Conversion Optimization

PPC Farming – Harvest Part I

May 20, 2010 By Robert Leave a Comment

Whew! This PPC stuff can be hard work. You spend hours prepping the soil (researching keywords and competitors), planting seeds (account creation and settings), watering & fertilizing (bids, match types and testing) and weeding (negative keywords and domain exclusion). Finally, it’s time to harvest and see the reward of your labors.

Landing Pages – Where the Harvest Happens

All your work should result in a qualified person arriving at one of your landing pages. However, their is still work to be done.

Relevance – Is your landing page relevant to the keyword searched and the ad copy they clicked? If you can’t answer yes to this question you’re losing a large portion of your harvest. The chain of relevancy is vital to conversion because your ad copy made a promise. Your landing page has to deliver on that promise.
Clarity – As Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments is fond of saying, upon arriving at a landing page customers want to know “Where am I?”, “Why am I here?”, and “What can I get here?” Your landing page needs to convey those answers quickly (within the first few seconds) and clearly.
Actionable – This may seem obvious, but your landing page should prominently feature the next step you want a customer to take. And don’t just “feature” it, tell them exactly what they should do. From the headline to the button copy, tell them what you want them to do and the benefit they’ll receive if they do it.

Don’t waste all your hard work with a half-hearted harvest. Get those landing pages done right.

3 High-Level Themes from Conversion Conference

May 11, 2010 By Robert Leave a Comment

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Conversion Conference, a conference focusing entirely on conversion optimization. A big thanks to Tim Ash for putting the conference together (getting a conference going from scratch can’t be easy) and here are 3 high-level themes from the conference (also read Scott Brinker’s 3 big picture marketing themes post that inspired my post):

Conversion Conference Takeaways

Conversion Optimization isn’t hard – Regardless of how complex your website may be, there are lots of tools out there to make testing easy. Google Website Optimizer is free, will auto-prune poor performing pages (in MVT tests) and generates PDF reports that you can deliver to execs or clients. And don’t think that because it’s free it can’t handle the load, GWO was used to test the homepage of YouTube, all 1024 possible page variations and the millions of visits.
Conversion Optimization isn’t new – Brooks Bell talked about how she was helping AOL with split testing over 8 years ago. Direct mail has been doing it for years before that. Conversion optimization may be the hot topic in internet marketing, but it isn’t as new as some people think.
If in doubt…test it – Each site is different, so most questions about what will work/won’t work on your site will start with “It depends…” and end with “…test it.” The key is to actually DO IT! Don’t get caught by decision paralysis. Don’t have meeting about it and talk about it and get stuck in the technical deployment of it. DO IT!

These were 3 themes that I pulled from the conference, but there was a lot more good stuff. Keep an eye on my blog this week for more, follow this Twitter list of Conversion Conference attendees, or read Daniel Sevitt’s first thoughts post.

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: Conversion Conference, Conversion Conference West 2010

3 Golden Questions Your Customers Are Asking

April 14, 2010 By Robert Leave a Comment

Imagine a technology that would let you know exactly what your customers are thinking when they see your ads, landing pages and emails. Lets call it Google PsychoAnalytics. One day you look at your Google PsychoAnalytics reports and see that a majority of your visitors have the same 3 questions:

Question 1: Why You? – Every SERP has 10 organic results and up to 12 paid results. Your potential customers are asking themselves why they should pick your listing over all the other options. Are you giving them a clear, simple answer?
Question 2: Why Now? – Maybe they see your banner add on their favorite site or perhaps an email lands in their inbox. They might even be on your landing page right now, but they have a million things to do today and are asking themselves if this is what they should be doing right now. Look at your own pages and calls to action (CTAs). Are you conveying the immediate benefit?
Question 3: What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)? – This is closely related to Question 1 & Question 2, but is more broad. Make sure you’re connecting the dots from feature, to benefit, to benefit of the benefit. For example: Your CRM software saves sales reps 30 minutes/day which means each salesman closes 1 more sale/week and earns $5000 more commissions/year. Make sure they know what’s in if for them as an individual as well as the company.

As you may guess, Google PsychoAnalytics isn’t coming anytime soon, but you can ask these questions already. What other questions are your customers asking?

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: 3 Whys, Google PsychoAnalytics

Now Marketing Experiments Certified!

April 13, 2010 By Robert 2 Comments

Not to brag, but Robert Brady (yours truly) is now certified by Marketing Experiments in Online Testing.

