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

In Part 1 of our series on bounce rates, we explored how to drill down into your metrics to find the numbers that really matter. But that left us with an unsettling question. For the users that do bounce but shouldn’t…what is missing that would pull them into your site?

Look at where your traffic is coming from and where it is landing
Many people think that a high bounce rate means there is a problem strictly with the content on the page. While that can be the case in part, you should take a step back and look at where people are coming from and the messages they see before arriving to your site to fully diagnosis a high bounce rate. For example, let’s look at the following user interaction…I’ll be the guinea pig.

I’m thinking of buying a new turbocharger for the Subaru WRX I race on the weekends. So I search for turbochargers.

Then I click on a PPC ad that mentions the following items:

• Unbeatable prices
• Turbochargers in stock
• Free shipping

I think to myself, “Great! This is exactly that I am looking for.” I initiate a click and this is the page I am greeted with:

Where is free shipping?
Where are the in-stock items?
And most importantly… WHERE ARE THE TURBOCHARGERS?!

If you just looked at the content of the site in a vacuum, you would find it acceptable. But users being directed to this site from that PPC ad have expectations that this page isn’t fulfilling.

I have seen many people in this situation look at their site metrics and when they see the high-bounce rate, just keep radically changing the page without any real regard to the user’s thought sequence. They get frustrated when the page continues to underperform.

And remember, I am just using my quest to break the local time trial record in my tuned-up WRX as an example. These principles do not only apply to landing pages or companies running paid traffic.

Text links (on other sites directing traffic to your pages), emails, and newsletters set just as much expectation as paid search banners. For external links, use a research tool like Yahoo Site Explorer to investigate the links to your pages along with the messages being communicated. Then evaluate if your page connects with those messages (If you’re uncomfortable with how your page is presented, contact the owner of the page to edit the links. You will be surprised how willing people are to make those edits if you ask nicely.)

Of course, giving customers the information they need is only the beginning. If we really want to address the bounce rates of key segments we are concerned about, we must get them to act…

On Wednesday, Part 3 will examine how you get visitors to act by giving them a clear path for what to do next.

Have additional questions? Other metrics you’d like to look at? Use the comments section below or shoot me a tweet me at: @ctrentmarketing

Analytics & Testing, Internet Marketing Strategy, Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Research Topics analytics, bounce rate, marketing, online marketing, optimization, pay-per-click, PPC

At our July 29 web clinic on optimizing PPC campaigns, several participants wanted to know more about using forms and keyword insertion.

We distilled the questions and put them to Corey Trent, our lead research analyst on this clinic.

Q: Which is better: product description and fill-out form on the landing page or promotion on landing page and fill-out form on next page?  Is it important to have a form directly on the landing page?

In most cases, having both the description and form on the landing page is the best approach. When you start adding steps or clicks to the process, a couple of things can happen:

1. When a visitor has to click through to another page, the amount of friction increases. People are always mentally evaluating if the effort is going to be worth the payoff. When more pages and steps are involved, that adds more weight to it not being worth their time to continue.
2. When a form is on a standalone page, detached from the description, people can lose sight of the key product benefits, features and the value proposition that were outlined on page one. It’s better to reinforce your offer to help prospects overcome the anxiety of providing their information.

Q: Where is the best place to put the request form?

The best place to put a request form is where you have already built the case that what the user is getting is not only worth it, but a steal compared to the information they are going to give up.

As for where that form actually resides on your specific page — that’s an element you need to test. Whether it’s in a sidebar on the left or right of the page, or in the main content column, or “above the fold” on the page, or below several long copy blocks, there is no surefire place for a form that will work for every type of landing page and offer.

What’s extremely important is that the form is in the natural eyepath of your landing page’s visitors, and that it fits into the sequence of thoughts from intent to action that the visitor experiences on the page. In other words, be wary of placements such as putting your form above or before important content, or using equally weighted columns that downplay the significance of the form.

Q: What about keyword insertion in the landing page header? If keyword insertion does not match with a custom landing page (using dynamic text to match), is there still value in keyword insertion?

If you use keyword insertion in your ad, you’ll be best served by making the connection in your page as well because it increases relevance between the two.

