We, therefore, bring you the blog series, A/B testing ideas for eCommerce, where we discuss testing ideas for the most impactful eCommerce web pages in each blog. For the first blog in this series, we discuss A/B testing ideas to improve your eCommerce homepage. So dive right in. 

First impressions are not a hoax. They make or break our chances to make the right kind of impact. 

We may cut fellow humans some slack, but we certainly can’t do the same for websites. Online shoppers take less than a minute to form opinions about websites as soon as they land on them. 

This is especially true for your eCommerce website homepage. The homepage is the face of your eCommerce store, and if it falters to make the right first impression, your users are likely to leave unamused. 

And what happens next is your brand loses the opportunity to resonate with users and win them over. As a result, it won’t matter how organized and effective the rest of your website is if the homepage, the door to your eCommerce presence, doesn’t make a mark in your visitors’ minds. 

Hence, consistent testing is the key to understanding the needs and preferences of your visitors and ensuring that your eCommerce homepage is meeting their expectations. To enhance the user experience and address any gaps, we suggest starting with the following impactful ideas. Let’s begin. 

1. Navigation bar

Visitors to your eCommerce homepage are often unsure about what they want to purchase from your website. They’re here to experience the look and feel of your website and then plunge into product exploration. This is where the navigation has to handhold customers and assist them in their buying journey. Poor navigation that complicates instead of simplifying product discovery will put a damper on the user experience of your website. 

Test idea 1 – Clickable images of subcategories in the navigation

Let’s say you want to grow your homeware selling website but your product inventory is not very vast yet. Qualitative tools like session recordings and clickmaps tell you that users hovering on the mega menu are not clicking through the links to subcategories. In this scenario, you can hypothesize that the clickable images of subcategories (because they are fewer in number) can stir visitors’ interest and improve their engagement. Have a variation created based on this and pit it against the original version. Based on the result, you can release the most suitable experience to your users. 

Next, lay out the subcategories as clearly as possible. Make sure you mention the main menu items first and list only relevant subcategories below them. This way, your users can navigate in an organized manner and avoid browsing aimlessly. 

Test idea 2 – Subcategories under the right parent category

Is each of your product subcategories under the right parent category? Arranging them correctly could be another test idea to improve sales of certain products.

For example, yours is a baby shopping online store whose navigation menu reads – newborn clothes, kids clothes, maternity care, baby gear, baby care, and baby furniture. 

Session recordings show that users expect to find baby tubs and bath stands under the baby furniture category, but they are listed under the baby gear category on your eCommerce website. This behavior is based on the common idea that baby gear refers to products like strollers, walkers, prams, and car seats. 

You can test to see if moving tubs and bath stands from under the baby gear to baby furniture category helps people find the desired product and improve its sale. 

If you are using VWO Testing, you can easily count on its visual editor to move or rearrange elements. Not only can you preview the change before making it live, but you can also add a goal to track. In this case, your goal can be to track clicks on the baby tubs and bath stands subcategory link that takes users to the concerned product page. 

2. Header or footer

Showing navigation in the header is the standard practice in eCommerce. While there is nothing wrong with it, you can also try utilizing the footer to accommodate and display your site’s additional areas. It can also boost your SEO efforts because enriching your footers with anchor links is rewarded by search engines with high SERP rankings. 

Test idea 3 – Navigation links in the footer

What does your homepage footer show other than your company’s contact details? Nothing? Test if adding links to different areas helps improve user engagement on your eCommerce website. See below how Target, one of the US’s leading grocery marketplaces, has shown links to different web pages like about us, help, stores, and services in its footer. 

Test idea 4 – Social media icons in the footer

Social media icons may not be as important as other elements on your homepage conversion-wise but they help grow your following on different social media channels. And the footer is the best place to show them with 70% of websites already having social icons in footers. Create a variation using VWO where you add social media icons in the footer and see if users scrolling down to the bottom are clicking on them. 

3. Sticky or moveable

Does the nav menu disappear when users scroll down on your online store? If not, in its place, you can add a scroll to the top link and have it up and running using VWO Deploy. But if you have neither, you’re leaving your visitors in the lurch. 

Test idea 5 – Sticky or moveable navigation menu

You can create two variations – one with a sticky nav and another with the scroll to the top link. Test and see how visitors respond to each of them. Once again, roll out the experience that drives higher engagement. 

Sticky navigation is a fixed navigation bar that remains in its position even if users scroll down on the page. Stick navigations are a must-have for actionable websites that need customers to take an action like purchasing a product. The ‘stickiness’ makes users feel more confident when browsing an eCommerce website. It serves as an assurance that they won’t be lost in an ocean of choices and can switch to any product category they like as if they have control over their surroundings. 

USP bar

Don’t leave it to customers to discover the positives about your brand. Your job is to make the job easy for them. Bring all the reasons to their fingertips, so they don’t have to wonder why they should buy from your eCommerce website. This is why brands add a USP bar to their website homepage to make a positive impression on potential buyers. 

Durian, a top furniture brand in India, shows a USP bar just below the above-the-fold banner content. Whereas, Sabai, one of the leading furniture-selling brands in the US, shows the USPs of their products in the form of a full-screen image. 

Test idea 6 – A USP bar or a full-screen image highlighting USPs

First, learn which type of USP display connects with your users. Qualitative tools can help you with that exercise. If you don’t have USPs on the homepage of your online store right now, create 2 variations – one with a USP bar (inspired by Durian) and another with a full-screen image, taking a cue from Sabai. 

Test idea 7 – Moving up the position of the USP bar

Let’s say you already have a USP bar on your homepage but it’s at the bottom. Because heatmaps tell you that users are not scrolling so deep on your page, you want to test and see if moving it up can help improve users’ interaction with the section. For this, you can have a variation where you place the USP bar at the top and see how it performs against the control. 

Test idea 8 – Visually-driven USP section

This test idea is about seeing if your visually-driven variation performs better text-loaded control. 

Is your current USP section text heavy? Like a lot of lines and even paragraphs? Chuck it!

Instead, use icons to highlight what your USPs stand for. This can look super catchy and squeaky clean. 

Here too, VWO Visual Editor allows you to make changes to the design layout because of which you can easily pull off these tests without having to resort to developers’ help (even if you need it’s really minimal). You can modify images, and videos, copy, move elements, change to the code editor, and add goals to track using this tool.  

5. Images

Remember, unlike what happens in physical stores, customers can’t see, feel, or touch products when buying online. The closest they can get to that tangible experience is seeing (in fact scrutinizing) product images to make a buying decision.

It’s a no-brainer that you must add high-quality images relevant to what you offer on your eCommerce website. Avoid showing stock images because they lack authenticity and don’t represent your offerings in the best way. If you can, go for lifestyle imagery as it impacts the psyche of your target audience and makes them visualize how using your products might feel. When strategically placed on your homepage, videos can also do a killer job of engaging your website visitors.

Test idea 9 – Branded video to improve user engagement

Imagine you own an online coffee-selling shop and in one section of your homepage, you have text content explaining the specialty of your company in roasting coffee beans naturally. Do you know what can make this more interesting? Create a variable containing a video on this where you can use animations or have real people talk about their experiences. 

VWO Testing can do all the heavy lifting so that you can easily embed videos on your homepage using the visual editor and get started. Set ‘Track engagement’ as your goal to see if this change motivates visitors to interact better with your eCommerce website. 

6. Product recommendations

Users landing on your eCommerce homepage through direct search or organic search are still in the process of discovering your brand and its offerings. 

Give them enough choices to explore. Let them have a glimpse of what they can expect from your brand.  

Test idea 10 – Product recommendations for new visitors

New customers need to be told what sets your brand apart from the rest. To do this, you can display ‘Bestseller’, ‘Top picks’, and ‘New Arrivals’ product recommendation tiles to catch their attention and even encourage them to convert.

Test idea 11 – Personalized recommendations for returning visitors

What about your returning customers? Will they benefit from seeing the above product recommendations? Yeah, why not, but what can really stand out is offering personalized product recommendations on the homepage of your online store. Some product titles that are worth adding to your homepage are ‘Based on your search history’, ‘Curated for you this week’, ‘Continue browsing these brands’, and so on. 

Using VWO FullStack, you can run tests on recommendation engines with help from your developers. Further, custom segments in VWO will allow you to target a specific segment for a test (new customers for the first test and returning customers for the second test). To see if this test is motivating new customers to purchase, you can track conversions and set add-to-cart value as a goal identifier. 

7. Seasonal offers

No matter how fastidious customers are about sharing personal details when online shopping, 85% of them are ready to exchange data for discounts. Yes, you read that right. Nothing appeals to customers as much as discounts do. Whether you’re running a buy one and get one free deal or offering flash sales, make them known to your visitors through your eCommerce homepage. 

The simple logic behind why discounts work is that it encourages more customers to purchase, which increases your profits. But beware that decreasing prices beyond a point can disturb profit margins. 

Test idea 12 – Discounts to encourage more purchases

Let’s imagine this. You’re currently offering a 30% discount as a part of a clearance sales strategy to your customers. On seeing that not many customers are responding, you can create a variation with a 50% discount, which you test to check if a higher discount rate (agreed upon by the management) motivates customers to purchase. Set your goal to ‘Track revenue on’ on VWO to obtain the test result.

Test idea 13– Discount placements: carousel or horizontal bar

Now, where to place your offer banners so they grab customers’ eyeballs? Most brands highlight offers in carousels with attractive product or lifestyle images in the above-the-fold section on their homepage. Behemoths like Amazon and Walmart have pioneered the use of this style of offer display. For your case, you can have a carousel in the first variation and show a horizontal banner at the top in the second variation. The one that has a higher probability of improving your conversions should be rolled out to all. 

Test idea 14 – Offer-based recommendations

Offer-based recommendation titles can also be a good testing idea to try out and see how it works for your online store. Amazon categorizes products on which attractive deals are available under a particular recommendation category on its homepage. 

