Jacob Rushfinn: Lessons from Ultimate Guitar’s Onboarding Flow

Hey there. This is Jacob Rushfin, founder of Retention Blog and monetization and retention consultant. Excited to chat with you today.

Cool. Yeah. Today, I am here with a guest so good that we have to have him on twice this season. It is Jacob Rushfin.

He's the mastermind behind Retention Blog. Jacob, thanks for being on here today. So we're gonna actually talk about Ultimate Guitar today, which is a website that I've actually played guitar since middle school. So I'm very familiar with Ultimate Guitar.

It was kind of one of the reasons why I wanted to do it this season. Back in the day, it's one of these websites that, that I guess it's an app now too, but it was one of those websites that, like, has not changed aesthetically since, like, middle school. It still has that kinda early web feel to it. But one of the big things that has changed since the fourteen years ago that I first used it is they have an app now, and they also have a pro plan.

It used to be just kinda like a free collection of all these tabs that users would make. So it's just interesting to see them kinda kinda grow over those years. But today, we're gonna jump into the actual pro plan for Ultimate Guitar. And it's interesting to see that there you can actually buy it Ultimate Guitar in the App Store, and you can also buy it through the web here.

So you can see, you know, you can buy credit card information, or you could just simply double tap the App Store. So they are running, like, a web to app experience here. So, Jacob, what are some of the benefits of running a web to app flow like they are here at Ultimate Qatar?

Yeah. So there's a few different benefits of being able to acquire users through the web and having people, pay for subscriptions on the web. One is just another acquisition source. Right?

You just open up new audiences. Some people are gonna go to the app. Some people wanna use it on web. And so it's one place kinda meeting meeting people where they are from a kinda user experience perspective.

There's also the cost savings. You take home more money when you are charging users with web subscriptions depending on your size. You know, Apple, Google take fifteen to thirty percent of your revenue. It's probably more like five percent, when you're paying on web.

So that's you know, it's a big difference. That could be very nice. There's also different things you can do on the acquisition side. You can have different data, you know, with the different privacy restrictions for for Apple.

It's a bit harder to optimize your paid campaigns now. Also, a lot of times, I see that, you'll have higher renewal rates on with web subscriptions.

I I attribute this just to you you're on your phone a lot, and so you you see the subscriptions you have quite more easily. And so it's, know, you have more reminders there, and so people are just more aware and and cancel cancel more frequently. You could also and kind of going into the different audiences, like, sometimes you get different age groups and those different age groups that purchase on web also, you know, different purchasing power or or renew differently. So can be a lot of benefits to having web subscriptions.

So ultimate guitar is another one of these things where I was very interested in in hearing your answer to this question. So you can obviously use ultimate guitar on the web. Like, if I'm if I'm, you know, looking at guitar tabs, I'll oftentimes, I'll just be sitting at my desktop. But, you know, if I'm, like, on the road or at, like, a gig or something, you want to have, the mobile the mobile app. So it kind of works cross functionally there. It's not like a work up workout app where, you know, it's gonna be strictly on the go, whether you're at the gym or something like that where you wouldn't really make sense to use it on the desktop. Are there different things to consider for apps that offer, like, a great desktop experience and a mobile experience compared to just a mobile only app?

There's certainly value to having both. With apps starting off, I typically recommend you start on one platform just for development cost, development resources, maintenance. The the less you have to maintain till you can big build a decent sized business. It's just it's just easier from that perspective. But a lot of companies do start on web and then move over to app. That seems like probably what will happen with with the ultimate guitar. Usually, you'll see that your your app, users retain much better.

And so there can be a lot of value to working hard to get your users that are on web only, your desktop, onto mobile and downloading the app. You can also think about it. It opens up new communication channels for you. You're on their phone, so they see your app icon, but also you can send them push notifications now.

And so that can be pretty effective for retention as well.

And then, of course, just, you know, you you you can use it anywhere. And so versus just, you know, on your on your computer where you can, you know, use mobile web, of course, but, like, usually, the experience is much poorer or not as good compared to a a native app or or, just just the mobile app experience. We we can, really engage to create more interesting kind of compelling user experiences there.

Awesome. Yeah. Well, regardless of what platform you're using UltaPicatar on, you're probably gonna be onboarding, if you wanna sign up for the pro plan. So we'll jump into the onboarding flow here.

Cool. So we start off with the screen here. But, like, getting to this actual point, you could either stumble this page through, like, the free product. Like, I know that they're I'm assuming a ton of people that are using ultimate guitar.

I know I have just to, function solely off the free version or just, like, general interest. But a lot of times, you could, like, stumble this point by clicking on an advertisement.

What goes into the process of actually, like, marketing your product through, like, a a web marketing campaign to get people to this point?

