and improve conversions.
An A/B test was launched using VWO Testing with a variation that addressed all identified pain points:
- Removed the calendar dropdown entirely, eliminating the need to navigate through hundreds of months
- Updated the placeholder text to clearly communicate the expected date format
- Added auto-formatting that automatically inserted slashes as users typed, removing manual formatting effort
The variation won with measurable improvements across multiple metrics:
- 16.3% uplift in the number of sign-ups
- 8.5% decrease in exit rate at the registration step
- 80% reduction in drop-offs specifically on the date of birth field
- 77% reduction in interaction time on the date of birth field
These results confirmed that eliminating a single friction point can create a ripple effect, improving not just field-level performance but overall conversion rates across the entire funnel.
Aha! moment
A single ‘small’ field can silently become the biggest conversion killer in your funnel.
Impact
By using VWO, the optimization team at Vandebron:
- Reduced friction and achieved uplift in form conversion rate
- Improved the perceived usability of the registration form, making it easier for users to complete the sign-up process
The CRO team is now building on this win. They’re adding a date picker for near-future dates. But for familiar dates like birthdays, they’re keeping it simple with a basic input field because clicking through months or years is frustrating and time-consuming.
Want to identify friction points in your user journeys and turn insights into conversion wins? Start your free trial of VWO today.
It is very nice to have everything, from analysis to testing, in one tool. This also makes it easier to do analysis on specific variants or experiments. The Form Analytics have been the most useful feature for me lately, due to the way we could unveil very specific frustration points and opportunities on one of our most important pages. The suggestions made by VWO to watch recordings or view heatmaps in certain scenarios are also a nice addition.
Donny van der MolenCRO Specialist
Location
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Industry
eCommerce
Features Used
A/B Testing, Clickmaps, Form Analytics, Session Recordings
Impact
Reduction in form friction and uplift in number of sign-ups