Marketing Experiments Professional Certification Program

The course involves 8 sessions covering all the basics of online testing, from formulating a research question to validating the results to interpretation. Flint McGlaughlin provides most of the training and his tone is so conversational that you almost forget it’s prerecorded. Most sessions include case studies to help you see the principles in action and a quiz to quickly test your mastery of the material. This was a big help for me since I totally botched the Session 7 quiz, causing me to go back and review the material again prior to the exam.

The exam is straightforward with two portions. The online portion is multiple choice & fill-in-the-blank questions to test general knowledge and the written portion has you go through an example optimization from start to finish. You demonstrate that you have mastered their methodology and can interpret results to produce a deliverable for a client.

Need Conversion Optimization Help?

Just a reminder, but this newly certified conversion optimization wizard is available for hire. Email me – robert “at” righteousmarketing.com – or reach out to me on Twitter – @robert_brady

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: Certification, Marketing Experiments, Online Testing

Getting Started with Conversion Rate Optimization: Momentum

April 7, 2010 By Robert 1 Comment

mo-men-tum: force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events: The car gained momentum going downhill. Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films.

While reading Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath they discuss a local car wash that had a fairly typical loyalty card. You paid for 8 washes and got one free. However, they tested two different variations. One card was 8 blanks before the free card. The other card was 10 blanks before the free card, but the first two stamps were “gimmies”. What happened?

After a few months 34% of the “gimmies” had received a free wash, while only 19% of the normal cards had received a free wash. That’s right, a 79% increase simply by creating a little momentum.

Creating Momentum in the Conversion Process

The goal is getting a conversion. To accomplish the goal you have to get people from Point A to Point B. If the goal is newsletter registrations you need an email address. If the goal is a lead, you need a name and contact info. If the goal is a sale, you need their name, shipping address and payment info. So how can you create a little momentum?

Make them feel like they’re joining the cool kids (SEOMoz)
Pre-populate Forms – For example, if the user clicked a link from an email, have their name and email pre-populated in the conversion form since you already know it.
Keep ‘em Rolling (MailChimp)

Yes, you can sign up for an email marketing solution (and a dang good one) with only 4 fields!

Now go create some momentum and don’t get in their way once they’ve got it.

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: momentum

How to Craft an Irresistible Call to Action for Your Landing Pages (Guest Post)

April 6, 2010 By Robert 1 Comment

You have everything in place. Your landing page is designed properly. Your copy is easy to scan. And you even have powerful testimonials that increase your credibility.

But you’re still not converting…Why?

One of the most common conversion killers I come across is the call to action. Some landing pages have no call to action at all. Others have weak, uninspiring calls to action that don’t snap visitors out of their lull.

If your landing page suffers from a weak call to action, there’s good news. I’m going to give you all the information and tools you need to craft irresistible calls to action that snap your visitors out of it and into taking action now!

Be as clear and concise as possible

The biggest call to action problem I see is a lack of clarity. Marketers just aren’t being specific about why you should buy their products and what action you need to take. Your website visitors can’t read your mind; you need to tell them, as clearly as possible, the precise action you want them to take.

In addition to being clear, you need to be concise as well. I’ll never forget the time I came across a blog written by a supposed “advertising expert.” At the end of each post, he had a call to action trying to get people to sign up for his email newsletter. Unfortunately, this call to action was literally 5 or 6 sentences long. 95% of the words in that call to action could’ve been eliminated, leaving a short, easy-to-understand one sentence call to action.

Don’t offer choices

A lot of companies approach their landing page and call to action with the more is more philosophy. They believe that offering customers with a lot of choices increases the chances of them finding an option they like and taking action. The truth is choice usually leads to lower conversions.

The problem with having too many choices is that it overwhelms the visitor. They have so many options to choose from that they end up choosing none because it’s too confusing to figure out what they should actually do.

Remember earlier when I said you need to keep your call to action clear and concise? You can’t do that if you’re offering all these different options. Keep it simple: One, maybe two option(s) per landing page.

Eliminate risk

Online shoppers are more careful than ever before. The internet is plagued with scams and fly-by-night companies, so customers are always a little wary of doing business with a company they don’t know.

That’s why it’s your job to earn their trust and to eliminate the risk of doing business with you. In your call to action, you can include a “money back guarantee” or a “free 30 day trial” so that customers feel like they have nothing to lose if they take action. This removes another sales roadblock, improving the chances of your visitors converting.

