MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Thank you to InterstateBatteries.com for submitting its View All Batteries page for an optimization review. We hope you find this diagnosis helpful for testing new ideas and improving results.

You’ve probably heard of Interstate Batteries, whether it was while getting your last oil change, paying too much for your last set of tires, or even under your hood. Interstate Batteries is one of the premier automobile battery companies in the country.

But did you know they sell batteries for everything? I certainly did not. In fact, “batteries for every need” is what they told us is their value proposition.

Ironically, the biggest problem they may have to overcome is not on the page below, but rather correcting the misconception that they only sell automobile batteries.

THE CHALLENGE: Improve usability of the View All Batteries page by making it easier for visitors to quickly find the battery they need.

Let’s look at the page to diagnose problem areas and provide actionable recommendations (click to enlarge):

Conversion diagnosis: 5 ways to improve this page’s results

1. Optimize your product

If you’re Interstate Batteries, you have several obstacles to overcome:

• Common misconception that you only sell automobile batteries
• Your company name, URL, and logo conveys that you only sell “interstate” batteries
• Huge competition! (Do you also have batteries to power a drum major bunny?)

Outside of the page, you are going to have to make strides to inform consumers that you do have “batteries for every need.” Whether it’s accomplished with your PR, branding, or advertising departments, this is a product problem that this blog post cannot solve. But it is a very important issue to address as indicated by the MarketingExperiments Optimization Sequence:

Our research has shown it is most important to optimize your product first, then the presentation of your product (your web site), and finally your channels, such as PPC ads and natural search. Improving your product may include its name, perception, quality, and so on.

I’m definitely not recommending changing your name or URL as you have a significant amount of brand equity. Interstate Batteries is well known across many demographics, the logo is memorable, and consumers trust the quality of product. But somehow, consumers must simultaneously identify Interstate Batteries with BOTH your flagship product and also your secondary products.

Take Nike for example. Everyone identifies them as an athletic shoe manufacturer. But at the same time, the vast majority of consumers are acutely aware of the fact that they sell clothing, soccer balls, footballs, watches, and even sunglasses.

2. Effectively communicate the page’s value proposition

You have utilized color (red font) to emphasize that you sell every type of battery. You have quantified the word “every” by stating you sell over 16,000 different batteries. These are both good starts to communicating your value proposition, but it’s incomplete.

You need to take a more holistic approach to expressing your value proposition. This means ensuring that every element of your page either states or supports the value proposition:

• Design
• Copy (including font style)
• Images
• Colors (if you sell natural products, use green)
• Logo
• Price

And every element on your page, those listed above and others not mentioned, must be strategically positioned so that you “supervise” the thought process of the visitor. Whether they are at the top, bottom, or side navigation of the page, something should state or support the value proposition.

Recommendations:

• Headline – Place it at the top left where the eyepath starts and make it a larger font.
• Intro paragraph – Use a bold font to highlight key points such as “16,000 different batteries.”  Consider replacing it with three bullet points that are easy to scan.
• Button copy – Do not use “submit”!  How about “Find my Battery”?
• Image – Instead of making a visitor work to see all the batteries (scanning horizontally, moving their eyes closer to the screen to see a small image, scrolling), immediately show an image at the top that has 5-10 diverse types of batteries. This will give someone the picture of what’s available.
• Sorting functionality – Take a look at sites like Best Buy, Amazon, or eBay which are all companies that sell a variety of products. One page element that communicates “variety” is a left column that narrows results by type, function, component, price, and more. If I see that you have batteries that cost $5 and batteries that cost $500, I’ll know that you sell a large variety.

3. Make it EASIER for customers to find the right product

Q: What can I do on this page?

A: Take a long time scanning back and forth to figure out exactly what you sell and if you sell what I need.

That’s not a good answer. Instead you want your customers to say “quickly and easily find the battery I need.” It’s part of our job as marketers to make it as easy as possible for someone to buy from us. That means reducing the difficulty and time elapsed to get from point A (motivation to buy a product) to point B (adding that product to cart).

