Marketing Sherpa recently published an email marketing case from Drs Foster and Smith which tested the impact of mixing educational content with product promotions, whereas in the past their emails were either informative or sales-oriented.

The results of mixing content were 7% boost in click through rate, 6% lift in conversion and 15% increase in sales (meaning average order size was higher).

The campaign involved segmenting the “dog owner” customer, and performing an A/B test using email creative that offered products and discounts comparable in value proposition. As you can see, both emails below include an offer for a free pack of BioSpot and an article about protecting your home and pet from fleas. The difference is which call to action appears first (and more than double the size) in the content area.

Week 1:

Week 2:

The winning design in both tests was information more prominent, offer less prominent. Remember, the informational call to action translated to a 15% increase in sales over the promotional offer.

The all-important landing page used shorter copy with a top image hot-linked to a product page where readers could purchase products relevant to the information. In a sense, readers were being pre-sold on an item with expert advice which further motivated the purchase.

Marketing Sherpa summed up the key takeaway as “Their audience responds better to relevant content than to a heavy-duty sales pitch.”

This is a perfect example of what Marketing Experiments’ Flint McLaughlin recommended in the recent web clinic Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: 13 Ways to Maximize Revenue and Beat the Downturn. If

If you skip to slide 31, Flint explains that the goal of the landing page is to sell (or in this case, pre-sell) the product. The goal of your email (or PPC ad) is not to sell, but to generate interest. A mistake is to try to sell in the email then sell again on the landing page.

Offering educational content within emails is a great way to generate interest — it’s non-committal and it builds trust and long-term loyalty. Even if the customer doesn’t buy from you today, he or she is more likely to open your email expecting to receive valuable knowledge in exchange for their time.

Two additional takeaways noted by Marketing Sherpa:

• Wisely placed educational articles may heat up sales in a blue economy. With consumers tightening purse strings, Web shoppers are not likely to be in as much of a hurry as they used to be. Therefore, holding people’s hands with educational content can be worthwhile for your brand.

• Educational content can create a comfort level for Internet shoppers who don’t have the luxury of physically assessing products the way brick-and-mortar shoppers do. Hence, relevant content can help bridge that gap between the product and the shopper.

Here’s an action item: McLaughlin suggests you look at your last 5 emails you sent, or the next 5 you plan on using for the Christmas season, print them out and lay them on the table. Look at the messaging and ask yourself if the email was written to get a click, or to sell something.

Also, take a couple hours to watch the replay of Ecommerce Holiday Playbook: 13 Ways to Maximize Revenue and Beat the Downturn. There’s a lot of valuable information here.

Just announced today, Google Analytics is rolling out new features to its free tool in Public Beta, meaning you can expect to gain access to these new goodies sometime in the next couple weeks.

Click here if you can’t view this video.

As Avinash Kaushik says: Analyzing data in aggregate is a crime against humanity. …
If you want to find actionable insights you need to segment your web analytics data. You need to separate out the various Sources, Behavior and Outcomes.

When I first watched the YouTube video tutorial I thought “man, this looks complicated.”

Avinash assures us it’s not, and reassured us his 7 year old had no problem creating 2 segments in minutes (talk about precocious!)

In addition to the default segments like New, Returning, Paid and Non-Paid Visitors; and Search, Direct and Referral Traffic, you can now create custom segments. A great place to start is segmenting branded search vs. non-branded search terms for organic and paid traffic. Why?

Research by Compete and Google suggests that 70% of purchases made from non-branded keyword referrals occur in later online sessions. Of that 70%, 16% of the purchases happen only after the searcher searches again with different keywords. Non-branded searchers are more likely to be Howsers (know in general what they want but not which specific product, may need more research and education) than Hunters (know exactly what they want and are close to conversion). And if you’re working on strategies to optimize your conversion for customers who are beginning or mid-way through the decision process - you’ll want to know if your conversion rates for non-branded keywords is improving after you implement your testing/strategy.

You can also create segments for non-branded category search. For example, Garmin could segment non-branded motorcylce GPS keywords by creating a segment that must include “motorcycle” but exclude “Garmin,” “zumo” “Quest” “street pilot” and “streetpilot.”