Yeah. So I think it well, some people think about onboarding differently. You know, Ultimate Guitar, it seems like you can you can use things and use the website without actually going through this onboarding flow.

It seems like this is more of kind of also an upsell process where it's like, I I encountered this from, clicking on a sale banner, like a promotional campaign. And so I think that can be it seems like what they're doing here is they're offering a lot of value just for free. You can explore the website. But then they know that to get people to buy, they have to build up a little more intent, a little more investment.

And so this, kind of quiz flow can be helpful for that, for getting people a little more engaged, also showing that they have all this value. And so, you know, for for this question here, you know, choose your main instrument. It's not just getting that information from you. It's also teaching you that you could have this question in the back of your mind.

You know, I really like ukulele more than guitar, but does ultimate guitar have things for ukulele?

Great. They're asking this question. They do. So it kind of informs and reaffirms and reinforces that that in my mind.

And so, I think that that can be a a good good way to think about these sales campaigns. That's what that would it seems like that's what they're doing. Advertising this, you know, you can you can see kind of a in, behind this winter sale annual membership. And and so, you know, it seems like for the promotional sales campaigns, that's when they kind of try to get people in or when starting any any premium subscription.

And, yeah, you kinda touched on this first page here, the choose your main instrument. Is this like a you think this is a great first question to ask to kinda get people in into the actual onboarding flow?

It is a good first question. I think it felt a little odd to me because I clicked the sale banner, and this came up. And so there wasn't enough context, I thought. I thought if they could do something like, great. Before we start your let's let's personalize your membership or something. Just something to kind of preserve a little more context throughout and acknowledge that that, you know, where I came from. And And so I think this is a good first question, but maybe there's a a little more context they could add to to make it feel more natural coming from that sale banner.

Yeah. That makes sense. Cool. If we keep going through the flow here, you get to choose your skill level next. Are you seeing anything here that's that kinda sticks out? They have, like, obviously, the the three chord strum are absolute beginner, and then they have this kinda smaller text underneath. Do you think they're given enough context here?

I think this is actually really good because because you noticed it's personalized based on what you answered. So these aren't gonna be the same the same answers that, or the same options if you select a guitar or piano. And so I think that's good. I love the format of asking kind of at a more general level, you know, you see, like, what are your goals, as a common question among onboarding quiz flows.

That's kind of their variation of this. You know, what are your goals? What do you wanna learn? What instrument do you wanna learn?

And then following and drilling down in that, drilling like, drilling a little deeper to to be able to create more personalized offers and make it feel right for the user. Again, I might have the question in my mind.

You know, I can play a lot of things in ukulele. It's just this for beginners. Or maybe the flip side, I don't know anything.

Can this is this right for me? And so you wanna think about these questions in two ways. One, can you use this information to personalize something for the user? You're building extra investments by getting them to answer questions, but, also, you're teaching the your your users or customers about what what you offer and what value you can provide.

So let's select one of these here. The court summary. And then you can choose your genres here. I believe this actually does kinda, like, inform the actual, like, home page when you go in. It'll show your, like, recommended to kinda, whatever you selected on this screen. So this is good to help kinda personalize the experience, which is interesting. Do you think this is, like, a good page to have for a third page here?

I think this is good, and it's it's it's great that they're actually personal they're using this information to personalize things. I think a lot of apps, like, it's faux personalization, right, where where they ask things, it doesn't actually result in anything. So it's great they're actually using this information later on. I think the formatting could be a little different because as you see, it's a long scrolling bar, like and there's a lot of white space there. And so if they had four or five, like, yeah, icons in that space, like, you you could have a few bars, going across, and you might be able to fit all those categories in one view.

And so that's that's what I would think about there. If you could ever eliminate scrolling, to get everything in one view, you should. And it seems like they could maybe not get everything in one view, but at least eliminate some scrolling and make make it a little easier. So that would be by one one piece of feedback. But, generally, this this makes sense to me.

Yeah. It could be interesting to have, like, you know, for Hard Rock, maybe it's, like, the guys from Metallica or something or, like, Electropop. Maybe it's, like, an Electropop group or something that, you know, when you can kinda click on an image or something like that. I think the design could definitely be improved a little bit here, but let's select these. And then now we're getting into kinda personal questions. So your age, like, obviously, this probably won't affect the actual experience of what you're you get in the product, but I'm assuming this data does help with, like, attribution and things like that on, Ultimate Guitar Guitar's end. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. Exactly. And and maybe they are you know, as they're saying, they're stressing more relevant songs. Maybe they also do that. Maybe they they cater based on what songs you maybe listened to growing up or something like that. Mhmm. But but, really, I think where where a lot of this value comes in is is, you know, targeting and advertising.