Recently, we’ve seen instances where the effectiveness of header messages has decreased, so testing this with your pages is worthwhile. If you do not insert keywords on the landing page to match the ad, you should still ensure that there’s a logical, relevant connection early on the page that visitors will be able to understand to maintain continuity.

Either way, make sure that your copy is strong — don’t rely on keyword insertion alone to carry the load. Weak copy gives people a good reason to leave your site.

Additional topics covered in the web clinic and questions that we’ve touched on in past research briefs included: value propositions, relevance and offer pages.

You can hear more from Corey via the full clinic presentation and follow him on Twitter: @ctrentmarketing

Clinic Notes, Marketing Q&A, Paid Search Marketing (PPC) clinic, copywriting, Ecommerce, landing page optimization, landing pages, marketing, pay-per-click, PPC, search marketing, SEM, Value Proposition

Expressing an effective value proposition is one of the biggest keys to conversions. So it’s no surprise that it was a popular topic on day one of our Landing Page Optimization Workshop.

Problem: Most companies still struggle with value propositions.

This is fertile ground for optimization, and we’ll continue to cover it in more depth in our clinics and workshops. But for this post, I want to focus on a distinction that can help clarify two different types of value proposition — and provide compelling tests that you might run with PPC ads, landing pages, SEO, and other marketing channels.

As the image above illustrates, you can focus your value proposition on your company, or on your specific product or service.

In this example, a search for “lap pools” shows the PPC ads and organic search results include a mix of both styles. (Note: What the image doesn’t show is that all of the sidebar PPC ads use product-centric value propositions.)

What’s the difference between types of value propositions, and why is it important?

Product-centric value propositions and company-centric value propositions appeal to different types of searchers, with different motivations and purchase intentions.

So the style you present in your various marketing channels should match the mindset of the prospects in that channel.

In a search for “lap pool”, the copy from the second PPC ad states: “Enjoy a lap pool in your backyard. Spa Trainer also seats 12 adults.” This line focuses exclusively on the product features.

But the copy from the third ad states: “Whatever Your Needs Are, We’ll Do Our Best to Build You a Dream Pool!” In contrast, this copy is all about the company and the lengths it will go to for customer service.

Tailor your value proposition to the fit the searcher

Each of those approaches is likely to appeal to a certain type of users. In many cases, the copy that is product-specific will appeal to prospects just starting their search. Once the prospect has zeroed in on the product he or she wants, their search may shift to other factors, such as customer service or installation options. At that point, the company-centric copy becomes more valuable to the decision.

This works with SEO, too. Look at the top organic result for that search — it’s another company-centric value proposition: “Really EZ Pools offers complete portable pool packages starting at $999. A proud member of the Better Business Bureau and a one-stop source for portable lap …”

The second organic result is product-focused: “You can put your Endless Pools Swimming Pool and Lap Pool just about anywhere. Take a look at Custom Pools by Endless Pools.”

Identify the right style to use with your search campaigns

Can we tell you which style will win hands-down every time? Of course not.

That’s why you should be testing this with your own products/services, customers, and marketing channels. Especially if your PPC ad or SEO results are surrounded by a bunch of similarly focused (and struggling) value propositions.

This is a powerful way to test how your value proposition sets apart your offer and connects with the right prospects, in the right way, at the right time.

Have you tested similar variations with your PPC ads, landing pages, or SEO? Let us know. And look for more on value propositions, including a contest, in the near future …

Marketing Insights, Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) copy, copywriting, pay-per-click, PPC, search marketing, SEM, SEO, Value Proposition

Here’s a paradox of successful headlines: the less they sell, the more they can sell.

Our most recent web clinic looked at research and ideas that support a vital, yet often overlooked, principle: The objective of your headline is not to sell, but to connect with your reader.

That split-second connection only has to compel readers to continue — not necessarily to buy right away. You want them to read the next line (subhead), then the next one (first paragraph), and then start to engage them with your offer.

This idea isn’t new. It’s just extremely easy to forget. Tight deadlines, heavy pressure to increase ROI, a propensity for sticking with what’s worked in the past … there are dozens of reasons why we approach headline writing from the wrong angle.