One of VWO’s clients, Ideal of Sweden, a Swedish lifestyle brand, wanted to make the most of the Black month to boost sales from their online store. So, the team aimed to encourage visitors to purchase before the sale was over, with discounts being the motivator. As a result, it was hypothesized that implementing a countdown banner would create fear of missing out in the minds of customers, thereby encouraging them to purchase soon. The variation was implemented throughout the website and led to a 5.6% increase in the primary metric of add-to-cart. To know more about their learnings from the test and the next roadmap, read here.

8. Pop-up form

A few days back, I found an interesting post by Johnny Longden, Director of Digital Experiment Services, where he called out an online kitchen appliance seller for showing an email pop-up 4 times within 15 seconds of landing on its website. And he believed that this could lead to a high drop-off from the online store. 

As we near the cookie-less future, we understand your urge to collect first-party data to stay competitive. And asking visitors to share their email addresses by offering discounts, newsletters, and membership in pop-up forms is one of the effective ways to get there. 

But pop-ups are two-edged swords. While showing them increases your chances of getting desired customer data, the premature display can be detrimental to user experience as it can distract visitors from deriving value from your eCommerce website. 

Test idea 15 – Pop-up form display at the right time

Run a test where you increase the time between users landing on the website and showing the email pop-up. Say you increase the time from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, giving users a chance to consume some of your content. Using VWO, you can set the goal to ‘Track clicks on element(s)’ and see if more users are filling up the form in the variation.

Test idea 16 – Persuasive copy for your form

Think there’s scope to improve the copy of the form? Ask only what is required. Asking a lot of questions can raise suspicion among visitors and make them leave your website. Also, ensure the copy is persuasive and catchy. You can show something like – More than 20k visitors have already signed up. Now is your turn to get attractive offers in your inbox. The combination of a persuasive copy and numbers acts as great social proof that creates an urgency in the minds of visitors to take action so they don’t get left behind. 

Test idea 17 – Minimized pop-up banner

Is your email pop-up full page? It’s possible that your website visitors find it distracting. A high drop-off rate could be a testimony to that. You can try showing a minimized pop-up at the corner of the homepage and see if it is better received by audiences. Using our Visual Editor, you can add different types of widgets and adjust the shape and placement of the existing widgets. Take a full-featured trial to test these ideas today. 

9. Call to Action Buttons

Inundating your homepage with a lot of words is not a great idea. Striking a balance between text and visuals (even whitespace) is super important to reduce cognitive load for users on your online store. 

Test idea 18 – Call to action button copy

As suggested for the email pop-up form, you should see if there is scope to optimize call-to-action (CTA) buttons in different places on your homepage. If your current CTA ‘Browse products’ is not getting as many clicks as you’d like it to get, you can see if tweaking the copy to something like ‘Explore our collection’ improves user clicks on the button. 

Test idea 19 – Colors of CTA buttons

When you’re deciding the colors of your CTA buttons, consider the background hues, whitespace, and other visual elements on the homepage. Say your layout is made in light yellow. You can’t expect a similar shade to stand out when used for a CTA button. Instead, you may try other shades like honey, gold, fire, and dijon to make the CTA button stay at the top of the visual hierarchy and draw visitors’ eyeballs to it. 

Test idea 20 – Above the fold placement of CTA buttons

Your homepage is not a maze that your visitors have to solve. If you want them to stay on your website, keep the interactive elements, especially CTA buttons, in predictable and prominent places. Is your main CTA button below above-the-fold? Move it up and incorporate it with the header image. You can hardly go wrong with this one. Still, test and see how it works for you. 

The Chicago-based apparel company RIPT tested and found their best-performing CTA button using VWO. Not only did they add a discount but they also added a countdown timer that created FOMO (fear of missing out) among your visitors. As expected, the variation was a winner with a 6.3% increase in purchases. Read here to know the learnings from the test. 

10. Search bar

No talk about the homepage is complete without mentioning the search bar. But then the search bar functionality in itself is a broad topic that deserves its own article. For this one, let’s stick to its placement on the homepage. 

It goes without saying that the search bar should be positioned in a prominent place so visitors can easily see and access it. Here are some examples to inspire your test idea.

Amazon has split the top menu into two bars – it shows the search bar along with users’ account, return, and add to cart icons at the top and the mega menu and hamburger menu in the second bar. 

Whereas eBay has split the top menu into three different bars – The first one shows add-to-cart and account sign icons, watchlist and My eBay dropdown, and so on. The second bar just houses the search box with a shop by category drop-down alongside. The third one lists and displays all main navigation menu items for users to explore.

Test idea 21 – Search bar design and placement

Let’s consider that visitors on your homepage are not clicking on the search box. But you’ve observed that visitors who search have better chances of converting. For the variation, you can make the search box more center-aligned and its border more prominent to raise its discoverability. Test this against the control where the search box is inconspicuous. See if the variation increases the number of visitors clicking and searching for products. 

Best Choice Product, a California-based online store, found that 50% of traffic to its website were mobile users and visitors searching for products were converting 60% better than the rest. They used VWO to run a test where it was hypothesized that increasing the size of the search box and placing it in the center can help improve conversions. The test was a success with an increase of 30% in click-through rate on main CTAs.  

Wrapping it up

The homepage offers a window for users to take a peek at your brand and what it offers. You need to experiment and see what helps keep users on your eCommerce website, prove that your online store is worth spending time on, and gradually move them down the buying funnel.

Hope you enjoyed reading the first blog on A/B testing ideas for your eCommerce homepage of this series. You might be tempted to try these testing ideas, hoping to skyrocket user engagement and conversions. But bear in mind that any test you run should be backed by research that is contextual to your website and users. 

Take advantage of the integrated experimentation platform VWO to dive into user behavior analytics, unified customer data, and full stack to inform your website testing roadmap. Sign up for a free trial to take the first step toward your homepage revamp!

Such a business will not flourish because as a customer, you need to buy into the experience before you pay for the product. In this digitally dominant world of business, you will judge the product based on the website’s experience and leave instantly if it is not up to the mark. 

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The foundation of a high-performing website with the finest experience is based on three pillars: Optimization, Personalization, and Testing. Most of us understand these terms in theory, but their impact on the website depends on the correct execution.

Although optimization, personalization, and testing techniques should align with your business objectives, here are common best practices that can be utilized as a reference regardless of industry or business size.

Best practices in website optimization

Website optimization is about improving the performance of the website in terms of speed, traffic, and design using various strategies and tools. It involves reviewing, experimenting, and optimizing areas like SEO, copywriting, UI, analytics, CRO, and web development. Let’s explore some of the best practices: 

Reducing website loading time

A fast-loading website creates a smooth user experience, which leads to a higher conversion rate and higher ranking on the SERPs. You should aim for 2 seconds of load time; the reason being the threshold set by Google for dynamic websites like an eCommerce store. 

Although using cache plugins and minifying HTML and CSS is common, you can speed up the website with advanced measures. Following are some suggestions in this direction:

• Work on reducing redirects for the landing page
• Upgrade the hosting to reduce server response time 
• Remove rendered-blocking JavaScript
• Enable G-zip compression

Studying visitor experience with heatmaps and session recording

Everybody with a website uses some analytics tool to understand user interaction. But, to create a strong position in this cut-throat competition, it’s crucial to use advanced tools like dynamic heatmaps and session recordings. 

A basic analytics tool will point out a high bounce rate or low duration on a particular page. But, a heatmap and session recording will tell you at what point on the webpage users are leaving and how the website elements are performing on the heatmap. They will give precise information on the visitor’s experience with different elements, content, and media on the website. These advanced tools answer what to optimize.

Making it user and intent-friendly

The practice to create a landing page stuffed with keywords is obsolete. The user intent has taken center stage, and targeting the motive behind the search will ensure success in contemporary times. One of the simplest ways to understand the intent is to analyze the top 10 SERPs for a particular keyword as search engines have evolved to understand intent and rank pages. 

For example, if we search for second-hand cars on Google, we get SERPs with “used cars” in the title, and the content of the pages intends for transactions rather than sharing knowledge.

Thus, before creating content to target any keyword, a simple analysis of SERP can help understand the intent. Also, including modern features like text-to-speech, and voice search will keep you ahead of the curve.

Focusing on conversion rate optimization (CRO)

A website owner in these modern times must run CRO campaigns that intend to analyze and optimize each stage of a conversion funnel. CRO helps in making data-driven decisions when optimizing content, web design, and elements such as calls-to-action (CTAs). The focus of CRO should be to optimize the complete user journey rather than just the landing page or the website. On top of it, the future is all about customer data platforms (CDP), and it’s something to explore to scale up the website optimization process. 

Regularly SEO auditing your website

High-growth brands audit their websites at regular time intervals. Visitor behavior is dynamic and changes quickly with time; regular SEO audits help keep your website up to the mark. Here are some tips to do an SEO audit:

• Check for indexing issues, mobile friendliness, and core web vitals on the website’s search console.
• Look for duplicate versions of your website.
• Analyze keyword queries on the search console or any SEO tool such as Semrush and Ahrefs. Check low CTR/impressions ratio and low rankings.
• With tools like Semrush, analyze and remove broken and low domain authority internal and external links.
• Analyze your site’s speed on different devices. You can use Google’s Pagespeed Insights to get suggestions to improve speed and core web vitals.

Example of website optimization

Yelp, a crowd-sourced business review platform, saw a decrease in page speed due to an increase in the number of steps in the ad purchase flow. The development team at Yelp did some initial optimization and found that an increase in page speed lifts the conversion rate by 12%.

Thus, the team started with tools like ChromeDev to find frontend development issues and Google Lighthouse to get suggestions on the speed. After a series of front-end and server-side optimization, the browser rendering of the content improved by 45%. The whole optimization effort led to a 15% improvement in conversion rate.

It just shows how website optimization improves the user experience and positively impacts the conversion rate.

Best practices in website personalization

Website personalization tailors visitors’ experiences based on preferences and past interactions. Here are some practices to ace website personalization.

Collecting data on user behavior and creating groups based on similar characteristics

Collecting data on the visitor journey is essential for creating a successful website personalization campaign. It allows you to understand how visitors perceive your website and what factors influence their decision to convert. The data should yield insights into conversion factors such as offers, product quality, or customer support. The insights can be used to create a hypothesis and visitor segments that guide the creation of a personalized journey. 

