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Friday, December 19, 2008

Do Direct Debits Turn Women Off?

Knowing your customer is one of the great professional challenges of the marketer. Most web sites serve the same content to all visitors but forward-thinking marketers have come to realise that if you take a law of averages with your content, you’ll have to settle for an average conversion.

Conversion rate is critical to competitive advantage and its pro-active management underpins media spend and ROI. A web site with an underperforming conversion rate cannot compete effectively for traffic.

Maxymiser Content BT onsite behavioural targeting recently allowed DateTheUK to discover and exploit some interesting differences between the sexes.

"Maxymiser’s targeted pages have had a £100,000 incremental value to our business in the first two weeks of going live. This is just the tip of the iceberg, we believe that the rich behavioural data we have access to will open up an array of opportunities to better target our visitors."
Sean Wood, Marketing Director, DateTheUK

  • DirectDebit is a more compelling message for men than women, returning male visitors were 16.5% more likely to buy when this was highlighted

  • Although first time visitors were more likely to buy when shown a daily cost, returning male visitors were 14% more likely to buy when shown the monthly cost.

    Learn more by downloading our new whitepaper Behavioural Targeting is Good for You and Your Customers or contact us directly on +44 (0)207 149 3730 to hear how we can do similar for your site.
  • Friday, November 07, 2008

    Forrester Ranks Multivariate Testing in Eight "Small Web Site Investments That Pay Off"

    Forrester recently went out into the field and asked marketers what web projects give them quick, large returns on their investment. In the findings, Multivariate Testing is praised as an investment that will "have a surprising affect on click-throughs" and return ROI quickly.

    Three of the other quick wins to improve ROI will also excel when underpinned by multivariate testing or Maxymiser Content Delta, allowing marketers to discover the content that most successful at driving visitors to convert.

    "One wireless carrier changed the location, color, and copy of the purchase button on its product. The result? The click-through rate went up 130%, and the conversion rate went up by 57%." Adele Sage, Forrester Small Web Site Investments That Pay Off

    We have seen similar results with our own clients, double digit uplift in sales conversion rate is common. Read our client success stories from National Express, Wickes and Laura Ashley amongst others for a few examples.

    This new research comes not long after Bloor released their own research on Onsite Conversion Management. That research can be downloaded for free from our website and provides a fantastic in-depth view of the business value of content optimisation.

    "Many companies use web site statistics and analytics to good effect already; however content optimisation offers much greater ROI and visitor experience and is the next stage in market adoption and development."
    Gerry Brown, Bloor.

    By constantly discovering better performing web content, Maxymiser allows marketers to continually improve sales in a measurable and low-risk way. Contact us or visit our site to learn more

    Thursday, October 09, 2008

    Free Bloor Research Report - Onsite Conversion Management

    One of the first independent industry research reports on the fast growing area of onsite conversion management is now available. The report provides a fantastic in-depth view of the business value of content optimisation and how it will reap benefits for your business. By effectively managing onsite content, it is possible to increase conversion rate by better exploiting existing traffic.

    “The most important point is that OnSite Conversion Management increases conversions from visitors into paying customers by creating a more relevant online experience.”

    “Many companies use web site statistics and analytics to good effect already; however content optimisation offers much greater ROI and visitor experience and is the next stage in market adoption and development.” Gerry Brown, Bloor.

    Download the free report to learn how you can proactively manage content to increase conversion rate on your site.

    Monday, September 29, 2008

    Wickes Boosts Online Sales by 9% with Maxymiser Multivariate Testing

    Wickes, one of the UK’s leading hardware retailers, recently benefited from a 9% increase in sales conversions using Maxymiser’s multivariate testing to discover better performing content on their registration page.

    Default Page from Multivariate TestAs a significant investor in online advertising, our client was eager to ensure that traffic driven was effectively exploited on site. This was achieved using Maxymiser’s multivariate testing under the guidance of our managed services team.

    We worked with Wickes to design a number of variations on the sign in / registration page to identify content that would drive more visitors to continue to purchase. During the live visitor test we monitored both the click through and sales conversion rate of each variant.

    Winner of Multivariate TestThe winning page (right) drove 9% more visitors to buy compared to the default (above).

    A subsequent brief test of the winning content against a variant with the sign in and registration boxes reversed showed a 9.19% decrease in sales conversion rate. This serves to demonstrate the importance of live visitor testing; apparently subtle changes to content have a dramatic impact on sales conversion rate. Without testing, it is impossible to know whether existing content is up to scratch.

