Choosing the right subscription offer for your brand should firstly prioritize your business unit economics and profitability (more on that here). Beyond this, your business may wish to offer a specific subscription model like bundles. Subscription bundles can span multiple use cases and applications (here’s our full guide to subscription bundling in 2024) - and all solve for different consumer needs and pain points. 

Rotating and personalized subscription bundles are just a couple of several popular subscription bundle types. Both center around a flexible subscription model, which can prevent 6% of subscription cancellations by mitigating variant fatigue (more on that here) but still allow personalized touches with the subscriber in the driver’s seat. 

Rotating bundles in particular are unique because they also open up subscribable opportunities for products that may not fit the conventional subscription model of flat-rate discounting and a static product offering, like Shinesty’s promise of a new print in each order.

A common problem with subscription bundles is a confusing enrollment process; making it unclear what subscribers should expect and preventing customer buy-in. This can hurt your subscription enrollment rate; making you lose out on the up to 60% increase in total customer spend that subscriptions drive. 

So here are 5 key tips to optimize your subscription bundle enrollment process for conversion.

• Activate all subscription promotion opportunities - including category pages, the navigation bar, and subscription program landing page.
• Make navigating enrollment easy - list out steps and all options for choices, and let subscribers amend these through the enrollment process
• Don't frontload email collection, which can lead to immediate clickaways and purchase aversion. Let subscribers explore their options first and leave information collection for checkout.
• Streamline enrollment pages to be as concise as possible and avoid clickaways
• Let them review and/or amend their final choices

Activate all subscription promotion opportunities to boost conversion

Promote subscription bundles on your category pages

Boost visibility by listing curated subscription options at the top of your category pages. Shinesty promotes subscription benefits under “Best Ways to Buy” and uses copy like “Build an Underwear Pack” to proffer subscription bundles as the most valuable and convenient way to shop.

Include a CTA to “Subscribe” via the navigation bar 

It’s crucial to include “subscribe” as a navigation bar CTA so your shoppers:

• Know subscription is an option
• Feel called to explore subscription benefits
• Can navigate to subscriptions from anywhere on your site

“Subscribe” is the optimal copy (preferred over “subscription(s)”) because it’s a Call to Action (CTA) that incites engagement and action. This CTA should link to the subscription landing page. Now, let’s talk about optimizing this page.

Optimize your subscription landing page for conversion

Your subscription landing page is a crucial enablement resource for subscriber retention; including FAQs and other important subscription information. More on how to optimize this page here. But it’s also a powerful enrollment tool - so here’s how to optimize this promotional opportunity.

List subscriber perks and subscription manageability options immediately. 

We recommend adopting some branded iconography to simplify the visual experience and help subscribers understand what to expect.

Explain the subscription process from the customer’s perspective. 

What do they have to do to receive their subscription? What can they expect from this subscription? It’s helpful, especially if they need to make option selections like quantity, size, flavor, frequency of delivery, etc., to list these steps in chronological order. This breaks down the experience and avoids fear of confusion or unmanageability. 

Leverage CTAs to encourage engagement with the enrollment process

Incorporating CTAs like “get started,” “send me coffee,” or “select men’s,” like in Shinesty’s example below, gives customers actionable and understandable next steps.

On this note - one of the most important callouts to consider is where your CTAs lead users.

Gatekeeping your bundle or program information can tank conversion rates

In recent Baymard Institute UX testing, researchers found that the majority of interviewed consumers reacted extremely negatively to CTAs that led to email collection forms or information paywalls. The average consumer expects an exploratory or informational page to follow a CTA like "Learn More" or "Explore Plans;" and will actually immediately back click or leave a site that instead leads them to an email collection or account creation form.

Rather than frontloading your CTAs' flows with information collection, let would-be subscribers explore your program structure and enrollment process. Save the email collection for checkout - when customers have had the chance to explore and buy-in to the concept of your program and product offerings.

Although Dollar Shave Club doesn't offer subscriptions on every item, they follow this principle and avoid discouraging conversion by displaying a great CTA to take their quiz, and letting users explore their options without requiring an email.

Now that we’ve discussed how to optimize the customer experience getting to the point of conversion, let’s break down how to optimize the subscription enrollment process for bundles; including personalization touchpoints and customer choices.

Make it easy to navigate and engage the enrollment process

Make the enrollment process as simplified as possible - especially for personalization touchpoints, like when a customer selects a flavor or style. 

Use short, actionable copy to direct consumers in their decision making process. Radio button-style selections minimize cognitive load and simplify the user experience by laying out all possible options for the consumer in one view, like in Shinesty’s example below.

When moving onto the next necessary selection, remind the customer of their selections so far while offering up their options for this choice. This negates the need to toggle back and forth between previous selection pages, which can hurt your end to end conversion.

Streamline pages to minimize clickaways 

When possible, limit the number of screens the customer must go through to convert. You can do this by giving the customer more than one choice per page. Continue to let them see their overall choices, especially for curated subscriptions with multiple possible permutations. Again, this simplifies the curation process and minimizes the need for your customer to keep track of their choices, which can be confusing and cause clickaways that will hurt your conversion.

Shinesty asks soon to be subscribers to select their underwear size while still reminding them of the style of underwear they’ve selected. They then ask the customer to choose a subscription “flavor.”

This same logic applies to enablement. Where possible, keep clarifying resources like size guides and care instructions on the same page to limit clickaway points and confusion.

Let subscribers review and amend their final choices

Give customers a final lookback of their end-selection. Summarize their choices visually, with concise copy describing the product selection and what they can expect from this subscription moving forward.

It’s important to let subscribers change the frequency of their subscription delivery. This also applies throughout their subscription management experience, which is why order management options is an integral part of the flexible and convenient subscriber experience (more on that here). Giving subscribers the agency to select their desired billing and/or shipping frequency helps them feel in control of their subscription, finances, and overall experience.

Part of this is giving them ample options. So let subscribers check out other frequencies or plans. This is most commonly associated with curated subscriptions that offer varying prepaid terms or delivery terms, like in Shinesty’s example below.

For plans involving future variants, prompt subscribers to make their selection upon clicking that plan; a tactic called progressive disclosure. This keeps the user’s experience simple while offering more detailed options and permutations. Shinesty prompts the subscriber to “Add Next Pair” upon selecting the quarterly plan, making the choice a simple selection process. Only when all 3 pairs are assigned a style does the “add to cart” CTA become actionable. 

Displaying progress in a visual is also helpful to clarify where the customer is in the checkout process, like in Shinesty's example below:

📝 Try it Now!

Talk to your Ordergroove CSM about setting up bundles for your subscription program today.

And configure a bundles checkout process that:

• Activates all subscription promotion opportunities - including category pages, the navigation bar, and subscription program landing page.
• Makes navigating enrollment easy - lists out steps and all options for choices, and lets subscribers amend these through the enrollment process.
• Streamlines enrollment pages to be as concise as possible and avoid clickaways.
• Lets them review and/or amend their final choices