For example, consider an eLearning platform that gathered customer information using a customer data platform (CDP). The data showed that some current learners visited a newly launched course, browsed the offers section at the checkout page, and left the platform. These learners can be grouped as discount seekers, to be targeted laterwards with a tailored campaign that informs them of discounts for the new course.   

Gathering and using customer feedback to improve personalization

Collecting customer feedback can provide valuable insights for your next website personalization campaign. While behavioral analysis can reveal user behavior, direct communication with customers can give a more precise understanding of their needs and preferences. Surveys, email campaigns, and chatbots are all effective ways to gather customer feedback.  

One of the good practices is to deploy surveys based on specific trigger conditions, such as an exit survey to understand what users expected at different stages of the journey. Here is one example, a survey gets triggered when a user intends to close the tab. 

The feedback from the user helps in formulating a hypothesis for the next personalization campaign. Also, you can segment users based on their responses and target them laterwards. 

Experimenting with different versions of personalized experiences

Combining experimentation with website personalization is like pairing milk and chocolate; they complement each other well. Experimentation can boost the performance of website personalization. 

For example, you have a personalized floating widget on your eCommerce store that recommends new deals on products that are frequently bought by a customer. A/B testing the widget’s headline, image placement, and color of CTA can further improve the conversion rate. 

Understanding the significance of personalization metrics

Tracking the right personalization metrics is a challenge for many firms. A key metric is like a signal that tells whether personalization campaigns are giving a fruitful output or not. So, it’s important to study the significance of each key metric before delving into website personalization. 

For instance, consider a firm that provides an on-page SEO analysis tool. They have now introduced a technical SEO checker with a $5 increase in the subscription fee. The company initiated the rollout with a targeted campaign aimed at its loyal customer base, detailing the new feature.

In this scenario, measuring metrics such as Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is vital to assess the campaign’s effectiveness. A rise in ARPU indicates that the personalization campaign aligned with the customer’s needs and preferences.

Complying with the regulations

Ensuring data privacy and cybersecurity is a top priority in today’s dynamic digital environment. Personalization requires access to customer data, and there are regulations in place to protect this information. It is crucial to secure customer data for website personalization, not only for ethical reasons but also to comply with laws. When selecting a third-party tool for personalization, make sure it meets the standards and regulations set forth by organizations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.

Example of website personalization

VWO is a trusted platform around the globe for experimentation. Here is how the landing page looks:

Prospects from various industries visit the homepage of VWO. These prospects can be segmented based on their industry, and a tailored experience can be created. Suppose, we personalized the homepage for an eCommerce lead with VWO Personalize. Here is how it will look:

Notice the personalized headline. Likewise, the headline will change for a SaaS, Edtech, or any other prospect. Personalization enhances brand positioning with such tailored communication. 

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Best practices in website testing

Website testing is the process of comparing two or more versions of the webpage to find out a better-performing variation in terms of conversion rate, engagement, or any other metric. A/B testing, Split URL testing, and Multi-variate testing are widely adopted methods of website testing. Here are some of the best practices for website testing:

Testing based on data-backed hypotheses

Website testing should not be an output of a hunch but a data-backed hypothesis. Before testing, you should do an extensive analysis of visitor behavior with real-time analytics tools.

The analysis helps understand the leaks in the sales funnel, baseline conversion, and information on the non-converting user segment. The dataset then leads to a hypothesis, which guides the testing campaign.  

Create an experimentation roadmap

You just don’t show up at work and start experimentation. It should be a planned, ongoing activity that is part of your organization’s culture. After an extensive study of visitor experiences, and hypothesis creation, it’s good to prioritize test ideas based on easiness, impact, and confidence in getting a result. Your roadmap should be available to all stakeholders within the organization for accountability and cross-team collaboration of ideas. 

Don’t make changes to a running test

It is not recommended to make changes to a running A/B or split URL test, as doing so can skew the results and make them less accurate. It is best to let the test run its full course and, if the results are not satisfactory, start a new test with the desired changes.

Create mutually exclusive groups while running multiple tests

When running multiple tests on a homepage for visitors, it is important to ensure that the tests do not overlap or conflict with one another. For example, if one A/B test is offering a discount on a specific product, and another test is offering a flat discount on all products, a visitor becoming part of both tests could get confused. To ensure the accuracy of the tests and avoid confusion, it is crucial to create mutually exclusive groups so that a visitor is exposed to only one test at a time.

Document learnings from the experiment

If you are new to experimentation, the whole process of experimentation is itself a learning experience. You must document the process, along with the results. It helps a lot for future experimentation campaigns, especially if the team working on it changes. The notes on mistakes, learnings, and secondary KPIs that showed changes, can set the tone and hypothesis for future experimentation campaigns. 

Example of website testing

Contorion, a B2B online marketplace utilized VWO for A/B and Split URL testing. Contorion ran an A/B test to determine the effectiveness of a site-wide banner for promotion, which helped them increase the conversion rate during promotional periods by 5%. Similarly, they ran a Split URL test to compare the new design of the product page with the old one. The variation performed better, with a 2.4% increase in the add-to-cart click rate.

Conclusion

Optimizing your website, personalizing its content, and testing its performance requires effort and investment. However, the results are worth it as they create a positive impression on your customers. 

Improving the speed and relevance of your website content and conducting an SEO audit enhances the user experience. It’s like regular maintenance for a car to ensure a smooth ride. 

By testing and personalizing your website, you can bridge the gap between your perception of the digital property and customers’ expectations of it. But many times, website owners hesitate due to sudden monetary demands to carry out experimentation. Investment in an experimentation tool or development team means spending money even before understanding its nuances. But not anymore.

VWO allows you to create data back hypothesis, run tests like A/B, split URL, and multivariate test, and personalize website experience for user segments. Features like Visual Editor mean less time spent conversing with the development team and more time for optimization. What’s amazing is that you don’t have to spend a single penny on starting experimenting.

VWO offers an all-inclusive free trial of all its capabilities so that you can gather data, test, and personalize. If testing is what you want to start with, VWO has a free starter pack on web testing for 50k monthly traffic. Check out the details of VWO’s plans and pricing. 

Or can you?

A quick question: What does your “unsubscribe” page look like? The catch is that businesses often overlook the power of this marketing instrument. When designed and used right, your “unsubscribe” page can help manage the contact’s base, optimize a conversion rate, and make consumers think twice before leaving you.

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In this guide, you’ll find alternative business goals to accomplish with an “unsubscribe” page and learn how to design it so that it would serve to save relationships with your customers.

The role of “unsubscribe” pages in customer retention, compliance, and user experience

An “unsubscribe” page opens when a user clicks on a corresponding link in newsletters or sales emails. Its primary purpose is to confirm that a person wants to break up with your business and stop getting messages from it.

But experienced marketers look beyond this traditional notion.

They use “unsubscribe” pages as a chance to retain subscribers, offer alternatives for better compliance, or capture user feedback to improve the experience for future subscribers.

Not only can a well-designed “unsubscribe” page convince users that they should stay on your mailing list and keep receiving value, but it also helps you clean the contacts’ base. Only those loyal to your brand or interested in your products will stay, which is an excellent way to focus on proper segmentation and protect your business emails from being reported as spam.

For many brands, an “unsubscribe” page is a chance to create a positive user experience. It’s the last touchpoint of a user with your business emails, so it needs to be good enough to leave a positive impression about your brand. While your newsletters may not be attractive to unsubscribers anymore, your value proposition might.

Five extra goals to accomplish with your “unsubscribe” page

Think of an “unsubscribe page” as a tiny yet significant step to adopting a culture of experimentation in your organization. It’s a tool helping you improve user experience with no risks to your business. It’s your chance to learn more about the target audience and optimize all the processes to their needs.

Ensure that you use “unsubscribe” pages to their full potential. An efficient page can help organizations accomplish at least five business goals:

1. Gather feedback

Use an “unsubscribe” page to ask subscribers for valuable feedback. Most templates include the “I no longer want to receive your newsletter” option, but it doesn’t tell anything about the reasons why a person leaves you. Their feedback should allow you to learn and improve the user experience.

So tailor the answers to “Why unsubscribe” to your business needs. Keep the form simple and with the possibility to give open-ended responses. Make those questions optional, and let unsubscribers know their feedback will help you become better.

You can also capture user feedback on the unsubscribe page by quickly building and running VWO’s on-page surveys.

2. Offer alternative subscription plans

Some users might disagree with the frequency of messages they get from your organization. Or, they’d like to choose the types of emails to get from you. Use an “unsubscribe” page to offer them alternative subscription plans and the opportunity to change newsletter preferences. And yet, the “Unsubscribe” option should still be there.

But what is the best alternative? The answer to that lies in testing/experimentation. Use A/B tests to show different alternatives and deploy the ones that are most suitable to your business.

3. Take leads to other channels

Unsubscribing from your newsletters, users might still want to hear from your organization but from channels other than email. Show them other possibilities to stay in touch with your brand: add social media buttons, links to your community, or landing pages to your “unsubscribe” page design. Motivate consumers to stay with you there.

4. Make them rethink about unsubscription

When designing your “unsubscribe” page, please keep in mind all possible scenarios. Sometimes, a user might hit the link by accident, with no intention to unsubscribe. Or, they might change their mind on the way to the page. 

Or, you can offer them some added value so they would like to stay with you. Think of a final, too-good-to-refuse offer. In the beginning, write a friendly text saying you’re sad to lose the subscriber. Come up with a reason that could make them think twice about breaking up with your organization.

5. Reinforce brand identity

Unsubscription from your newsletters shouldn’t make you give up caring about the user experience. As you know, a customer journey goes far beyond subscribing and unsubscribing to emails. Use the design of an “unsubscribe” page to reflect the corporate identity of your organization. Personalize it, thank a user for the time together, show that you still care — it’s all about your brand authenticity and reputation.

