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

At MarketingExperiments, we’re always looking to find new ways to optimize webpages and, in turn, improve conversion. We have a big research team constantly testing and coming up with ideas to discover what works and what doesn’t. But the everyday marketer may not have access to this type of team. What if you are your own marketing and research team?

Trying to optimize a Web site with limited resources can be overwhelming and a bit scary. I mean there’s so much you can do. You can change your call-to-action button, remove columns, add pictures, blah, blah, etc. I could probably go on forever with changes you can make.

EUREKA!

Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to be scared and go crazy trying to figure out where to start. There is a little thing on your page that can quickly get you a lift, and believe it or not it’s been staring at you in the face the whole time. That little thing is your headline. And while this is one of the easiest tweaks you can make, it will only work if you do it right.

Your headline is important because it is your “pickup line.” It is what piques interest and gets the visitor to continue reading. You only have four inches to make a good impression, capture them and get them to continue in the process. And if your headline is not good, you run a high risk of losing that visitor, and that means money running off.

We addressed this issue on our last Web clinic, Headline Optimization: How testing 10 headlines revealed a 3-letter word that improved conversion more than major changes. There, MECLABS Managing Director (CEO) Dr. Flint McGlaughlin went over some key principles to engage an audience with your headline and get a lift. He also had two really smart members of our research team, Jon Powell and Tony Doty, join in and help our audience fix their own headlines by doing some live optimization. But, we didn’t get to optimize every audience submission.

Not-so-live, live optimization

Lucky for you, after the clinic I decided to kidnap our gentle giant, Tony Doty (he’s really tall), and get him to optimize a couple of submissions. And this is where I get to the meat of this post. We’re going to do a little “Blog Opt!” But we’ll pay specific attention to two common mistakes most marketers make when crafting their headlines.
Read more…

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

William Shakespeare lived in what can only be defined as the pre-Google era. Sure, Juliet didn’t care what a rose was called. She wasn’t searching for rose vendors since she chose a guy from the other side of the tracks and would never have a proper wedding. And she certainly wasn’t selling roses online with a site that relied on organic traffic for two-thirds of its revenue.

However, names do matter if you’re searching for optimization or A/B testing vendors, or if you’re offering those services yourself. Even more important, words matter because they hint at the approach you’re taking to your marketing efforts. That’s why I was so intrigued by two marketing research charts in Boris Grinkot’s 2011 Landing Page Optimization Benchmark Report… Read more…

If you regularly read the MarketingExperiments blog, you know that we’re just weeks away from our first-ever Optimization Summit. Personally, I’m looking forward to not just presenting, but attending to see what I can learn from all the case studies presented by brand-side marketers as well.

Leading up to the Summit, we’ve asked Boris Grinkot, Associate Director of Product Development, MECLABS to share what he’s learned from brand-side marketers while writing his latest book. You can tune in to find out this Wednesday at 4 p.m. EDT during our next Web clinic – Optimization Researched: Latest findings about effective LPO practices based on data from 2,673 marketers.

But first, as we customarily do, we turned to you and asked to hear the biggest LPO lessons you’ve learned. Here are a few of our favorites.

Please take these with a grain of salt. You can’t simply plop some recommendations on a page and think you’ll see an improvement (heck, what works for someone else’s audience might actually hurt conversion with your audience).

Simply look at these as some helpful suggestions as you plan your next tests… Read more…

E-commerce is a lot like magic. According to my in-depth research into the art of illusion (hey, I watched the movie “The Prestige”), there are three basic elements to the classic magic trick:

• The Pledge (set-up)
• The Turn (the trick itself)
• The Prestige (the reveal)

Much like a really good magic trick, you must also have your audience join you on a convincing journey, and deliver real value to them in the end without them feeling, well, tricked. For David Copperfield, that value is entertainment without feeling lied to by the illusion itself. For the classic e-commerce purchase funnel, that value is a quality product without being shocked by an unfair price at the end of the journey.

To that end, you might say e-commerce offer presentation has three stages (which may, in fact, overlap):

• The Interrupt (gains attention)
• The Value (establishes appeal)
• The Price (the reveal)

But when do you reveal price in the cart process? That was a question we received in our recent Web clinic, Shopping Carts Optimized: How a few tweaks led to 12% more revenue across an entire ecommerce website. I discussed this topic with our Director of Sciences, Bob Kemper, and here’s what he had to say… Read more…

Ask any senior citizen and they’ll tell you that there is such thing as a free lunch. They’ve likely been invited to an “educational” investment “workshop,” with great urgency. After all, there is “limited space availability” at the seminar.

