Countdown Timers & Conversion Rates

 

Still actively involved in the current AppBuilder program in the UK with each iteration / new app I try and ensure that I learn something new and, if possible, provide a better experience for users along the way.

Among some of my most popular Apps are those that play videos, I consistently get good feedback from users and the general satisfaction rating is quite high (as far as I can determine).  That said, the conversion rate has not been as high as I would have hoped.

When I came to look at this issue in earnest one thing that worried me was that I might be giving away too much for free (?)  All the apps functionality is there with the free version of the apps and I had to conclude that the free App is almost too satisfactory and it was maybe just not worth the effort to upgrade!  I decided  I wanted to introduce something that might increase my conversion rates:

So the above video represents the concept and I began to look at the options. My thinking is that anyone who doesn’t want to pay anything for the app doesn’t have to, but if they use it a lot, it might be worth their while!   Initially I  had a go at coding something similar to the above, then I came across the solution that I have used:

Here is the code I had to implement the effect that you can see in the App:

Pretty easy eh?  So I guess this post is really just an advertisement for a great free library on codeplex :

http://winrtxamltoolkit.codeplex.com/

Download the source code, run the sample app and get a flavour of what you can do:

^{(Click on the image to zoom)}

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If you want to see the effect download the following free App (you don’t have to be a fisherman)

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/fishing-tips/12bde40c-8f71-4526-8d72-c112b1aa799c