One way to do this is to add the homepage’s “Battery Finder” selection box to this category page. That will give visitors to this page the same opportunity to narrow their choices with a three-step process, especially if they overlooked this feature on the homepage.

Another option is to emphasize the search box as the primary objective of this page. Currently, your search box is tucked away up in the header. And if that’s not enough to make it difficult to find, there are a lot of heavy images drawing the eyepath away from the search box. Test changes that will make the search feature more prominent, such as moving it or setting it off with visual cues, to see if usage increases.

4. Reduce the number of steps to get to purchase

Current process:

Six steps just to find a simple AA battery!

A six-step process, whether it’s for a battery or a sailboat, gives the visitor too much time and opportunity to exit the process. Don’t turn a sprint into a marathon.

Implementing the recommendations in diagnosis 3 will help reduce the number of steps to get to a purchase. You may also consider adding some JavaScript to each one of the links so that all six steps are located on the first page.

Here is one example to test:

Finally, review your metrics platform to see where people are dropping off. If most people exit on the “chemistry” page, then you can speculate that either that word or concept may be confusing to your average customer. In that case, you may want to add some clarification either in the form of copy on the page or a tool tip.

5. Take advantage of your (empty) shopping cart indicator

This page follows the typical approach of ecommerce websites with regard to notifying customers how many items are in their shopping cart. When there are no items in the cart, the shopping cart says no items.

The customer probably knows when they haven’t pressed an “add to cart” button, so this indicator is not providing any value.  Instead of letting this space go to waste, take advantage of it by communicating information such as discounts, shipping rate, free shipping, or secure shopping.

We’ve found through testing that clarifying shipping information can significantly reduce shopping cart abandonment rate. This is because many online shoppers will add something to the shopping cart and click into it only to see the shipping price. This strategy manages the customer’s expectations. If they expect to see $5 shipping and instead see $10, then you may lose them — not because of product quality, but simply because of shipping.

Here’s an example to help visualize the strategy:

or:

For more tactics and suggestions on how to optimize an eretail website, join us for our Sept. 30 web clinic: Ecommerce Optimization: A holiday playbook for procrastinators.

Thank you to Nature.org for submitting the carbon footprint calculator page for an optimization review. We hope you find this diagnosis helpful for testing new ideas and improving results.

Nature.org is a site for environmentalists and people interested in all things green. For over 50 years, the Nature Conservancy has been raising awareness and money to protect ecologically important lands and waters.

The challenge: not enough people know their carbon footprint, nor are they calculating it when given the chance. This not only has an impact on environmental awareness, but for Nature.org, it can also translate to an impact on the organization’s support and fundraising.

Let’s look at a key page — the carbon footprint calculator page — to diagnose some problem areas and offer solutions for increasing calculator completions.

Here’s the carbon footprint calculator landing page:

Conversion diagnosis: 5 ways to improve this page’s results

1. Use dark text on white background

As online marketers, our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to perform the action we want them to, whether it is buying a product, creating an account, or calculating their carbon footprint. Even though there is a high contrast between the text and background, this text is still difficult to read. Adding difficulty or friction to your web page, whether moderate or high, causes an undue intensity of effort to complete.

There’s a good reason that few books use white fonts on dark pages: the dark background overpowers and eventually absorbs the white text. It might be legible, but tests have shown that it’s easier to read and engage with dark text on a light background, and that’s the result you want from this page and process.

2. Communicate the page’s value proposition

For many visitors, simply knowing their carbon footprint may not present a high enough value to continue through a six-step process. A long process is a huge source of annoyance and fatigue. Your visitors have to make the decision to give up valuable time that could be spent elsewhere. So the page must clearly communicate the benefits of knowing the carbon footprint and ensure that the perceived value of those benefits outweighs the time commitment involved in the process. 

Tell me that knowing my carbon footprint will allow me to do x, y, and z. Tell me how knowing my carbon footprint directly relates to saving the Earth. And remember, specificity converts!

At the same time, it’s important not to overwhelm the visitor with so much information that they get distracted from the main objective of the page. The information must be provided in a quickly accessible format that matches the prospect’s thought process. Consider using bullet points that are easy to scan and guide the visitor’s eyepath toward the button.

3. Clarify the length of the process

Let’s assume I’m motivated to find out what my carbon footprint is and you’ve convinced me of the value that information provides. Next I want to know how much work is involved to get there, that is, the number of steps and time commitment. That information is difficult to ascertain on the current page.

• The color and shape make the tabs look like separate content instead of a progression.
• The copy does not indicate how long it will take or how many steps there are.
• On the second step, the visitor may be surprised at unexpected work and decide to exit.

Consider indicating in the copy how long the carbon calculator will take. For example, “The carbon calculator takes less than 2 minutes to complete.” Also, use a progress bar or graphics that visitors will recognize as indicating successive steps. For example:

With a progress bar, consider design characteristics such as keeping all tabs the same color except for the current step (highlighted with a new color or shade) and using directional arrows or similar visual cues to indicate that there is a progression of steps.

4. Reduce the number of steps

A six-step process, whether it’s a carbon footprint calculator or a checkout process, is intimidating. The perceived length may cause many people to reconsider and drop out before completion. Even if a process is actually fast and easy to complete, the impression of length the visitor already has in their head is difficult to overcome (like first impressions).

Review the required questions and determine if there is an easier way (fewer questions?) to calculate the carbon footprint. This may reduce the accuracy of the results, but you have to ask yourself, “Are we willing to give up a little accuracy in order to get a lot more completions?”

If you haven’t already done so, you should also consider installing a metrics platform to see where visitors are dropping out of the process. This information is vital for determining how to streamline the process.  For example, if you have a high clickthrough rate on steps 1-3, but 81% of visitors exit on step 4, then you’ve found the step you need to focus on to improve completions.

5. Avoid giving your visitor multiple objectives

After reading the introductory paragraphs and preparing to click on the “calculate” button, several visitors might get distracted by the links for “Join the online community” and “help stop climate change” just beneath the calculate buttons. All of the forward momentum created by the calculator copy is interrupted by confusion surrounding where to click next.

I’m sure Nature.org wants visitors to take both of those actions, but right now? At the very point where I’m about to proceed to step 2 of the carbon footprint calculator?

Strategically position these objectives in the best place. In this case, that would be when visitors receive their carbon footprint score, realize the impact they’re making on the planet, and feel compelled to take action. As soon as they read their score, place a big, bright button that says something like, “Offset your carbon footprint” — and send them on to the next step on the journey.

In a typical Landing Page Analysis, I methodically walk through a page identifying problems and providing potential solutions for testing.  But for the landing page featured in this post, I’d like to recommend a more radical solution.

My primary recommendation: Get rid of the first step altogether!

The landing page was submitted by a recent attendee to a MarketingExperiments webinar, ShrinkYourself.com.  The site’s name is a pretty clever pun as their primary product is a 12-week weight loss program that focuses on the connection between emotional health and dietary improvement.

Here’s the page the site submitted:

A landing page walk through includes identifying friction, anxiety, and ways to improve communication of the value proposition but one of my favorite parts of the analysis process is to explore calls to action to see where they’ll take you.

What happens when I click the button?

In this case, the landing page sends visitors to a second page that, with a few tweaks, could take the place of the first page.  Check out the next page:

That first landing page is really nothing more than an extra step prospects must take to get to the primary offer and an extra step in a sales process, much like extra pounds, can be a big source of friction.

In addition, the second page has some key elements that would actually be more effective on a first page:

• 100% money back guarantee starburst
• Specific bullet points about the product components

I’m not suggesting entirely eliminating the first page. Instead, use aspects of it to modify the second step to make that one a legitimate landing page.  Modification includes using the headline, sub-headline, and copy from the first page, all of which are pretty strong.  On your revised landing page, consider placing the credibility indicators on the left column as well.

Combining the two pages would take a process that’s currently a little top-heavy and make it leaner. Keep in mind, it may be that your current landing page works well. Perhaps your ideal prospects need a longer period of discovery before signing up for the program. Or it may be that a unnecessary steps mean that folks abandon your pages in favor of a program whose streamlined single-page registration form suggests  quicker weight loss results.

But you’ll never know unless you test it.

Good luck!  Let us know if you decide to test this strategy and what your results are.

Remember the intensity of focus you had at that second-grade birthday party where you had five seconds to memorize the location of the piñata, or the donkey’s tail-less rump, before the blindfold descended?

Don’t you wish you could get that kind of focus from prospects now?

Unfortunately, the grown-ups perusing your pages are subject to endless distractions. But try applying a variation on the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey technique to your landing pages, just to see how easy it is for the adults you’re courting to find the targets you want them to find when they’re looking at your pages.

Inspired by a new tool that provides free five-second usability testing, I decided to apply the same technique to a landing page submitted for optimization by a recent attendee of a MarketingExperiments web clinic.

How the five-second usability test works

First, imagine you only have five seconds to look at the page below.  It’s not a contest, or spy training. Just relax your eyes and try to take in the page as a first time viewer would.

Second, cover your computer screen with a piece of paper and ask yourself how much you remember about what you just saw.

Structure your reminiscences with these questions:

• What is the page about?
• Which elements stood out?
• Can I describe them?

Third, pretend that the blank paper is a map of the landing page you just saw. Try and recreate the page from memory. Simply put a dot or draw a box on each section of the page and write down what you think was there.

Ready? I tested it with this page, submitted by one of our web clinic participants:

Five seconds with Virtual Classroom

After my five-second stare-down with Virtual Classroom, a site that offers teachers and students conferencing, chat and customizable on-screen whiteboard options for virtual classroom experiences, here’s what I remembered seeing:

Five-second test view

Scary, no? Give a prospect five full seconds and what he remembers most about all your hard work is “a bunch of icons.”

Still, as reality checks go, this five-second test is a useful one because it underscores the difference between marketer perception and prospect perception. I’m sure it wasn’t the intention of this page to have their verification box overshadow the value proposition.

Applying the Conversion Sequence to Virtual Classroom

Once you’ve tried the five-second test (or even pulled some innocent victim off the street to try it for you), apply what you’ve learned to your next optimization tests. Using the MarketingExperiments Conversion Sequence to structure your pages around a prospect’s thought sequence may increase your chances of being remembered, and remembered accurately, for what you want to be remembered for: the goods or services you provide.

Let’s see how focusing on three key elements from the sequence could help the Virtual Classroom landing page increase conversions …

1. Clarity of Value Proposition

Because of the size and color of the word “free,” my eye completely neglects the primary headline at the top left area of the page. Instead of instantly knowing what the product is and why I need it, I am forced to read through small copy. What’s more, the copy is in large paragraph form which many visitors will not have the attention span to finish.

Make the main headline stand out more than the sub-headline. Place the word “free” in it and make sure to communicate the essence of what your product is. You need to set a context here for how the user will experience the rest of the page.

2. Friction

I know there is a lot of good stuff adjacent to each one of the icons, but the three equally weighted columns makes it difficult to digest all of that information. I read the top two and then immediately become distracted by the icons in the next column and then the form on the right.

Each one of the benefits listed adds to the value proposition of the product, but the current design creates so much difficulty-oriented friction in the form of page flow disruption, that the benefits don’t impact the visitor as much as they should.

Instead, focus on the five or six best benefits, and make those the central message of the page. The others can be mentioned in a small chart or pop-up. If your offer is totally free, you don’t have to do too much selling. You just have to make it easy to sign up.

3. Anxiety

From the blindfolded usability test, you see that the word verification was one of the four elements that immediately stood out to me. Now this is not a bad thing.  It shows that you are concerned about fraud and the visitor’s protection.

But, it is so much more prominent than the product description and benefits, my eyes are drawn to it and it’s kind of threatening me, telling me that I if I stick around, I will eventually have to sign up for something. This makes me nervous since five seconds in to my engagement with the page I’m not certain what it is I will potentially be signing up for, much less if I’m willing to.

Since this is a two-step process, can you put the word verification on the next page? If not, just make sure you control the visitor’s eyepath leading them systematically from headline to key product benefits (and after this point, hopefully, they are primed for commitment), then to the form.

Ready to take off the blindfold?

Using this five-second test will lend you the perspective of a new visitor and enable you to quickly identify elements that may be problematic to conversion: the areas you didn’t intend to emphasize but are the ones that a prospect sees first.

Sometimes we let optimization become more complicated than it really is. Essentially, we’re just trying to take the blindfold off our prospects and help them achieve their aim.

Anna Jacobson contributed mightily to this post.

What can you do when your order path is eight pages long and “corporate headquarters” has strict policies that essentially tie your Web marketing hands behind your back?

Fighting the system, or sulking around the office out and aggravating your co-workers would get you nowhere. Your only option is to accept the parameters you have to work within and find a solution that gets results.

The MarketingExperiments research team was recently confronted with this situation (not the first or last time). One of our research partners had very limited options with their order process. All of our best practices pointed to removing several steps, eliminating unnecessary fields, and reducing friction and anxiety. But none of the strategies we initially proposed were acceptable.

Now what? How could we break out of the constraints to improve results?

Every online marketing professional is familiar with the idea of the order process as a funnel. From the start of the process, say your landing page, the number of prospective buyers gradually erodes with each ensuing page.

With that in mind, we took the path element with the highest impact on abandonment and moved it to the last possible step. The objective was to get prospects as deep into the funnel as possible before they ran into the most anxiety-inducing part of the process: facing a decision to submit sensitive information.

The results? Even we were surprised by the impact of this change: Our partner achieved an 86% increase in conversions compared to the original order process. Look for more details on our tests with this partner in our upcoming Web Clinics.

Let’s suppose you have taken a few marketing courses and have created a fundamentally sound webpage with all the bells and whistles . . . clear headline, natural eyepath, low friction, credibility indicators, etc.

And let’s suppose with 2% conversion, your sales are at an all-time high. Should you accept this as the best you can do or is it possible to achieve 10% conversion?

Think of it this way, if only 2 people out of 100 who entered a retail store actually made a purchase, we would naturally assume something is categorically wrong. Whether it be the products, customer service, or overall appearance, this store will be going out of business soon.

So why are online marketers content with such relatively lower standards? The answer to this question is complex and far reaching. But I can say with confidence that the buyer’s motivation and trust play an important role.

Someone who spends time driving to a store is usually much more motivated than a person who simply types in a search term and clicks a mouse a few times. It’s also much easier to click an exit button than it is to leave a store and navigate back through traffic.

Not only does physically being in a store signify a high buyer motivation, but it also makes it much easier for a customer to trust the merchant. Holding a shirt in your hands, trying it on, and knowing there will be an immediate exchange of ownership effectively makes trust a non-issue. Whereas when you order a shirt online, you can never be sure it will fit, if it will be delivered to you, or if it is even there at all.

As marketers, we unfortunately cannot control a buyer’s motivation. But we can effectively use incentives to keep visitors from leaving our store. To learn more about using incentives, take a look at our research brief “Creating Effective Incentives.”

Unlike motivation, we can control a buyer’s trust by using credibility indicators, testimonials, guarantees, and other anxiety reducing techniques. To learn more about reducing anxiety, take a look at our research brief “Optimizing Site Design.”