Image credit: Avinash Kaushik

Someone who uses the branded term is likely ready to buy a Garmin product. A good objective for Garmin might be to increase non-branded conversion through strong Garmin value propositions, persuasive copywriting, advanced customer support tools or other multi-media selling aids. The saved segment can produce reports after the testing period, and compare to metrics before the optimization tactics were employed.

Then you can check out which pages these visitors view and what they buy.

This is just one example of what’s possible. Please bookmark and read Avinash’s thorough post for more segmentation ideas.

According to Group Manager of Google Analytics Brett Crosby, segmentation can help you perform better through an economic downturn and “go with what works, find new ways to drive revenue, find segments working for them and invest there to increase their conversions.”

Hat tip for this quote, Marketing Pilgrim.

Expect more segmentation tips and screenshots once I get access to the tools in our Analytics account…if you haven’t subscribed to Get Elastic - sign up today, won’t you? (It’s free, or you can subscribe by email at the top of the page).

What if 68% of your site visitors only came to research an offline purchase?

According to research by Accenture:

• 68% compare prices online before shopping in a physical store
• 58% locate items online before purchasing offline
• 67% prefer to research online and buy from physical stores

Just for fun, let’s call web shoppers with a high propensity to research online and purchase offline “ROPO” customers (a noun and a verb). Reasons to ROPO include:

• Shopper wants to view the item up close
• Shopper needs the item sooner than it can ship
• Shopper wants to avoid shipping fees
• Shopper might not be comfortable sharing personal information online

Like the 4 buying modalities, a customer may be generally a ROPO (prefers to research online and purchase offline most of the time), or more likely to ROPO based on the purchase situation (e.g. received gift card from Target for Christmas, hate wandering the aisles on a busy Saturday - research online, walk in, walk out).

Improving Search for ROPOs

I spotted Target targeting ROPOs in category and search results the other day:

This offers a higher level of customer service to ROPOs than just providing store lookup on the product page — the ROPO can scan search results and only view details on items they can pick up in-store.

Target shows you locations, hours of operation and a telephone number, sort by distance (not sure how helpful this is if you don’t live at the center-point) and low or normal availability. You can also view a map and print the page in regular or map view.

Move Closer to “Bulls-Eye”

To make this even more helpful, I’d like to see is a zipcode or city-based filter where you could define your location, and see only products available in-store locally.

I’d also like to see a button or icon that differs from the add to cart button (to facilitate scanning if you don’t use a filter) - change the size, color and shape.

Another idea to help ROPO is to use a personalization tool like Sitebrand’s Geo-IP detection to sniff out visitors from areas you have a local presence. Show these visitors custom content throughout the site with a link to your store locator or inventory lookup.

Have you seen any other e-tailer examples of how to aid ROPOs?

The answer is yes - for many sites. But the question is does it increase sales for your business?

The only way you’ll know for sure is to either perform an A/B split test or to implement it and compare sales reports before and after. The caveat to the latter method is you never really know if the sales and conversion uptick is simply seasonal - but an A/B test, if performed properly, will let you know for sure.

Inspired by Bryan Eisenberg’s Always Be Testing: Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer, a Get Elastic reader began testing the McAfee seal:

Here’s what our reader reports:

The results of the split test are monitored by McAfee. Over 100,000 visitors have participated in the survey and 50% of the visitors see the image, 50% do not. After 3.5 weeks, the sales analysis summary shows an increase attributed to the certification of 4 – 6 % (it fluctuates daily).

After reading “Always be testing”, I set up bi-weekly meetings with our web team to select and implement split tests to optimize our sites for conversion. Next on the list is removing our order summary information from the checkout process until the order review page.

Joann.com reported a similar lift in sales (5.5%) from using the Hacker Safe seal (now acquired by McAfee) last fall as reported by Internet Retailer.

We’d love to hear your testing stories - with McAfee Secure or other tests. Did it lift conversion rate? Sales? Repeat orders? You can remain anonymous if you like, but please drop a comment on this post!

Here’s a video that shows a split test - great, we love case studies! YAY!

But…

There’s something terribly wrong with the advice given in this video. It encourages you to copy this button design because it was a “winner” in a Google Website Optimizer test - and the premise is this button design will also be the best design for your site.

So what’s wrong with taking a proven winning design and putting it to work on your site?

