Best practices in Online Registration by Andre Goyette

Best Practices in Online Registration

Table of Contents 3

The Importance of Registration

Know Your Customer

Watch Registration Rates Grow with Social Login . . . . . . 4 Optimize Registration on Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Leverage Progressive Profiling to Increase Conversions . . 6

Garbage In, Garbage Out Improving Profile Data Quality

Data Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Email Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 CAPTCHA Spam Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Who Are You?

Lost Login Credentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 User Profile Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Registration Infrastructure

Supporting Multiple Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Terms of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Database Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Storing Unified Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Load Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

16 Conclusion

The Importance of Registration A thriving

online presence requires the seamless integration of multiple elements to deliver

an exceptional experience for your site visitor, while also meeting your business goals. A sophisticated user management platform must support many steps within the user journey to maximize the site experience. A powerful user management platform removes hurdles for both end users and business owners, and enables you to leverage the knowledge and insights gained to deliver the best possible value to the site audience. The first critical component of a user management platform is the registration flow, which acts as the point of entry into your siteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;where the anonymous visitor becomes a registered user. This is the moment where site visitors transition into high-value assets. While online user registration systems can seem deceptively simple when you consider only the high-level elements (such as form fields, opt-in boxes, a database of registration records, etc.), there are many opportunities along the way where things can go wrong. Low conversion rates, users leaving your site without engaging, and blatantly falsified registration data are obvious symptoms of a broken registration system. The cost of building and maintaining the optimal registration system can be high from a resource perspective, especially if it includes the lost opportunity that results when your account creation flow is frustrating or leads users to input false information, like 88% of consumers have admitted to doing. In this paper, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll reveal and discuss key elements of a successful user registration system, providing direction as you evaluate options to upgrade your existing system.

86%

of people have admitted to leaving a site when asked to register with a form

admit to providing false and incomplete information.

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Know Your Customer

Grow Your User Base With a Better Registration Experience

One of the key objectives of any registration system

existing account with Facebook, Google, Twitter,

is to collect information on site visitors, not only to

LinkedIn, and other providers to quickly register at

identify who is coming to your site, but to help you

your site. Leveraging an existing account and profile

make informed decisions about the site design and

with these popular identity providers means you

content. Marketers also find value in user profile

can easily authenticate website visitors, collect the

data, which they can use to better understand their

necessary data to begin building a profile, and let

audience, how they’re using the website, what

them more quickly participate in the activities that

products they like, their offline interests, and who is

originally brought them to your site.

in their social networks. Ideally, your registration solution should support

Watch Registration Rates Grow with Social Login

a mix of social and other identity providers (IDPs)

Improving registration conversion begins with

example, consider whether you are managing a B2B

improving the user experience and reducing

or B2C website, or what accounts your users are

that’s appropriate for your site and audience. For

“friction” in your “conversion funnel” by removing obstacles along the way that can lead your users to abandon your form and leave the site. Third-party research reveals that 86% of consumers have left a site when asked to register with a registration form and forced to create and remember yet another username/password combination. Organizations of all sizes and across industries have increased their registration rates by up to 50% just by offering social login as an option at registration. Social login gives visitors the option of using an

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77% of consumers want social login as an option to register. Offer it and watch conversion rates grow.

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Know Your Customer

likely to already have (that make sense in the context of your site). With a B2B site, leveraging Google Apps, SalesForce.com, or LinkedIn as providers can give you more business-focused data for marketing and site registration use. Once you have launched social login on your site, review your login counts by provider, and rank order choices to find the optimal offer for your audience. Make sure that you have linked the users to another provider or to a conventional account before

keyboards. Beyond “Fat Finger Syndrome” (and

removing the underperforming provider to prevent

its related data entry and navigation challenges),

account orphaning.

there is also the consideration that mobile browsers have different set of technical requirements than

Each website’s audience will adopt social login to

their desktop counterparts. Ensuring that the user

a different degree, so it’s important to consider

experience on a mobile device meets your users’

offering a traditional username/password

expectations begins with correctly designed CSS,

registration for those who still prefer that option.

and can even include a separate set of UI elements

Offering them side-by-side, with clear descriptive

to be swapped in via user agent detection (browser).

language, provides the ultimate in choice, flexibility,

An example of a good candidate for a separate UI

and user control.

would be any page that requires too much scrolling, or scrolling that is not intuitive to the experience.