Include one call to action in every screen view

One of my favorite techniques to improve conversion rate is to include a call to action in every screen view on the page. This way, no matter where a visitor is on your landing page, they have a quick way to take action. Compare this to only having one call to action buried at the bottom of the page (most visitors won’t even make it that far down), and it’s pretty clear why this approach is preferable.

The other benefit of repeating your call to action is that it harnesses the power of repetition. If you keep reminding your visitors of what you want them to do, it’ll finally click in their mind that they need to take that specific action.

Use time-sensitive words

A lot of online shoppers don’t like to rush to action immediately. They’re procrastinators. They figure they’ll shop around some more and see if a better deal pops up. How can you combat procrastination?

It’s simple: Use time-sensitive words that create a sense of urgency. Words like “today” and “now” in your call to action remind customers that they need to act as quickly as possible to experience the benefits of your products and services. You can even try placing time limitations on your offer, like the infomercials that say “Call within the next 10 minutes to get 2 for the price of 1!”

Test different calls to action

Sometimes, changing a single word in your call to action can affect your conversion rate. The only way to find the most profitable call to action is to always be testing. Figure out which adjustments get more conversions, and keep building on those to continually increase your conversion rate. Never stop testing!

What are some other tips you’d add for crafting a powerful call to action? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

About the Author: Gagandeep Singh works for a conversion rate optimization company Invesp and blogs about landing page templates, conversion rate optimization, SEO and affiliate marketing.

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: call to action, CTA, landing page, landing pages

4 Ideas for Landing Page Forms (Guest Post)

April 1, 2010 By Robert 9 Comments

Your landing page forms can make or break your online lead generation efforts. And yet, so many companies get their forms wrong. From irrelevant questions to forms that go on for a mile, online marketing is rampant with poor-converting forms. But let’s not focus on what’s wrong with forms — let’s dig into 4 new ideas for effective landing page forms.

Test columns
There are many ways you can organize your forms, and testing the number of columns on your form is an easy way to grab low-hanging fruit. We’ve tested the same landing page, with the same number of form fields, but 1 page had a 1 column form, and the other had 2 column form. The results? By separating the form into two columns and bringing the CTA above the fold, conversions doubled! It was an easy test with dramatic results.

Test Fields
It’s often said that a shorter form converts better than a longer form. This is generally true. But I’ve also seen cases where a longer form drives more qualified leads. If you have the bandwith on your team, test both kind of forms & try to manually gauge the quality of the leads you generate with a long form. Are the leads from the long form of higher quality? Or are they about equal?

Keep your forms relevant
Me, me, me, me! Your forms are all about your visitors. Please don’t burden them with irrelevant questions like “Where did you hear about me?” or their “What is your industry”? . I get it — this is great information to have when reporting marketing metrics, but it’s also information that you can ask on a call or determine in your drip marketing. They’re not questions you need to ask on your form, and they’re not questions people answer honestly, as well.

Try wizards
Imagine clicking on a PPC ad, landing on a page, and being greeted by a long form with 10 or more required fields. Eek! That can be intimidating. As you know, long forms can inhibit converions. But if 10 or more fields is essential, try breaking the questions up into a “wizard”. A form “wizard” is a multi-page form that gently guides the user through the conversion process. By breaking up longer forms into smaller chunks of digestible fields, wizards are a great way to boost engagement & lift conversions.

So remember: make you forms friendly, relevant, and streamlined, and watch your conversions soar!

About the Author: Megan Leap is Marketing Manager at ion interactive, a leading provider of advanced landing page software. As Marketing Manager, Megan manages email, webinar, and social media campaigns. She has extensive experience in conversion rate optimization and social media marketing, and when not championing high-ROI online marketing strategies, can be found running marathons across the U.S. She is also a frequent contributor to the Post-Click Marketing Blog. Follow Megan on Twitter: @MeganLeap

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: form optimization, landing page forms, landing pages

Landing Page Copywriting Like a Pro

March 25, 2010 By Robert Leave a Comment

Roberta Rosenberg is one of the best copywriters in the business and yesterday she gave 10 tips on how to write awesome landing page copy. Here are my top 3:

Copy That Converts

Write in the 2nd person – This means using words like You and Your instead of I and We. By default this will help you write with you user in mind. How a feature helps them. What benefits your product/service confers upon them, etc.
Write for clarity and persuasion – No matter how witty or clever you think your copy is, it will convert better if it’s clear and persuasive. If you find yourself admiring your writing prowess, you need to rewrite it. And also, if you need even more simple guidelines remember that Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments trumpets the phrase “Clarity trumps persuasion” (and here’s the data to support his claim).
Don’t ask for what you don’t need – How many fields do your forms have? Do you need every single one (emphasis on need, not want)? Could you get that information during a followup call instead?

