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Learning doesn’t have to be boring. WiderFunnel has just launched a new (free!) online game for marketers to allow you and your colleagues to test your conversion optimization skills. You by guessing on the results of real landing page experiments.

To play the game you view a series of actual website experiments, including the page variations that were tested. For each experiment, you can choose which variation you believe converted the most visitors to leads or customers in each experiment.

Whether your answer is right or wrong, you can download the entire case studies to find out why the winning variations performed better than the others.

Even though conversion rate optimization is serious business and drives huge revenue improvements for our clients, it’s a lot of fun to us, and we hope it is for you too!

Take 4 Minutes to Try It Now

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What are you thankful for?

I am thankful to be living in a country where the people’s rights and freedoms are protected and we are encouraged to be enterprising.

I am thankful for a healthy family with a caring, gorgeous wife and two beautiful and talented daughters.

I am thankful to be on a wonderful journey to learn principles of success and well-being that can work for everyone, not just an elite few.

I’m also thankful for the exciting business that is growing just as I envisioned many years ago.

It was just over four years ago that I left the traditional advertising agency world to pursue my vision for a results-driven online services company. I had been disappointed with ill-conceived digital marketing strategies from many of the large agencies. They tried to re-create the glory days of TV and billboard ads online and it was failing for their clients, the advertisers. I am thankful that the marketplace is now rewarding companies that focus on results more than cleverness or agency awards. Data-driven online marketers are getting a voice in their organizations!

I began WiderFunnel along with my Co-Founder, Raquel Hirsch, in June 2007, just a few months before the real estate bubble came crashing down. Fortunately, we have grown every year since then and continue to see huge growth in demand for our conversion optimization services.

Recently, Raquel decided to leave WiderFunnel to pursue other interests. I am thankful for the tireless effort she contributed to growing the company as we worked together in a shared office for four years. She is a dynamic and enterprising person and I look forward to seeing what she does next.

I am thankful for the new team members that have recently joined WiderFunnel in Business Development, Marketing and Client Service as we continue to grow. I am always thankful for the tremendously talented team at WiderFunnel who shares my vision and continues to amaze me with their brilliant work.

I am very thankful to WiderFunnel’s many friends, fans and followers who have supported and shared in my vision for this continuous learning and improvement process.

And, we are still hiring! I would be very thankful if you would pass the word to all the smart, results-oriented people you know in Vancouver: http://www.widerfunnel.com/about/careers

Stay tuned for more exciting announcements in the coming months!

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As Conversion Optimization Professionals, our job is to identify components of websites that are hurting the company’s conversion rates and revenue.

In some cases, where the site has already been tested or happens to be well-planned, we have to dig deep in our bag of tricks to develop the test plan.

Other times, the site gives us a gift with components that are common conversion killers. One of the most common of these gifts is the rotating home page offer banner.

We love offer banners! They give us lots of great opportunities to easily beat the Control page with our newly designed test Variations.

Should I use a rotating home page offer banner?

That’s a question I’m often asked when I present at conferences and webinars. Unfortunately for the questioner, they are addressing a common cause of Relevance, Clarity and Distraction problems. (Note: For more information on these and the other three Conversion Rate Factors, read up on the LIFT Framework that we use to analyze landing pages)

I decided to visit an arbitrary sampling of home pages today and found nearly all of them featuring some form of a gallery rotator.

Now, I’ll preface the remarks below by saying that there are some excellent uses for a rotating gallery. For example, to display images of home page rotating banners. See below for examples by the Gap, Adobe, Home Depot, Hilton and more. (How do you like the meta message I used there? This post is like an onion. Layered…)

Home Page Rotating Offer Gallery Examples

(Click above to view full size)

We have tested rotating offers many times and have found it to be a poor way of presenting home page content.

The problem with home page rotating features

Let’s think about your visitor’s experience for a moment.