How to design “unsubscribe” pages to make them work

And now, for the most interesting part –

Depending on your business goals, from those mentioned earlier, consider the following tips on designing an “unsubscribe” page to get the most out of it

1. Brand it

Make sure your “unsubscribe” page looks original and refers to your brand identity. Please don’t make it another gray “You’ll no longer receive our emails” web page. Design it with brand colors, images, icons, and any other key brand assets.

Online graphic design tools, instruments like an icon maker, and libraries of customizable email and web templates will help you brand a page the best way possible.

2. Allow staying with you

When designing, please avoid one-click unsubscribe buttons – create a page where a user can confirm the cancellation. Therefore, you’ll save consumers from accidental unsubscriptions. Make sure that your unsubscribe page is in compliance with internet laws (like GDPR, CCPA, etc.) that matter to you.

Also, a good practice would be organizing your “unsubscribe” page so that visitors might change their decision and re-subscribe again. Present a field or a bright “re-subscribe” button after final confirmation. You never know the user’s true intentions, so always leave yourself a chance to recapture those in doubt.

3. Leverage personal touch

Personal touch and compliments are what matters, especially when it comes to sincere goodbye. Make your “unsubscribe” page clean, simple, up to a point, yet personal. Users should know you’re sad that they are leaving, but you understand and value their decision.

Think of writing a text that would look and sound like a human, not a robot. Avoid long paragraphs with professional slang and jargon in complex sentences. Use words with a positive context to win subscribers’ favor, but remember your brand tone of voice.

A charismatic image or GIF, brand colors and fonts, and a straightforward but honest message — all of them promote your brand identity and make users remember your organization even after they’ve unsubscribed.

Download Free: Website Redesign Guide

4. Use humor if appropriate

Interactive content elements such as GIFs, quizzes, memes, and short videos are your chance to grab users’ attention and motivate them to take the desired action. Consider implementing them in an “unsubscribe” page design if the communication tone of your brand allows it.

Even if a user still decides to unsubscribe, such content tricks are a great way to humanize the experience, make them smile, and build a positive image of your brand. They’ll leave your email subscription with a complimentary view, which is critical for marketers working on brand awareness and trust.

But there’s a catch.

Humor is a subjective thing, so be careful when choosing jokes or funny memes/videos for your “unsubscribe” page. Use them only if you’re sure the target audience is on the same wavelength as you. The best option would be to use A/B testing to understand a user’s reaction to such content.

5. Offer alternatives. Always

When designing your “unsubscribe” page, leave room for words or buttons that would allow you to hold users.

• Allow them to choose what they want to get from you: Offer alternative subscription plans or an opportunity to pick the frequency of getting your brand emails.
• Include links to buttons to your social media accounts: It will help you hook users and convert them via alternative communication channels.
• Add links to your landing pages: Play on their FOMO (fear of missing out), engaging them to visit your website once again.

In a word

An “unsubscribe” page is not just for confirmation that a consumer wants to leave your organization. When designed right, it can make subscribers change their mind, take them to other sales channels, or offer them alternative options to stay with your brand and therefore optimize your conversion rate by far.

Do your best to brand it for better identity and user experience, add personality and humor whenever appropriate (remember to test it to see how it goes), and think of a “What’s in there for me?” option to offer on the page that motivates unsubscribers to stay.

Though widely popular among the digital marketers across the globe, only a few top contenders in a niche understand the nitty-gritty of creating a landing page that converts at par with the industry average.

Download Free: Landing Page Optimization Guide

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone page designed to generate qualified leads. In order to achieve this objective, you can have micro conversions on your landing page, such as filling out a form, signing up for a free trial, registering interest in a product or service, etc.

Marketers generally send warm traffic to a landing page—the traffic that has shown some interest in your offer. Among other channels, your target audience might come from marketing campaigns like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media campaigns, or an email marketing campaign.

Landing page conversion rates vary with industries and their objectives. Hence, it’s unfair to set an ideal conversion rate that fits all industries.

To set a target for yourself, you can refer to the above graph that illustrates the conversion rate benchmarks in different industries.

What is the first step to building high-converting landing pages?

Don’t fall for any manual that guarantees a high-converting landing page—they don’t exist. As mentioned in the above section, the conversion rate standards are industry specific, which can probably guide you in setting a target in the initial stages of your landing page design process. However, as a starting point, it is imperative for you to have a sound understanding of your brand and its value propositions, apart from having knowledge about basic landing page design and user experience (UX).

Iterations never hurt, but guessing games can do collateral damage to your business. 

Creating high-converting landing pages requires continuous testing and optimization. Understanding this is the first, important step of your optimization journey. You can certainly stop guessing what convert visitors on your landing page and utilize tools such as heatmaps, eye-tracking software, and more to gauge visitor behavior on your page. Generating valuable insights from these tools can help you improve the design, CTA, etc., and thereby, can create a high-converting landing page.

What does a high-converting landing page comprise?

Crisp above-the-fold content

The design of your landing page impacts the conversion rate. The fold plays a vital role in creating a great landing page. Everything that appears on the screen when you first load the landing page is above-the-fold content.

Nielsen Norman Group conducted a study on people’s online browsing habits. The study has 120 participants who interacted with thousands of sites in different niches. Using eye-tracking software, they looked at how people interacted with different websites.

Based on their findings, the Nielsen Norman Group concluded that; “Users do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough. What is visible on the page without requiring any action is what encourages us to scroll.”

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the high-converting landing pages are designed to have the maximum above-the-fold impact. A great landing page contains all of the key information a visitor might need above the fold, almost like a mini sales page. Take an example from VWO’s own landing page.

You can see, the content above the fold includes essential landing page elements that help convince a visitor to take action. It includes:

• Headline
• Engaging sub-headline
• Call to action
• Social proof

 A perfect landing page design relies on grabbing the user’s attention right from the start. If a visitor wants to find out more information, they can then scroll down the page, where key elements of the sales message are expanded upon.

A headline with an impact

David Ogilvy, the founder of the global marketing company Ogilvy, famously said about headlines: “Five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.” His quote is from a pre-internet age, but the sentiment holds to this day.

Take the example of a landing page designed by Imsider.ru. They ran an A/B test to increase the landing page conversion rate. The control is on the left, and the variation is on the right.

The headline translation is below the screenshot for anyone whose Russian is rusty.

In this A/B test, the variant improved lead generation. It generated 9.52% more leads than the control. That’s a significant increase in the landing page conversion rate.

Fundamentally, the headline must convey the benefit to the visitor. This can be done by offering a time-sensitive benefit and promising an easy solution, as shown in the example above. Regardless of your approach, you must attempt to optimize your headline through conversion rate optimization testing.

A hooking subheadline

Your subheadline should elaborate on the headline and add more context to it by providing complementary information, so as to convince a visitor to take the desired action. Below are four things you can try when creating landing pages subheadline:

1. Make it longer: Depending on the landing page design, the subheadline can be up to two or three times as long as your headline.
2. Include your unique selling point (USP): Include your USP in the subheadline if appropriate.
3. Encourage action: You can turn your subheadline into an engaging call to action (CTA) in just a few words.
4. Don’t overinform: Your subheadline should be concise, crisp, and focused.

Take the example of VenueSphere, a third-party referral business, that provides a case study on the importance of your subheadline.

They ran an A/B test on their subheadline to try and improve their conversion rate. The variant, the second screenshot, resulted in a 69% increase in leads over the control.

Hierarchy of order: how to structure a sales copy

As a marketer, your job is to convince your landing page visitor that the desired action expected from them stands for their interest. This involves overcoming a couple of fundamental objections and pain points a person may have. For instance:

• Does the landing page offer what I’m looking for?
• Is there enough information on the entire landing page to answer my questions?
• Is this going to take a long time?

The elements you use on a landing page will help people overcome these natural objections to taking action. The way these elements are ordered on the page will determine your conversion rate.

There are some standard formulas for landing page copy that you need to acquaint yourself with if you want to create a high-converting landing page. These include:

• Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA)
• Before After Bridge
• Problem, Agitate, Solve
• Picture, Promise, Prove, Push (PPPP)

The above are some of the examples of copywriting principles you could apply to your site. They are particularly useful if you plan to create a long-form landing page.

Download Free: Landing Page Optimization Guide

Color theory: how to use colors on a page

The colors and the design of the visual elements on your own landing pages play an important role as far as the first impression of your page is concerned. Understanding how people react to colors and how to use colors on a page relates to a set of design principles known as color theory.

There are elements of color theory that relate to landing page design:

1. Psychology of colors
2. The role of contrasting colors in emphasizing elements on a page

The color scheme of your landing page should mirror your brand. It’s important to have at least some basic understanding of color associations when designing a landing page. You can refer to a color wheel to understand complimentary colors.

The colors you use can help drive visitors’ attention to elements by contrasting these elements against the background. This is why there is such a large set of success stories that highlight how a change in the color of a landing page button can increase or decrease conversion rates.

Finally, you should understand how to use color contrast to highlight elements on a page. Numerous case studies suggest how changing the color of a button can impact conversion rates.

Relevant images: pick the right ones

Visuals play a crucial role in designing your landing page. They break up chunks of text and make the design of a page look attractive. However, you should be careful when, how, and what images you use. Images can help direct attention to elements of the page.

Photos of people are generally really effective on a landing page. Yet, the image needs to be appropriate to the context. Take the example of POSist, a leading SaaS restaurant platform. They ran an A/B test on their homepage.

The control had a hero image of a person. The variation was a custom graphic.

The variant generated 16% more leads, which was massive. The case study shows the importance of testing to create effective landing pages.

Clear CTA button

Improving your CTA is an entry-level conversion rate optimization test. Yet, entry-level tests shouldn’t be overlooked by experts.

Take this example from White Card Courses. They wanted to increase the conversion rate on their homepage. They ran an A/B test, after reviewing it.

You can see that several changes were made to the page. A CTA button was added to the page with the button text, “Start Now.” A change was made to the background color behind the headline to increase the contrast with the hero image.

The variant generated a 28.76% increase in conversions over the control. It’s one of the best landing page examples of the multidisciplinary nature of conversion rate optimization.