Optimize Registration on Mobile Devices

Removing points of registration/authentication/

Mobile and tablet devices represent a rapidly

have significant impact on conversions as well as on

growing percentage of new and returning users,

repeat visits.

navigation friction peculiar to mobile devices can

who will expect full functionality at your site. Failing to provide an optimal experience for these

Just like your entire mobile site, your registration flow

users can result in significant drop-off in visits and

should be optimized for the mobile web with small-

conversions, as users struggle with common hurdles

screen use cases in mind. Having a well-implemented

of a smaller screen: small links, buttons, fields, and

social login option for mobile-enabled sites removes

TIP 2

Don’t assume everyone wants to log in with Facebook or Twitter. Find the right identity provider mix for your audience. Optimize registration on your mobile apps and website to reduce frustration and increase account creation.

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Know Your Customer

a common mobile registration frustration by potentially

Opportunities to request additional profile information

limiting the fields of entry down to one to two for the

include user events such as sharing content or

selected identity provider.

products to a social network, finding friends who are also on the site, rating a product or leaving a review, or

Leverage Progressive Profiling to Increase Conversions

even revealing more localized content.

In any new relationship, it takes time to get to know one

Another example of progressive profiling in practice

another and build trust before feeling comfortable

is offering an exchange of value. This is where you

enough to reveal more personal information than the

offer your users a quid pro quo by granting them

basics. The relationship with visitors to your site is no

access to a download, a discount, additional site

different. They may not be ready and willing to share

features, or some similar benefit in exchange for

their home address, birthday, or friends’ names—

sharing additional information about themselves. If

personal details—with you during their first visit to

what you’re offering can be directly correlated to the

your site.

information you’re requesting, your success rate will improve. The bottom line is to be clear about what

Progressive profiling refers to an incremental approach

data you are asking for and why you are asking for

to collecting profile data from website visitors. Using

it, and to make sure that the context for the requests

this method, you request smaller snippets of user

is appropriate to the the users’ actions or value

profile data at carefully staged opportunities. So rather

exchange messaging.

than being asked to complete a long form, or submit volumes of personal information up front, the user has a smoother and more comfortable experience. In this way, progressive profiling builds consumer trust over time, which encourages the sharing of information, and allows

PROGRESSIVE PROFILING

you to collect more accurate user profile data while maintaining a higher conversion rate. Born in the world of B2B marketing, progressive profiling is growing in use with consumer brands as well. This approach is particularly valuable when users engage with your website repeatedly, over a span of weeks or months. It requires building some conditional checking into your sign-in workflow and forms so your site can correctly gauge when to prompt a user for specific additional information.

TIP 4

Request minimal information at the initial point of registration, and look for opportunities to request additional snippets of data over time to progressively build user profiles.

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Improving Profile Data Quality

Garbage In, Garbage Out Improving Profile Data Quality

A database is only as valuable as the quality of data

as allow them to map multiple social profiles to one

within it, and with 88% of consumers admitting that

user record. This also gives registered users an

they have provided incomplete or false information on

opportunity to provide additional data they want you

traditional registration forms, your database may not

to have, details of their persona they may want to

contain the quality data you need. Poor data quality

share with other members of a community in their

can cost an organization 10–20% of annual revenue in

public profile, and allows them to more seamlessly

lost sales, ineffective direct marketing, administration

carry out some action like sharing.

overhead, and preventable shipping errors.

Data Validation One approach to improving data quality is by

Building sensible data validation rules right into

offering social login. People typically keep

your registration system is another important

their social profile details current, as well as

consideration. Our recommendation is a hybrid

representative of their authentic self, since these

strategy that includes a two-part approach for

are channels through which they communicate with

validation of standard fields built in to your

family, friends and co-workers. When site visitors

registration system, including length and type

choose an existing identity using social login to

validation at the front end, paired with the

create an account, you can rest assured you are on

appropriate database constraints on the back end.

your way to building a user profile that is rich with

An example of a front-end validation task for sites

accurate, actionable information.

that are available to younger users, or that need be compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy

Providing a means for users to automatically and

Protection Act (COPPA) standards, would be to parse

manually map social accounts with their existing site

suggested usernames through dirty word filters to

user records can help you to avoid duplicate records

ensure that they don’t contain offensive words.

while giving you the opportunity to gather accurate user intelligence from outside sources. With user

When leveraging social login on your site, you not

profile pages, you can allow people to self-manage

only smooth the user’s return experience, but you

their public and private profiles on the site, as well

can access profile data during registration to pre-

TIP 5

Improve the quality and depth of your user database by tapping into social profiles.

