Pricing and product adoption · Empirical structural model and policy simulations
Try It, You’ll Like It—Or Will You? The Perils of Early Free-Trial Promotions for High-Tech Service Adoption
Foubert, B., & Gijsbrechts, E. (2016). Marketing Science, 35(5), 810–826.
Plain-English take
The abstract characterizes free trials as a double-edged promotion: trial timing and how intensively consumers use the service during the trial matter to effectiveness, particularly while quality is uncertain and changing. For your marketing: Design trials around the user's chance to experience core value and the maturity of the product.
How much weight to give this
2.5/5 Limited or context-dependent evidence
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
This is observational evidence; selection or unmeasured differences may affect the result.
A usable sample size is not stated in the profile's accessible source.
Statistical adjustment is not the same as random assignment; review the controls and assumptions.
This profile could be checked against an abstract or metadata, not the full paper.
Double-blind? Not applicable in the same way as a participant-treatment experiment.
Research question
What the authors investigated
When do free trials help adoption of a high-tech service, and when can a poor early trial experience undermine it?
Design
The authors estimate a model of trial and regular adoption that accounts for learning from usage and word of mouth while service quality evolves, then simulate alternative trial policies.
Sample and setting
A rich customer dataset for an interactive digital television service, including trial subscriptions, adoption and usage behavior. The abstract does not report the number of customers.
Reported result
What the study found
The abstract characterizes free trials as a double-edged promotion: trial timing and how intensively consumers use the service during the trial matter to effectiveness, particularly while quality is uncertain and changing.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The setting is one interactive television service and the conclusions come from an estimated model and simulations. The abstract provides no sample size or numeric policy effect; the result does not establish a general optimal free-trial duration for SaaS.
Possible founder application
Design trials around the user's chance to experience core value and the maturity of the product. Track activation and service quality during the trial alongside conversion, and test timing in your own setting.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract; full text access may vary
Publisher abstract and bibliographic record; abstract-level summary, without numeric effect sizes not reported there.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.