Let us count the ways. For example, what is the color scheme of your site? It’s a good idea to test using a button color that contrasts your design. So if you’re Office Max, you would want to split test maybe a green, or a blue button against its current yellow-orange design. The narrator mentioned red is a “stop” or “warning” color - but if your color scheme is light blue, perhaps red works best for you. Don’t just take this design and assume it converts best for you.

Aside from your website aesthetics, what business are you in? Do you sell electronics? Eco-friendly furniture? How about flowers, candy and gift baskets? If you are a high fashion retailer, does “add to cart” outperform “add to bag?” Would mustard yellow work on a feminine, haute couture site like Couture Candy? Or what if you sell in the UK, does “add to cart” outperform “add to basket?”

You also don’t know what other designs were considered losers. The testers likely disregarded red because it is a “stop color.” What if red was tested and blew mustard yellow off the hot dog?

Consider this cart button was the top performer for a sales letter for some subscription-based marketing club (for $97 a month!). You know, those sales letters that you’re never quite sure what you’re buying, but it comes with some kind of free gift valued at $X95? In this case, the “free” gift is DVDs that promise to be a shortcut to actually testing stuff based on some guy’s testing:

Don’t Waste Time and Lost Sales On Split Testing - Simply Borrow My Results

Here’s the big idea. You don’t have to waste your time or money split testing. You don’t have to spend months and months before you go to market, or thousands of dollars in PPC advertising like we did to learn what really works. You can simply borrow my results.

I can almost guarantee you simply based on the large scientific numbers that we use to gather the results of these tests you could never gather this information even if you had 8 years and a million dollars to waste trying.

Please, please, please don’t drink this Kool-Aid. We hope that last week’s webinar on testing drove home the value of doing your own testing, and got you excited about getting your hands dirty.

If time and money is a concern, consider that you can at least use Google Website Optimizer - a free tool, and start with a simple test to get your feet wet. The worst that can happen is you learn something new about your customers. At best, you learn something about your customers and improve the profitability of your website.

Tomorrow we’ll share a success story of a Get Elastic reader who took the testing plunge and discovered the treatment (test version) realized a 4-6% increase in sales. So check in tomorrow.

For more information and over 250 testing ideas, check out Future Now’s testing webinar series, our webinar with Bryan Eisenberg and Bryan’s book: Always Be Testing. And check out our webinar replay with Bryan Eisenberg: I Know I Should Be Testing, But…

Thanks to all who signed up and attended today’s webinar I Know I Should Be Testing, But… with Bryan Eisenberg. We did have some technical difficulties with capturing audio, but Bryan graciously agreed to re-record the webinar and you can find the replay here and even download the mp4 file to replay on your iPod or similar device. So big thanks and a hoorah for Bryan!

About our guest speaker: Bryan Eisenberg is a founder of Future Now and an Internet marketing veteran - a ClickZ columnist for 8 years (bit more bio information in that link), blogger for GrokDotCom and author of several books including Always be Testing: Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer. (PS, the 5 lucky winners of Bryan’s book will appear in our RSS/email footer for all out subscribers).

Without further ado, let’s jump into the summary of the original webinar, including the question and answer period…

No More Excuses!

Great experiences aren’t accidents: why we test

“…a computer can tell you down to the last dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold.” - Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart

76.7% of retailers are not testing - how come?

• We’re too busy dealing with urgent, we forget the important.
• There’s a HiPPO in the room (will explain below)
• IT/technology constraints, lack of human resources
• Just plain don’t know where to start!

About the HiPPO: You may understand the value of testing, but are challenged in getting buy-in because there’s a HiPPO in the room - the “highest paid person in the organization.” Hippos are the biggest barrier to testing, according to Bryan, and sometimes you need to take initiative and show the results of testing in order to get more support for it.

All the barriers revolve around 3 key drivers:

TOOLS - Besides Google Website Optimizer (free) there are enterprise tools like Omniture Test and Target and Optimost. GWO may not be as robust as paid tools, but at least no one has the excuse they can’t afford a testing tool.
PEOPLE - Like analytics, your tool is about 10% and the rest is people and process. You should have designated people working on testing so it doesn’t fall by the wayside when the “urgent” pops up.
PROCESS - You can have the hands to do the work, but without a process for determining what to test, how and how to measure success and actually implement the improvements, you’ve essentially got monkeys with typewriters.