When you’re giving away something for free, from valuable content to a sample of Miracle Whip, you may think that all you have to do is, well, make it available. After all, who could say no to free? And, basically, not to put words in author Seth Godin’s mouth, but that seems to be the position he takes. Read more…

In our most recent Web clinic, Shopping Carts Optimized: How a few tweaks led to 12% more revenue across an entire ecommerce website, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin shared our recent discoveries from our consumer marketing experimentation, set out a strategic approach to shopping carts and gave a few helpful fishing tips to boot.

As usual, we received more questions than we could possibly answer live during the Web clinic. A few were simple and straightforward (to which I say, “Yes,” “Maybe,” “One form field for name instead of three,” and “By the pier in Jacksonville Beach using Mayport shrimp as bait.”)

But one question particularly caught Dr. McGlaughlin’s eye…

How long should a shopping cart be? Is it better to have a long page or many short steps?

I passed this question around the lab, and here’s what our researchers had to say. We’d love to hear what you’re learned from your tests as well…

It depends on your product

I think this really depends on the product.  If you have a very simple product, like a DVD, you know what you’re getting as soon as you click “Add to Cart,” so I would get them through the process as quickly as possible.

If you have a more customized process, like ordering flowers with different vases and greeting card variations, I have no problem breaking them each out to their own special page so we can hammer home the value of each step without over-cluttering the long form. This also allows us to better track which specific step someone is dropping off on so that we can more easily determine the leaks in the funnel.

In the end, you have to test checkout process length.

– Tony Doty, Research Manager

The two optimization factors that you must balance

To the customer, shopping cart page length may be irrelevant unless the length is driven by unnecessary information.

I ran a test and discovered that reducing unnecessary fields on a single page inside the checkout funnel resulted in an increase in finishes, whereas including these fields in a similar process outside of the cart resulted in more conversions.

To the client/site, it is preferable to measure in multiple pages so they can track where the leaks are in the funnel.

If everything is one big page, it makes it much more difficult to track where or what causes a visitor concern enough to abandon.

In this case, showing the customer where they are in the process (progress indicator) helps keep the balance and alleviate the effects of that type of process friction (perceived process length).

– Jon Powell, Research Manager

Reinforce the value proposition

Optimizing the shopping cart path – including its length, sequencing of steps/forms, etc. – should conform to our foundation landing page optimization/conversion index analysis tenets. For instance:

• Not asking for any more information than you need
• Not asking for information you do need before you need it (to complete the process step)
• Managing form length and eye-path
• Avoiding ‘visual barriers’ such as horizontal bars across the page, etc.

The emphasis shifts slightly upon transitioning from ‘offer’ phase to ‘cart’ phase, shifting from ‘expression’ of the value proposition towards ‘support’ or ‘reinforcement’ of the value proposition to sustain (rather than build) cognitive momentum toward conversion.

– Bob Kemper, Director of Sciences

Optimize the page or the path

There are two approaches you can test to see which works best with your customers and products. Either have a clear descriptions of the steps (breadcrumbs) to let customers know how many to expect and where they are in the whole process, or create one longer page that includes all necessary billing and shipping fields.

– Zuzia Soldenhoff-Thorpe, Research Analyst

Test on new and repeat customers

How long should a shopping cart be? It is better to have a long page or many short steps? It depends.

Every retailer should test as many different checkout processes as they can. Retailers need to know what their customer target group responds better to. Some visitors will prefer one single, long step and others will prefer a couple of short steps.

Probably for repeat customers, short checkout process (1-2 steps) will work well because they already trust the retailer and are familiar with the process. But even in this case, it is important to test.

– Gaby Paez, Associate Director of Research

Be brief and be thorough

I personally prefer a short cart, incorporating all of the steps in one with accordion-style sections. With this type of a checkout process, it’s easy to get back to previous steps with an ‘edit’ link and it appears short while still collecting all of the needed information.

My favorite checkout process is Gap/Banana Republic/Piperlime – it’s super intuitive and really easy to get back to any step to make a change

My biggest pet peeve is when a checkout does not work in a certain browser. I use Google Chrome, and the other day I was looking at something on the Hobo International site and I couldn’t select from a drop down in Chrome, but when I went to Firefox it worked. Most customers wouldn’t be that dedicated or might not think to check another browser.

– Gina Townsend, Director of Operations

Related resources

Free Web Clinic, May 18, 4-5 p.m. – Optimization Researched: Latest findings about effective LPO practices based on data from 2,673 marketers

Web Clinic Replay – Shopping Carts Optimized: How a few tweaks led to 12% more revenue across an entire ecommerce Website

E-commerce: How your peers optimize shopping carts and product pages

E-commerce Shopping Carts: How a redesigned checkout process led to 13% increase in conversion rate

Shopping Cart Abandonment: How not being annoying can get you 67% more cart completions