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Marketing Academy · Field Work●Conversion Rate Optimization
All projects·From: Form Optimization
MiniTeardown· 25 minutes

The Toll Booth Audit: Tearing Down a Vendor Sign-Up Form

Instacart

Objective: Given a synthetic 9-field vendor sign-up form specimen, identify which fields are legitimate friction and which are unjustified toll charges, using the lesson's Audit/Reduce framework.

You're a growth marketer at Instacart reviewing the sign-up form for a new grocery-partner onboarding page. Partner activations have been flat for two months and the team suspects the form itself is the leak.

Read the specimen form field-by-field. For each field, decide whether it earns its place or should be removed, combined, or deferred to post-signup.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Sheets
FreeScore each field against the audit questions and log the defect list

No account friction, easy to share the finished audit with a team

Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)

Hotjar(optional)
FreemiumWatch real session recordings to confirm which field visitors actually abandon on

Turns the theoretical teardown into a verified, evidence-backed priority list

No access? Google Sheets defect log alone is enough to start the fix backlog

The process

Specimens to review

This form has 11 fields, all but 2 marked required, on a single unbroken page with a generic 'Submit' button. Identify every defect that is costing this form completions.

Sample output
Instacart Partner Sign-Up (specimen, synthetic)
1. First Name *
2. Last Name *
3. Store Name *
4. Store Phone Number *
5. Store Email *
6. Confirm Store Email *
7. Create a Password *
8. Confirm Password *
9. Estimated Monthly Order Volume (dropdown) *
10. How did you hear about us? (free text, optional)
11. Preferred Onboarding Call Time (optional)

[ Submit ]

Specimen: synthetic, realistic

Final deliverable

A scored defect list ranking each field by severity, with a specific fix (remove, combine, or defer) for every flagged item.

See a reference example
Sample output
Chewy Autoship Sign-Up, defect log (excerpt)

CRITICAL: Confirm Email field, duplicate check, remove
CRITICAL: Password created before any value shown, defer to post-signup
MODERATE: First/Last Name, combine into Full Name
MODERATE: 'Submit' button, change to 'Start My Autoship'

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

  • Flags both confirmation fields as critical defects
  • Correctly identifies the dropdown as passing the audit, not a defect
  • Proposes a concrete fix, not just a complaint, for every flagged field