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Improving Profile Data Quality

populate a form which then just needs validation by

Unfortunately, for most website visitors, this

the user. When taking this approach, you want to

places yet another obstacle between them and

include clear messaging before and after the social

the action they wanted to take on your site, and

authentication about the data you want to access

creates additional opportunity for them to leave.

and how doing so is a benefit to them, or you will

Our recommendation here is to use this two-

confuse most users and thus degrade their on-

step verification only when necessary (contest

site experience. Upon each return visit to the site,

registration, for example). If you have other

changes to their social profile should refresh the

verification methods in place, like CAPTCHA or

profile fields in your database to ensure you always

social login, you can usually forgo this additional

have the most current information.

step in the registration process.

Networks that provide verified email addresses Facebook Google Yahoo!

Email Verification Adding an email verification step to the registration flow has become a common step to ensure your

Windows Live PayPal

new user is human and is providing a valid email address at which you can later contact them. This

Salesforce

is an important exercise for marketers in the pursuit of data integrity, and an efficient use of marketing

dollars spent against ensuring database quality.

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Pre-populate fields with as much data as possible and ask users to confirm the accuracy to ensure high quality data without requiring them to enter the data.

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Improving Profile Data Quality

When users choose an identity from Google,

CAPTCHA Spam Prevention

Facebook, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, or another provider to

Data integrity and quality concerns also apply to

user-generated content. Though it is too expensive

email address which removes the necessity of

to hand-moderate every post and comment, there are

this additional burden. Make sure you request

a few basic steps that you can take to prevent rampant

permission to access the email address, and if you

abuse of your public spaces. The first is requiring

need to make the user choose a specific email

registration and authentication before allowing posts/

address (such as a business-related one), pre-

comments, and another is some sort of human-

populate their account creation form with this data

verification (Turing test) tool for first time registrations.

so they don’t need to enter it themselves. Many of the tools for incorporating a Turing test into Samsung reported a 34% increase in email open

your site (such as CAPTCHA) are free, but the task

rates and 63% increase in email click-through rates

of implementing them and staying on top of new

as a result of improved email marketability of their

releases is not. Ensure that your registration solution

user database with social login. With more than

supports CAPTCHA functionality “out of the box” to

40% of new registrants choosing to use social login

reduce your development burden.

to register at their site, this gives them access to a verified email without the hassle of the two-step verification they previously used.

TIP 7

Remove the email validation step in your main registration process by requesting a verified email from social providers with social login.

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Improve Your Registration Experience

Who Are You? Improve your registration experience to enhance customer service

When users get frustrated while trying to sign up for

(such as passwords) that would leave users

an account or sign in to your site with a username

vulnerable to a potential breach.

and password they’ve forgotten, they have three options: keep trying and let the frustration increase,

The most universally applicable best practice for

ask for help (if available), or leave your site. All three

password resets is sending a one-time-use link to a

options are costly for you as you’ve either lost a

secure page on your site, where the user can reset

potential sale, or will spend resources to help them

the password, to their primary email address. Never

remember or reset their password. One important

include users’ passwords in an email when they

goal of any registration system must include

request a password recovery, register for the first

improving customer service for these very reasons.

time, or reset their password.

Lost Login Credentials

With social login enabled on your site, you remove

With 40% of people admitting to using the Forgot

the hurdle of remembering an additional username

Password feature at least once a month, this is a

and password, thus removing the additional

growing challenge for users as they create more username/password combinations across the web (or worse yet, re-use the same credentials). People have come to expect an easy way to get access to your site when this happens, or they will potentially leave. Having a secure method for verifying your users’ requests for lost credentials, and taking the necessary steps to integrate it into your existing registration flow, must be part of the registration system design stage. In order to keep the trust you have worked hard to build with your audience, take

2 in 5

feel that scrubbing a toilet would be better than coming up with a new password

the necessary steps to avoid exposing information

TIP 8

Key considerations for your Forgot Password flow must include ease and security with which users can retrieve or reset their password.

