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

Product pages are often the moment of decision for a visitor. They may have worked through categories and directories to land on the most relevant product to their needs; or they may have weeded through a sea of search ads to have finally arrived at your page. And now, only one question remains, “Is this product worth its cost?”

Recently, our research analysts were given the opportunity to test varying designs for a given product page. At the end of our experimentation, we had discovered a product page layout that increased revenue by 24%. What follows is an overview of the test and our findings. Read more…

Our most recent free webinar included case studies and live optimization focused on subscription-path pages. But the underlying principle we covered is just as important to ecommerce, demand and lead generation, email — across all marketing communications, really.

The principle: Clarity trumps persuasion.

Sounds simple, right? Maybe even too elementary? Perhaps you’re thinking, “My CEO and six-figure marketing budget don’t need catchy maxims. Give me something I can use.”

Don’t be fooled. There’s a powerful idea hiding in those three little words. But it’s easy to miss because we’ve been trained to persuade. To sell the sizzle, not the steak.

We try to entice prospects into our sales funnels with peppy copy, splashy offers and incentives that don’t cost too much. Meanwhile, behind the curtain of our clever creative, we’re not concerned about connecting with people. We’re chasing sales numbers and revenue goals. So we ignore the fact that our prospects hate being pitched and sold to — just like us, when we’re in their shoes.

Problem is, that leads to web pages that make prospects wary and distrustful. Sites that make users jump through hoops. Transaction pages loaded with elements that create friction and anxiety in users’ minds.

Want to slash through all that on your site, and improve conversions? There are many ways to do that, but the foundation starts with building simple, straightforward pages and processes that match your visitors’ intentions. In other words, clarity trumps persuasion.

Click here to learn how to apply this principle and see how three sites used it to lift their conversion rates by 200%, 76% and 38%.

Marketers, we’ve got some good news: You don’t need to fear the “fold” any longer. (Tell your designers, too.)

Many, if not most, of our recent Landing Page Optimization Workshop attendees were convinced that their call-to-action, email capture, or sign-up form must appear “above the fold” on a page.

The concept is easy to understand. As a carryover from long-established newspaper and direct-mail design principles, this has been considered a best practice online for years. Who would argue with the underlying logic that we’re too busy to read, we hate to scroll, and we have a three-second attention span when we’re online?

That’s all true. And many of our landing page tests have done well with important elements near the top.

However, there’s a limit to how far you can go in trying to accommodate visitors within an 800×600 pixel space. At a certain point, trying too hard to keep everything above the fold actually negates the effectiveness of the layout.

When you start cramming images, headlines, body copy, fields, buttons, navigation and other elements into a page, the impact of the message you’re trying to communicate can easily be overshadowed. We’ve seen an adverse effect in several tests of this scenario.

It’s much more effective to disregard the fold and focus on clearly stating the value of the product or service. Make it abundantly clear to visitors why they should take the action you want them to take (fill out a form; give an email address).

We’ve seen countless landing pages that throw an email capture form at visitors without offering anything in return or describing what the site or offer was even about. These are classic examples of site flow disruption — and you can tell that concern about scrolling below the fold influenced the layout.

So here’s your chance to break the mold and create landing pages that run counter to the conventional wisdom (while your competitors stick with the myth). Consider testing a landing page design that presents the offer and puts the call-to-action right where it should be … even if that happens to be 700 or 1,200 pixels down the page.

Research analyst Adam Lapp contributed to this post.