Ever notice how a “No thanks” button can make you feel weirdly judged? That is the whole point of today’s quick-hit tactic from Jay Schwedelson, and it can lift conversions fast with a simple two-button rewrite. Then things take a hard left into Jay’s personal dream for turning 50: two days on a farm, hanging with chickens, trying to feel like a functional adult.

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Best Moments:

(00:16) A five-second landing page tweak that can spike conversions without any tech headache

(00:57) The magic move: make the Yes button heroic and the No button painfully self-owning

(01:45) Big brand examples that use it and why it keeps working on us

(03:15) The lift by page type, including a big jump for newsletter signups

(03:42) The psychology behind it: framing effect and loss aversion make “No” feel like a loss

(06:36) Jay’s 50th birthday wish: live on a farm for two days and vibe with the chickens

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Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

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Pre-order Jay Schwedelson’s new book, Stupider People Have Done It (out April 21, 2026). All net proceeds are donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research—let’s kick cancer’s butt: https://www.amazon.com/Stupider-People-Have-Done-Marketing/dp/1637635206

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that. And I get excited whenever there are tactics that cost nothing. Take five seconds to try. You don't need to get your IT department involved and they can increase your conversions by over 20%. It doesn't matter if you're a business marketer, a consumer marketer, a nonprofit marketer.

Jay Schwedelson: This crushes it. So what are we talking about? We're talking about false choice button pairing. What? What does that even mean? And yes, big brands do this all the time. I'll give you a million examples. It crushes it. But if I said to you, okay. You're on this landing page, all right? And there are two buttons on the page.

Jay Schwedelson: One button says, yes, show me the playbook. And then another button says, no. I like wasting money. Which one are you gonna click? You're gonna click the one that says, yes. Show me the playbook. Right, because you don't wanna feel like a loser. You, you don't wanna be like, uh, no. I don't wanna be like, I don't, I don't wanna waste money.

Jay Schwedelson: You don't even realize it. It's in your subconscious. But when you frame two buttons like that and you have this thing called false choice pairing and button A, sounds like you're the hero of A. Of a Marvel movie. And button B sounds like you're still using Internet Explorer. You are gonna pick button A all the time.

Jay Schwedelson: And so. It's this idea of false choice button pairing that works so incredibly well and so many brands do it. Lemme give you a million different brand examples and lemme give you the stats and how you are gonna do it. Groupon does this all the time. With their daily deals, you know, they'll have sign up for free deals or it'll say, no thanks.

Jay Schwedelson: I hate saving money. You know, app Sumo will say, get insane deals, or, no thanks. I'm rich already. Dollar Shave Club uses it on a lot of their landing pages. Start my shave plan. No thanks. I like overpaying for razors. Casper, the bed company get 15% off and then the other button on that page is no thanks. I like bad sleep.

Jay Schwedelson: How about Shopify's partner program? They have it where it says Start building stores and then the other option says, no thanks. I don't like money. And it could even be for a conference, right? Digital marketer does it for their conferences all the time. Save my seat and then the other button says, no thanks.

Jay Schwedelson: I hate learning new things. You will see it more and more now that you're a little bit more aware of it, but you're really not picking an option, you're picking an identity. Right? Button A is basically saying, I'm ambitious, I'm proactive, I'm a go-getter, right? Button B says, I fear growth. I enjoy chaos. I like wasting money.

Jay Schwedelson: I microwave fish at work and make it smell like garbage all day. What do you think you're clicking now? World Data Research has done a ton of research on this topic, and there's some really cool data. So first off, false choice pairing increases conversion rates on offer pages for business offers. It increases by 24%.

Jay Schwedelson: Consumer offers 18%. When you have these two options, and that second button is kind of rude. On lead magnet pages, uh, having false choice buttons will increase your signups by 22%. On average, on free trial pages, 15% increase. Webinar registration pages, 17% increase and newsletter signups, a 28% increase. And there's actually real science behind it.