So if you know what customers convert better, you can then say, okay. We know really thirty five to forty four is, you know, retains the best, has highest renewal rates. We can bid higher for our ads or have higher bids for installs, taps, you know, impressions, what whatever you're you're bidding on for that age range.

And then maybe you, you know, people are under eighteen. You know? They don't have money to pay. They never convert. We exclude those people from our audiences. And so, you know, you may or may not be surprised that that age is is can be actually a huge factor in, one, just effective advertising, effective user acquisition.

The other question I think is good to add is the, how did you hear about us question. So age and how do you hear about us can get you pretty far to to kind of help guide your advertising. And so this is, you know, like the, app store, radio, newsletter, websites, Facebook, Google. And so that that can be, pretty helpful as well in combination with age, to to get better data.

Cool. And then that's the end of the actual quiz flow here. So this is obviously super simple compared to, like, Headway, which we we talked about earlier. Do you think they could be doing more here, or is something, like, simple and easy like this good for ultimate guitar?

Well, it's hard to say. I would bet that Ultimate Guitar has a lot of organic acquisition.

I bet they don't spend tons on paid marketing.

And so they probably have a long, longer sales cycle. They probably have a huge free user base that uses their product, and and those people convert over time.

Because when when I first visited the website, it wasn't like they were pushing, you have to you have to purchase this onboarding. And so, usually, you want a a longer onboarding flow or kind of this longer quiz style flow if you're a lot of your traffic is from paid user acquisition. That's because these people you know, if you're coming if you see a Facebook ad, you didn't go to Facebook to go find, or go to Instagram or, you know, meta ads, whatever. You didn't go to the social media platform to go find a place to play guitar.

You you find it to kill time. You're distracted. That looks interesting. I play guitar. And so you didn't always have the highest intent.

And so what those longer quiz funnels are really valuable for is building up that intent, building up that investment for people that may not have had it originally, building up the emotions and excitement. So when you get to the purchase flow, it makes sense.

For Ultimate Guitar, because they may have a large active, you know, free user base that that was acquired organically through word-of-mouth or whatever, you know, it seems like they've got a stall solid business. They're doing well. Could they convert more people through that type of flow? Maybe, maybe not. But if people already have this high intent from using the product, this could work fine for them. Are there areas of improvement? Sure.

I would bet. I think there's there's probably a lot of different, you know, conversion optimization tactics. But, like, they they they matter less when someone has a relationship with your brand and trust you and you go like, if you know the product and you know what you're getting and you know what you're paying for, you don't you don't need like, they don't need to do as much selling. And so I'm guessing they kind of understand that, and and that's less of a focus for them.

So I think there's kind of two perspectives.

Sure. Can you always improve things? Yes. Definitely.

But but I think it's there's no, like, you know, there's no right answer, of course.

Well, that takes us to the end of the onboarding quiz flow itself. So we kinda get to this first paywall, here, this first pricing page.

So this is actually kinda interesting. So you have this button here that says rather buy a monthly option. When you click it, just the copy changes. What does that do? Because I haven't I haven't seen something quite like this where you just click a button to kinda toggle between the two. Yeah. What what is the purp what purpose does this serve?

To be honest, this is not how I would try to test displaying these things. I think it's a little, confusing.

Well, what what is tricky for me here is that I can't compare the prices.

So I can't see them side by side, so I have to remember and toggle back and forth. To be honest, I would guess that when they built this module, they had a one CTA button that allowed them to go to one price, but it was easier for them to create a second module and link to that module. And that's how they're showing multiple price points or allowing you just to access it. So based on what I'm seeing, it's you know, that that would be my guess of why it's it's designed like that. It doesn't seem like an optimal approach. I think being being able to compare those and being able to show, like, that the yearly access is obviously better.

You know, I often recommend that simply adding, like, okay. What is the percentage discount from the the annual versus yearly? And if you if you switch back to the monthly option, it's it's quite large. Right? It it's like, you know, over fifty percent, that that you're saving there. So, like, I would really, really accentuate that, but then also have the monthly annual side by side so you can can really understand that.

That that would be that would be my thought.

Awesome. Does, does anything else on this page kinda stand out to you at all that's worth mentioning?

I like to continue as a CTA button. Things like start your membership or subscribe are usually not great because they they feel like more, a higher level of commitment. And so you wanna make it easy.

The free to cancel anytime is a great, you know, ad. Like, people worry about that. Can I cancel? I think if you go back to the annual option, I remember seeing somewhere else that there's might have been a trial on some view, but it's hard to understand that. And and so, I think you you you see more payment information on the next page. Activate your access. I I would prefer a more benefits focused headline.

What what am I getting here? I I get I'm activating my access, but access to what? And you you show some benefits here, but, like, you know, I think even something like, you know, unlimited access or or, like, you you see that top line benefits. Unlimited access, twenty eight thousand HQ tabs. Like, unlock unlimited access. Like, that that would be a, you know, a more interesting kind of compelling, a title where I think as much as you can, it's benefits, seller benefits, what are people getting.

