TLDR: WATCH THE VIDEO (click above)
"What's your email?"
No, I don't literally want your email. But I do want to point out a very specific trend that’s appearing on B2B SaaS homepages. Have you spotted it? I looked at six popular B2B product’s homepages in the last week, and they all had the same setup. Where there used to be a button that said “Learn more”, there’s now an empty text field that wants my email. 🤔 Why?
In today's teardown, we find out. We’ll look at what B2B SaaS products from Rippling to Miro are all doing on their homepages now. And I’ll explain from a behavioral science standpoint why they might be doing it — and what it can teach marketers and PMs.
Foot in the door and progressive disclosure
When companies are all doing the same thing, you first want to ask, are they just all benchmarking each other? Has anyone A/B-tested this to see if it actually outperforms other approaches?
In this case, my assumption is that it has been tested. These are VC-funded teams with investors breathing down their necks. More than shortcuts, they need growth and users. So let’s assume these companies aren’t all just copying each other blindly and someone has tested this.
So, what is this trendy new approach all about?
That first question ("What's your email?") gets your foot in the door. It’s a small ask that leads to bigger asks. This is also called “progressive disclosure” and has been shown to work in sign-up flows. Goodui.org ran five tests on the effects of splitting up steps into multiple screens and found this to increase the odds of conversion, with a 5.5% median effect. Why? Even though the number of steps increases, the perceived level of “ask” on each step is reduced.
Still, you have to strike a balance. Asking for too much too soon can scare people off. Ramp and Miro prevent drop-off by keeping their requests simple and emphasizing benefits.
What about “Try for free”?
Instead of leading with a single empty field, Airtable, Notion, Hubspot, Salesforce offer dual paths: "sign up for free" or "contact sales/watch demo". Immediate access or a guided path. In this case, they are betting on the word “free” to help people overcome the friction of signing up and motivate users to continue. Again, this is a game of balancing benefits and barriers in your funnel — free is a big benefit.
Quick tangent: One could argue that two buttons (“Try for free” or “Contact sales”) could cause some choice overload for the user — or worse, waste the sales team’s time on unqualified leads. Why would you give unqualified leads open access to the sales team? This idea likely has some truth, but without a hard test here to figure out which choice architecture is better, my intuition suggests that a “this or that” style decision with two buttons will help people self-sort into their preference for converting.
The main goal for any conversion is to leverage the momentum that the user has on day 1 to purchase. If you lose that momentum by forcing them into one type of sales funnel, you risk losing them forever. Worse, you could get stuck in an endless cycle of having to nag them with follow up emails to come back.
Insights from the teardown:
🎯 How asking for an email first works as a strategy to reduce friction
🧩 How to use barriers and benefits to drive conversions
🛠 How to benchmark and test your funnel even if you’re a small team
Your landing page’s choice architecture matters—so design an experience that keeps potential buyers clicking while keeping friction manageable.
Will this trend stick? What do you think? Or if you have a killer new top-of-funnel strategy, share it.👇
And keep a foot in the door until next week’s teardown. 🚪
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Questions about your product? Email kristen@irrationallabs.com.
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We design products that change behavior, using behavioral science. Check out our case studies to see it in action.
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