Amazon’s web site didn’t achieve success through guesswork and a two-year re-launch cycle. Live testing and iterative tweaking is the key to high conversion rates.
There’s nothing like a recession to focus marketing spending, as the cost of pay-per-click traffic has soared, other vehicles such as social networking have been exploited to ensure a constant stream of new visitors. Almost every avenue has been exhausted now, making it difficult for marketers to achieve sustainable business growth through traffic acquisition alone.
In one end, out the other
At the same time, businesses have begun to wake up to the appalling leakage that is taking place as visitors move through their web pages. In retail conversion rates average just 3-5%; in the travel industry it’s lower still at 1-3%. This means that, in spite of the investment in acquiring them, a staggering 97% of visitors are still not spending or registering.
With the slowdown threatening budgets, the logical next priority must surely be to maximise the conversion and retention of hard-won visitors to reduce cost of acquisition and increase profitability.
The devil is in the detail
When National Express experimented with its heading, strap-line and call-to-action buttons in the checkout process using multivariate testing, it saw a double-digit uplift in conversion rates at the checkout. And when Jobsite split its single-page registration form into two pages, effectively introducing an extra stage to the registration process, it saw completions soar by 48%.
The need for such subtle modifications and the bottom line measures of their success are unlikely to have been unearthed in the traditional approach to web site redesign, involving closed-door meetings of a company’s key strategists and web designers. They came to light following live multivariate testing with real web site visitors.
Removing the guesswork
In conversion management, the real, live responses of visitors are crucial. Even if visitors are polled for their opinions, this may not reflect the way they actually pass through a site. The only way to know for sure that they will respond as expected is to test different versions of a site in a live environment, so that real customer responses can be measured and capitalised on.
Amazon has known this from the start, and has practised live, iterative site development from the beginning, continually a/b and multivariate testing and refining offers, layout and calls to action. At Amazon, conversion rate improvement is embedded in the company culture.
Most other online businesses, by contrast, continue to rely on blind faith in their web development – following gut-feel, best practice or, at best, reactive feedback from small research samples in lab environments. Alternatively, they may spend large sums of money on retrospective site activity analysis, which is then fed into a protracted and expensive complete redesign.
Chasing 10% more high quality traffic to your site will cost over 10% in additional spending - only for 97% of that traffic to drop out without purchasing. By redirecting the same level of investment into improving conversion performance, organisations stand to see far greater returns from the existing traffic base.
The average uplift in metrics our clients have seen so far in 2009 is 43% which is having a huge impact on the bottom line.
Keep what you’ve sown
These are frugal times when cost-justification reigns. Now is no time to leave the tap running when there are leaks in your bucket. Take care of the leaks, and the bucket will runneth over...
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Convert More Traffic - Free Best Practice Event
We're pleased to announce that we have the following clients signed up to speak at our customer event "Convert More Traffic" in London on 8th July 2009.
Patrice Bendon “Securing 15% uplift in surveycompletions with Maxymiser”
Jenny McKenna “How subtle changes increasedclicks to checkout by 33%”
Jason Hall “How conversion management techniques allow seatwave to continually improve performance”
Places are strictly limited for this free event, register now to avoid disappointment. If you haven't already recieved our invitation by email then please use this link to register.
Patrice Bendon “Securing 15% uplift in surveycompletions with Maxymiser”
Jenny McKenna “How subtle changes increasedclicks to checkout by 33%”
Jason Hall “How conversion management techniques allow seatwave to continually improve performance”
Places are strictly limited for this free event, register now to avoid disappointment. If you haven't already recieved our invitation by email then please use this link to register.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
How can you proactively increase conversion rate?
Maxymiser's MD, Mark Simpson, will be speaking at the forthcoming SMX expo in London. He will show how multivariate testing and segmentation testing strategies can increase landing page performance in support of search marketing and help increase conversion rate and ROI on campaigns.
The session starts at 2.45pm on Monday 18th May, see SMX London for more information.
Learn how multivariate testing and other conversion management techniques discover winning landing pages allowing you to spend higher than your competitors and improve returns.
Leading brands are benefitting from a continuous improvement in web performance by intelligently serving the right content to the right visitor at the right time. We show you how to close the loop on search marketing by automatically discovering winning pages for visitors from different campaigns, keyword groups or keywords.
We will provide a practical success-driven demonstration of how some of our 60+ clients in the UK have benefited from this approach. By drawing on our experience and case study materials from clients such as National Express Coaches, Laura Ashley and Wickes, we will show how these technologies can improve your bottom line.
