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Someone recently Tweeted that WiderFunnel had the largest collection of Conversion Optimization case studies anywhere on the web (even I didn’t realized that!) and today we added one more: the PluralEyes Software case study.

Our 30^th posted Case Study tells how testing PluralEyes Software increased its Free Trial Download rate by over 17%. This, of course, in and of itself was a major success but the story has an interested wrinkle: we were all surprised with the results.

But before I tell you why, let me back up for a moment.

As readers of this blog know, the WiderFunnel team is passionate about Conversion Optimization testing. And as if the pressure of delivering conversion lift for each and every client wasn’t enough, whenever we launch a new Test Round, we put some “extra skin in the game” by having a small wager of a Starbucks Gift Certificate for the person (on the WiderFunnel or client teams) who can guess which test variation will lead the pack and win.

We do this to have a bit of fun (of course!) but also because, after over 4 years of a pretty perfect track record, we fully expect that at least one of the test variations we create will improve the client’s conversion rate – we just do not know which one will be the overall winner.

And so when the team created the hypotheses for the PluralEyes Software Test Round, it was “obvious” which Variation was going to win.

But was it?  No it wasn’t.  Here is the scoop.

There were three test variations created:

Variation A

The hypothesis was to simplify the page and provide minimal product information. We added a headline and sub-headline that spoke to the value proposition, made it clear what the call to action was and how to interact with the page, and included reference to all the video editing programs that Plural Eyes supports. Since many visits to the page came from Search with branded keywords, we thought that maybe just “getting out of the way” would win.

Variation B

The hypothesis was that “a fair amount of content was needed to persuade prospects.” In addition to the same headlines, copy, and call to action as Variation A, we added a static screenshot of the software, an illustrated summary of how PluralEyes works, and two relevant testimonials.

Variation C

Here, the layout and content were identical to Variation B but we wanted to try using an existing “overview” video in place of a static screenshot. So, the hypothesis was that “rich media would be more effective than a static screenshot.” The video, if watched, conveyed so much more than one static screenshot. Since everything outside the video player area was the same as B, the video content was an isolated variable.

“Gut feel” isn’t so good…

Everyone’s “gut” was of course that Variation C (“rich media more effective than a static screenshot”) would be the winner because the target audience were “video people,” so therefore a professionally-produced overview video would be more persuasive.

In reality, the winner was Variation B – screenshot (not video)!

This page variation increased the Free Trial download conversion rate by more than 17%.

How much better was screenshot than video?

Over 35% better!

And THAT is why we test!

Important take-aways:

The key takeaway here is video should always be tested. While having video on your site may be considered a general best practice, having it on landing pages, or any page where you’re asking for a conversion, is not a sure bet.

You can read the complete case study here and watch the recorded webinar here.

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A lot has been said in recent years about how using one’s gut/intuition/opinion is not the way to be successful in online marketing. From Avinash Kaushik’s “HiPPO” concept (marketing/design decisions often get made via the Highest income Paid Person’s Opinion), to a weekly quiz that shows us how our gut feeling is wrong at least some of the time, there is a growing understanding that marketing from one’s gut is a losing proposition. Data-driven marketing decision-making is the way to go.

However, there is a time when using gut or intuition makes sense, and that is during a specific phase of conversion rate optimization test design. I know what you’re thinking: Testing is all about data and science. That’s what you’ve been telling us for years! True, and true. But, you still get to exercise your intuition.

Here’s how…

After all the data has been examined, and you’ve cataloged all the things wrong with a page, it’s time to develop your hypotheses. This is the perfect time to use your gut. Once you know what’s wrong, you need a hypothesis on what will fix the problems and increase conversion.

You can certainly use “best practices,” and you can use data from prior testing if you have it, but ultimately I believe your gut can help you guess which levers to pull on to alter the response of your target audience. For example, will a crisp design matter? How about persuasive copy? How about psychological triggers like loss aversion, commitment, or credibility? Would using Personas help?

You can’t realistically test all those things in one experiment, so when it comes down to choosing your approach, your gut may well hold the answers.

So that is why Gut Marketing is bad, but Gut Hypothesizing is good. Oversimplified? Yes. But I needed a snappy title for my post

Speaking of the Gut being right or wrong in testing, have you signed up for Monday’s webinar?