Often, we either try to do too much and follow the old “sell the sizzle” formulas, or contort our copy to placate search engines and spam filters and wind up with drab, keyword-laden Mad Libs.

There are better ways.

In the clinic, Optimizing Your Headlines: How changing a few words can help (or hurt) conversion, we explored three key qualities of winning headlines, looked at recent tests and examples, and broke down two methods you can use to test and optimize your own headlines.

That clinic is now available online in three formats for your convenience:

• View the complete presentation (slides and audio)
• Read the print-friendly research brief with additional links
• Listen to the audio-only version

We also polled the audience during the session. Thanks to the positive feedback and the record-breaking attendance of the clinic, we’ll be conducting a follow-up webinar this Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 4:00 p.m. ET, that will include a live optimization session with audience-submitted headlines and new test results.

Secure your spot for Optimizing Headlines Pt. II today, as our free clinics are capped at 1,000 attendees.

(Use the comments field to post your questions and/or headlines you’d like to have our optimization team address.)

P.S. If you’re looking for more in-depth information about copywriting, including myriad tips and techniques for headlines, you won’t find a better resource online than Copyblogger.com.

Clinic Notes, Email Marketing, General, Internet Marketing Strategy, Marketing Insights, Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Practical Application, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Site Design copy, copywriting, editing, headlines, marketing, optimization, search marketing, SEM, SEO, writing

Our follow-up live optimization clinic on PPC campaigns drew another great response and several questions from our participants. Thanks again to all those who joined us and submitted their campaigns for review.

You can now access the clinic here: Optimizing PPC Ads, Part II.

Two of the questions that we touched on in the clinic, but are worth expanding on at greater length, concerned effective eye paths for landing pages, and using the word “free” in your copy.

What are the five elements that control the eye path?

Size, color, motion, shape, and position. For optimal results, ensure that your pages are designed with the most important decision elements in the most important places along the primary eye path. Use these five elements to guide visitors to the call to action, keeping in mind the typical “F-pattern” that most people use to scan web pages.

Previous research briefs that covered this topic include:

Landing Page Confusion

Optimizing Site Design

When, if ever, is “FREE” a bad word?

There’s no doubt that FREE is still a powerful word. Despite the awful reputation it’s gotten from SPAM, bait-and-switch offers, heavy overuse, and the growing skepticism of post-modern consumers, the word “free” works and will continue to work for generations.

Yes, we all know there’s a catch and “there’s no free lunch.” But when we’re shopping online, we gravitate to free shipping or delivery. With ecommerce, commodity sales, and small-ticket items, we practically expect something for free. And the word often gives a nice boost to PPC campaigns.

B2B and large-ticket items are a little different, but free offers are ubiquitous there as well. How often have you seen free price quotes, e-books, research, consultations?

That said, “free” by itself does not guarantee an improvement. You don’t just plug it into a headline, or ad and page copy, and expect results to skyrocket. The usage has to be appropriate to the context: the offer, the channel, the audience. If that’s not the case, a “free” or two, or several more, especially in all caps and/or bold, can turn people off.

Instead of making a hard and fast edict, or pointing to tests where “free” did and didn’t work, here are some questions to consider when you’re drafting your copy:

• Would the offer and copy still be compelling without “free” — or is the “free” a crutch?
• Will your target audience perceive the value of the product/service and offer with the freebie, or might that tarnish the perception?
• Is the word prominent but not overbearing (bold, caps, exclamation points, every other line) in the copy and call to action?

That actually brings us to the topic of our next, ahem, free web clinic: Optimizing Your Headlines: How changing a few words can help (or hurt) conversion on August 27. Learn more and reserve your spot here.

Clinic Notes, Internet Marketing Strategy, Marketing Insights, Marketing Q&A, Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Practical Application, Site Design ads, landingpage, marketing, optimization, pay-per-click, PPC, search, SEM

Our July 30 live optimization clinic on PPC ads and landing pages was our most successful webinar to date. Thank you to everyone who participated, especially those who submitted their campaigns for a real-time review.