The session starts at 2.45pm on Monday 18th May, see SMX London for more information.
Learn how multivariate testing and other conversion management techniques discover winning landing pages allowing you to spend higher than your competitors and improve returns.
Leading brands are benefitting from a continuous improvement in web performance by intelligently serving the right content to the right visitor at the right time. We show you how to close the loop on search marketing by automatically discovering winning pages for visitors from different campaigns, keyword groups or keywords.
We will provide a practical success-driven demonstration of how some of our 60+ clients in the UK have benefited from this approach. By drawing on our experience and case study materials from clients such as National Express Coaches, Laura Ashley and Wickes, we will show how these technologies can improve your bottom line.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Why Can Only 4.6% of Marketers Identify Winning Content by Eye?
We were surprised by the result of a competition we ran recently. Of 452 marketers who had a go at guessing the best performing content from a multivariate test, only 21 got it right.
This perhaps isn’t the most thorough survey but it has highlighted that just 4.6% of those working in our industry were able to identify the winning content from four options. Some preconceptions of what works well online must be guiding these choices as they’re so far below even what random selection would produce.
We don’t know what those preconceptions are but it would appear that they get in the way of selecting the best content and page layouts online. The client we ran this test with benefitted from an 11% uplift in clickthroughs as a result of implementing the winning content based on the response of live visitors.
We assume that, in practice, those who selected wrongly are using some better means of determining the best content to drive conversions on their own sites than gut feeling. However, the results highlight the value of making content decisions based on live visitor feedback over and above less empirical approaches.
Preconceptions run deep, it was the default page that over 60% of respondents selected as the likely winner, which had a lot of text and looks rather more complex at first sight. We frequently see cases where reducing the amount of text on a page leads to a significant increase in performance.
A proper process of conversion management using live visitor testing including techniques such as multivariate testing really is the only process that marketers should be putting their faith in for content decisions that are going to have a huge implication for conversion rate.
How does your company choose the copy, images, calls to action and product offers presented online?
Please contact us if you’d like us to help you make the right choices and increase conversion rate.
This perhaps isn’t the most thorough survey but it has highlighted that just 4.6% of those working in our industry were able to identify the winning content from four options. Some preconceptions of what works well online must be guiding these choices as they’re so far below even what random selection would produce.
We don’t know what those preconceptions are but it would appear that they get in the way of selecting the best content and page layouts online. The client we ran this test with benefitted from an 11% uplift in clickthroughs as a result of implementing the winning content based on the response of live visitors.
We assume that, in practice, those who selected wrongly are using some better means of determining the best content to drive conversions on their own sites than gut feeling. However, the results highlight the value of making content decisions based on live visitor feedback over and above less empirical approaches.
Preconceptions run deep, it was the default page that over 60% of respondents selected as the likely winner, which had a lot of text and looks rather more complex at first sight. We frequently see cases where reducing the amount of text on a page leads to a significant increase in performance.
A proper process of conversion management using live visitor testing including techniques such as multivariate testing really is the only process that marketers should be putting their faith in for content decisions that are going to have a huge implication for conversion rate.
How does your company choose the copy, images, calls to action and product offers presented online?
Please contact us if you’d like us to help you make the right choices and increase conversion rate.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Your Visitors are Unique, Give Them Your Best Content
Why present the same content to all visitors when you already know a lot about what they want?
In a given day, your site will be browsed by thousands of visitors, all looking for different things. Targeting these visitors with the content most relevant to their needs will allow you to more effectively drive them to purchase and manage your cost of acquisition.
Segmentation should not be a process of simple categorisation, filtering your analytics reporting on visitors depending on their actions. To gain real benefit, visitor segmentation must be conducted as part of a closed loop process. Once segments are defined, winning content should be identified for each through a process of live testing.
With winning content being targeted to each segment, your site will be in much better shape to exploit visitors, taking into account their differing needs at a given point in time.
The segmentation criteria can range from time or day of visit through SEO / PPC entry keyword right up to day of week or any combination therein.
Maxymiser Content Delta is an on-demand solution allowing marketers to build sophisticated and measurable conversion uplift by targeting visitor segments. By harnessing readily available information about your visitors such as the intent given in search terms, their purchase history or referring campaign, you can proactively target visitors with the content and offers proven to be most likely to result in a conversion.
Can you serve the content that is most likely to convert first time vs. returning visitors or target an offer to those who have previously purchased a related product?
Read more about Maxymiser Content Delta and start showing each visitor your winning content. Multivariate testing is only the start.