Awesome. Cool. If we hit continue here and say we agree with the pricing, we we're ready to buy, we get hit with this page here, which is our actual, paywall itself where we put our credit card information in. When we rent this through through a VPN, they they do do localized pricing. So if you have if I'm in Europe, you know, I get charged in euros.

What's the importance of, like, localizing your pricing and having, like, even that cosmetic localization of just changing currency symbols?

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very important just to make it feel like it's a product for me. If I'm in the US and I see something in euros, I go is it's not even like a a super conscious thought of, like, this product isn't meant for me.

It just feels off because it's it's kind of this, like, cognitive disconnect between what you're used to seeing. So it feels weird and you go, okay. Well, it's like, of course, it's euros. I know, like, money conversion is easy nowadays.

It doesn't really matter. It's probably fine, but you you just it it's kind of a blocker. And so people, it's one, making sure people understand that this product is for them, but also it's a it's kind of a sign of quality that it's your global product.

And so I think people marketers or someone like you or I have that conscious thought. Most people just go, that feels weird. I don't like it, versus, like, you know but but, really, that's that's kind of the the breakdown of of what's going on there.

And, yeah, I know we've talked about we talked about localization last time, and we talked about the multiple payment options. But I think just wanna hammer that home again. Like, is some offering something like PayPal alongside PayPal and Google Pay alongside credit card? Is that, like, beneficial?

For sure. I mean, I like it. I can anecdotally, like, if I have a credit card field or the PayPal thing, I go, my wallet's over another room. I'll buy it later.

First PayPal, I have it all saved. It's all connected. You know, some people but but it's also, some people have preferences. If you, like, if you can offer more payment options, why not?

Because it's it's just a a better user experience catering to what people want, I think. So so it's it's kind of a no brainer to to me. It like, if if it's technically feasible for you to do it, do it.

So this was actually after I turned. You can see there's, like, the comeback offer at the top. But, if I was still still subscribed, there's no real, like, CTA to actually get me from the web to download the actual app. Like, there's a world where I come on here, and maybe I don't even know that they have an app.

I mean, you know, they're kind of, like, such a big player in the space. You'd assume that they'd have an app, I guess, if you were familiar with them. But is there, like, an opportunity there? I know we've seen things like QR codes or, like, buttons, especially if you're on, like, mobile web.

It's very easy to kinda just, get prompted with a button to download the app. Is there, like, an opportunity there, for Ultimate Guitar to kinda make that friction easier going from web to app?

I think so.

At the same time, you want to understand what's a better experience for your users.

If they're on the if they're on mobile web, push super hard to get them into the App Store because your experience on mobile web will always be worse than in the app. If you're on desktop web, maybe you let them know, send them a link, send this link to their email.

Maybe after you pay, you you have an option to download the app and check it out.

But but I think that maybe they don't push as hard if if you're on desktop web because, you know, maybe you think there's a lot of value in having this in a big screen.

Maybe there's, you you think about age segmentation, about how hard you you you push the mobile app based on what you see and based on usage.

But but, yeah, like, generally, people who have your app are gonna retain better, gonna use your product more, gonna pay more. And so I think figuring out what makes sense there is valuable. I think that some companies overdo the value of, getting their mobile app, and they, like, limit features on web. And it I I don't think that's the best approach for, like, customer customer loyalty and and building a brand in the long run. I think, generally, if you if you try to do what's best for your customers and try to create a great experience and and, that's that's probably probably the right approach.

But I've, you know, most of my work is on the mobile app side, and so I'll always I'll always advocate for, getting getting more people into your app.

The last thing, just we've gone through the entire flow here. Let's just lay out two things they did really well and then one thing that you think they could improve upon.

And promotions.

They don't, you know, they push things. They have great offers.

I think they do good job of discounting the annual plan where that's usually a a a better move. You keep users for longer.

You know, higher lifetime value is is usually what you see with the annual plan.

And so I think we'll do a good job of that. And they have, you know, decent questions, to kind of get people and build investment, before, that payment page. I think, some opportunities for growth would be I think they could do a lot more about they they use the personalization, it seems like, from those questions, But just letting people know they use those and and and telling people more about what they're getting, I think that can can build a lot more excitement and and, trust in a brand before you purchase. So like, you'll know, hey.

We'll, you know, customize all these for you. We have this. We'll display your favorite artists or display your favorite genres or, you know, we like, okay. I'm a beginner.

Great. We have ten million beginners using Ultimate Guitar or whatever it is. So so little kind of, confirmations from the those questions that they do personalize the experience, I think, is a it would be a good opportunity.

Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks, Jacob. I appreciate you jumping on with us again.