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Improve Your Registration Experience

Forgot Password obstacle to entering your site,

contact them. When your site includes community

and potential customer service resources. When

features like blogs, comments, or reviews, people

shoppers at a commerce site, in particular, are

will always want the ability to manage their public

ready to buy and canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember their username or

persona on your site. This is best done through a

password, the easier option is to leave and purchase

profile page that enables them to change their vital

at another site that solves this problem for them, or

stats, interests, notification methods and frequency,

check out with a guest account, which leaves you

avatar image or photo, etc. Giving users control

little quality contact data to use in future marketing

over their profiles (both public and private) in this

programs. The best practice for preventing this

way can help people be more comfortable sharing

dilemma is to encourage users to choose the social

information with you, and in turn decrease the

option for creating an account on your site, and

amount of inaccurate profile data you collect.

having them easily reuse that identity on return visits. Profile management screens should, at minimum,

User Profile Pages

provide the ability to specify information as public

Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s users, being savvy about the web and social

or private at a field level, the ability to change their

media, expect to be provided with tools to manage

password if applicable, and manage the social

the data they share with you and the public and to

identities they have associated with their profile.

control how and when you or other site users can

TIP 9

Offer users profile pages to manage what personal data is public or private, and to map additional social identities to their profile on your site.

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Registration Infrastructure

Registration Infrastructure Behind the scenes of a best-in-class registration system

World-class registration systems don’t just happen

knowing that your direct API connection won’t break

by accident, nor do they come for free. Creating a site

as providers make updates or changes—means

experience that supports the business objective of

less resources dedicated to the mundane task of

converting anonymous site visitors to registered users

ensuring that your customers can still access their

requires strategic planning and critical consideration

accounts and new visitors can still sign up with

of all aspects of the registration infrastructure. Proper

those third-party credentials.

attention to the details of your registration flow will help to reduce user frustration, protect the data you

collect, and future-proof your solution.

An important step when registering a new user is to capture his or her acknowledgement and

Supporting Multiple Social Networks

acceptance of your terms of service (TOS). It seems

As was previously mentioned, presenting more than

pretty straightforward; and it can be, at least the

one option for social login is important. So if you’re

first time. But if your organization needs to update

planning to implement social login on your own and

those terms of service, you’ll need to ensure that

not use an “off-the-shelf” solution, it’s important to

your users have accepted the most recent version,

consider the number of disparate social network

and store that information, and do so in a way that

APIs your developers will need to learn, support,

doesn’t annoy them with another box to click, and

and maintain. Each social network has its own set

possibly drive them away from your site.

of APIs, which can result in significant up-front development costs and ongoing code maintenance

Ensure that your registration system can

of your site to keep pace with changes to each

track updates to your TOS automatically, and

social network API.

consequently remind customers to acknowledge these updates as part of your normal sign-in flow

The optimal solution for this challenge is an

if they haven’t already. Not all systems include this

abstraction layer or single, unified API that handles

functionality, and it’s easy to overlook its importance

all social network interactions for your site,

until a problem arises. So, include this on your

eliminating the need to learn any specific social

checklist of requirements.

network APIs. The additional peace of mind—

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Consider a single unified API to manage and support multiple network APIs.

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Registration Infrastructure

Database Schema

efforts and enhance the site experience of those

When thinking about ways to ensure data integrity

users (both directly and indirectly).

within your registration system, it is imperative to enforce structure and rules for profile information

Strategically designing your user store today, to

that is stored by leveraging data types and a well-

account for the data returned by the variety of social

designed schema. A carefully-defined schema

networks that you’re likely to support tomorrow, can

typically results in more-accessible data, which

present a challenge. Having a unified API that also

makes for faster and easier queries and more-

normalizes the data from the various providers into a

granular customer segments. Having a well-thought-

single format is extremely helpful. Pre-planning your

out schema also better enables the feeding of user

schema to be capable of accepting all of the data

TIP 11

Make sure your registration system monitors updates to your TOS to effectively manage the appropriate user acknowledgements.

profile data into different systems (such as email marketing, business intelligence, or personalization engines) for targeted campaigns, better business decisions, and more effective programs. When designing your schema, be sure to include all the fields you need to record, use the correct data types for all fields, and don’t try to use the profile store for moregranular transactional data (such as raw clickstreams).

Storing Unified Data Conventional profile data, when combined with social profile data and other user information, can provide a full 360-degree view of your users that can then be leveraged to maximize digital marketing

TIP 12

Future-proof your user database by planning your schema today for tomorrow’s unidentified needs so that you can maximize the usability of the data you collect.