Jay Schwedelson: This is not some sort of TikTok gimmick or some sort of garbage like that. There's these two dudes, Daniel Kaman and Amos Ky. I definitely butchered their names. Whatever they call this, the framing effect, right? When your no button says something like, no, I like wasting money. It's basically a version of loss aversion.

Jay Schwedelson: No, people react more strongly to potential losses, right or negative identity implications than they do to neutral phrasing. Your brain would rather avoid feeling stupid. Then gain something good, right? And so why this works so well, nobody ultimately wants to be, you know, the villain in their own movie.

Jay Schwedelson: They don't, they want to seem like they're smarter, they feel better about themselves. They're not wasting money. They're not wasting time. All the different things. So when you're going ahead and you're setting up that page, right, that landing page for your offer, that newsletter, subscription page, that free trial page, right?

Jay Schwedelson: That thing for your lead magnet, whatever it is, and it could be a regular offer too. Let's say you sell a skincare product. Yes, fix my skin, or no, filters are enough. It can be for anything. It could be if you're a nonprofit page, yes. Help feed a family. No, I'll just scroll past. How about, yes, I need, how about for volunteers?

Jay Schwedelson: Yes. I wanna help. No, I'm too busy right now. This crushes it. If you've never tested it, it's slightly fun too. Makes your brand stand out a little bit. And yes, all these big real deal brands do this. This is not off brand. This is just framing. This is called marketing. This is how you win. Costs you nothing, takes five seconds.

Jay Schwedelson: Easy test to try. All right. I get so worked up, I always get worked up. Whatever I'm talking about, I get excited. I'm like, let's do it. Let's try it. I'll tell you what I'm not excited about. I'm gonna get into this since you didn't ask. This is a portion of the podcast where I talk about nonsense going on with me.

Jay Schwedelson: So, uh, I'm turning 50 this year, right? I know. You're like, really? I thought you were turning 70. So I'm turning 50 this year. The first week of April. And, uh, why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because my family, they're all like hyped. What are we gonna do for your 50th birthday? That's, I've been getting this question a lot from them.

Jay Schwedelson: And here's my problem. My problem is I don't care. I never care about my birthday. I know that's not like, I'm not trying to be cool. I don't know why. I just don't care. I think because I don't like going out with a big group of people and having to spend an evening with them because I'm antisocial. Um. So my family's like, what are we gonna do?

Jay Schwedelson: We gotta do something big for your 50th birthday. They go, what do you wanna do? Do you wanna have like all bring together all your friends or whatever? I'm like, absolutely not. So like, well, what do you want to do? So this is what I've been telling them, and they want to, they wanna beat me up. I said, what I would really like to do.

Jay Schwedelson: Is find a farm somewhere and I wanna live on a farm for like two days and I wanna get up with the chickens. I don't wanna milk cows and I want to do whatever you do on a farm for like two days because I'm not like a real dude. Like I get excited when I change a battery in something and it works.

Jay Schwedelson: That's my level of fixing stuff. Like I'm the worst. I I, it's not that I don't wanna be able to do it, I'm just not good at like stuff that. People can do. I'm not good at it. Um, and so I'm like, maybe I can go live on a farm for two days and just feel like salt of the earth, like I'm part of like, you know, real humanity or, or something like that.

Jay Schwedelson: And so I throw this idea out to my, my, my wife and my teenage kids. They're like, absolutely not. That sounds terrible. Why can't we go to like, you know, a spa or something? I'm like, I don't wanna do that. That sounds horrible. So I'm in this pickle here because I think when you get to these milestone birthdays, the people around you care more about it than you do.

Jay Schwedelson: Um, and anybody out there who lives on a farm, can I come stay with you for two days and take care of chickens? I'll probably wanna do it for 10 minutes and I'll probably wanna leave 'cause I'll probably smell disgusting and I'll be grossed out and, um, yeah, I don't even know what I'm talking about, but hey.

Jay Schwedelson: I appreciate you. Listen, I'll leave this thing a review, please. That's awesome. It helps to circulate the show and go to jay schon.com. We got a lot of stuff going on. Um, and uh, talk to you later.