1. She arrives on your home page and needs to orient herself to your layout in order to decide which information to zero in on. A strong, page-dominant banner with a headline and bold image is where she’s likely going to start her focus.
2. Unfortunately, the message in that banner usually isn’t relevant to what she’s looking for. Why? The marketing department is featuring current events, offers and news that may be important to some department within the organization but not to the majority of the visitors.
3. In the lucky event that your visitor sees an offer that looks interesting to her, she will want to read a little more about it. But, just as she’s gathered the motivation to click through and learn more… the rotator switches to the next offer.
4. What happens now? She’s confronted with a second offer and now has to decide whether to focus on reading it or to go back to the previous. She’s feeling some frustration and disorientation at this point.
5. If she decides that the first offer was what she really wanted to see, how does she get back to it? She has to figure out the usability of this gallery. The Art Director surely would have made it easy to navigate back and forth between the offers, right?
6. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Your beleaguered visitor may have to locate a tiny row of dots or squares hidden among the bold, colorful photos in the offer onslaught.
7. You can, I’m sure, empathize with her likely reaction, which is to bounce off the site in frustration.

The Politics of Home Page Design

The root of the your home page design problem may not lie solely with your Art Director, though.

The problem may be with an organization that is not clear on its business goals, marketing goals and website goals. When organizational politics, inter-departmental jockeying for position and lack of customer-orientation trump Clarity of your Value Proposition, an offer gallery emerges.

Why?

It is the only way your Art Director has found to give all of the competing messages equal priority in the limited home page space.

To avoid this problem:

1. Begin your website evaluation with a strategic website planning exercise to prioritize your website goals and Conversion Optimization opportunities
2. Commit to controlled, statistically valid testing on your most important website pages, templates and marketing landing pages
3. Bring in third party Conversion Optimization experts to help you win the organizational buy-in you need to be a Marketing Optimization Champion

What’s on your home page?

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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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Readers of this blog will remember that last month we announced the Alpha version of the ConversionSkills.com game — and today I am excited to announce the imminent launch of the Beta, and invite you to sign up to play the Game.

If you are passionate about Conversion Optimization testing, you’ll love this game!

ConversionSkills is a quick and fun online game where you’re presented with two or more test variations of a web page and you get choose the one you think won (plus, you can have each full Case Study auto-emailed to you immediately).

ConversionSkills game

At the end of the Game you’ll get your score and a fun badge you can use to show off your Conversion Optimization knowledge.

Playing ConversionSkills is easy: Sign up on the Priority List now!

By signing up today, you will get first-access to the Beta when we launch early next week (you will receive an e-mail with log in details).

Why are we asking you to sign up? Because we also need your help!

 After you play the Beta of ConversionSkills, we will email you a short survey for you to tell us what you think. Your input will feed directly into the open version of the Game.

Sign up to be on the Priority List now!

(By the way, everyone who has already signed up during the Alpha will receive full access to the Beta early next week, so don’t forget to check your e-mail for log in details).

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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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As our blog readers know, Conversion Optimization is part Art, part Science and part Smart Marketer.

The Art comes from creating innovative and persuasive landing pages and conversion flows, the Science comes from testing those pages, and the Smart Marketer is the one who knows the importance running landing page tests!

It all starts with great Conversion Optimization hypotheses – and readers of this blog know the LIFT Framework guides them in their quest for hypotheses that will yield higher conversions.

Now it’s time to put YOUR Conversion Optimization skills to the test!

We are excited to announce we’re in the Alpha stages of launching the first-ever Conversion Optimization interactive game, called ConversionSkills.

The Alpha version of the game is closed to a very small group of people while we work out the kinks; however, you can sign up today to be a part of the Beta! We expect the Beta to launch very, very soon (at least as soon as we feedback from the handful of alpha gamers).

In this game you’ll be presented with 10 A/B or Multivariate tests and you’ll be asked to use your knowledge to guess the winning variation. Along the way you’ll be able to request the case study for each one of the tests in the game.

Everyone who plays will walk away with:

• Actionable ideas to try on your own landing pages
• 10 case studies to help build your business case for a bigger landing page testing budget
• A badge so you can brag about how great your conversion skills are

Sign up now to be one of the first to play!

