SaaS Strategists,

Long time no see.

I was away for a summer holiday, enjoying affogatos on the beach. ☕️ 🍦 

Hope you were ok with the strategies being a bit delayed in the past month.

I’ll try to keep them coming more in Q4. 🚀 

Today I’m bringing you a strategy I covered in my webinar a few months back.

Let’s dive right in! 👇️ 

🔓 How non-authenticated sharing can boost your product adoption

Question: How many times have you closed a page when you got prompted with a sign-up page?

Answer: Far too many.

The friction of account creation is real. 🏎️💨

If you want your product to convert better, you need to remove it.

🎯 Strategy goal

Remove friction and increase engagement by allowing users to instantly share content or data without requiring the recipient to create an account or sign in. 🤝

🧩 Real-world examples

Airtable

Airtable naturally lets you share databases with anyone, without them needing an Airtable account to view it.

Their product adoption comes from the other person discovering the product firsthand.

Notion

Notion has a feature called “Share to Web” that allows you to publish any page as a shareable website.

Loom

Easily share videos with anyone - no need to authenticate to view them.

Figma

Figma allows you to controls access levels, for example - “can view prototypes only”.

Now imagine if any one of these SaaS companies asked the user to create an account to view what was sent to them.

Do you still think they’d grow as they did?

I’m not so sure.

🛠️ Enhancing the strategy

01) Built-in CTAs on shared pages 📲

Add soft conversion prompts such as “Duplicate to your workspace” or “Adapt template”.

This naturally draws the user to create an account and start from a template instead from a blank page. 📄

Induces familiarity and product learning-curve. 🧑‍🎓

02) Smart personalization 🎨

Show prompts or popups such as “You’re viewing this as a guest. Want to personalize it?”.

This can help users want to add to what’s shared with them. 🧱

03) Time-limited access ⏱️

Induce FOMO with messages such as “This link will expire in 24h, sign up to keep access in your account”.

🧪 Why this works?

Journal of Interactive Marketing: Lowering the barrier of entry taps into user momentum, allowing faster value delivery and increasing the likelihood of product adoption and sharing.

💎 Best use cases

• Presentation software: Allow easy export and presentation sharing as well as template duplication. 🎥

• Lead generation platforms: Share lead lists with your team without the need to onboard the whole team into your software (yet). 💵

• Online forms: Straightforward, capture answers, and nudge the user to try out the platform with a soft CTA at the end. 📄

🌯 Summary

Non-authenticated sharing works best when users can easily publish specific pages of your software to the web, creating an easy way of achieving the network effect. 🌐

This helps your software get discovered as well, since this strategy pairs really well with SEO.

Your users literally become your product ambassadors in a certain way. 🤵‍♂️

So the next time you’re greedy on the login screen - just allow the other party to view what’s shared with them.

You might just get better results.

Enjoyed this issue?

Forward it to a friend!

Ognjen Gatalo

Chief SaaS Strategist ☁️