You can access that clinic here.

Much of the feedback from the session revolved around the high level of interaction among our presenters and the audience. Although we reproduce and post our clinics in three formats (flash, audio, and text), that interactivity is one key element you only get from the live session.

Due to the positive response, we’ll be presenting a follow-up session: Optimizing PPC Ads, Part II (LIVE) — August 13.

Part II will essentially pick up where we left off, as our team of optimization experts will:

• Expand on the two types of relevance vital to paid-search success
• Optimize a new slate of search ads and landing pages
• Address your specific PPC questions with an expanded Q&A

This will be our final clinic for the year on this topic, as we are gearing up for our new Landing Page Optimization Workshops.

Even if you attended the first session, you’re sure to come away with practical ideas and strategies that will help improve your paid-search efforts. Also, if you have specific questions about PPC campaigns, please post your comments here, and our team will try to answer the best of the bunch here and/or in the live clinic.

Clinic Notes, Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Practical Application, Site Design ads, advertising, adwords, landing pages, optimization, optimize, PPC pay-per-click, search marketing, SEM

Would you like to quadruple the conversions from your PPC campaigns? What if you could also cut your cost per conversion by 69% at the same time? Find out how one of our recent workshop participants did just that.

Join us for our free webinar on PPC ads and see what this firm did to revive a moribund AdWords campaign.

You’ll also have the chance to have your own pay-per-click campaigns critiqued in real-time by our optimization team: Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments; Jimmy Ellis, Director of Optimization Research; and Aaron Rosenthal, Director of Channels Research.

If you’re new to our live optimization clinics, here’s what you need to know:

• This one-hour webinar will provide you with specific tactics and strategies you can apply immediately to improve your PPC ad clicks and landing page conversions.
• You can submit your PPC ads and landing page for consideration when you sign up for the clinic (optional).
• Even if your page is not selected, you’ll come away with powerful ideas that can boost your campaigns. Some submitted pages may also be critiqued and posted here on the blog.
• Attendance is limited to the first 1,000 who join the call, so please dial in promptly at 4:00 to secure your spot.

Please join us on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. EDT and put our methods to the test with your own campaigns. Reserve a spot now.

Clinic Notes, Paid Search Marketing (PPC) ads, advertising, adwords, google, marketing, optimization, optimize, pay-per-click, PPC, search marketing, SEM

Pay-per-click metrics can vary a great deal between seasons.

With the economy now slumping, it’s even more important to keep your supply, ad budget, and marketing sides synched with seasonal demand.

Need a surefire way to do that? Put reminders on your marketing calendar to check your cost per sale and profitability, then adjust your seasonal PPC strategies accordingly.

We’re well into the Easter and spring home-and-garden season, but for the rest of the year, you’ll want to map out your paid search strategy ahead of these major seasons:

Mother’s Day; Summer Fun & Vacations―5/1-8/1

Back to School and College―8/1-9/15

Halloween―10/1-10/31

Winter Holidays―11/1-12/25

“Get What You Really Wanted” Week―12/26-12/31

Here’s how to capitalize:

• Update sales and offers on your Landing Pages to match the current season. Ensure your headline, copy and calls-to-action on the page are completely relevant to the offer. You don’t want to create “site flow disruption.”

• Diversify your offers so that you always have a product that’s in season. Stretch. Innovate. Repurpose. For example, flowers and candy for Mother’s Day again? Yawn. What Mom really wants is . . . what you have to offer, of course!

• Study last year’s campaign results. Note the biggest ROI and most profitable keywords. Track these and apply adequate budget.

• Put a reminder on your marketing calendar to check your cost per sale and profitability. Successful paid search means locating the right customers, convincing them to convert, and eliminating costly traffic from tire-kickers.

Here’s a one-question quiz:

You already know the winter holidays are THE major engine for annual income, but how do the other major seasons and holidays stack up in terms of retail sales spikes? According to the National Retail Federation:

#2 Back-to-school

#3 Valentine’s Day

#4 Mother’s Day

#5 Easter

#6 Father’s Day

#7 Super Bowl (not really a season or holiday, but it generated over $9 billion this year)

#8 Halloween

#9 St. Patrick’s Day

Even if you missed #3 and #9 (today), now’s the time to start gearing up for #4-6. Think of it as March Madness for marketers. And if you want a cheat sheet for the rest of the year, download our 2008 MEC Annual Merchandising Calendar (PDF).

