Top Form Optimization Tips - Webinar

Conversion rate experts share some of their best advice to improve your form experience

Khalid Saleh has been in the conversion optimization game for over 20 years. In this short video session he shares some of his thoughts on how to deliver a good form experience for your customers and greater conversion rates for your business. He covers topics like:

• What are the UX issues he consistently sees across his clients' online forms
• How you diagnose and qualify those issues
• Why those issues occur
• Which sectors benefit the most from form optimization
• Things to consider on lead generation forms
• His top pieces of advice when optimizing forms

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If you'd like more tips on optimizing forms, check out Zuko's Big Guide on the topic.

Or, download our step by step guide on using data to improve your form and checkout experience.

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Transcript: Top Form Optimization Tips Webinar

Welcome & housekeeping

00:00
Hello everyone, and welcome to the festive edition of Zuko’s webinar — our last one of the year.

Today we’re joined by Khalid Saleh, CEO of Invesp CRO Experts in North America. As always at Zuko, the topic is form optimisation — with practical advice and actionable UX tips.

The format will be informal. I’ve got some questions for Khalid, and we’ll also take questions from the audience as we go. Please feel free to drop them into the chat and we’ll answer them when we can.

A quick housekeeping note: the recording will be available afterwards. We’ll share it and send an email around, so there’s no need to take notes.

For anyone who doesn’t know Zuko, we’re a form analytics tool that helps you understand when, where, and why people abandon online forms — so you can fix issues and improve conversion rates.

I’m Alun, the Managing Director. I’ll now hand over to Khalid to introduce himself.

Guest introduction

01:13
Khalid: Hello everyone. My name is Khalid Saleh.

People often struggle with my name — but if you listen to hip-hop and know DJ Khaled, I always tell people I’m the original DJ Khaled. He just stole the title from me. I don’t do music, but I am a CRO DJ.

We’ve been doing conversion optimisation for nearly two decades. We started in North America before conversion optimisation was even called “conversion rate optimisation.”

Over the years we’ve worked with large and small organisations. On the large side: eBay, Target, Special Olympics, O’Reilly, and hundreds of smaller companies.

I always say — jokingly but seriously — we’ve mastered CRO because we made a lot of silly mistakes early on. I look back at talks I gave in 2006 and 2007 and feel embarrassed. I can’t believe people were taking notes!

But we’ve learned a huge amount over the years. We now work with clients in 12 different countries, and we’ve run more A/B tests than any other agency worldwide — about 25,000 tests and counting.

That’s my quick one-minute intro.

Common UX problems in online forms

02:44
Alun: You’ve worked on a huge range of CRO projects, and you must have seen countless forms. What are the UX issues you consistently see across clients’ online forms?

Khalid: Most companies spend a lot of time persuading people to convert — focusing on design and copy. They do all the hard work to get someone to say: “Yes, I’ll go ahead.”

But then, when it comes to the form itself — the actual conversion point — many marketers hand it over to developers and say: “Just build something quickly with the fields we want.”

And that’s where disaster happens.

Developers are amazing at writing code, but they’re not always great at creating simple, easy-to-use forms.

Marketers also contribute to the problem, because there’s always the temptation to ask for as much information as possible.

But the big question is: do you really need all that information?

Asking for unnecessary information

04:32
Khalid: I was signing up for a free service recently. I was happy to give my name and Gmail address.

Then they asked for my phone number. I thought: why do you need that?

So I gave them a fake number. Then they asked me to validate it. At that point I just left.

They went from a free service to creating unnecessary friction. And I thought: goodbye — I’ll find another website.

Alun: I’m always tempted to include a field that says “fake phone number” if it improves conversion rates.

Khalid: It’s funny, but if you validate phone numbers you’ll be shocked how many people give fake ones. And it’s useless data.

Unless you’re going to do something meaningful with it — not because you might use it a year from now — don’t ask for it.

Every extra field increases commitment. And not everyone is ready to commit.

If you need a field, explain why

06:02
Alun: Phone number is a classic example. Many e-commerce sites ask for it, and customers often wonder why.

We’ve seen success where businesses add copy next to the field saying something like:
“We only need this in case there’s a delivery issue.”

Conversion rates improve because customers understand the reason.

Khalid: Exactly. Most forms are designed as a demand:
“I require this information, otherwise you’re not allowed in.”

Whenever you add a field, ask yourself:
Can I justify this field to the customer?

If you can justify it with a good explanation, people will give the information.

If you can’t justify it, remove the field.

Breaking large forms into steps

07:29
Khalid: There’s also a third option: when you ask for the information.

Start with the absolute basics — name and email. Capture that first.

Then, on the next step, you can ask for additional information with context:
“We can tailor our service better if you provide X.”

Instead of forcing users to complete a 16-field form in one go, break it into stages.

It’s fascinating how many large companies still ask for massive amounts of information just to download a simple white paper — IBM, Oracle, Salesforce — asking for budget, job title, company size.

The user is thinking: “I just want a PDF.”

Grouping and structuring form fields

09:26
Khalid: Even when the form needs 7 or 8 fields, you have to group the information logically.

Some people just throw fields onto the page: name, title, company, email, etc.

But the layout matters. A well-structured form feels easier and more natural to complete.

Audience question: What if we really need to ask something?

10:16
A question from the audience:
“If we really need to ask something, what should we do — and how will it impact conversion rates?”