Challenges

According to a 2006 JupiterResearch/ERI Executive Survey of decision makers in companies currently using A/B or multivariate testing, the biggest testing challenges include (in order of importance):

• Demonstrating ROI
• Creating test elements
• Modifying pages for testing
• Establishing test scenarios
• Using test interface
• Prioritizing initiatives
• Understanding results
• Acting on test results
• Segmenting/targeting test participants

Example of Tests

You can test any “section” on your website, here’s an example of 3 different headlines and 3 different images:

Amazon is famous for testing anything and everything, including cart buttons:

Just for kicks, here’s a screenshot of Amazon from the late 90’s:

Bryan’s got more details on his blog about the hidden secrets of the Amazon shopping cart. He also explains why retailers shouldn’t just copy Amazon in our recent interview.

2 common mistakes

Bryan advises against any “slicing and dicing.” Don’t take a page and start testing every element on the page concurrently - it will drain your resources and the test duration will go on forever. Start with a headline, start with a cart button. Get some small wins and then test more.

Another mistake is to do testing, but not implement any changes. Commit to continuous improvement - plan, measure and improve. Take data, and make changes!

Process

Process for improvement:

1. Who are we trying to persuade?
2. What action do we want them to take?
3. What action to THEY want to take? (Not always identical to the action you want them to take!)

Step 1 - Focus on Your Customer’s Experience

Use these questions as your blueprint for testing:

• How many different types of profiles will you have that would participate in this campaign?
• How do they buy?
• Are they Logical or Emotional?
• Are they Methodical, Spontaneous, Humanistic, Competitive (4 buying modalities)
• Where are they in the buying cycle?

Develop rich personas based on the 4 buying modalities - for more information on “persuasion architecture,” personas and buying modalities, check out Bryan’s book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? and our webinar on the subject (video / text recap).

Step 2 - Define the Test/Experiment

• What Action do we want them to take?
• What page will we test?
• Where do we judge success?

Step 3 – Do the Creative

• Create the pages, PPC ads, emails, or advertisements (online and off) that drive your prospects to your landing pages.
• Do have the correct messages for each type of profile and their motivation? You will likely need more than one.
• Do you have the correct message for each stage of their buying cycle? Are they early in the buying process, in the middle, or are they ready to buy?

Check out an example of how Competitve/Spontaneous buyers “see” a page (left) vs. Methodical/Humanistic buyers (right):

Typical behavior from a competitive/spontaneous user – only reads the top part of the communication and typically has shorter fixations. While methodical and humanistic users are more likley to read to the bottom of the communication and make longer fixations.

They read search results differently, too - guess which is which:

More eye-tracking / buyer mode goodness over at GrokDotCom: Eyetracking, Heatmaps and Gaze Plots, Oh My!

Opportunity Cost of NOT Testing

A great example is one of Bryan’s clients, Overstock (maybe you’ve heard of them?) who had a 92% bounce rate on this page:

The problem on this page was the “Kids Titles for Learning and Fun” banner. People thought they were searching only kids’ titles. Changing that banner led to a 33% reduction in abandonment rate, 5% revenue lift overall, not just for DVDs and $25 Million — that’s $68,000 per day. (You might want to show this to the HiPPO in your company!)

What to Test?

What to Test First… If You Have Buy In

• Your Top 5 High Bounce Rate Pages
• Your Top 5 High Exit Rate Pages
• Your Top 5 Lowest Time Spent Pages
• Your Top 5 key pages (i.e., checkout, cart, registration, top product)

What to Test First… If You Don’t Have Buy In

• Pick a few PPC terms and landing pages
• Work on an email campaign
• Work where the BPUs aren’t

Hierarchy of Optimization

Start with function - make sure your site does what you need it to do. Make sure it’s accessible - the site’s not down, you don’t hit 404’s when you omit the www etc. This includes accessibility for the visually impaired. Then look at your usability (not to be confused with conversion) which may involve observing people physically navigating your site and performing various tasks. This is all pre-testing stuff.

Begin testing at the Intuitive stage - what can you do to reduce friction in the buying process? Then explore the Persuasive - do people understand what they are buying?

Setting Up Your Test

1. Create a Descriptive Name

• Point of Action Assurance Test on Lead Form
• Identify if this is site wide test or for a campaign

2. Define Your Goal

• I want to increase conversion…
• How will you measure this? What are the KPI?

3. How Will You Achieve your Goal?

• What are you testing?
• What are the variables?
• What are the variations?

