Conversion
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Trial Conversion
Targets conversion offers at engaged trialists instead of blanketing the whole trial pool—the engaged convert at 28 percent against nine percent for the unengaged.
28 percent conversion for engaged trialists against 9 percent for the unengaged
383,000 trial subscriptions across the platform dataset
Consistent effect across multiple independent deployments.
How we grade evidence →Threshold trigger · Edition 1 · June 2026
What is it?
A trial pool is two populations wearing one label. Engaged trialists convert at 28 percent, unengaged trialists at nine percent. Most trial-conversion programs blanket both with the same end-of-trial discount, which means most of the budget lands on subscribers the offer was never going to move.
This tactic reads trial engagement and concentrates the effort where it pays: a targeted offer, timed to the engaged trialist’s moment of highest intent, instead of a calendar email to the whole list.
When it fires
The tactic scores trial engagement throughout the trial window. When a trialist’s engagement marks them as high-intent, the offer appears in-app at a moment of natural use, with email as the fallback channel near trial end.
The unengaged are not abandoned—they are spared the pitch. A subscriber who never engaged with the trial has a product problem, not a pricing problem, and a discount does not fix a product problem. The tactic routes its spend to the group where an offer changes the decision.
What the evidence shows
The 28 percent versus nine percent gap, measured across 383,000 trial subscriptions, is the targeting case in two numbers: engagement during the trial separates likely converters from unlikely ones at roughly three to one.
The supporting finding is what does not matter: trial length. Across 24 million trials, conversion holds flat at 10 to 13 percent whether the trial runs three days or 30. The lever is not more calendar time. It is what the trialist does with the time, and who gets the offer.
How it runs
In production, the tactic scores every active trialist daily, flags the engaged, and resolves the offer (terms, timing, placement) per trialist. Acceptance converts the trial in the billing provider. Trial end without engagement exits the trialist quietly.
Guardrails keep the offer disciplined: one offer per trial, no stacking with other promotions, and suppression when a trialist has already started the paid checkout on their own. A subscriber converting unprompted should never be interrupted with a discount they did not need.
Run this for your business
Want to run Trial Conversion for your business? Connect the Churnkey MCP to your favorite AI agent. It reads your own usage and billing data and recommends the growth and retention plays most likely to move your LTV—starting with whether this one fits.
npm install -g @churnkey/mcpThis tactic maps to a Churnkey feature—the same play, running in production.
See it in action in ChurnkeyRelated tools
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Put the evidence to work.
The same dataset behind these tactics powers Churnkey's retention products. See what it finds in your subscription data.
