Marcio
LinkedIn
Work
Growth designOct 2025

Putting the sign-up where readers are

One sign-up form in a media company’s articles closed a 1K-subscriber gap in 32 days and hit 2× the target by year-end.

2×the 1K sign-up target
~1Ksign-ups a month
10K+sign-ups in under a year
Newsletter · Email
Role
I owned
The idea, the design and the tracking. I proposed the form in the posts, designed it, named its events, set up GTM and GA4, and measured and reported the results.
Time
One week of design and two of build. Live on Oct 10, 2025, measured for a year.
Not me
The copy and the CRM integration (Marketing). The build (developers).
Tools
Figma, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics 4, RD Station (CRM).

Context

Even with the usual sign-ups, marketing expected to end 2025 about 1,000 short of its 30K goal. Closing that gap became the target. The sign-up lived on an old newsletters page, linked from the header menu. Readers were on the posts; the sign-up wasn’t.

Posts got 30M views; the sign-up page, 27Kpage views, 2025
Page views in 2025
Page typeViews
Posts30 million
Section pages3.3 million
Home2.3 million
Newsletters page27 thousand

Source: GA4, Jan–Dec 2025.

Decisions

Put the form inside the post Where they readIn the sidebar on desktop, right after the first paragraph on phones.
Count a view only when the form is seen Measure it rightNot when the page loads. Counting every page load would mix in readers who never saw the form.
One form for every newsletter Ready to scaleOnly the name and the description change. It became the standard sign-up on every post page.

Handoff

I specified the form in Figma for the developers: the visual, the interactions and the tracking, with the GA4 event each state fires.

Posts / Sign-up form on posts
Defaultcta_viewform on screen
JOTA Principal
Curadoria com informações direto ao ponto sobre o que realmente importa
Nome*E-mail *Insira um e-mail válido.Quero receberInscrição confirmadaVocê vai receber a JOTA Principal no seu e-mail.
Confirmedcta_signupconfirmation shown
JOTA Principal
Curadoria com informações direto ao ponto sobre o que realmente importa
Nome*E-mail *Insira um e-mail válido.Quero receberInscrição confirmadaVocê vai receber a JOTA Principal no seu e-mail.
Send failedcta_errorsend_failed
Não foi possível concluir sua inscrição. Tente novamente.Quero receber
Invalid emailcta_errorinvalid_email
E-mail *marcio@emailInsira um e-mail válido.Quero receber
Marcio RebouçasSep 2025cta_view fires when the form is on screen, not on page load. So the conversion rate only counts readers who saw it.
Marcio RebouçasSep 2025cta_signup fires only when the confirmation shows, so a failed send never counts.
Marcio RebouçasSep 2025cta_error carries error_type: send_failed or invalid_email. Neither counts as a sign-up.

Solution

Leadership proposed a test first: posts with 18% of all views, and a single newsletter. After the test, we launched it on 100% of posts, each section with its own newsletter.

1/2 · Desktop

Where they readIn the sidebar, next to the story, with a confirmation after sending.

Where they readOn phones, it comes right after the first paragraph.

Results

The form closed the gap in 32 days and reached 2× the target by the end of 2025. Marketing beat its 30K goal with 33K subscribers.

Sign-ups a month, from an 18% test to every post
Sign-ups per month
MonthSign-ups
Oct 2025 (from the 10th)598
Nov 2025903
Dec 2025766
Jan 2026991
Feb 2026857
Mar 2026873
Apr 2026920
May 20261,079
Jun 20261,090
Jul 2026989
Aug 20261,079
Sign-ups
2,486
Conversion rate
0.29%
Period
Oct 10 – Jan 8

JOTA Principal on Opinion & Analysis posts only, 18% of post views.

Today
Still live a year later, as a second way in: readers sign up without leaving the post.
What I can’t claim
That one newsletter per topic works better. The rollout took the form from 18% to 100% of posts, but sign-ups a day grew only about 20%.
Next time
Test the email-only form. And compare the topic newsletters and the general newsletter on the same posts, so we know if the topic matters.
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