Pre launch page Kickstarter: the email step

A pre-launch page has one job: turn a visitor who saw the project in a post into someone who comes back on launch day. The visitor arrives with a few seconds of attention and no reason yet to trust the page. The page then asks for an email with no date and no statement of what will arrive. The second gap is the click. If the follow button sends the visitor to a sign-in, the visitor may stop there, and your page shows no fault. The third gap is the confirmation, which may land in spam or open a link that has expired.

• The first screen names the project, the launch month and what the email will send.
• A line beside the email field says how often the email arrives.
• The follow or notify button opens your own form, or a page that needs no sign-in.
• The confirmation email arrives in the main inbox, from a sender name the visitor knows.
• The confirmation link opens a page that says the visitor is on the list.

A visitor on a pre-launch page needs three answers before they give an address: what the project is, when it opens, and what the email will contain. Read the first screen as someone who saw it in a feed for a few seconds. If the headline is a name and the subtitle is a slogan, the form asks for trust before the page has earned any. Put the purpose beside the field in one line, such as a notice on the day the project opens and nothing else. A visitor who reads that line can decide, and a visitor who has to guess will leave.

Landing page testing

A pre-launch link can send the visitor on, to a page you do not run. Tap the follow or notify button on a phone and note each address you land on. If the last address asks for a sign-in, the visitor reaches a wall they cannot pass. A simulated visitor cannot sign in with Google or single sign on, so the test stops at that step and the report says so. Check the pages you do control as well. A link that has moved sends the visitor to an error, and nothing on your side warns you. Test the button as it is posted, because a visitor follows the button, not the plan behind it.

A double opt-in step depends on an email the visitor must open and a link they must click. Visitors have a working inbox, so the confirmation reaches them, and the test can open the link it holds. Check three things. Does the email arrive at all, from a sender name the visitor recognizes? Does the link open the pre-launch page with the signup recorded? Does the link still work later that day, or does it expire before a visitor who waits gets to it? A link that fails on any of these loses people who already did the hard part. Spam filtering is set by your mail provider, so check its sending records if mail goes missing.

Signup flow testing

A simulated visitor is not one of your followers. It cannot tell you how many people will sign up from a post, how many will open the launch email, or which post sent them. Those numbers come from your own list and your own analytics once real traffic arrives. What the test shows is the step where a visitor with no history with the project stops, and why. Run it from the exact link you will post, on a phone, before the post goes out.

Creators change links when a launch date moves or a post goes out with a new address. Each change can send the visitor to a page that asks for a sign-in, or to a confirmation that now points somewhere else. Run the same new visitors through the link you post, from a phone, after every change, and read where each one stopped. A staging copy of the page can be checked before it goes live.