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From time to time we invite thought leaders to contribute to this blog. This week, we are honored to bring to you Kevin Hillstrom’s insightful – and sometimes controversial – approach to Conversion Optimization testing.

 Kevin Hillstrom is President of MineThatData, where he has worked with sixty-five e-commerce, retail, and catalog executives to understand the relationship between customers, advertising, products, brands, and channels.  Prior to founding MineThatData, Kevin spent nearly two decades in various leadership roles in the retail industry, including Vice President of Database Marketing at Nordstrom, Director of Circulation at Eddie Bauer, and Manager of Analytical Services at Lands’ End.  Kevin has written numerous books about marketing, advertising, and customer behavior, and his MineThatData Blog is one of the most widely read Marketing and Analytics Blogs in the United States.  Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@minethatdata.com.

Testing is really important!  But, surprisingly, few people execute tests.

And, maybe worse, few people test meaningful activities.

Office politics make a huge difference.  We sit in meetings with Marketing, Creative, and our Information Technology team.  Marketing wants to test a new home page design, Creative claims ownership of the home page (“it’s our job to protect our brand, we can’t have any willy-nilly home page strategy”), and Information Technology controls resources (“we have to prioritize what is important, and this isn’t important, our conversion rate improved from 3.2% to 3.3% last year”).

As a result, we test things that are “easy”.  We test a yellow button against a purple button, we notice a 22% improvement in conversion rates when using a purple button, and we claim victory!

Except, on an annual basis, we seldom if ever observe a 22% increase in conversion, do we?

When we test things that are easy or ephemeral, we don’t get the long-term results we hope for.  In other words, we have to make changes.  We have to test things that matter.  Let’s look at eight testing topics that “matter”!

Testing Strategy #1 = Merchandise:  When customers visit your website, they are generally there to buy something.  So why not test the merchandise you offer a customer on your home page?  Focus on the merchandise that drives conversion.  I frequently look at what are called “order starters”, the items that most frequently appear first in the shopping cart or appear first in a customer order.  Test these items against the items your merchants or creative team would like to feature.

Testing Strategy #2 = Design:  We like to test things that are easy, things like “20% off” against “10% off plus free shipping”.  This is easy; this doesn’t require assistance from any other department.  However, design matters!  Test how you present merchandise to a customer.

Testing Strategy #3 = Personalization:  This doesn’t have to be the uber-personalization that the CRM folks advocate!  Instead, test merchandising strategies that are congruent with customer interests.  I used to work at Nordstrom.  We had customers who bought Cosmetics, and we had customers who purchased Men’s Ties.  You don’t necessarily have to offer the Men’s Tie buyer Cosmetics!

Testing Strategy #4 = Product Density:  So often, we test imagery, and for good reason … it’s easy to test!  Try something different, test product density.  You could offer the customer three items on the home page, or you could offer the customer thirteen items on the home page.  Yes, I realize there is somebody in your company that wants to “protect your brand”.  There’s probably somebody else in your company (the CFO) who wants to protect your brand in a different way … she wants to protect it by generating profit!  If you give the customer more opportunities to buy merchandise, you’ll sell more merchandise.

Testing Strategy #5 = Test Something Different:  This sounds pithy, but it is important.  Your Creative Team might partner with you by offering you the opportunity to test three different home page or landing page designs, designs they crafted.  Try testing something they didn’t craft, against something they did craft.  Either way, you win!  If their tactics work better, then you proved that they are experts, and you can quantify what their expertise means to the bottom line.  If your tactic works better, then you proved that changes are necessary within your presentation strategy.

Testing Strategy #6 = Test Annual Loyalty:  One might think that measuring the performance of different strategies via conversion rate is appropriate.  Unfortunately, it isn’t always appropriate.  When I worked at Nordstrom, I knew that my most loyal customers purchased once a month.  I also knew that my most loyal customers visited our website three times a month.  In other words, on an annual basis, the customer was visiting thirty-six times while purchasing twelve times.  If you implement a strategy that causes the customer to visit twenty-four times while purchasing eleven times, you’ve significantly improved the conversion rate while damaging your brand by nearly ten percent!!  We make these mistakes all of the time!  Measure longer-term conversion (monthly, quarterly), you are likely to observe different outcomes then when you measure conversion rate.