4. Define the Control

• What is your prediction/hypothesis?
• What are you basing that on?

5. Let the Test Rip

6. Measure & Analyze!

• What did we improve or not?
• What did we learn?
• What do we do next?
• What do we do next?

Sample Test Setup - Trust Element

Test Name: Confidence Building: Point of Action by Lead Form
Goal: I want to increase conversion by measuring total conversion rate of leads.
Does adding language about our privacy policy and response time improve lead form conversion?
Control: The control form is our current form (A).
Prediction: I predict the form with the detailed point of action assurance will convert best (B).

Simple Tests to Get Started

• Headlines
• Calls to Action
• Re-order Content
• Simple Graphics
• Confidence Building Language

Improving Product Descriptions

Bryan and Future Now conducted a Retail Customer Experience Survey last year, and found 62% of top retail sites had only a brief blurb for a product description, and only 11% had exceptional product copy. Yet, a study by Allurent reports 67% of consumers who visited an online store intending to make a purchase left because the retailer did not provide enough product information.

The E-tailing Group found in it’s study:

• 77% of online shoppers are “very to somewhat” influenced by the quality of content (descriptions, copy, images and tools) when deciding to purchase from an online retailer
• 79% “rarely or never” purchase a product without complete product information
• 76% believe content is insufficient to complete research or purchase online “always,” “most often” or “some of the time”
• When faced with incomplete information, 72% go to a competitor or research further

Got your attention?

Most people abandon because of lack of information to buy. But you can use customer reviews to dramatically improve product descriptions (GrokDotCom’s Holly Buchanan wrote about this, and so did we) and conversion. Amazon reviews and Buzzillions are great places to mine for this gold. Here are some tips:

• Look for products with low look to book ratios & 3 -4.5 star reviews
• Pull the “trigger words” from each review
• Plot them as Logical or Emotional
• Modify your product descriptions based on the results

And you can plot them on a chart like this if you like:

Here’s an example for a Kenneth Cole watch. Old product description:

Here’s revamped copy, taking in the sentiments of actual people from customer reviews:

Kenneth Cole Women’s Stainless Steel Watch

• This unusual double chain bracelet band and watch is an instant attention getter
• Kenneth Cole design features hypnotic mother-of-pearl face and is pleasing to look at
• The high polish silver hands compliment the shimmery dial
• No worries while washing hands, because this watch is water resistant to 30 meters
• Simple to adjust the size…no jeweler needed
• Secure and elegant jewelry clasp
• Case is a slim 9mm and only 18 mm wide
• Bracelet dimensions: 13mm wide & 7.75 inches long

(If you’re using Amazon, be sure to check out Pluribo and read our post on using Amazon Betsellers for keyword research).

More Conversion Tips

• Show products in context, it can raise conversions, even by 147%!
• Show stock availability

• Show pre-checkout shipping calculations (to reduce cart abandonment by people “just checking”)
• Use fewer checkout steps (test)
• Show assurances during checkout process (test)

59% do not provide shipping cost early in the checkout process and 35% have a checkout process with more than 4 steps.
41% do not provide assurances during the checkout process.

Here’s a post about checkout process split-testing.

Influencing Your Organization

Step 1 - Get the Math Right

If 100,000 people visit your website, and 3% of people convert into a desired outcome - that’s 3,000 total conversions, right? If you say your test improved conversion by 1% - does that mean you know have 3,030 conversions or 4,000?

Make sure everyone understands what a lift means. Talk the language, you had a 25% increase in business if it was an increase in overall conversion rate from 3% to 4%, rather than 3% to 3.03%. That’s a BIG difference!

Step 2 - Take Control of the Visit

100,000 visits
x 3% CR
3000 orders

If you increase traffic (invest more in PPC, for example), without optimizing for better conversion, a 33% increase in visits only produces 990 more orders. If you increase conversion rate by 33%, with only 100,000 visitors, you make 1,000 more orders - and this benefit is permanent - where buying more traffic is a one time deal, and you have to continually buy more traffic.

Think about this:

1. You can’t always control the amount of visits, but you can control what you present to the visitors.
2. What would it cost you to double traffic (if possible) versus doubling conversion rate?

Step 3 - Demonstrate It!

Questions and Answers

Many ecommerce sites use dynamically generated pages? How do you test database driven sites?