It’s a case study about how one of our clients boosted their free trial download conversion rate by 17.4% through testing. And, we’ll talk about how we used data and intuition to develop hypotheses, with both positive and surprising results. I’m not sure how many of the 100 seats are left, but you’d best register right now »

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Sometimes, one is too close to the trees to see the forest. This morning I awoke to a Tweet from our friends at Unbounce which said: “29 Conversion Rate Optimization case studies – http://bit.ly/qOYxMY – from @widerfunnel #cro <<< Awesome” and quickly realized that, being so busy working with clients and creating the case studies, we had never taken the time to count them.

Since the Tweet went viral, we quickly realized that this fact (i.e., having 29 Conversion Optimization Testing Case Studies in one place!) is in and of itself is of value to our tribe that thrives on Conversion Optimization testing.

So I counted them.

And @Unbounce is right: we have 29 Conversion Optimization Testing Case Studies published here for you to access at any time.

About these 29 Conversion Optimization Testing Case Studies

With clients across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, we are fortunate to work with some of the world’s smartest BtoB and Consumer Marketing companies in dozens of industry verticals.

As a result, these client-approved case studies cover BtoB and Consumer Marketing as well as eCommerce and Lead-generation. They include a very wide range of industries and calls-to-action, from High Tech software to Catalogue and single-product eCommerce retail; Tourism, Travel and Hospitality; Financial Services; Affiliate marketing; Video Games; and even hair restoration services and alcohol and drug addiction recovery! Most case studies are written documents – but we also have a video one.

You can check the 29 Conversion Optimization Testing Case Studies yourself.

(Plus stay tuned, because the next Conversion Optimization Testing Case Study coming up relates to testing the use of Video for improving software downloads. Brendan Regan, our Conversion Strategist, alluded to it in a recent blog post, 3 Lessons From My 1st WiderFunnel Test – you can read it now but it may spoil the surprise results! ).

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Ecommerce retailing is brutally competitive. When you add to it additional challenges such as pressure from overseas producers as well as wrong customer perceptions about the value proposition that seem insurmountable, sometimes retailers give up.

That’s why we are so proud of what our client AllPopArt, a producer of handcrafted pop art portraits and photos on canvas, was able to accomplish: through Conversion Optimization testing, not only did they improve the sales conversion rate (i.e., the number of web visitors who made a purchase) but the revenue per visitor went up as well.

Tactical vs. Strategic Excellence in Conversion Optimization Testing

At WiderFunnel we know that generating sales and revenue lift from Conversion Optimization testing is our number one goal.  But we also know that this cannot be all we deliver to clients: understanding what motivates web visitors to purchase from them beyond “buyers prefer a red button to a blue button” is strategic to our clients’ growth.

In other words, generating a sales conversion lift of 28% and Revenue per Visitor lift of 42% for AllPopArt through Conversion Optimization testing is tactical excellence, and we are very proud of that.

But delivering an understanding of the AllPopArt Value Proposition components that makes people want to buy –and buy more of! – is strategic excellence. The client can then leverage the insights well beyond sales to operations and the allocation of resources.

AllPopArt, for example, conducts surveys on an ongoing basis with both paying customers and website visitors at the pre-purchase stage. The surveys uncovered that the AllPopArt key differentiator was not clearly communicated and many visitors failed to see all of the features that made AllPopArt so unique compared to alternative options.

As a result, not only did we test new layouts and design combinations (no colors of buttons) but we also tested the presentation of their Value Proposition.

Ana Sanchez, Co-Founder & President of AllPopArt.com told us, “Knowing with certainty that a new web page layout and copy improve purchase conversions AND revenues is invaluable to us. I simply cannot imagine redesigning pages without testing in the future. I can’t wait for the next round of tests with WiderFunnel!”  – so we are well on our way to further improving these results AND delivering greater insights to their business model.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

We have just posted a the AllPopArt case study here and will be delivering a detailed webinar on Wednesday, July 27 at 11:00 am PST / 2 pm EST – register now!

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We recently held one of our best-attended webinars, where we presented Zoomerang’s conversion optimization testing results:  on the first Test Round, we generated lift of 81% for Paid Subscriptions and 58% in Revenue.

If you missed the webinar, you can download the slides that Chris Goward presented during the Zoomerang webinar.

And now, we have posted the detailed Conversion Optimization case study here.