Trust badges and logos

An important pain point you need to overcome when dealing with a lead is the trust factor. Often, your landing page is the first space where a person encounters you as a brand. In this context, social proof in the form of testimonials and trust badges can help generate that trust.

Let’s revisit the POSist case study.

Instead of settling on the first variation for the homepage, POSist ran a second test. They added logos of their clients to the homepage. This second variant resulted in an even higher conversion rate.

The POSist case study stresses the importance of continuous testing and optimization.

Social proof

Social proof, in the form of testimonials, reviews, or social engagement, plays an important role in creating high-converting landing pages. A great example of how much of an impact a small amount of social proof can have on conversion rates is this old Wikijobsuccess story.

VWO helped them run an A/B test where a simple testimonial was inserted above the form.

This small change generated a 34% increase in sales. That’s a massive result considering that the testimonial was three lines of unattributed text.

There is a wide range of ways you can use social proof on a landing page. You can and should experiment with placing social proof and testimonials on the page to see if it has an impact on your landing page conversion rates. Even small things like adding the number of Facebook likes or shares can result in a boost in the conversion rate.

Landing page form design

Assuming you are using one, the form you use on your landing page is where the conversion happens. Any issue with the design of your form and the way people interact with the form will result in a lower landing page conversion rate. Rather obviously, any improvement you make to your landing page form design will increase the chance visitors fill out the form.

You must review and optimize the design of your form. For example, as a general rule of thumb, the fewer form fields you use, the higher the overall conversion rate. More importantly, though, a thorough review of form analytics can highlight a form field where people are getting confused, a common pain point.

There are plenty of case studies, and form examples you can refer to regarding best practice. Make sure to review these case studies and run tests to help increase the number of potential customers who fill out the form.

Experimentation with live chat

Depending on the type of conversion you are tracking, there is a good chance that when a person finally reaches your form, they have unresolved questions about the offer. An FAQ section on a page can offer a partial solution to this problem. However, a lot of potential customers might not read this section, or they might have questions that are unaddressed in the FAQ.

Live chat software can help resolve this issue by providing users with the chance to get their questions answered. Interestingly, the presence of a live chat option creates a sense of added reassurance. Product developers realized this decades ago. The world is full of placebo buttons that are there to reassure us but have no functionality. That doesn’t mean you can ignore questions. However, you should test what impact a live chat has on your conversion rate and how much support having a live chat feature on the page requires.

Conclusion

Successful landing pages in any industry often convert at a rate of double or triple the industry average. If you’re using PPC advertising to generate these leads and your landing page has an average conversion rate, you could be paying almost triple the money per lead as a competitor. And that obviously puts you at a huge strategic disadvantage.

Yet there is a silver lining. The businesses that run high-converting landing pages in your niche didn’t create those landing pages by chance. They have certainly applied rigorous testing to improve their landing page conversion rates, incrementally. 

Frequently asked questions

In this article, I share my experience and insights in generating innovative ideas for ad campaigns and improving productivity. It is possible to experiment with higher-order ideas without expanding team size or budget. Many of these insights apply to Google Ads campaigns, but the same thought process can be extended to any campaign you run.

Download Free: A/B Testing Guide

Automation of routine tasks

High-performing teams prioritize their daily work. Automating your regular tasks, such as reporting, search term optimization, and bid optimization,can help you free up ample time to strategize and innovate. This is where the role of in-built rules and scripts comes into the picture.

You can access the same from the ‘Bulk Actions’ tab in your Google Ads account, as shown in the screenshot below:

And it’s not that difficult. Convene a meeting with your team and ask them to make a list of their daily tasks. Combine the insights with the tasks that are both time intensive and repetitive. There are plenty of scripts available to help automate these tasks. For accuracy, regular monitoring of the changes made is highly recommended.

See below an example of a rule we had implemented to automatically reduce bids of keywords. We first put in the condition to filter out all keywords which spent more than a certain threshold (in this case INR 1000) and did not yield any conversions (leads <1) in the last 1 week. We applied the rule to reduce bids by 10% every week over their current bid for these keywords. This helped us automatically reduce our spend on non-performing keywords.

Here’s a script we implemented to periodically analyze our ad copy performance using Google Ads API:

CRO and personalization

Getting traffic onto the landing page is one task; converting it is an entirely different one. So, there is a huge room for growth when it comes to making the most of your existing traffic, and remarketing is very useful but can probably tackle only a fraction of it. CRO helps you to address those gaps methodically and optimize your landing pages for maximum conversions. 

Start by figuring out the behavior of your site visitors through heatmaps or session recording analysis. Furthermore, website surveys can also be utilized to gather qualitative and first-hand feedback from visitors to improve site performance. 

Here’s an example from the GA report of VWO’s homepage, where we use Clearbit integration to figure out the audience mix (SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise) to then think about our personalization and CRO ideas.

The insights created from these analyses will help you generate ideas to experiment on your landing pages. The most important things to test on a landing page are:

• Messaging (headline/page copy/social proof)
• Form length and CTA
• Design and page navigation
• Value proposition

We used sign-up numbers from the previous week on our landing page form as social proof. Along with it, we made the form a single field to make it as easy as possible for the user. All remaining fields were shifted to the second step in our progressive form.

Personalization is becoming increasingly important with time. Amazon, with their fast, relevant recommendations can seem like they’re reading our minds, and now consumers expect this in all aspects of digital life. Who wouldn’t like a personalized experience on their landing page? 

Here’s a very simple example of industry-based personalization (eLearning) on our landing page.

As a business, you can’t undermine the importance of personalizing your landing page copy and design, given that you’re equipped with data around your visitors’ language, nationality, industry, and past browsing history. Personalization pays back its dividend in conversion rate increases and can do wonders for your business if done well. Even if it doesn’t impact conversions immediately, it enriches the visitor experience and makes the user more likely to remember their good experience and return later.

Alignment with sales and customer success teams

Your sales team is a treasure of qualitative insights about your target prospects and leads—good and bad ones, favorable geographies, and whatnot. In my experience, I’ve seen some of the best ideas coming from regular discussions with the sales team. If your company has such a culture and system in place, the CRM notes and initial calls for the leads generated carry tons of value. Actively collaborate with other teams to understand the customers and use those insights to improve your search advertising.

Here’s a screenshot of our raw lead data from our Tableau interface, which we use to gain objective feedback from the individual sales owners on the quality of different leads and use that to incorporate insights into our Google Ads strategy.

Unclear keyword intent or a confusing ad copy is another reason for poor conversions. It can also undermine keyword opportunities where conversion rates could be high, but you end up wasting money attracting low-quality prospects. Sales teams can also guide you about new competitors in the domain from their conversations with clients and also any new potential pain points or needs that customers are looking to solve through your product. All of this can add value in expanding your keyword set and in making your ad copy and landing pages more convincing and relevant.

Download Free: A/B Testing Guide

Attribution modeling

Attribution is the bane of performance marketing. It is the only thing that is ever elusive from many high-performance marketing teams, even today. Performance marketing has brought with it the ability to measure everything from impression to revenue. However, no performance marketing campaign is ever run in isolation as there is always some marketing activity or factor running in parallel. 

For example, someone may have heard about your brand in an event and then searched you online, or perhaps somebody recommended you on social media to their friend, and they clicked from that site to your website. This chain doesn’t stop there. This makes completely accurate attribution difficult, or even impossible, to achieve.

An average lead from impression to conversion and even post-conversion can have several points of contact with the brand (both offline and online) before it finally converts. So, which channel should be attributed to the conversion? To solve this conundrum, marketers have come up with a complex system of UTMs and models (about seven) which assign fractional value to different channels and help calculate true channel-specific ROI. The process continues on the sales side of things, for example, which email cadence was sent to the prospect, which sales rep followed up with them, which account manager negotiated the deal, and everything that can affect the end outcome.

In my experience, it always pays off to go through the process of attribution slow and steady. Ensure that you involve cross-functional teams in deciding what factors are essential in your cross-channel attribution modeling before starting to optimize your campaign budgets.

Improving quality score

It is a quest that continually haunts performance marketers. Most of the time, Google does not disclose what actually impacts quality scores and what all one can do to improve it. The purpose is to discourage people from “gaming the system”. 

This has resulted in several theories around what does and doesn’t impact the quality score. In my experience of working on campaigns all these years, I believe that Google decides to favor user experience over everything else. Some of the metrics you can track internally for quality score, including ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected CTR, are closely linked to user experience.

Sometimes the performance of the keywords is not directly proportional to their quality score.

Some of the most effective things you can do to improve your quality score are: 

1. Ensure the majority of the clicks that are generated in your account are generated from exact match keywords. This will tell you how well you know your keywords and can craft custom ad copy perfectly suited to those keywords.
2. Ensure that the majority of triggered ads take users to a single specific landing page. For this step to go right, you need to sync your keyword to ad copy. Cramming the keyword into the H1 or H2 does not help. Instead, use parts of the keyword contextually in your copy to align users’ intent to take an interest in your business. Ensure that your landing page is an extension of the message in your ad copy. This is called destination match. Think of it this way, your keyword is analogous to a question that users ask, to which your ad copy makes a promise of an answer, and your landing page serves as a destination where they finally get that answer.
3. Ensure that you have relevant and useful content that closely matches the intent of searchers. Also, make sure that your landing page is great from a usability and technical perspective as well. This includes ensuring that it has easy navigation, intuitive page structure, clear CTAs, fast page loading speed, and responsive experience on different browsers and devices.

Conclusion

You can catapult your ad campaigns to another level through an innovative approach by following the above strategies. Always focus on the main goals of the campaigns, such as ROI, leads, pipeline created, and continually try new ideas such as ad betas, new scripts, new messaging, etc., to see their impact on your end goal. All you then need to do is stick to and build on what you find works.

A landing page, like an elevator pitch, gives a crisp introduction to your brand, the products or services you offer, and the problems that you solve. Landing pages like other web pages on your website have a common goal–to convert the visitor into a customer. 

Just as a good elevator pitch takes multiple rounds of refinement, a landing page also benefits from continuous testing and optimization.