Google Website Optimizer works as long as Javascript tags for the test are showing up in browser. It will produce the variables you input to the tool, not what is coming out of your database. More details in the book.

What is the minimum traffic you need to conduct an accurate test?

Keep variations small and look for something that has at least 100 actions per week - if not orders, make it add-to-carts. If you have no traffic it’s hard to do less than that.

If something is out of stock, should you remove the product or announce something is out of stock?

Bryan shares a story about a Sony camera that he loves. Recently at a conference he was sitting with a bunch of people discussing how great this (older) model of camera was. They did a product search on Sony’s website and 3-4 other websites, no one had the camera listed. All the rest were out of stock. Since no product pages exist, you can’t even write a review, and you certainly can’t buy what you can’t find! Bryan suggests rather a retailer should revise the page, explain that the model is out of stock and show options for a similar model. Even tell people that the new model retains the speed (or whatever the features that made the previous one a customer favorite) and is available and in stock now.

I wrote about this topic last month, how to use 301 redirects to preserve your link juice and SEO benefits of an existing product page. Jason brings up a good point that there’s a problem with redirecting visitors because you lose the “scent trail” - you don’t want to send people to a 190 model when they were expecting a 180. You never want to pull a bait and switch or cause user frustration. I’ll keep my eyes out for good examples of retailers who keep pages up for a future post.

Is it better to use a long landing page or multi-step process?

There’s no universal answer, it depends on who you are marketing to and what you do. Though Bryan is a fan of breaking up pages — it’s hard to find exactly what you’re looking for on a long page — you can also break it up badly too.

How do you build credibility for a new site or new brand? Without product reviews, what is the number one way of building credibility?

Have an About Us page to start, and “be real.” People know they are not on Walmart.com. Communicate where you excel in service, quality, unique products, clarity, great experience, better content than everyone else, et cetera. Keep testing and you’ll get better results. Don’t forget phone numbers and addresses, live chat, AIM — transparent / visible contact information.

What are ramifications of SEO and testing, is it a form of cloaking?

It’s not, really. Sure, you could use it for the wrong reasons — you must be careful of what you’re doing, you’re not trying to bait and switch. But from the SEO perspective, when a spider comes, it will spider your “control” page, it has no ramifications to SEO otherwise. If you have a radical improvement as a result of your testing and you implement it, you will have to modify your control which may affect your SEO.

Is there ever a reason you would have a successful test, then go back and retrace your steps and perform the identical test - perhaps at a later date, if customers change, economic conditions, seasonality, technology et cetera?

Yes, Amazon is constantly playing with order and formatting of text and product descriptions, for example. If something causes a significant lift in conversion, it makes sense you want to continue testing the same thing - perhaps in slightly different ways. Don’t retest for small improvements - 3% change, for example. But 15%, 20% or more, it’s worth further experimentation.

Next Webinar, Sign Up Today!

We’re excited to have Bill Mirabito, Founder and Principal Analyst of B2C Partners in the house Thursday, October 23 at 9am PST / 12pm EST for Holiday Wish List for Mobile Commerce

Space is limited, so sign up today!

The clock is winding down for our upcoming webinar and book giveaway for Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer. Every registrant for this Thursday’s (September 11, 2008) webinar with Bryan Eisenberg: I Know I Should Be Testing, But… will be entered to win one of 5 signed copies of Always Be Testing.

Sign up here

Bryan’s worked with online retailers like Overstock and Cafepress to dramatically increase their conversion rates. “The Eisenbergs are #1 in this game, and there is no #2,” says Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com. We’re privileged to have Bryan join us for a full hour and take live attendee questions. This is a webinar you don’t want to miss. (September 11, 2008 9 am PST, 12 pm EST)

What will you take away from this webinar?

Improving your conversion rate is really the key to boosting your profitability online - NOT buying more traffic. Most marketers use the “gut feel” approach to conversion rate optimization, or even worse, go along with what the Highest Paid Person in the Organization (HiPPO) says, or what the web designer thinks looks coolest. How much money is left on the table because nobody holds opinions to the fire? How much could you learn about your customers by actually testing your site elements?

But testing sounds complicated. It sounds time consuming. Where do you start? How can you get the boss on board - especially when he thinks things are just fine the way they are?

You’ll learn from Bryan:

• Where and how companies should begin testing
• How do you get corporate buy-in
• What exactly you should test
• Secrets to maximize returns on testing investment (tools, people and process)

Learn how you go from a culture of having to “always be right” to “always be testing!” Sign up for I Know I Should Be Testing, But… today!

What’s more effective — “20-50% off” or use “up to 50% off?”

vs.

According to Marketing Experiments‘ Dr. Flint McLaughlin, whenever you use an X-Y range in your ad, most people will revert to the first number as the mean (average) standard. In other words, on a range of 35-50%, one will assume that 50% off is the exception, and most items are 35% off. (Slide 18 of PPC Live Optimization Clinic replay)

Based on his research and experience, Dr. McLaughlin suggests using “up to [your best discount]” to achieve higher click through.

Likewise, “over 50% off” is not as persuasive as “up to 75% off”:

Of course with dollar-pricing, you would want to choose your lowest reference point - “from $70″ rather than “$70-$150″:

Beyond Click Through

Click through rate is not the be-all end-all of your PPC campaign. Conversion rates are also very important. When I worked at a shoe store we often had sales sections with “UP to 50% OFF!” signage. Despite ticketed prices, customers often assumed everything was 50% off. Many got very frustrated and felt cheated that only certain shoes were 50% off. Most were 20% off. These customers who have grown skeptical of “up to” offers may not respond to such ads as those who haven’t been disappointed by them before.

I think in some cases, providing a range could attract more qualified clicks and reduce site abandonment and disappointment. Those that find 20% off an attractive offer will click through and may be pleasantly surprised with your 50% off deals, but won’t demand them. Dr. McLaughlin says “clarity trumps persuasion,” and I believe clarity also improves conversion.

Deterring Unqualified Buyers

Including the exact price of your item, even if it’s not a bargain, is effective as it weeds out those who would bounce off your page when shown the price.

Just remember to triple and quadruple check your ad and landing page for consistency - the price promised in your ad must match the offer.

Don’t Make Them Think

Numbers can be attention-grabbing, but also confusing. Don’t turn your special offer into a question:

Punctuation is your friend. Say this sentence out loud: “Order $50 Free Ground Shipping”

If you’ve seen that Simpson’s episode where lawyer Lionel Hutz adds ? , and ! to his business card, you know that “Works on contingency. No money down.” can become “Works on contingency? No, money down!”

Better copy would read “Free Ground Shipping on Orders Over $50,” “Spend $50, Get Free Shipping” or even “Free Shipping Over $50 Purchase.”

Clarify what prices are for:

Is there a $2.97 charge to access the database? Is this a one time fee? Is this a typo? Do other sites charge this? Huh?

Don’t make customer beg for the discount, or jot down some complicated code:

Your landing page should show the price or discount you promise. The customer should not have to mention or ask for anything. Affiliates, if you must use a coupon code, make it easy to remember like SUMMER and show it on the landing page.

Numbers can be effective, but as these examples show, you must consider the thought processes of the searcher before you write your copy.

We’ve all heard of “banner blindness” - the phenomenon of completely ignoring anything that resembles an ad when surfing the website.

Image Source: Jakob Nielsen

For this reason you want to avoid sticking important links and calls to action in the right hand sidebar. You especially want to avoid colors and fonts that resemble typical paid search ads.

Home page

Product page

Silkfair product page

Same goes for navigation menus:

There are instances where even Internet Retailer 500 retailers really display Adsense on product pages:

I strongly believe reputable retailers should completely avoid paid search ads on their sites. But what’s worse, on Chapters Indigo, you can’t even distinguish the ads from the recently viewed products from the cross-sells because they use the exact same colors and fonts.

Further Reading

Yes, there is solid research to back this argument up. Thank you, Mr. Jakob Nielsen:

Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings

Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored

Out of all the Internet Retailer Top 500, I’ve only found one that offers incentives to web surfers who look around without purchasing. When you close your browser tab or window, a pop-up chat window appears:

123Inkjets.com is using UpSellit.com’s SMARTagent product to re-engage visitors that exit prematurely from the site, the cart or a form. According to UpSellit, clients see sales increases of 5-20%.

It appears site visitors only have one go at the offer. If you close the box and return again on the same day it won’t pop back up. Of course, it could use browser cookies and it could reappear after cookies expire or you delete them.