    Wickes was able to make an informed decision on the content most suited to driving more sales from existing traffic levels. Subsequent analysis of business data revealed that this conversion rate uplift had a healthy six-figure annualised revenue value to the client.

    This great result is just one stage of a longer term content optimisation engagement; the overall improvement is running at 40%.

    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 PDF Wickes: Client Success from the Maxymiser website to read more.

    Tuesday, July 29, 2008

    Content Optimisation is Digital Best Practice

    Content Optimisation is an activity that differentiates leading UK online marketers from the chasing pack according to a Best Practice guide from e-consultancy.com. Leaders in the field are already investing in techniques such as multivariate testing to discover best performing content and reinforce their position.

    In an interview on the guide, internet marketing guru Dr Dave Chaffey identifies “Continuous testing and improvement of targeting, offer, messaging and creative through techniques like multivariate testing” as one of three activities that set leading organisations in his survey apart.

    The report notes a growing number of Conversion and Experience Management roles within e-commerce departments. We would add that this team should be targeted with improving site performance by discovering winning content to optimise visitor journeys. The final objective won’t always be sales conversions; organisations employing Maxymiser have increased brochure requests, newsletter signups and even test drive bookings to date.

    Online marketing is very focussed on traffic acquisition. As an industry, we have a well established understanding of traffic driving activities but sometimes woefully-inadequate experience in converting that traffic. A mature online business should have people on the ground responsible specifically for on-site marketing, these are the guys that will ensure that the great traffic arriving at the site is converted before it exits to a competitor.

    The Managing Digital Channels Best Practice Guide was released by e-consultancy last week containing a wealth of practical insight into how online marketing should be structured, budgeted for and assessed within organisations. It is must read material for those looking to ensure their online strategy across acquisitions, analytics, online CRM and personalisation is up to speed with the latest thinking.

    Contact us if you’re ready to look at how content optimisation fits into your online strategy.

    Monday, July 28, 2008

    Elbrus Maxymised

    Maxymiser’s founder has taken uplift to heart and scaled Mt Elbrus, Europe’s highest mountain in the name of pushing conversions to the extreme. The Maxymiser flag flies atop the 18,510 ft peak as testimony to the company’s commitment to relentlessly push client performance upwards.

    Returning to ground level, Bill joked “With many ecommerce websites still at base camp when it comes to conversion rate, they’ve done some of the hard work but the real rewards come from reaching the pinnacle of performance!”.

    The climb has raised £4,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care thanks to the generous donations of staff and friends. Read the full story here.

    Maxymiser is now firmly established as Europe’s leading content optimisation specialist with its multivariate testing, visitor segmentation and behavioural targeting technology currently in use by 65 clients.

    Monday, June 02, 2008

    Is Your Uplift Sustained?

    As our clients and readers of this blog will know by now, multivariate testing offers a proven way to discover the most effective content online and generate more revenue through websites. There are always easy wins to be had through testing, however, there is also longer term sustained uplift to be gained through careful campaign design and planning.

    Achieving sustained uplift should be considered the ultimate prize in any optimisation campaign. A 5% uplift in conversion rate which impacts the bottom line for the long term could deliver significantly more value than 30% uplift on the response to an element of seasonal content.

    In our experience uplift resulting from multivariate testing generally falls into one of three categories:

    Temporal Uplift - where winning content includes promotions or time-sensitive elements. Examples include limited special offers where the value of uplift is realised during the period of the offer.

    Extrapolated Uplift - where form, structure and information architecture in one area of a site are tested and the winning content elements can be applied across all pages employing the same template. In this case, a small percentage in uplift can have a dramatic effect on overall business performance

    Sustained Uplift - where ongoing benefit is produced by implementing winning content. Tests which include structural improvements to high traffic pages and multi-stage processes such as check-outs typically provide sustained uplift.

    When deploying multivariate testing, as much consideration should be put into the expertise in campaign design that you are able to leverage from the provider as is put into the selection of the tool itself. Temporal uplift can return some jaw-dropping numbers in a short time period but it is the Extrapolated and Sustained uplift that will provide the long term impact on your site performance.

    Mark Simpson

    Thursday, April 24, 2008

    UK Brands Waste over £1bn on Unconverted Traffic

    UK online advertising spend reached £2.8bn last year according to the IAB Adspend Survey 2007. However, the majority of brands are missing out on over half of convertible traffic simply due to ineffective web content.

