Boost Conversion Rate for Stock Content Platform via Motivation-Aligned Registration Flow

Key takeaway

By redesigning the registration flow to align with user intent, we increased Depositphotos' conversion rate by 9% and average revenue per user by 8%. By emphasizing users' primary goal of downloading specific images, the optimized process reduced friction and improved conversion to registrations.

Client Overview

Depositphotos is a global stock photo platform offering on-demand and subscription licenses for high-quality, royalty-free content. Serving individual creators and businesses worldwide, the platform is localized in 25 languages and attracts over 23 million monthly visitors (according to Similarweb). Its library contains over 200 million files, including stock photos, vector images, video clips, and editorial content.

Opportunity Background

The user flow for downloading images on Depositphotos required users to search for an image, click the "download image" call-to-action, be redirected to an account registration page and register, select a plan, complete the payment process, and then download the image.

Analysis revealed that many users were dropping off during the registration step. Surveys identified the primary friction point: a disconnect between the "download image" call-to-action and the subsequent account registration prompt.

Users expressed confusion, with one respondent saying, "I don't want an account, I just want to download this image." In addition, research showed that many users were primarily motivated to purchase plans to download specific images they found during their session, making this a critical moment for conversion.

Solution

To address this, we redesigned the registration pop-up to better align with the user's intent. The original pop-up, which listed general benefits of creating an account, was replaced with a design that featured the specific image the user wanted to download. This framed registration as a necessary step to save and access the image.

The updated pop-up included a preview of the selected image to reinforce the connection between registering and the user's goal. The messaging was also simplified to clearly explain why registration was required to proceed with the download.