Download Free: Landing Page Optimization Guide

How to create a winning landing page testing strategy?

To begin with, it’s imperative to talk about the process of experimentation. Testing anything is typically better than testing nothing, but a structured program will bring predictability and long-term gains to landing page conversion rates, rather than ad-hoc wins here and there. 

A comprehensive landing page testing strategy would look something like the one below, irrespective of what testing methodology, i.e., A/B, Multivariate, or Split, is used:

A set of data-driven hypotheses with clear prioritization – You can draw data-driven hypotheses by analyzing quantitative data such as website analytics and user behavior metrics, further supported by qualitative data like user feedback and usability testing. Based on the observations, you can clearly prioritize what hypothesis to create and how to rank them based on their perceived impact to drive positive results. 

Well-defined and important measurable conversion goals – You must have a goal in mind that you want to achieve for your business by conducting a test. Specify that after you’ve formulated a hypothesis. Do you hypothesize that adding social proof showing product pages will improve transactions? You can set two goals – click on the add-to-cart button and total transactions. A higher conversion rate on your goal will tell you that your testing was on point. 

Proper landing page testing tools with a variety of testing options – It’s a must to choose a tool that helps you conduct the desired type of testing. Go for a tool like VWO that supports all forms of testing – A/B testing, Split URL testing, and MVT. This way you can switch between different types of methods based on the requirements of a particular test.

Calculate the time and traffic required to run the landing page tests – Use A/B Split & Multivariate Test Duration Calculator by VWO to determine the required testing duration and number of daily visitors for accurate test results. 

Create variations of different test elements and deploy tests – After completing a test, dedicate some time to interpret the results by analyzing the performance of every variation. Remember, sometimes, the results can be inconclusive or need further examination. To gain deeper insights, you can use qualitative tools like heatmaps, session recordings, and form analytics. On VWO, you can segment your test results based on different parameters and discover the deepest implications of your test results. 

Document learnings from the tests – Documenting learnings from a particular test helps you refer to it when conducting the next tests. Moreover, you may have interesting observations from a lost test. A lost hypothesis might not show the desired outcome, but when you drill down the reports, you may see it performed well for specific segments. Jot such observations down to inform the future course of your experimentation program. A tool with project management capabilities allows you to document these learnings and even share them among team members. 

Mature experimentation teams thoroughly analyze their test results across multiple segments to uncover instances where the losing variation outperforms the winner to extract more juice out of their testing and increase conversions.

Now that you know how to test landing pages, let’s get into some depth and analyze how landing page optimization can help you achieve your focussed conversion goals.

Why is it important to test your landing page?

1. Optimizing for conversions – By systematically testing and optimizing different components of your landing page, like headlines, layouts, copy, CTA buttons, and images, you can identify the most effective combination that leads to a higher conversion rate. 

2. Improving user experiences – Analyzing test results will help you understand user behavior on your landing page and make data-driven implementations to further improve their experiences. This way you can identify and fix friction points that may be hindering conversions. 

3. Increasing ROI: If you have set a landing page as a part of your larger paid ad campaigns, landing page testing should be able to help improve ROI of your marketing campaigns by catering to what audiences have been looking for. A well-optimized landing page increases the chance of visitors to take the desired action that ultimately leads to campaign effectiveness and a higher ROI. 

Types of landing page testing

A/B testing

A/B testing (also known as Split testing) for landing pages is the most straightforward and most robust approach to compare two versions of a landing page. The changes between the two variants could be small (incremental) or big (radical) depending on the goals of the test. Landing page A/B testing helps to zero in on elements and changes that impact a user’s behavior and continuously iterate towards the most effective version of the landing page.

As an example, a common use case for A/B Testing on landing pages is to swap web forms with chatbots. Most web forms are just repackaged versions of old paper forms. New age businesses are continually experimenting with chatbots to replace web forms to determine which among the two help increase conversion rates.

Image source: Landbot

Multivariate testing

Multivariate Testing (MVT) builds on the core mechanism of A/B testing to test for a higher number of variables on a page, in contrast to A/B testing on landing pages. As testing for multiple variations requires more traffic to reach statistical significance, multivariate tests are recommended for websites with high traffic.

Multivariate testing is a powerful weapon for landing pages that are seen by the maximum visitors on your website, such as those coming from search engines. Testing multiple elements such as hero image, headline, and website copy simultaneously becomes a child’s play with multivariate testing, as you don’t have to create separate versions of the same webpage for all possible combinations. Also, you can expedite the landing page testing process.

Hyundai used MVT to achieve a 208% increase in the CTR from the landing page for one of their cars. Since Hyundai’s car landing pages had a lot of different elements (car headline, car visuals, description, testimonials, and others), a multivariate testing helped understand which elements influenced a visitor’s decision to request a test drive or download a brochure.

Watch this webinar to learn how to analyze and test for improving your landing page performance.

Landing page testing in CMS

WordPress

Use this WordPress plugin from VWO to test single elements on your landing pages or run landing page split testing. You can customize templates, track conversion rates, view session recordings, and heatmaps or even run multivariate tests in case you want to test several elements at once.

Hubspot

Hubspot has an integrated Content Management System (CMS) and Marketing Hub that manages all of your content in one place and supports landing page A/B testing.

Analyze your landing page

For marketers, poor conversions on a well-thought and designed landing page are nothing but nightmarish. As a result of your involuntary reflexes, you pull your socks up and start swapping the images, improvising the page design, changing the color of the CTA button, and finally running an A/B test to see the results! But to your dismay, it does not impact your bottom line either. 

Well, it is time to ditch your guesswork out of your conversion rate optimization program and get in the shoes of your prospects and customers to gather the essential insights. You will find all your answers there.

Survey

A web survey allows you to understand your target audience and their motivations and desires easily. Understanding your audience’s motivations and desires can be great fodder for a thorough testing and optimization process. The first rule of surveys is to understand that you’re asking for a favor. To maximize the number of responses from surveys but you can use these tricks:

• Reward or incentivize your audience: This might be something as simple as a free ebook or a gift voucher.
• Respect your prospect’s time: Ask relevant questions to your customers that you know you’re going to use. For example, you don’t have to ask them their age, gender, or location, if you do not need that information. Keep the flow streamlined.
• Ask open-ended questions: Allow yourself to be surprised by asking open-ended questions like, “What is that one big challenge you are facing in your marketing campaigns?” You may uncover pain points you didn’t know your target audience has.

Heatmaps

When it comes to user behavior analysis in the world of online businesses, website heatmaps are a polar tool to visualize and understand visitor behavior data. You can utilize heat maps to identify the best-performing sections of your landing pages as per their visitor interaction, and the sections that are performing sub-par and require to be changed.

Consider asking yourself the questions below to get the maximum insights out of your heatmap data and get to work:

• Are the visitors looking at the important elements on the landing page, such as headline, unique value proposition, benefits, and CTA?
• Are the visitors distracted by page elements that don’t push them towards the conversion funnel? 
• Is your visitors’ attention straying as they’re not being provided with the information at the right place to complete the conversion?

Session recordings

Session recordings help you see how visitors on your website navigate through your landing page. These recordings capture clicks, taps, mouse movement, and scrolling across multiple pages on desktop and mobile devices. 

Analyzing session recordings helps you to empathize with your customers. It places you in the customer’s shoes as (s)he traverses your landing page and enables you to identify and mend gaps in your customer journey, to achieve a higher percentage of successful sessions.

Form analytics

Forms are one of the most important if not the most important element of a landing page. Longer forms typically have higher bounce rates than shorter forms, but shortening forms isn’t enough. You need to realize what in your form is putting off your users. 

Why are the users struggling to complete the form and hence impacting the conversion on your landing page? You can gather these insights using Form Analytics, which enables you to measure the visitors’ behavior on a web form such as interaction time, hesitation time, abandonment rate, etc.

Top 6 popular landing page testing software

Before zeroing on the software for testing your landing pages, ensure that you can easily set up your tests without a need for a developer to do the job. You must pick the one that has a Visual Editor to make changes quickly, if and when required. Also, it should be well-equipped with a variety of quality templates that can be amended and be suitable for the scale of business and sector, for example, field-level data collection options, layout, and style.

Having an integrated CMS and CRM in the software, along with account management that can be used by multiple users, will take you a long way in your testing experience journey.

VWO

VWO is an all-in-one experience optimization platform that enables users to improve key business metrics by empowering them to easily discover visitor behavior, insights, test ideas, and engagement across their entire journey. With VWO, you don’t need a separate landing page checker or analysis tool. You can analyze user behavior on the page and find where they click the most, where they drop off, and even run surveys to get their feedback. You can form hypotheses and test them using insights drawn from behavioral analysis. Be it split testing, A/B testing, or MVT, VWO lets you test your landing page using all of these methods.

Start your free trial on VWO and conduct an unlimited number of landing page tests in addition to availing tools that can be utilized for analyzing visitor data, understanding user behavior, and thus creating a repeatable and data-driven process for improving your website conversion.

Optimizely

Optimizely is one of the user-friendly landing page testing tools that helps improve user experiences. The platform comes with a landing page builder that lets you make changes to your page without having to code at all. You can also obtain statistically significant results and identify which version of your landing page is resulting in a higher conversion rate. If you want to compare two pages, Optimizely’s Redirect feature allows you to test the two URLs against each other.

Unbounce

Unbounce is a user-friendly software platform that helps businesses build, optimize, and analyze landing pages on their website. You need no technical skills to use this landing page testing tool, as a drag-and-drop visual editor comes in handy for an easy test setup. Apart from offering A/B testing on landing pages, Unbounce offers real-time data analytics and integration with third-party tools like CRM and email marketing services. 

InstaPage

InstaPage is not only a landing page creation platform, but it also offers landing page A/B testing with real-time analytics. It provides valuable insights into visitor behavior through heat maps, mouse movements, and scroll depth on your website. As one of the leading landing page testing tools, InstaPage also allows server-side testing without affecting user experiences. One of its features to generate content with AI saves time and spurs creativity.