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Registration Infrastructure

that each of the providers can return is critical to

The encryption should always be handled

the smooth growth of your integration, whether you

programmatically, and password comparisons should

choose to act on that data today or not. Also make

always be handled in an encrypted state.

sure to store the data from the different providers side by side, without overwriting similar fields’

However, sometimes user stores need to be

values (email for example).

merged or users migrated from legacy systems. These scenarios can present significant challenges

Even if you’re not currently planning to store

to staying compliant with best practices, and

information about your registered users beyond their

sometimes legislation, related to data-handling

authentication details, you still need to consider a

and maintaining a good user experience. The two

solution that provides an easy migration path for

most common solutions, since de-encrypting the

when your business needs change, and the ability

passwords is not a best practice (or legal in some

to store richer user profiles (not to mention mine

jurisdictions) are to:

such data for targeting and segmentation) becomes important. In short, your registration and database

path to future expansion and expression as your requirements change, and the flexibility to handle unexpected integration requirements.

Ask your users to choose a new password (which creates a poor user experience)

solution should ensure that you have a clear

Programmatically re-encrypt passwords (which is time consuming, involves significant downtime, and may create a compliance issue)

Passwords

A user store that can support password hashes at

By now everyone knows that you need to encrypt

the user record level eliminates the need to force

your users’ sign-in credentials, but how do you

users to change their passwords, or to schedule

handle encryption considerations when importing

significant downtime and develop some sort of

and migrating user data?

re-encryption routine. Since passwords can be migrated while still encrypted, along with the

All too frequently, media headlines share news of

hashing keys that encrypted them, your users and

some high-profile website’s account profile system

their data can transition seamlessly.

being hacked and the credentials getting into the wrong hands. In order to combat this, account

Load Handling

data must be encrypted well enough to withstand

If your business holds online events or promotions

brute-force attacks that are the inevitable result

that might (hopefully) cause a surge of traffic to

of garnering a large base of user information.

your site, it’s important to architect and provision

TIP 13

Protect your business, reputation, and user data security by never transmitting passwords unencrypted or revealing them via email.

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Registration Infrastructure

your code and infrastructure to withstand spikes in

other content from being loaded or rendered. A very

registration and sign-in activity. Do you know how

basic example of one way of achieving this idea is

many concurrent transactions your authentication

using the defer attribute on <script> tags:

and registration system should be able to support? Or how your page loading times will be affected

during such peaks?

script>

One technique for shortening load times is to

Widgets should be loaded as static content from a

leverage the browser’s ability to load code and

content distribution network that puts them relatively

resources asynchronously, by placing properly

close to the user. Also, correctly using CSS3/HTML5,

designed JavaScript in the HEAD of the web page.

and not loading widgets or other dynamic elements

The HEAD section often loads fastest by a significant

within iframes, can speed up load times even more.

margin on many modern, dynamic pages. Using one of several “non-blocking” design patterns prevents the JavaScript execution from delaying (blocking)

TIP 14

Plan today for potential surges in site traffic related to marketing promotions or events to ensure your registration systems have been designed to deal with peak loads.

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First Name*  Last Name*

Email Address*

Re-enter Email Address*

Birth Date*

Conclusion

Another Tedious Question* YesN

Username*

Password*

Clearly, there

are many critical elements to consider when developing or updating an online

user registration system. Simultaneously attempting to reduce friction in order to increase your user base, while still collecting the information you need about your

Re-enter password*

users, requires a very deft approach. Ensure that your siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design elements and datacollection workflow blend together to increase conversions and foster trust from the users whose information you seek to acquire. As a final suggestion, to free your development resources to focus on the core competency of your business, consider implementing a user management platform solution for which design and workflow considerations have been market-tested by major brands, and refined over time to provide best-in-class approaches to user data collection, validation, and infrastructure.

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About Janrain The Janrain User Management Platform (JUMP) helps organizations succeed on the social web by providing leading technology to leverage the popularity of social networks and identities for user acquisition, engagement, and enhanced customer intelligence. Our solutions, including social login, social sharing, social profile data collection and storage, access to the social graph, and digital strategy services, improve the effectiveness of online marketing initiatives for leading brands like Fox, Universal Music Group, Whole Foods, MTV, Purina, Samsung, Macyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Dr Pepper. Founded in 2005, Janrain is based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, please call 1-888-563-3082 or visit www.janrain.com and follow @janrain.

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