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

The past can teach you a lot about your customers and where opportunities for testing and optimization exist in your sales funnel – if you take the time to look.

Looking to the past to guide current marketing efforts was one the key takeaways from Adam Lapp, Associate Director of Optimization and Strategy, MECLABS, and Benjamin Filip’s, Manager of Data Sciences, MECLABS, Industry Deep Dive session, “Hoverboards and DeLoreans: Taking your optimization from 0 to 88 mph,” from MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments Optimization Summit 2013.

“If you’re just starting out in testing and optimization,  looking to the past [performance] is a great segue into brainstorming ideas for future testing,” Ben said.

Today’s MarketingExperiments blog post features three tips from Adam and Ben’s session you can use to aid your testing and optimization efforts.

Tip #1: Look to your historical data

According to Ben and Adam, a good way to mitigate some of the classic struggles of testing and optimization (money, time and drain on resources) is to first look to your historical data as your guide to where opportunities exist.

“Historical data is the only way to determine where to start,”  Ben said.

Tip #2: Analyze your sales funnel

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.

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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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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…

There are two major considerations:

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:

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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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