Zoomerang is the world’s first web-based survey tool. Millions of individuals and thousands of businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions trust Zoomerang to help them make more informed decisions with minimal cost and effort. To stimulate product adoption, Zoomerang offers a Freemium model where the basic service is free of charge, and it charges a fee for advanced features and functionality.

If your business model is also based on offering a free version of your product and then trusting free users convert to paid but you aren’t meeting revenue targets, this detailed conversion optimization case study is for you.

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We just posted a new Conversion Optimization case study on our site that is remarkable, for several reasons: Our client CanaDream RV Rentals & Sales, a recreational vehicle rental and sales company, realized a 106% increase in online and phone bookings and they did so by optimizing their site-wide PCTA.

So, if you are in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, you need to read this case study and attend the webinar.

And, regardless of your industry, if you have never optimized your PCTA then you definitely need to read the case study and attend the Thursday, April 14^th webinar!

What is a PCTA?

A PCTA, or Persistent Call-to-Action, is a site-wide element that is “ready when you are” to convert the web visitor. Three things are remarkable about them:

• PCTAs represent only small content areas of a page
• PCTAs are often non-existent on websites
• If they exist, PCTAs are rarely tested for conversion optimization

In online marketing, when you move beyond a single-page landing page to a microsite or a full-scale website, you never know when people have enough information to take action and convert.  That is why you need to offer this “persistent” option to convert. The need for PCTAs applies equally to ecommerce sites and lead generation sites.

Unfortunately, PCTAs are often forgotten

If there are PCTAs on the site, they tend to be an afterthought by the designer. What a waste!

In CanaDream’s case, the PCTA allows web visitors to price their trip and Kerry Worth, Director of Marketing & Communications at CanaDream, was smart enough to make sure there was a PCTA on each page on the site in the first place. But their PCTA wasn’t working hard enough for them.

As Kerry put it: “One common user complaint was that people couldn’t easily find how to price their trip on CanaDream.com. We thought our pricing call-to-action was pretty obvious but WiderFunnel proved us wrong!”

CanaDream has been in business since 1995 and, as a top-of-the-line supplier of Canadian leisure travel, has become one of the largest recreational vehicle rental and sales companies in Canada, catering mostly to an international clientele eager to experience the country driving an RV. The website plays an increasingly important role in their business model and now, with a 106% conversion rate lift by just testing different PCTAs, they are realizing the potential.

Kerry told us: “ I was surprised to see how testing seemingly small changes in copy and design on a small content area of the site had such a huge impact on our business.”

You can hear Kerry Worth present during the Thursday, April 14th webinar. Do not forget to register here!

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While it is often taken for granted and not considered as sexy as Social Media or as much of a workhorse as paid Search, email marketing is enjoying a dramatic revival.

According to a recent survey, half of businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2011, and another 43% plan to maintain current levels. Only 7% of respondents plan to decrease marketing budgets, a significant improvement over the 11% reported in last year’s survey.

However, despite budget increases, survey respondents indicated a lack of resources/staff to be the biggest email marketing challenge in 2011. Integration with customer data and email deliverability rounded out the top three email marketing challenges for 2011.

But no mention of conversions and business results as being a challenge at all!

Perhaps it is because email marketing is the evergreen of online marketing. The been-there-done-that, sort of tactic. But is it really? Can it not work much, much harder for marketers?

It’s time to take a second look at email landing pages: make them work harder too

Since email marketing is such a ubiquitous tactic, maybe it’s time to take a second look at it and demand the same sort of results from email marketing that savvy marketers expect from paid Search campaigns (I am reserving comment on what is expected of Social Media. But I digress).

While the survey is mute on business results as a challenge, we have a number of clients who are very concerned about email business results. One of them is WineExpress.com, the exclusive wine shop partner of The Wine Enthusiast catalog and website, which have been providing quality wine accessories and storage for over 25 years.

One of the most visited pages of the WineExpress.com website is the “Wine of the Day” page. The page’s central focus, aside from the featured product of course, is a virtual wine tasting video featuring the company’s highly regarded Wine Director.

Conversion Optimization Testing on a Daily Email Landing Page

Each day (yes, each day!) management sends an email to its significant opt-in email list promoting a different wine selection, which ships for just 99 cents. Savvy marketers that they are, they have run extensive testing on its email campaigns.