Testing Strategy #7 = Test Strategies That Increase Profit:  If you asked 100 marketers to calculate profit, how many would be able to?  We have a responsibility to test strategies that increase total company profit.  Sometimes, 20% off plus free shipping increases profit, sometimes, 20% off plus free shipping significantly damages profitability.  We need to move beyond measuring conversion rate, we need to instead measure profit.  Our tests must inform us of the most profitable decisions, not the decisions that yield the best possible conversion rate.

Testing Strategy #8 = Re-Test:  If we need to get “technical”, your test results are only applicable to the audience that participated in the test, across the merchandise offered in the test, in the timeframe the test was executed.  This means we make a ton of mistakes!  A certain landing page that performs well in August is not necessarily likely to perform well in January.  Re-test strategies, regardless of statistical significance.  If you can prove that the same test works twice, you’ve proven that the tactic is meaningful.

As eCommerce marketers we can accomplish so much!

But we need to shift our focus from the easy stuff toward strategies and tactics that yield profitable outcomes.

Give these eight strategies a try, let us know what you learn!

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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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Since I joined WiderFunnel in April, I’ve been busy getting to know new colleagues, learning a new conversion rate optimization approach, and working with a new group of enlightened clients on optimization strategy.

With all that busy-ness, I’ve not been sharing my thoughts with the Marketing community as much as I used to. But since my very first WiderFunnel experiment had both interesting and positive results, I feel it’s time to post some learning.

Looking at the 3 lessons I’ll share from this experiment, I would say that 2 are good reminders that don’t surprise me, and 1 is a legitimate surprise…definitely worth testing!

Background

We were engaged to run a test on a landing page for a software maker. While the site offers the ability to buy the software, the client wanted to focus on getting more free trial downloads out of their marketing investments. The software is relatively “niche,” so we were unsure about how much persuasion was necessary to maximize free trial downloads.

An A/B/n experiment was designed to test the ‘boundaries’ of how much content was needed to get this niche audience to take the desired action. Ultimately, the experiment achieved an 17.4% improvement over the Control design! And that impressive improvement will be enjoyed without spending an extra cent on traffic.

Lesson #1: Be Vigilant About Competing CTAs

Our client’s Control page had 3 competing calls to action to account for 3 separate user tasks. You could: 1) watch a video, 2) buy the software, or 3) download the free trial. Since the primary goal of the page (and the experiment) was to increase trial downloads, we downplayed the competing calls to action, and improved the design and copy of the primary call to action, with favorable results.

Lesson #2: Headlines Should Convey Value Proposition

Especially on landing pages, headlines need to be about more than just Search Engine Optimization. It’s fine to drop in a keyword or two, but if your main headline and/or sub-headline doesn’t convey the value proposition at the top of the page, you’re probably missing out on extra conversions. Our winning variation’s headline talked about the value proposition using “loss aversion,” and the sub-headline was more to-the-point about value.

Lesson #3: Surprise! Screenshot Beats Video!

The experiment’s Control page relied on creative imagery to build value, but the imagery lacked specificity about the value that the product brings to the table. Two alternate ways to convey the value of software are screenshots and demo/overview videos.

Since the client had both available, we decided to pit the two types of content against each other as an “isolated variable.” We ran 2 combinations where the only difference was that one had a product screenshot above the fold, while the other had an overview video player above the fold. My gut said that video would win because it is a) interactive and b) can convey so much more information than a static screenshot. Guess what? The screenshot won, performing 35.94% better than the variation with video!

Perhaps prospects were in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered watching a video? Or, the realistic screenshot conveyed more to the target audience than I thought? Or both?? Would you have guessed screenshot, or video? Why? Drop us a comment below and let us know.