In a given day, your site will be browsed by thousands of visitors, all looking for different things. Targeting these visitors with the content most relevant to their needs will allow you to more effectively drive them to purchase and manage your cost of acquisition.
Segmentation should not be a process of simple categorisation, filtering your analytics reporting on visitors depending on their actions. To gain real benefit, visitor segmentation must be conducted as part of a closed loop process. Once segments are defined, winning content should be identified for each through a process of live testing.
With winning content being targeted to each segment, your site will be in much better shape to exploit visitors, taking into account their differing needs at a given point in time.
The segmentation criteria can range from time or day of visit through SEO / PPC entry keyword right up to day of week or any combination therein.
Maxymiser Content Delta is an on-demand solution allowing marketers to build sophisticated and measurable conversion uplift by targeting visitor segments. By harnessing readily available information about your visitors such as the intent given in search terms, their purchase history or referring campaign, you can proactively target visitors with the content and offers proven to be most likely to result in a conversion.
Can you serve the content that is most likely to convert first time vs. returning visitors or target an offer to those who have previously purchased a related product?
Read more about Maxymiser Content Delta and start showing each visitor your winning content. Multivariate testing is only the start.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Another Client Success - 22% Increase in Life Insurance Searches
Maxymiser engaged the financial information website Moneynet with the goal of increasing the number of highly qualified leads delivered to partners.
Visitors arrive at the Life Insurance quote page after following a link from one of Moneynet’s highly targeted marketing emails. With such well qualified inbound traffic, it was felt that the conversion rate could be improved by optimising the form’s layout and design.
Elements tested using multivariate testing with live visitors included numerous layouts of the form fields and different styles of ‘proceed’ button.
The winning layout increased the number of visitors completing the form by 22%, significantly increasing the number of monetised clicks out to insurance partners.
Maxymiser’s results allowed Moneynet to make an informed decision on the best form layout to drive conversions. The client benefitted from a significant increase in bottom line revenue thanks to the increase in highly qualified leads passed to partners.
How do you ensure that your site effectively exploits all inbound traffic and drives it to your conversion goals?
Monday, 2 February 2009
Multivariate Testing Delivers a 44% Increase in Conversion Rate for Freedom Finance
Freedom Finance, one of the UK's leading finance brokers in personal loans to homeowners recently benefitted from a 44% increase in completed quote applications.
After using Maxymiser Content MVT (multivariate testing) to discover landing page content that drove a 45% increase in the number of visitors starting an application, Freedom Finance was eager to ensure that the pages within the process were effectively exploiting that traffic.
A number of different approaches to areas of content on the application form pages were developed and Maxymiser multivariate testing (multivariable testing) was used to optimise the response of live visitors.
The winning layout, shown on the right, increased the number of visitors completing the quote process by 44 per cent, delivering significantly more qualified leads to the Freedom Finance call centre team.
Commenting on the results, John Pickering of Freedom Finance added “By putting numbers to the performance of page content, Maxymiser enabled us to make the most of our traffic, to the benefit of our bottom line.”
By constantly discovering better performing web content, Maxymiser allows onsite marketers to continually improve sales in a measurable and low-risk way. Download the full Freedom Finance multivariate testing case study from the Maxymiser website to read more.
Freedom Finance were able to make an informed decision on the content best suited to driving more completed quotes from existing traffic, increasing sales and driving down cost per acquisition in the process. Would you like to do the same for your site? Contact us to learn more.
After using Maxymiser Content MVT (multivariate testing) to discover landing page content that drove a 45% increase in the number of visitors starting an application, Freedom Finance was eager to ensure that the pages within the process were effectively exploiting that traffic.A number of different approaches to areas of content on the application form pages were developed and Maxymiser multivariate testing (multivariable testing) was used to optimise the response of live visitors.
The winning layout, shown on the right, increased the number of visitors completing the quote process by 44 per cent, delivering significantly more qualified leads to the Freedom Finance call centre team.
Commenting on the results, John Pickering of Freedom Finance added “By putting numbers to the performance of page content, Maxymiser enabled us to make the most of our traffic, to the benefit of our bottom line.”
By constantly discovering better performing web content, Maxymiser allows onsite marketers to continually improve sales in a measurable and low-risk way. Download the full Freedom Finance multivariate testing case study from the Maxymiser website to read more.
Freedom Finance were able to make an informed decision on the content best suited to driving more completed quotes from existing traffic, increasing sales and driving down cost per acquisition in the process. Would you like to do the same for your site? Contact us to learn more.
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