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

It’s no surprise folks everywhere like choices.

From the car you drive to the shoes you wear, paper or plastic, and the classic … would you like fries with that?

Choices are good, and having lots of them is even better.

So, it would make sense giving customers as many options as possible would be a sound principle of Web usability – or is it? Watch the below video for a MarketingExperiments discovery about presenting options to your visitors.

As Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, said, “People don’t need many options. They need the right options.”

You can watch the full free Web clinic – “The Usability Myth: 4 surprising discoveries we learned after testing the most common usability principles” – to see Flint reveal three other surprising findings from our optimization testing and experimentation.

Our goal is to show marketers key principles to use as a framework to aid usability and optimization efforts.

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Categories: Landing Page Optimization Tags: landing page optimization, options, usability, web usability

Today at 2:00 p.m. EDT, I’ll be interviewing Shawn Burns, Vice President of Digital Marketing, SAP, during the MarketingSherpa webinar, “Testing: A discussion about SAP’s 27% lift in incremental sales leads.”

We’ll be discussing Shawn’s team’s impressive four-year effort to create a Test Lab within SAP, complete with the politics, change management and talent gaps involved in any truly transformative marketing initiative.

But first, right here on the MarketingExperiments blog, let’s take a look at one of SAP’s tests from this Test Lab initiative …

Background: SAP identified the “Spotlights” section on SAP.com as a key area at driving traffic to deeper levels of the website, where more topically specific content can be engaged.  This area was very text heavy.

Goal: Increase the level of engagement (as measured by clicks in the areas’ CTAs).

Primary Research Question: Does more of an “eye candy” approach drive more engagement?

Approach: A/B split test

Control

Treatment

RESULTS

The treatment, with thumbnails and clearer calls-to-action, yielded 62% more engagement. The team was able to isolate the conversion impact to one variable – the imagery – because another treatment (not pictured in this blog post) included the enhanced CTAs without the imagery, yet still lost handily to the treatment with imagery.

Segmenting your audience

With any test, it’s important to consider different segments of your audience. After all, a test is simply measuring audience interaction with a treatment. Your segments may be based on age, job title or primary product interest.

In SAP’s case, one segment they were testing was location, based on country. In fact, the 62% lift is an aggregate across seven country websites, so at an aggregate level, they found the imagery to be effective. However, they also found visitors to the China version of SAP.com engaged at a level 433% higher than the U.S. version of SAP.com, giving the China team extra impetus to use imagery.

Running your own visual tests

I talked to Taylor Kennedy, Senior Manager, Optimization and Strategy, MECLABS, about running tests using visuals to increase conversion. If you want to run tests on the look of your website, Taylor suggests you think of imagery on two levels:

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Categories: Analytics & Testing Tags: a/b testing, images, level of engagement, SAP, text

When it comes to how color design affects a site’s performance, simple changes can produce a significant lift.

So, in today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’re going to look at how the MECLABS research team used a background color test on a landing page to increase account sign-ups 10%.

Background: A large sports entertainment provider seeking to increase conversion on its main landing page

Goal: To increase premium account sign-ups

Primary Research Question: Which color scheme will result in a higher conversion rate?

Approach: A/B single factor split test

Control and treatment side by side

The control was a design with a dark background and white text, and the treatment was an almost exact color inverse.

Results 

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Categories: Landing Page Optimization Tags: a/b testing, anxiety, conversion rate optimization, design elements, landing page color design, landing page optimization, reducing user friction, web design

There are two major considerations:

Categories: Analytics & Testing Tags: landing page optimization, online testing, rewards, risks, testing, testing optimization

In today’s Web clinic at 4:00 p.m. EDT – “When Should You Reveal Price? The 3 principles of presenting price that helped generate a 97% increase in conversion” – Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS, will use our research to help you discover how to best communicate price to potential customers, and will answer questions such as:

• What is the optimal price range for my type of offer?
• How should I display my price? Round numbers? Fractional?
• When should I reveal the price? Early in the process, or later?
• Is it possible to know I have the right price? Can I test it?