LeadPages

LeadPages stands out for its user-friendly interface and extensive collection of pre-designed templates. Users can easily create landing pages using the drag-and-drop builder without the need to write any code. It also allows easy customization and arrangement of page elements. LeadPages uses AI-powered templates, providing users with intelligent design suggestions based on their specific needs. You can also refer to its vast content library to access a wide range of images, videos, and other media to enhance your landing pages.

Google Optimize

Google has announced the sunset of Google Optimize and Google Optimize 360. Move to VWO with just one click.

Google Optimize is a free tool created by Google for conversion rate testing. This tool comes with integrated Analytics and Tag Manager. It strongly relies on the goals and audience that you set in Google Analytics to give you precise results. Compared with VWO, it does not offer tools such as session recordings, heatmaps, and surveys that can help you perform a landing page analysis based on user behavior on your website.

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Landing page testing across channels

It is important to keep in mind that testing landing pages across channels has a different set of heuristics and mental models behind conversion rate optimization. Writing about these differences warrants a dedicated article, but I’d like to help you with brief pointers:

Landing page testing for Google Adwords:

By its design, Google Adwords is keyword-centric, and keywords are further classified by intent – informational, navigational, or transactional. 

Testing landing pages for an Adwords campaign entails optimizing for intent more than other variables. Teams should look to identify and categorize all information that supplements the intent and work towards offering it with credible UI and UX for better conversions.

The theoretical principles behind testing for Adwords still remain the same—A/B tests still run the same way, and landing page split testing serves the same purpose. Nothing changes other than the philosophy of optimizing for keyword intent.

Landing page testing for Facebook:

Facebook, unlike Google, is geared for engagement dopamine. Users still use its search functionality but it’s not the go-to function for the social network. Successful Facebook advertisers need to execute two things well:

• Ensure that the ad creative grabs eyeballs in a feed replete with cat videos, memes, and threads smacking of political jibes.
• Ensure that the page they land on is a better experience than going back to Facebook (I know it is more complicated than that, but abstraction is key.)

Optimizing for landing pages meant for Facebook advertising is more complex than Google (because of dealing with cold traffic without intent). Still, there are a few proven ways to go about it:

Visually bold pages:

• Grabbing attention off Facebook can happen because of many reasons, but if there is an underlying theme to driving clicks your way, it is this — Facebook is a visual medium and you ought to have visual flair to your creatives. And since marketers should maintain ad scent, landing pages need to be visual too. Go for bright colors that stand in contrast to Facebook’s white and blue.

This ad by IKEA not only strikes minimalism but stands out because of the bright contrasting red and white color used with a straightforward, actionable ad copy.

Video-centric:

• With 4 billion daily views, video consumption over Facebook is taking off. Ensure that both your creative and landing pages feature videos so that you can maintain ad scent and grab attention.

9 most effective landing page testing ideas you must try

To create seamless user experiences, you must create landing page testing ideas centered around the elements that users engage with the most:

• Headline of the page: 

Is your landing page heading clear and relevant to your users? It’s important to ensure that it informs your users and motivates them to take action. Run a landing page experiment where you tweak the title length, wording choices, and highlight the primary benefit visitors will receive from your offers. And see if these changes can help improve your conversions.

• Sales copy: 

Just like the headline, the body copy of your landing page plays a vital role in clearly showing visitors the value they’ll get from your product or service. Highlight your unique selling proposition subtly and tie it to how it benefits audiences. For example, you can test and see if a quick explanation of your offers/combos above the fold (i.e., visible without the average user having to scroll down) can lead to a higher conversion rate.

• Pricing strategies:

The way you show your prices can have a big impact whether people decide to buy from you. Many brands have long been using a psychological principle called charm pricing, where they set a price like $499 instead of $500. It may seem like a small difference, but it can make customers feel like they’re getting a better deal. It’s worth trying out this strategy and seeing if it improves conversions. 

• Call to action buttons:

When you test different versions of your CTA button, you can figure out which design, color, size, or text works best to catch visitors’ eyes and inspire them to click. Let’s say you have a CTA that says “Download our eBook”. That might not be as exciting as a CTA that says “Get your free eBook copy now!” The second option is more action-packed and tells visitors what they’ll receive when they click the button. 

• Landing page image and video: 

Test relevant images and videos to see what captures visitors’ attention and nudge them toward the conversion. You can try different types of images such as lifestyle imagery, illustrations, and product photos and experiment with different sizes and placements. Try different video lengths, styles, and narratives to see what creates the most persuasive experience for your visitors. 

• Text font and style: 

You might have written an amazing landing page copy with all the benefits and features clearly explained. However, all that effort can go to waste if the font size is too tiny and makes it hard for people to read. It’s important to ensure that the font size is just right, so your message can be easily understood by your visitors. 

• Page layout and design: 

You can try split URL testing on two pages with different page designs and layouts. It will help you understand which visual hierarchy affects what visitors notice first, how easy it is to read and navigate, and their overall experience on the page. Keep an eye on the design because it helps you find a look that matches your brand and appeals to your target audiences. 

• Form: 

You want to make sure the form on your landing page is not too long and overwhelming, but still collect the important information you need. That’s why it’s a good idea to analyze how well your current form is performing. You can try testing a shorter form with fewer fields to see if that boosts your conversions. Further, inline validation is a must to help users ensure that the information they enter is right and if it needs correction. 

• Mobile optimization: 

Optimizing your landing page for mobile means adjusting the layout, font sizes, and interactive elements to fit smaller screens, making it easier for visitors to navigate, read content, and interact with CTA buttons. You can also fix mobile-specific issues like loading speed. Mobile users expect fast loading times, so optimizing for quick loading will help minimize the risk of visitors leaving due to slow loading times. 

Commonly tested landing page KPIs and metrics

There are a ton of metrics that landing pages should be optimized for. Writing for these metrics in details warrants a unique article, but I’d like to mention a few metrics that can serve as a starting point for you:

Average time on page:

• Though average time spent on a landing page is not a leading indicator to optimize for conversions, there is a significant bearing of time spent on conversions. For example, if you observe that average time spent on your page is less than 5 seconds, the immediate conclusion is that the page needs an overhaul around many factors – maybe its UI does not inspire trust or the messaging is awry. There are many ways to identify the missing pieces but the overarching theme is this – time-on-page is a proxy of willingness to convert and should be a key metric to look at.

Bounce rate:

• With the proliferation of sophisticated metrics and dimensions to analyze, most old school metrics have faded away. Bounce rate, however, is still one of the oldest metrics that is still tracked fervently and has managed to stay relevant. A high bounce rate is an immediate worrying factor. Like low time on page, high bounce rates might have varying reasons (bad UI, missing information, uninspiring copy, no ad scent), and optimizers should keenly identify them. The following graphic from Instapage has some benchmark bounce rates for you to compare against:

Form abandonment rate:

• Almost all landing pages have a conversion zone for it. In most cases, it is a form that visitors are expected to fill. For eCommerce sites, it is an order placement form, while for B2B websites, it serves as a lead generation form. 
• Content websites might startle you with a form to capture emails for notifying you when they publish new content. Whatever be the intent of the landing page, forms are a common binding thread. Optimizers should look to constantly evaluate their form friction areas and fix for more conversions.

A typical form funnel analytics dashboard

Mistakes to avoid while testing your landing page:

A poorly written or poorly designed landing page can cost you conversions. As much as it is important to follow landing page testing best practices, it is equally crucial to steer clear of common mistakes. To ensure you create a landing page that converts, avoid the following: 

• Sending traffic from an ad to your homepage. 

Sending traffic from an ad directly to your homepage may not be ideal because the homepage is designed to cater to a wide range of visitors. On the other hand, by sending traffic to a landing page, you can provide visitors with the information they expect based on the ad they clicked. It reduces any sort of confusion and enhances the chances of conversion. 

• Keeping the navigation menu

Remember, a landing page should have a specific objective, such as promoting a product, collecting leads, or driving conversions, thereby nudging visitors toward taking a particular action. Including a navigation menu can distract visitors and divert their attention away from the primary message and the call to action button. Similarly, avoid keeping any links (to subscribe or download) that do not pertain to the objective of the landing page. 

• Keeping irrelevant pictures or images that don’t relate to the offer

Avoid adding any unrelated visual elements to your landing page. Including irrelevant images or videos can confuse visitors and make them question the purpose of those elements. Stick to visuals that directly enhance the message of your landing page. 

• Hard-to-read text

Difficult-to-read text on a landing page can turn visitors away. Say no to unnecessary fancy language and jargon! Instead, break down information into smaller sections for easy understanding. Add white space, images, and other visual elements to give readers a breather and keep them engaged. 

• Keeping lengthy forms with unnecessary fields, such as “title” or “fax”

When audiences visit your landing page, they are looking for relevant information and want things quick and easy. Avoid overwhelming them with a lengthy form with unnecessary fields. For example, if all you need is their working email address to subscribe, don’t make them enter their email too. By keeping things simple, you can save their time and make the conversion process smooth. 

• Making visitors click to visit another page 

Scrolling is better than clicking to another page; therefore, in case of space crunch, let the user scroll down and process your content. 

How different brands improved conversions on landing pages using VWO

Penn Foster registered a 202% increase in conversions by providing only relevant information

Penn Foster, a for-profit online college in Scranton, wondered how to reverse the low results they were getting from their paid advertising efforts. They decided to create a new landing page that focused on providing relevant information and specific call to action buttons. They believed that this approach would not only increase conversions but also enhance the long-term value of their enrolled leads. The test showed a 202% increase in click-to-lead conversions and a noticeable rise in the click-to-enrollment rate as well. 

Pluimen.nl increased revenue by 19% by reducing distractions on their landing page

Pluimen.nl is a Dutch company offering gift vouchers, which are redeemable in exchange for services like sauna visits, paintball games, dining, and more. They wanted to increase conversions and revenue on their landing page. Thus, they believed reducing distractions by minimizing the number of CTAs and links would improve engagement and lower the bounce rate. To test this, a new landing page was created with only one CTA  and fewer links. The results showed an 8.5% decrease in bounce rates and a 19% increase in revenue. 