But then they realized they were missing a key component in their optimization efforts: the post click experience on the “Wine of the Day” landing page!

So, in order to further stimulate sales conversions, Glenn Edelman, VP, Marketing at The Wine Enthusiast, contacted us. He had been searching for a conversion optimization solution and after speaking to many Testing Tool vendors had quickly realized that his challenge wasn’t a technology one, but one where he needed to find deep expertise in conversion optimization strategy and services – regardless of the tool.

When I met Glenn, one of the first things he said to me was, “I told this testing technology vendor ‘you are just selling me software, but you don’t know what we should test. I am not convinced we can value from the tool alone.” Music to my ears!

We worked together to develop and execute a conversion optimization strategy for the WineExpress.com Wine of the Day email landing page. We developed and tested 3 design Variations, aiming mostly at testing different layout approaches…

The Result: 41% INCREASE in Revenue per Visitor!

If you would like to learn more, join our upcoming webinar on Wednesday March 9, 2011 at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST – plus you could win a Gift Certificate to WineExpress.com.

To register, click here now!

It took just the initial Test Round for our client GPS Central, a company that operates an offline retail location plus gpscentral.ca and gpscentral.com online stores, to find a winning homepage layout and lift sales conversions by 15% – and we have just posted the case study that shows how we did it.

Very interestingly, the GPS Central management team had hired a creative agency to redesign their website and was about to launch the new design when they were introduced to us.

The team loved the look of the newly designed website but they were smart to know that their own aesthetic considerations were not enough: they were concerned about hurting sales by implementing the new designs without testing. In particular, they were nervous about the new homepage.

But that isn’t all. It is truly very exciting for us to work with the GPS Central management team because they are great marketers and have a set of unique challenges that they require we meet.

In particular:

1. They invest heavily in SEO and want to ensure conversion optimization testing does not impact SEO negatively. (WiderFunnel clients know that when done right, it doesn’t)

2. As a NetSuite user, GPS Central has technical challenges with tracking during an A/B and Multivariate testing rounds that we need to meet. (WiderFunnel clients that use our technical services know we can tackle that challenge)

So on the first Test Round we created three Variations – and all three outperformed the original homepage! You can read all about it here.

As David Dominy, the President of GPS Central, said: “We won’t do a redesign without A/B testing again.”

But for our clients in lead-generation (and many in eCommerce) who couldn’t care less about advertising awards but who have a healthy regard for their bottom line, designing web pages that maximize the capture email addresses is definitely the sort of thing that keeps them awake at night.

That is why we are delighted to co-present our next interactive conversion optimization case study webinar with Stuart Hochwert, President of Prime Publishing LLC, on Tuesday, September 14th.

In this webinar we will show you how just one A/B Split Test increased the e-mail address capture conversion rate on FaveCrafts.com by 22.3%!

Capturing email addresses is key to the Prime Publishing business model. Prime Publishing is a leading Internet media company that operates community and e-commerce web sites in the crafting, home décor, wellness, diet and cooking categories and offer consumers the ability to share information through extensive online communities, enjoy their passions and make informed purchasing decisions.

Advertisers working with Prime Publishing reach highly engaged motivated female consumers covering a variety of topics from Frugal Living to Crafting, from Diet and Wellness to Lifestyle, Recipes, Home Decor and more.

Since subscriber permission is vitally important to Prime Publishing, Advertiser email is sent only to registered newsletter subscribers who have opted-in and confirmed their desire to receive them, increasing email address capture rate by 22.3% has had a tremendous impact on their business model.

Learn how to make a difference on your website’s email address capture rate on Tuesday, September 14th, 2010 at 11:00 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern

Click here to register – capacity (as always) is limited.

FaveCrafts, a free content website aimed at crafters and part of Prime Publishing Group (a leading Internet media company that operates community and e-commerce web sites in the crafting, home décor, wellness, diet and cooking categories) worked with WiderFunnel to increase their e-mail address capture.

Testing, using an A/B/n strategy, increased the conversion rate on their AdWords landing page form by 22.3%!

Click here to read the FaveCraft case study.

Interested in more case studies on capturing email addresses?

Then, click here to learn how Tourism BC increased their permission-to-contact opt-in conversion rate by 12% with a few small (but oh-so-crucial) changes.