Khalid: Every additional field can reduce conversion rates.

A form with 3 fields will usually convert better than one with 10.

The correct number of fields depends on the context.

But you must remember: the customer has power. They can ignore your emails, ignore your calls, abandon the form, and leave.

If you make a promise at the beginning of a journey, you must fulfil it.

I recently filled out a form that was 10 steps long because they promised an estimate at the end. But at the last step, they asked for my home address and said they’d email quotes later.

That wasn’t the promise they made at the beginning — so I left.

Industry example: insurance forms

13:20
Alun: We usually advise putting easy fields like name/email early. But we’ve seen this flip in the insurance industry.

Users often want a quote first, before giving any personal details. If they think they’ll be spammed, they drop out straight away.

So some successful insurance journeys collect vehicle details first, provide the quote, and then ask for contact details afterwards.

Khalid: That makes complete sense.

Some industries require trust first. In those cases, you earn the right to ask for personal details by providing value upfront.

Pre-filling known information

14:48
Khalid: Another common mistake is not pre-filling information you already know.

I was filling out a health insurance form with a company I’d been paying for years. They already had my name, email, phone number — but still made me enter everything again.

That’s lazy development.

If you already know something, pre-fill it and allow the user to edit it.

Even geo-targeting can help. But if you guess wrong, users must be able to correct it.

Diagnosing and quantifying form issues

17:18
Alun: We’ve talked about common issues, but how do you diagnose and quantify them properly for a client?

Khalid: There are several approaches:

• User testing, ideally recruiting real users directly from your website
• Form analytics, which highlights where drop-off occurs
• Session recordings, watching how users interact with the form

User testing is most powerful when you observe real users trying to complete a journey.

Form analytics is extremely valuable because it shows patterns across thousands of users — not just individual sessions.

Session recordings can be useful, but they can also be boring because you’re watching one session at a time. The best approach is combining both.

Creating hypotheses without “hard data”

20:44
A question came in:
“How can we base hypotheses on session recordings if stakeholders want data to back up every test?”

Khalid: There are many valid sources for hypotheses:

• Analytics data
• Form analytics insights
• Session recordings
• User research and usability testing
• Competitive analysis
• Expert reviews

Not every hypothesis needs a spreadsheet of evidence behind it.

When a company hires us, I tell them: for the first couple of months, tests will be based on expert opinion while we collect data.

That’s why they hire experts.

And ultimately, A/B testing lets the customer decide. Your visitors judge whether your hypothesis is correct.

Which sectors benefit most from form optimisation?

23:05
Khalid: Honestly, every sector benefits.

E-commerce is great because conversion improvements translate directly into revenue.

SaaS is similar — more subscriptions, more trials, more paid users.

Lead generation is harder because the outcome depends on the sales team. You can generate high-quality leads, but if sales follow up late or poorly, conversion still suffers.

We once worked with a company generating great leads — but sales were following up 7 to 8 days later. That’s far too late. Ideally, follow-up should happen within an hour — preferably within 15 minutes.

In lead gen, optimisation isn’t just about the form — it’s about the whole process after submission.

Lead quality vs lead quantity

26:17
Alun: Lead gen is tricky because you can increase form conversion but reduce lead quality.

Some qualification is needed — the question is how much.

Khalid: Exactly. There’s a balance.

If the sales team is sitting idle, you may want more leads, even if they’re less qualified.

If sales is overloaded, you need fewer but higher-quality leads, and that’s when you add more qualification fields.

Top form optimisation tips

27:12
Alun: If someone held a gun to your head and asked for your top 1–2 pieces of advice for optimising forms, what would you say?

Khalid: Most of the heavy lifting should happen before the form.

Your site copy and design should guide users into the form smoothly.

Then:

1. Make a clear promise at the top of the form, and fulfil it at the end.
2. Only ask for what you truly need. If you need more, break it into multiple steps.
3. Improve the UX of the form: group fields logically, reduce friction, and fix validation behaviour.

One major mistake is validation that triggers too early. If someone is still typing their phone number, don’t tell them it’s wrong before they’ve finished.

Also, error handling matters: if the user submits and there’s an error, take them directly to it.

Government forms: a cautionary tale

29:02
Khalid: I filled out the US healthcare government form — it’s a 16–17 step process. It asked for the height and weight of my children.

I didn’t have all the information, so I created an account and returned later.

But when I came back, it made me go through all 17 steps again.

This is basic usability: if there’s an error, show it. If the journey is long, don’t force users to restart.

That site cost $1.5 billion to build — and it feels like they ignored every usability principle.

Closing thoughts: error messages and failed submissions

31:17
Alun: Quick wins matter. Fixing forms is often one of the fastest ways to improve conversions.

We see error messaging as one of the most consistent problems. Many sites show vague “computer says no” errors, without explaining what went wrong or how to fix it.

We also recommend analysing what happens after a failed submission — what users try to do next, where they click, and whether they abandon immediately.

Wrap-up

32:50
We’re coming towards the end of the session, so we’ll open it up for final questions.

If you’d like to connect with either of us, LinkedIn is a great place to reach out. Khalid can answer broader CRO questions, and Zuko specialises in forms.

The recording will be shared afterwards, and you’ll have access via email.

Thank you again Khalid for your time — we could have gone on all evening!

And thank you everyone for joining. Happy holiday season wherever you are, and hopefully we’ll see you on another webinar soon.

Bye!

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