Logged-out experience

Doubling Top-of-Funnel Account Creation on Instagram

The problem

Instagram’s logged-out experience, the content users saw before they had an account, was doing very little to convert curious visitors into new accounts. The pages were beautiful but passive. They showed Instagram rather than communicating why someone should join it. The conversion rate from logged-out visit to account creation was 0.8%.

Why don't users join?

How I knew

I spent time in the logged-out experience as an outside observer and tracked what questions a first-time visitor would naturally have. The content answered almost none of them. What kind of content is on this platform? Is it for people like me? What will I actually see after I sign up? The experience looked like a product marketing page rather than an invitation. New user research confirmed, comprehension of Instagram’s value proposition was low among people who had never used it.

My goal

Design logged-out content that moved visitors from passive observation to genuine curiosity, then from genuine curiosity to account creation.

My process

I reframed the problem: this wasn’t a homepage copy problem, it was a relevance problem. Visitors didn’t join because nothing on the page felt like it was for them specifically. I designed a content strategy that surfaced personalized interest signals: showing visitors content related to things they were likely to care about based on entry signals, with copy that connected those interests to what joining Instagram would unlock for them.

I ran this as part of the broader experimentation program I was building at the same time, which meant every version was tested and every change was measured. It took several rounds of iteration before the winning approach became clear: leading with specific, recognizable interests rather than generic appeals to creativity or connection.

Outcomes

Top-of-funnel account creation: 0.8% to 1.8% (+125%)
Content strategy drove measurable lift in new account activation from the logged-out surface

What I learned

Relevance is the most underrated lever in acquisition content. Generic value propositions don’t convert. The moment we made the content feel like it was speaking to a specific person’s actual interests rather than a hypothetical new user, the numbers moved. Whenever possible, that principle has influenced every acquisition and onboarding project I’ve done since.