Paid Search Marketing (PPC) Landing Page, marketing calendar, metrics, offer, PPC, site flow disruption

MarketingExperiments has always maintained that the display URL is a very important part of creating an effective ad. Our research over the years indicated that simply adding a www to the beginning of the display URL or capitalizing the words within the domain could increase click-through significantly. This brings up the question of “What is the optimal configuration for a display URL?”—especially when the domain name itself has no direct relevance to the search term.

Over the last month, we have been conducting an experiment to determine the answer to that question. We launched a test utilizing a couple of our research partners that contained three URL variations:

www.DomainName.com

Keyword.DomainName.com

www.DomainName.com/Keyword

Our results thus far have been very interesting. One of our researchers contended that “www.domainname.com” is what people expect to see. Any variation from that is unexpected and raises a small question in people’s minds,” and with one of our research partners, he appears to be spot on.

With that particular partner, utilizing a sub-domain resulted in an 18% decrease in click-through rate. Using an extension appeared to have marginal effect, resulting in a very similar—though slightly lower—CTR as the original display URL of “www.DomainName.com.”

Question answered, right? Wrong. Checking the results of our other test subjects produced the opposite results! The regular domain performed slightly worse than the extension while the sub-domain outperformed it by 15%!

We are now in the process of expanding the test and trying to determine why these results varied. Was it the subject matter? Why did the tests create or reduce friction and is it something inherent in the format or did we make an unfortunate choice in keywords? Hopefully we’ll have enough data to give you the answers in the next couple of months.

As an aside, displays URLs are just one part of PPC. It’s important that you gain a full understanding of the various elements of PPC ad copy writing. If you are planning on attending Search Engine Strategies in San Jose this year will have several sessions showing you how best to tackle the puzzle of effective ad copy head on. MEC subscribers can save an additional 10% when with our exclusive priority code, 10MEC.

To learn more, visit www.SESSanJose.com.

* SES conferences usually focus on all search-related promotions, revealing all the innovative marketing approaches and tactics used to reach your customers. Listen to “success stories” and the best practices from SEM/SEO industry leaders, experts, and the search engines themselves.

Paid Search Marketing (PPC)

This is a big question with serious implications for online retailers in the months before the holiday buying season.

A recent article at Clickz throws some light on this topic.

Here is an excerpt:

The [WebSideStory ]study looks at traffic and conversion data from 20 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites during the first eight months of 2006. Paid search had a median order conversion rate of 3.4 percent, while organic search results produced a conversion rate of 3.13 percent. The data set included more than 57 million search engine visits.

There are arguments to support both sides, Rand Schulman, WebSideStory’s CMO, told ClickZ.

“On the one hand, because you control the message of paid search, you’d expect higher conversions. On the other side, because people value the ‘editorial integrity’ of organic, you’d expect higher conversions,” he said. “Ultimately you need to do both. I think the eye-opener here is that neither side has a significant edge.”

It would have been interesting to get some more details on the variables within the study.

For instance, were they comparing organic vs. paid, regardless of the position of either link on the page? In other words, did they compare an organic listing in position two with a paid listing also in position two? Or was the comparison between the two listings, on the same page, but regardless of position?

And did they compare paid and organic links which pointed to the exact same page? Paid links almost always point to an optimized offer page. But that often isn’t the case with organic links.

And were those 20 companies in the study of similar sizes? And did they represent a fair spread of industry categories?

However, putting aside those questions, and assuming the basic validity of the test, there is a big lesson to be learned here.

Keep your PPC campaigns going…but also pay attention to your organic search positions.

Remember, organic search traffic costs you nothing per click. So if you get the same conversion rate from organic listings, your net revenue could make a nice jump upwards. (Assuming you don’t spend an arm and a leg on search engine optimization.)

Paid Search Marketing (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO)