Background
NorthPeak Software sells project management tools to growing teams. Strong brand awareness and trial signups masked a conversion problem limiting ARR growth.
The challenge
NorthPeak had strong top-of-funnel interest but stagnant trial-to-paid conversion. Onboarding confused new users with feature dumps instead of guided wins. Pricing pages failed to communicate value for enterprise buyers evaluating against incumbents.
Our approach
NexisBlue ran qualitative research with churned trials and converted customers, then rebuilt critical funnel stages:
- Step-by-step onboarding focused on first-project completion within 24 hours
- Pricing page redesign with tier comparison clarity and ROI framing
- Structured A/B testing program tied to ARR goals, not click rates
- In-app prompts and email nudges synchronized to activation milestones
Experimentation culture
We documented a testing playbook NorthPeak's internal team adopted—hypothesis templates, minimum runtime rules, and statistical significance thresholds.
The results
- 38% lift in trial-to-paid conversion
- 22% increase in average contract value from clearer enterprise tier positioning
- Documented experimentation playbook for internal teams
- Time-to-first-value reduced by 40% in onboarding analytics
Key learnings
SaaS conversion improvements compound when onboarding, pricing, and experimentation align on activation metrics—not vanity signup counts.