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization, internet marketing Tagged With: copywriting, landing page

Conversion Rate Webinars You Shouldn’t Miss

March 24, 2010 By Robert 1 Comment

Today I attended a couple of fantastic webinars. The first was put on by ion interactive titled “Copy that Converts” with Roberta Rosenberg. The second was a Marketing Experiments webinar titled “Social Media Marketing in 4 Steps” and presented a road map for any business that is using or is going to use social media in their marketing mix. Both were fantastic, but there are more on the way.

Upcoming Webinars

Marketing Experiments runs a new webinar every two weeks. The site doesn’t have registration for the next one live yet, but I highly recommend their free subscription. You get access to over $10 million dollars worth of research (which includes months worth of webinars, all archived and searchable) and you’ll be notified of upcoming webinars. These guys are a research company and back up everything they say with test and rock-solid metrics.

Ion interactive has taken it a step further and are offering a month’s worth of conversion optimization webinars. Below are the topics with links directly to the registration page:

B2B Conversion Optimization: From the Search Query to the Landing Page – Register
Landing Page Makeovers – Register
Landing Page Analytics 101 – Register
Landing Page Bloopers & Best Practices – Register

If you know of some other webinars, add them in the comments below.

PS If you want a chance at winning a free ticket to a Marketing Experiments live training, comment on Boris Grinkot’s latest blog post here.

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization Tagged With: webinars

Price Anchoring: Are You Doing It?

March 9, 2010 By Robert 4 Comments

I love reading books that talk about the psychology of buying. There is nothing more fascinating to me than the human mind. Recently I was reading and came across the concept of anchoring. I remembered the term from my marketing classes, but my experience in the internet space gave me a whole new perspective on the topic.

What Is Price Anchoring?

From Wikipedia: “Anchoring and adjustment is a psychological heuristic that influences the way people intuitively assess probabilities. According to this heuristic, people start with an implicitly suggested reference point (the “anchor”) and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate. A person begins with a first approximation (anchor) and then makes adjustments to that number based on additional information.”

In more lay terms, anchoring is comparing one price to another “anchor” price to determine how good of a deal the item is. You go to the store and see tomatoes on sale for $1.49/lb. You know that the farmer down the street sells tomatoes at his stand for $1.00/lb and therefore the store tomatoes don’t seem very cheap to you. However, another shopper sees the $1.49/lb tomatoes in the store and thinks it’s a great deal because the last time they bought tomatoes in the store they were $1.99/lb (and they don’t know about the farmer.) These two customers perceive the price differently because they have different anchors. Anchoring has a large effect on how we perceive value.

What If My Product Is Unique?

For those companies with unique products & services, your customers may have no anchor to help them see the value of your offering. Consider yourself lucky because you have the opportunity to set an anchor for them. Here are two examples:

SEOmoz.com

Just below the video and quotes you’ll see the three purchase options: Pro, Pro Plus and Pro Elite. If you want to join SEOmoz and are a cheapskate, you’ll pick Pro. However, for just a little more you could get Pro Plus and it’s nowhere near as expensive as Pro Elite. SEOmoz uses Pro Elite to set the anchor and that makes Pro Plus and Pro look more reasonably priced. I don’t have user data (but I’d love to hear from a Mozzer in the comments) but I would guess that Pro Elite is their smallest customer base. Sure they make more per customer, but even more than that, it improves the value perception for Pro and Pro Plus.

BaseCampHQ.com

BaseCamp has some interesting variations. First, they actually make the Plus plan larger so it jumps out and call it their “Most Popular Plan.” Second, they have ordered the options with the highest priced on the left and the lowest priced on the right. Despite these differences we see the same idea of using the Max plan as the anchor. They’re actually making it more explicit since left-to-right reading will have us see the Max plan first.

How To Fix It?

Some of you may only have two offerings and you’re wondering how you can use anchoring? Say your pricing looks like this:

LotusJump Pro may be the best value, but it looks expensive compared to Basic. What if you were to add a third plan that had increased functionality and a higher price point? This would serve as the anchor and make the Pro plan look that much more appealing.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Conversion Optimization, internet marketing Tagged With: anchoring, BaseCamp, LotusJump, pricing, SEOmoz