What is Form Abandonment and How do You Avoid it?

If you struggle with high form abandonment percentages, you’re not alone. The average online form abandonment rate sits at a whopping 69%. 

As an event organizer, it’s beyond frustrating to watch this kind of revenue slip away. While registration form abandonment may seem vexing, it has been studied at length. 

Baymard Institute, the leading research group for e-commerce design, conducted over 110,000 hours of research on UX design and worked with more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies. Their research offers some insight into why form abandonment happens.

The rest of this article will show you how to tackle form abandonment, boost user engagement, and increase conversions with our expert strategies. 

Understanding Form Abandonment

High abandonment rates often indicate revenue leaks and bottlenecks in the registration process. Once you understand why potential registrants abandon, however, you can start turning registration form abandonment into commitment and, consequently, revenue. 

Defining Form Abandonment

Form abandonment is when a registrant starts filling out a registration form for your event but fails to complete it. It can happen for a number of reasons, such as technical issues, forced account creation, and distractions. We’ll dive deeper into these reasons in the paragraphs below. 

The Importance of Addressing Form Abandonment

If unaddressed, form abandonment can wreak havoc on your event's success. Here’s why you need to address the issue of form abandonment sooner rather than later.

Impact on User Experience

When registrants encounter time-consuming forms or technical glitches, mounting frustration leads them to ditch registration. Only the determined will come back to it later. This experience can tarnish their early impressions of your event and even undermine their confidence in your organization's efficiency. 

At RegFox, we prioritize user-centric design, ensuring that every step of the registration process is intuitive, smooth, and hassle-free. The enhanced overall user experience gives registrants a positive first impression of your event.

Consequences for Business and Conversion Rates

Form abandonment is more than just a minor inconvenience; it has a direct effect on your bottom line and conversion rates. When form abandonment goes unchecked, it undermines your event's success metrics, impacting everything from budget planning to resource allocation.

By addressing form abandonment head-on, you bust bottlenecks, mitigate negative consequences, and unlock the full potential of your event's success. 

Analyzing Form Abandonment

Analyzing form abandonment is a necessary step to uncovering patterns and preventing the problem of user disengagement. Choose a software such as RegFox that offers specific tools to make the process easier. 

Tools and Techniques for Measuring Form Abandonment

With RegFox, the advanced analytics dashboard offers comprehensive insights into user behavior and allows you to track the progression of registrants through each stage of the registration form. By leveraging detailed analytics in real-time, you can pinpoint the exact areas where users are dropping off and identify their potential barriers to completion. This data equips you to make informed decisions, streamline your registration process, reduce abandonment rates, and ultimately enhance both registrant satisfaction and event success. 

Reasons Behind Form Abandonment

What drives users to abandon website forms? Check out the common reasons below.

Extra Costs 

According to the research, extra costs are the number one reason that users abandon website forms. No one likes the gut punch of sticker shock.

It’s important to note that high prices are not the only barrier to completing a form. Many potential registrants will also abandon their forms because of an unclear price—i.e., the kind of price tag they can’t see or calculate upfront. 

Whether it’s an astronomical venue fee or a vague pricing model, extra costs and hidden costs can hurt sales more than you think. 

Being Forced to Create an Account

Your registrants have limited bandwidth and attention span. If they’re forced to fill out a form and create an account, there’s a good chance they’ll think, ‘Forget it. I’ll do this later.’ 

If you’re still using this antiquated approach to accessing customer data, your registration sales are definitely taking a hit. Being forced to create an account is one of the top reasons potential registrants abandon their forms. 

Completing registration should take a couple of clicks—not a super-strength password with 8 different characters. When your customers are ready to give you their money, don’t stop them!

The Load Time is Too Long

When it comes to loading time, every second matters—literally. According to the research, more than half of buyers will leave the page after a mere 3-second wait. 

If you want your customers to finish their forms, your pages need to load quickly and have the capacity for a high volume of buyers. That might sound simple, but not all registration platforms can do that. 

Too Many Form Fields

Like all of us, your customers have limited time and attention. If your checkout page resembles a comprehensive health intake form, they’re much less likely to stick around.

According to a former executive at Universal Studios, 22% of people exit the buying process for each additional page. 

Considering that the average checkout flow has 23 form elements and 14.8 form fields, this costly mistake is far too common.

Strategies to Reduce Form Abandonment

Below are four solutions that RegFox uses to keep form abandonment at a minimum.

Keep Costs Down

To prevent high and hidden costs from hurting your sales, be transparent and fair with your pricing. At RegFox, the pricing clear—99 ¢ + 1% per registrant, plus standard credit card fees.  Fees are capped at $4.99 per registrant. We also have a dynamic calculator that gives you the ability to itemize fees, separate out sales tax and keep the experience feeling clear and honest for the customer. You can choose to pass on fees to your customers or not charge a fee at all. 

As our competitors continue to squeeze their customers by steadily hiking their rates, we’ve kept consistent prices for over a decade. 

Don’t Force Your Customers to Create an Account

When your customers use RegFox, the process is easy. They’ll have the option to claim an account and edit their registrations later, but account creation (or 14 form fields) will never stand in the way between them and the checkout. 

Optimize Form Design and Structure

At RegFox, we believe there should be a consistent experience across the registration page and your website. By pointing people directly to the purchase page, there’s one less point of friction and one less reason to abandon the form. We keep checkout to the necessary information with a single branded page. With RegFox, you don’t need to worry about regaining branding either. The focus—as it should be—is on your brand. 

Utilize A/B Testing for Form Improvement

Once you’ve dialed in the form content and design, testing the registration page is important to confirm that everything is working properly. You can also use A/B testing to experiment with different variations of your registration form, such as layout, design, and content. Systematically comparing the performance of different versions helps you identify the most effective strategies for reducing abandonment and optimizing the user experience. Click here to learn more about the different ways you can test your registration page with RegFox. 

Final Takeaways

Form abandonment is a common culprit of lost event revenue. Use the tips in this guide to keep abandonment to a minimum.

Whether you would benefit from a single-page checkout, a quick loading time, robust conditional logic, or all of the above, expect to boost your conversion rates with RegFox. 

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our customer support team and learn more.

We’re here to help you have the best event ever!

— The RegFox Team

‍

‍