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

Color can be used to guide customer thinking on a landing page by placing stronger emphasis on particular elements in your offer, and less emphasis on others.

Today’s MarketingExperiments blog post will show how the MECLABS research team discovered the impact color emphasis has on conversion.

Background: Company provides educational resources for health and fitness professionals who subscribe to one of its online memberships.

Goal: To increase number of membership sign-ups.

Primary Research Question: Which landing page will generate the highest clickthrough rate?

Approach: A/B split test (Variable cluster)

Control

Treatment

The research team hypothesized the control did not place any emphasis on distinguishing between price points in the offer.

In the treatment, the team simplified and sequenced the pricing, and used a color design to emphasize the value of the offer.

Results 

What you need to know

By strengthening the communication of the offer’s value through color, copy and layout changes, the treatment increased clickthrough by 81%.

You can watch the full free Web clinic, “How Do Website Colors Impact Conversion?,”  to see Flint McGlaughlin , Managing Director, MECLABS, reveal four more surprising findings from our optimization testing and experimentation.

Related Resources:

Landing Page Optimization: Simple color change increases conversion 10%

A/B Testing: SAP increases conversion 62% by using images

Web Usability: The Squint Technique and other insights from your peers

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 

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

Navigation is often considered a core element of website usability.

If you routinely put navigation on every single page of your website, you will likely be shocked by one of our recent discoveries …

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

Our goal is show marketers key principles that can be used as a framework to aid usability and optimization efforts.

Read more…

Testing and optimizing elements of your PPC ad campaigns can significantly increase conversion when done strategically.

So, in today’s MarketingExperiments blog post, we’re going to look at how the MECLABS Research team used paid search keywords strategically placed on a landing page to achieve a 144% increase in total leads.

First, let’s take a quick look at the research notes on the experiment …

Background: Provides end-to-end market solutions for small and medium-sized businesses

Goal: Increase the email capture rate of an online form

Primary Research Question: Which page will obtain the most form submissions?

Approach: A/B split test

Control 

A problem the team identified in the control was the landing page utilized a general headline that did not reference the keyword used in the PPC ad.

Treatment  

For the treatment, the team hypothesized a simple integration of the keyword utilized in the PPC ad would make a deeper connection between the expectations created by the PPC ad and expectations for the landing page in the mind of a user.

Read more…

Tis the season to discuss all things e-commerce and one of the most underutilized optimization opportunities that can potentially add some serious ROI to your bottom line – the shopping cart.

Shopping cart optimization is considered a highly strategic tactic as presenters Austin McCraw, Senior Editorial Analyst, MECLABS, and Jon Powell, Senior Manager of Research & Strategy, MECLABS, explained in one of our recent Web clinics on shopping cart optimization.

“It’s likely, depending on how many products you have, that your shopping cart might be the most visited page on your entire website,” Austin said. “If you can make a change to increase conversion in the shopping cart, then it will apply site wide.”

So to help you tweek your shopping carts, today’s MarketingExperiments blog post will share the six last-minute changes you can make to your shopping carts that Austin and Jon presented in the Web clinic “Optimizing Shopping Carts for the Holidays,” which you can use to aid your shopping cart optimization efforts.

First, before you explore the changes you can make, here are some key principles that were featured in the clinic:

• Effective tests are not simply designed to achieve a valid result, but a valuable result. The goal of a test is to get a learning, but some “learnings” are more strategic than others.

• Marketers must be able to identify where in the funnel is the greatest opportunity for optimization.

• For e-commerce companies approaching a holiday season, often the most opportune place for the increase is in the shopping cart for two reasons:
  1. Increased motivation levels
  2. Convergent funnel paths

Also, to help in getting this information to you faster, we’ve split up all the changes and direct linked to specific times in the hour-long Web clinic video replay when those topics are discussed.

Read more…