Imsider increased form submissions by 10% by tweaking the landing page headline

Imsider.ru, a Russian company that helps new ventures establish their online stores, wanted to increase the number of leads generated through completed forms. They had a landing page featuring a contact form for visitors to fill out and subscribe to a mailing list. Those who submitted the form would receive a link to download a free eBook on opening an e-store. However, the number of subscribers was relatively low. They expected that changing the headline to something more catchy would improve form submissions. And it worked! The variation increased form submissions by 10%.  

Conclusion

Remember that optimization is an iterative process. Frequently testing your landing page elements will surely improve your bottom line and give you a competitive edge over others in the industry. Not only will you have a lot of data to back up your decisions post the testing process, but you will be surprised to see the revelations these results would present to you. Test to find out.

Frequently asked questions

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To answer this, here are 5 parameters (along with call to action button examples) you need to consider if you want to drastically increase the conversion rate of your CTA: 

1. Target Audience

Constantly learn about your target audience. This will positively impact your marketing efforts.

Creating a successful, high-converting landing page requires numerous skills, among which knowing your target audience is an essential one. Without knowing who they are and what they want, it’s hard to create any marketing material potential customers will respond to.

Essentially, marketing is a process of communication with your potential or existing clients, where your target audience sets the framework, language, tone, or mood for this communication. It’s unimaginably crucial to define your digital marketing communication strategy based on the target audience, including the points of what you can and cannot say (and share) if you want your marketing campaigns to be efficient.

So while making any important marketing decision, including the one on how to create and optimize your CTA, you should always keep your target audience in mind.

2. Copy

Unless you want to create a mystery, use very clear wording in your copy. For example, say “Order”/”Buy” instead of “Submit”.

Research and success stories show that simply changing the copy of a CTA from “Submit” to something more human, like “Buy” or “Order”, significantly increases conversion rate in most cases. However, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Your CTA copy should comprise of action words that motivate your target users to click or perform any other action you are expecting them to take. It should create a sense of urgency ( ‘Limited Time’ offer) and nudge potential customers to actually convert. To achieve this, make sure it is clear what the visitor will get by performing the action; with no hidden agendas, small print, or surprises waiting on the other side of the click.  

Use emotions, pep talk, powerful words or jargon if applicable. Don’t be afraid to experiment and get outside the typical, square Call To Action button box – just make sure your CTA speaks to your audience and stands out from what they’re used to seeing on the web. 

3. Position

Test which of the three main strategies of placing the CTA works best for you:

• Above the fold
• Further down in the page after presenting information about your product
• Only after some engagement with the page (for example, after 10 minutes of watching a video)

The most common strategy is to place the CTA on the first screen, above the fold. However, I recommend experimenting with other placement ideas as well to see what works best for your business. 

While placing the CTA above the fold makes it visible to the visitor right away, in most cases, he is not ready to perform the action right after entering the website. So, an alternative way to motivate the visitor to perform an action is presenting him with the CTA after showing him more details about your offer. To solidify your message, showcase some trust signs like client/customer feedback, ratings, certificates, add some urgency in the form of time-limited offers, and indicate your competitive advantages that will lure the customers in. And once the visitors have engaged with that, present them with the CTA, placing it somewhere down in the page. 

Many landing pages use both the tactics – placing the same CTA above the fold and somewhere along the scrolling process. Another popular solution is to show the CTA above the fold and then move it to a fixed position on the screen (for example, the top right corner) when the visitor scrolls through the page.

You can even test showing the CTA only after some engagement from the visitor with the page when you are solid sure the visitor is ready to schedule a meeting or browse the product section. You can place your CTA in a few different ways – but always make it bold, vibrant, and eye-catching.

4. Focus

Make the CTA the most prominent element on the screen.

CTA should be one of the most notable elements on the page and without a doubt, the most notable element on the screen too. 

In many cases, even if the CTA is bold and hard to miss, other elements with the same visual focus take up the spotlight and get your visitors distracted, which may negatively affect your conversion rates. Let’s assume, ‘Free Trial’ sign-ups is the primary objective of your marketing campaign. Then clearly directing visitors’ focus towards the free-trial CTA by avoiding distractions will make your CTA an effective one.

It is not uncommon to have a visitor randomly click on different prominent elements of the webpage and leave when he doesn’t get the expected result. 

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5. Context

Use the AIDA model to structure your page better to increase engagement.

The success of a landing page relies not only on the text, color, size, and placement of the elements but also on how well they play along together. The surroundings tell the users not only what they should do, but also why they should be doing it. 

The entire landing page should aim to create an experience that motivates the visitors to perform the desired action.

An efficient way to increase the conversion rate of your CTA is to use the marketing model called AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. In AIDA, you lead visitors through the funnel the way we lead them through the landing page. So, use this method to structure your landing page accordingly. 

As visitors consume information by pieces, plan it out in a way that will lead the user from entering the page – to reading and absorbing the information on your offer – to the CTA.

According to the AIDA model, you must show which visitor problems the product is solving, how it is doing so, why, and all of this while providing social proof and other trust signs, which will finally lead them to take the action you’ve been expecting.

Case Study

To give you an example of how the parameters I discussed above work in reality, here’s one of my case studies, where I used these ideas, which helped me significantly increase the conversion rate and sales of my client.

The client is an online designer dresses store with 30,000 unique visitors a day (at the time of the test). The client asked us to work on his product page. Here’s how it looked like:

Not the best design, a bit outdated, but other than that looks like a normal eCommerce product page.

We at InsightWhale believe in the hardcore design approach “form follows function”, meaning that it is much less important how beautiful an interface is than how good it is at solving the problem. 

In this case, the problem to solve was to make the visitor click “Add to cart”.

The first thing to be done was to analyze the structure of the page. I broke it down into a few basic components (such as product info, service info, trust signs, etc.) to understand what the page had and what it lacked. I noticed that there weren’t enough trust signs of the product on the page and the ones present, were out of the visitors’ sight.

Keeping this information in mind, I re-structured the page using the decision-making funnel (my alternative to AIDA; showcasing information in the order that assists purchase decision-making).

In this case, I used principles of position and context (showing the CTA button after ‘crucial for decision-making’ elements) and focus (making the CTA button the most prominent element on the page).

Here’s how my variation for testing looked after redesign:

Below you can see how my variation (called “Tony”) performed compared to the original and another one created by a competing agency (called “Dave”).

The first table shows a change in the “Add to cart” goal, while the second one shows the ecommerce conversion rate during the experiment.

Conclusion

Use these 5 parameters to create a CTA that grasps your visitors’ attention and results in increased conversion rates. And remember that the ideas given in this article are a good place to start, but to get real results, we advise you to test, test, and test again!

Or do they have zero net effect? 

In this article we’ll take a look at how using photos of humans across your website can impact conversion rates. But before reading, have a guess: do you think human photos have any subconscious effect on visitors?

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Table of Contents

• What does the research say about human photos on websites?
• Photos vs paintings (A/B test #1)
• Photo v/s generic icon (A/B test #2)
• So, should you use human photos on your website?

What does the research say about human photos on websites?

There has been significant scientific research on this topic, particularly for eCommerce websites. When considering a purchase decision, a key challenge issue online is trust. How do you gauge if a particular website is trustworthy? Taking lessons from TV advertising and general marketing principles, you may think that associating photos of people with products engenders trust. Of course, human photos = increased trust is just a hypothesis. But is it really true?

To answer this, we analyzed several research papers which are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Following are some of the most relevant ones (along with excerpts):

• The Human Face of E-Business: Engendering Consumer Initial Trust Through the Use of Images of Sales Personnel on E-Commerce Web Sites: initial trust was found to be enhanced for websites employing photographs and video clips compared to control Web sites lacking such images
• Shiny happy people building trust?: photos on e-commerce websites and consumer trust: trustworthiness of low-trust sites can be boosted by adding a photo
• Exploring Human Images in Website Design Across Cultures: A Multi-Method: results indicate that websites with images that include facial characteristics are more positively received by users than images with no facial features or no human images at all
• Trust at first sight? A test of users’ ability to identify trustworthy e-commerce sites: a photo only had an effect on participants’ first impression of a vendor

Not just scientific research, real-world A/B tests also corroborate the hypothesis of human photos increasing conversion rate. Two of our customers used our A/B testing tool (VWO) to test the presence of human photos and its impact on conversions. Following sections detail what they did and what they found out.

Photos vs paintings (A/B test #1)

Medalia Art sells Brazilian and Caribbean art online created by famous local artists. They decided to test what happens if paintings were replaced by the artists’ photos.

The goal for this A/B test was to increase visitor engagement (defined as a click on any link on the homepage; it is the inverse of the bounce rate). They didn’t use sales as a conversion rate as many of their sales happen after interaction on the telephone with the customer.

Here are the screenshots of the control (paintings) and the alternate version (photos).

– Original (with paintings)-

– Variation (with photos)-

Results: Medalia found that with paintings the conversion rate was 8.8% but if paintings are replaced with artist photos, the conversion rate increased to a whopping 17.2%. That’s an increase in conversion rate of more than 95%! Clearly showing your product is important, but showing the faces of people to humanize the purchase experience can increase conversion rates.

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Photo v/s generic icon (A/B test #2)

Another VWO user, Jason Thompson, conducted an A/B test on the contact section of his blog to see if replacing an icon with his own photo would lead to more people contacting him. Following is screenshot of original and variation:

Results show that the version with Jason’s photo generated 48% more conversions than the generic icon. Again, these results are statistically significant.

Jason commented on the test results:

People want to connect with other people emotionally, the photo makes that emotional connection so much easier and as the test is proving, drives people to the contact form more than a nondescript icon.

So, should you use human photos on your website?

Here are some key conclusions about human photos on websites:

• Human photos on a website do have a positive impact on visitor’s first impression of trustworthiness
• Human photos with focus on face have much better impact (as the emotional connect is stronger)
• Photos should be “real”. Visitors can tell when you are using stock photos, and this can reduce trustworthiness

The most important conclusion, however, is that human photos are not a panacea for all websites. The best method is always to A/B test photos vs no photos on your website.