But first, we wanted to learn some pricing insights from the MarketingExperiments community. Here are four tips from Joao Alexandre, Digital Strategist, DesignPT …

Price is a sensible question and it can fluctuate immensely based on perceived value

A customer may be turned off by a low price by discrediting it automatically, especially if it’s a product or service he or she believes is important or has a perceived value. (Editor’s Note: Excellent point, Joao. As Neil Blumenthal, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Warby Parker, learned, “We also found that customers did not trust prices that were too low.”)

If a customer has no idea on professional custom logo design, and sees two different websites that create logos for $300, then the customer will from then on believe that is a fair price for this kind of professional work, until their belief is otherwise reframed by a different source.

Prices ending in “9” may be more appealing than others, which can work better for both low- and high-end ticket items alike

In total, eight studies published from 1987 to 2004 revealed that prices ending in “9” ($39, $2.49, $89, etc.) boosted sales by an average of 24% relative to other prices. In an experiment done by the University of Chicago and MIT, a mail order catalog was printed in three different price points: $39, $34 and $44. The $39 price point won.

Marketers can either reveal price in the beginning or near the end – it depends on the industry and the company

By revealing price early on, you can disqualify a lead that would otherwise consume your time only to conclude it does not fit their budget, while your sales team could focus on other pursuits.

By revealing price later on, you have the opportunity to build value and uncover needs that the customer might not say directly and you would only find out by proper questioning.

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Categories: Practical Application Tags: presenting price, price, price display, price presentation, product pricing

On a recent Web clinic, Brian Smith, Marketing Analyst, FCH, submitted a PPC ad and landing page for live optimization.

Unfortunately, we do not have time to optimize every submission live on Web clinics, and did not get to this submission.

So, in today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’ll offer Brian some optimization suggestions from a peer review session with the MECLABS research team. Our goal is to provide some optimization suggestions from a real-world example you can use to aid your PPC ad and landing page optimization efforts.

But first, let’s get a little backstory on the testing Brian and his team have done prior to the Web clinic.

When I asked Brian about his previous testing efforts, he explained the team has focused their testing mostly on value proposition development and landing page optimization.

I also asked Brian about some of the goals for their PPC ads and landing pages, and Brian explained they share one common goal – lead generation.

“The goal of the PPC ad is to get people to the site,” Brian said, “and the goal of the landing page is to get people to call us or fill out the form.”

Here is the PPC ad copy Brian sent us:

Loan Modification Help

Looking to Get a Loan Modification

Call for a Free Consultation Today

Identify the elements in your marketing that influence conversion

When I asked Matthew Hertzman, Research Manager, MECLABS, for some optimization opportunities, he explained it’s important to first break the PPC ad copy and the landing page down into basic marketing elements using the MECLABS Conversion Sequence Heuristic.

The heuristic is a patented, repeatable methodology marketers can use to look at their offers to understand how they can be optimized to improve the chances of a conversion.

(Editor’s Note: Optimization ideas, by their very nature, point out areas that need improvement. We respect all the hard work Brian and his team have put into their marketing efforts so far. OK, now let’s take the gloves off and dive into some ideas … )

Optimization Idea #1: Test more PPC ad copy variations

Matthew noted the PPC ad could use a little work on reducing the elements of friction and anxiety. Here were a few of his suggestions:

• Try using a display URL in the PPC ad

“We’ve seen from testing that the added continuity from using display URLs generally increases clickthrough rates across multiple industries.”

• Try including a phone number in the PPC ad

“Including a phone number in the PPC ad copy might also relieve some anxiety,” Matthew explained. “But, if the goal is to get them to call or to fill out the form, why not test giving them a direct phone number to call in the PPC ad and use the form as a separate lead gen channel.”

Below is the landing page Brian submitted with the PPC ad:

So, when I asked Matthew for additional opportunities on the landing page with Brian’s goals in mind, here were some of his suggestions …

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Categories: Paid Search Marketing (PPC) Tags: channel momentum, conversion optimization, conversion rate optimization, increase conversion, landing page optimization, marketing optimization, PPC ad optimization, ppc campaign optimization, value exchange, Value Proposition, web clinics