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

In an ideal world Dr. Flint McGlaughlin’s memorable testing quote would be true 100% of the time: “The goal of a test is not to get a lift, but rather to get a learning.”

But in the real world where marketers are faced with deadlines, tight budgets, and skeptical superiors, sometimes you have to design a test for the purpose of a lift so that you can THEN start testing for learnings.

So how do you get a quick lift on your pages?

Well there’s no catch all answer for every page. If you’ve been hanging around MarketingExperiments long enough, you know that. And when there’s no catch-all answer, the best way to learn is through examples.

With that in mind, here’s an example of an email and landing page combination that Senior Research Manager Jon Powell and Managing Director Flint McGlaughlin gave quick suggestions for in a recent web clinic – Crafting an Engaging Email Message: How a properly focused email message can increase conversion by 85%…

Read more…

Friction is one of the greatest obstacles to your conversion process, and though most marketers currently have some idea of what Friction is, many are only seeing half the picture.

When asking marketers to identify the Friction associated with a conversion process, the response is often very confident. Usually, the number of form fields on a page will be pointed out first, the number of steps in a process next, and occasionally a third comment might focus on the length of the individual pages themselves. The overall consensus from marketers is that if you can eliminate these simple elements, then you can eliminate Friction.

However, our research suggests that most of the Friction in a conversion process goes undetected. Further, this “hidden” Friction often is the most lethal to conversion. So, in this post I wanted to lay out 7 of the most undetected ways that Friction might be threatening your conversion rates. I have dubbed these The 7 Silent Killers of Conversion.

Read more…

One of the easiest things to do to get a lift on a lead generation offer is to reduce the number of form fields. We hear it all the time because it works. The problem is, it only works so well and then you start seeing diminishing returns. Plus there’s always the issue of the quality of leads you’re getting from your form. The less fields you have, the lower quality your leads are.

So how do you get a lift on a lead gen page without reducing the number of fields? Well, there are a couple of things you should understand before I get into that…
Read more…

Looking at a page on your website and trying to see the problems that are hurting your conversion can be overwhelming. First of all, it’s your page so you don’t have an objective view of things. It’s like editing your own work. Second, it’s just hard to know where to start.

This was the case for Ecopaper.com when they submitted their homepage to us for our special Live Optimization Webclinic on July 21, 2010.

It turned out that there were some very simple mistakes they were making related to showing the true value that their company had to offer. They were burying it on their about page. Getting it out front and expressing it to their audience could be critical to getting a lift in conversion on their site.

So here’s the page our Associate Director of Optimization, Adam Lapp, was presented with for review…
Read more…

In the MECLABS Conversions Group, we spend a lot of our time trying to reduce the friction and anxiety inherent in our Research Partners’ sales funnels …since we have less control of the visitor’s motivation or the value of the product, service or incentives.

However, I have one Research Partner that values friction in their lead generation process. Read more…

Some people might think that optimizing a payment form page is a waste of time. But, I would have to disagree. In fact, I would argue it’s one of the most important places to test. And when it comes to a form, the same elements of optimizing a landing page apply. If your analytics are telling you that you’re losing traffic in the form fields, that’s like if a person was standing in line at the grocery store, ready to check out, and then suddenly they drop their groceries and run to the car. You’re losing out on what otherwise could have been a sale.

In the case of our next example, UNICEF, you would be losing out on a donation that could help children worldwide. We’re going to be taking a look at UNICEF’s monthly pledge payment page. As always, we’re going to structure our thought process around the MarketingExperiment’s Conversion Heuristic, our thought model for conversions, and highlight how we can use some of those elements to achieve our objective – more monthly pledges for UNICEF.

Don’t assume these suggestions only apply to non-profits or NGO’s; many of the elements are exactly the same regardless of industry or business. Read more…