43% More Checkouts with a Surprising Strategy

There's a saying in art that applies just as well to digital design: less is more. A test from the city building game SimCity shows exactly how far that idea can go in online marketing.

The marketing team had originally added a promotional banner to their webpage, encouraging visitors to pre-order the game. The banner offered a discount on a future purchase, and on paper it looked like a smart way to sweeten the deal.

Still, the team decided to test something counterintuitive. They ran an experiment comparing two versions of the same page: one with the promotional banner, and one without it. Everything else on the page stayed exactly the same.

The results caught everyone off guard. The version without the banner produced

It's a strange result at first glance. Why would taking away an incentive lead to more sales? The answer comes down to cognitive effort. Every time visitors saw the banner, they had to stop and think through the offer: what it covered, when it could be used, and whether it was actually worth taking advantage of. That small mental detour was enough to interrupt the momentum

Once the banner disappeared, the page became simpler and faster to process. With one less distraction competing for attention, visitors could stay focused on the one action that mattered: completing the purchase

Better results don't always come from adding more features, more incentives, or more reasons to buy. Sometimes the better move is clearing away whatever stands between a visitor and the decision they were already leaning toward.