    In order to achieve sustained growth, brands must match increases in advertising spend with improvements in the effectiveness of on-site content. By investing a fraction of acquisition budgets on solutions to increase the conversion rate of a site, it becomes easier to gain ROI from all traffic sources.

    A highly converting site doesn't only deliver more bottom line revenue in month one. Armed with an industry leading cost per acquisition, a marketer can play harder at the acquisition game, confident that they can outspend the competition whilst generating positive returns.

    By testing live visitor response to different content variations on websites, it is possible to identify the content that best drives visitors towards any goal in a measurable and scientific way. As the cost of acquiring high quality traffic increases, the justification grows for investing in the optimisation of site content.

    If the entirety of the UK ad spend was converted, the cost benefits for the market would run into billions. Our Automated Content Optimisation removes wastage by discovering the best performing content on your site and showing it to more visitors.

    Talk to us today about how we can help you cut the waste!

    Call +44 (0)844 412 8800 or Book a Demo

    Monday, April 21, 2008

    Optimising E-Tail For All Sorts

    Peter Ellen, MD, Maxymiser looks at post analytics optimisation and multichannel merchandising as a major source of new sales in our latest white paper. As online retail matures, it will face the operational challenges of a maturing discipline.

    “Brands that fail to embrace content optimisation will deliver weak user experiences, loosing sales and loyalty to those with optimised online stores.”

    Maxymiser’s Onsite Content Optimisation solutions enable retailers to progressively optimise user experience in a realtime live environment. This doesn’t require any focus groups or labs so you can get down to brass tacks much quicker. It does put your analytics data to excellent use by addressing the issues that analytics diagnose.

    Download the Free Whitepaper "Optimising E-Tail For All Sorts" to learn about how content optimisation will drive better performance for your online presence.

    As former Jupiter analyst Eric T. Peterson puts it, “If you're not testing, you're not really taking proper advantage of the data your analytics provides.”

    Thursday, February 21, 2008

    New White Paper: Happy Holidays Start With Great User Journeys

    We released a new white paper earlier this month focusing specifically on how Content Optimisation can help improve the performance of travel websites.

    Download Maxymiser's Website Optimisation White Papers Free Here

    "The pressure on travel media buyers’ metrics seems likely to continue. While search is crucial to the travel industry there is some confusion around just what search inventory is cost effective. Search is great for high margin niches with low CPA and a good way of cleaning down distressed inventory. But what about the mainstream inventory which makes up the rump of business? Many airlines are moving toward zero commission which cuts the options. With more and more direct to client selling, competition for traffic can only go one way."

    Friday, January 11, 2008

    On-Site Behavioural Targeting and Consumer Privacy

    In the US, the FTC recently published proposals for self-regulation in the behaviourally targeted advertising industry. We welcome moves towards protecting consumer privacy online and feel that a self-regulatory approach underpins the professionalism of our discipline.

    Although the some of the principals published for the regulations are intended to govern cross-domain use of behavioural data primarily in the case of advertising networks, they also apply to our work providing people with more relevant and appropriate user experiences online.

    Behavioural targeting has been a major part of offline business since the very beginning of the post-industrial era (queue the Ford Model T cliché). Online, our interest in user behaviour information is as a means to mathematically improve relevance and service.

    By knowing the on-site content most effective at converting past visitors, we can make statistical conclusions about its relevance to future visitors with the same traits. These traits could include details of the referring site and other demographic details but we don’t process anything personally identifiable.

    Robust opt-out mechanisms will provide reassurance to those concerned about online privacy and we believe that self-regulation is an important step towards protecting all consumers from any less than scrupulous operators.

    In Europe, the IAB is leading the development of a set of guidelines covering best practice for the promotion and trading of behaviourally targeted media. Their standpoint on privacy issues is that current EU ecommerce and data protection directives cover this to an adequate extent.

    We would support this view as behavioural targeting on-site does not leverage any personally identifiable data into the equation and this is one of the main precepts for data protection and privacy concerns to kick in. We acknowledge that there are new privacy concerns raised by behavioural targeting, particularly where behavioural data is shared across domains or in-depth “anonymous” profiles might become personally identifiable to some extent due to the nature of search terms recorded.

    We would welcome a similar self-regulatory system in the UK to maintain good practice in this respect and ensure privacy is protected online.

    The proposed US guidelines (60KB PDF Document)