Welcome back to the 11th edition of The Gist by Growth Unhinged where I give you one specific action item to grow faster. Past editions have covered how to ask about willingness-to-pay, revisiting your automated email program, and rethinking “time savings” as your central value proposition.
In this edition: what to do when your free trial attracts fake accounts (think: bots, repeat signups, spam).
Helping me out are Yash Terkriwal and Eric Engoron, growth leaders at Clay — the fast growing startup that helps teams scale personalized outbound (not to be confused with the relationship management tool of the same name). In just one month, Clay added >$150k in incremental ARR and saved >$175k in credit costs just by stopping fake accounts. Let’s dive in 👇
The Gist
Up to half of your free trial signups may actually be fake accounts. They distract your sales team, deflate your conversion metrics, and inflate hosting costs. And you can fix it without adding friction for your real users.
Why you should care
They’re ubiquitous. They’re obnoxious. They’re hard to detect.
Bots and fake accounts can ruin your data integrity, spread false information on social media (cough, Twitter), and spam your email account. And, if you offer a free trial or referral program, they can distract your sales team, deflate your free trial conversion metrics, and inflate your hosting costs.
At first, these fake accounts may only seem like a nuisance. Over time, they can have a detrimental impact. Clay ran into the following:
Conversion confusion: It was impossible to discern the real conversion rate from free trial to paying customers, blurring marketing and sales metrics.
Direct costs: Contact data costs were racking up. (Other companies may see higher compute costs or other expenses.)
Scraping IP: Some bots were creating their own lead lists by scraping Clay, essentially stealing Clay’s IP.
Hurting email deliverability: In one extreme case, a fake user invited so many other fake users to its workspace that it brought down Clay’s entire email sending infrastructure.