It’s not obvious at all. We have tested other sticky CTAs that absolutely did not help. There are a lot more subtleties (as I felt we discussed responsibly and honestly in the article) than just “CTA visible = good” to whether this works or not like the brand, the product, the page. For example if you had a sticky CTA on Ferrari’s website would it get more people to drop $100k on a car? Probably not. They aren’t deciding to purchase on a whim.

Oooh, I really like the dropaway nav. The companies we work with seem to always go with "show...show...show...OMG HIDE ALL LINKS BEHIND THE HAMBURGER RIGHT NOW" This makes a lot more sense.

IT IS. but very few (ecommerce) sites do this on mobile! It is absolutely, positively, a navbar

This is true: "anything that requires scrolling will get no increased traffic" so we take it to mean that you should figure out the most important links and show them first and foremost.

I'd be curious about people trying it in other industries as well. e.g. inside mobile apps if you want users to take more of a certain action I imagine a test like this to unhide that action from some interior menu would be worthwhile.

You would think but in our tests the more you expose links to products the more those variations win. I think even if you know where to find something, actually seeing it without having to ask for it changes your interaction. That is what the data is suggesting. Not every single time but more often than not that seems to be the case.

EDIT: just realized another currently trending article on here about most hated UX trends literally has the hamburger menu as #1: https://icons8.com/articles/most-hated-ui-ux-design-pattern/ and mentions just writing the word "menu" gets 20% more clicks than the icon.

I know, but VERY few ecommerce sites do it

hahahaha