Emotions drive conversions — and in this episode of Intended Consequences, Brian Massey sits down with Joe Putnam, founder of Conversion Engine, to explore how top-performing ecommerce brands are using AI CRO strategies to scale faster, test better, and connect more deeply with their customers.
You’ll hear how Joe’s team analyzes customer reviews at scale to uncover emotional triggers, how they test ad angles that competitors often miss, and why a “boots that hurt” campaign might not be the golden angle you think it is.
Why Emotions Still Win in Marketing (Even for Practical Products)
“People buy with emotion and justify with logic,” Joe explains — and it’s not just for luxury brands like BMW.
From cowboy boots to baby products, emotional triggers like trust, belonging, pride, and joy show up in customer language all the time. Even in seemingly utilitarian products like closet storage or bathroom scales, people make decisions based on how they feel about the product, not just what it does.
The key is knowing which emotional buttons to push, and that’s where AI CRO strategies come into play.
Finding Emotional Patterns
Sentiment analysis is the process of identifying the emotions behind the words people use — especially in product reviews, support tickets, and social comments.
Traditionally, marketers had to manually scan hundreds of reviews to pick up on these emotional patterns. Today, Joe’s team uses ChatGPT and other AI tools to streamline this process:
“We copy and paste hundreds of reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to do an emotional sentiment analysis,” Joe says. “What problems are being solved? What are people feeling? What language are they using?”
AI CRO strategies like this quickly surface pain points, unique selling propositions, and emotional value statements that can power ad copy, email campaigns, and landing pages.
Building an Emotional Connection
Once the team has pulled emotional themes from the reviews, they organize them into distinct messaging angles — each one reflecting a different emotional trigger. These angles might include:
Trust & security: “I know these will last. Worth every penny.”
Belonging: “I feel like I’m part of a community.”
Confidence: “I walk taller when I wear these boots.”
Joy & reward: “I bought these for myself as a gift. It felt amazing.”
Instead of just running ads that say, “Tired of boots that hurt?” over and over, Joe’s team builds multiple ads targeting different emotional angles. Then, they let the data reveal which message resonates most with the brand’s audience.
Takeaway: You’re probably underutilizing your customer reviews. With the right prompt, AI can uncover 3–5 powerful emotional angles you may have never tested.
Does AI-led Sentiment Analysis Work for All Products?
Yes, even for “boring” or utilitarian products. Joe explains:
“Whether you’re selling cowboy boots or closet storage, you’re always trying to tap into emotion. It might be fear, trust, anxiety, or satisfaction. But emotion is there. And when you find the right one, your results improve.”
Some products might lean into pride or aspiration. Others might connect through relief or peace of mind. In every case, the emotional experience is as important as the feature set.
Why AI Doesn’t Replace the Marketer
Let’s be clear: AI isn’t doing the job for you — it’s helping you do your job better.
Joe emphasizes that AI CRO strategies are a shortcut to better ideas, not a replacement for judgment:
“You still need human intelligence to decide which angles are worth testing, which copy resonates, and which ideas are off-brand. AI gives us more clay to mold — but we still have to be the sculptor.”
AI may generate seven ad angles. But maybe only two of them are good. With a trained marketing team, you can spot the winners, test them faster, and scale what works.
The best ads in the world can fail if the landing page doesn’t match the emotional promise.
One mistake Joe often sees: sending all ad traffic to the same product listing or category page, regardless of the ad’s message.
Instead, he recommends:
Creating custom landing pages for different ad angles.
Reinforcing the same emotional message from ad to landing page.
Using customer language throughout the copy and CTA.
“If the ad is about personal pride or reward, make sure the landing page reflects that. That emotional consistency is what drives higher conversions.”
Mistakes to Avoid with AI and CRO
While AI can be powerful, it’s not infallible. Joe warns of a few key pitfalls:
❌ Mistake 1: Believing Every Insight is Gold
Not every insight generated by AI deserves to be tested. Use your experience and brand knowledge to filter the noise.
❌ Mistake 2: Ignoring the Landing Page
Even strong ads will underperform if the landing page doesn’t deliver on the emotional promise of the creative.
❌ Mistake 3: Over-engineering Prompts
You don’t need “prompt engineering” skills to make this work. Start simple:
“Conduct emotional sentiment analysis on these reviews.”
Let the AI do the heavy lifting — then dig deeper based on what it returns.
Quickstart Guide: How to Use AI in Your Ecommerce Ad Strategy
If you want to try this for your brand, here’s a simple way to get started:
Collect Reviews – Grab 100–200 reviews from your product pages or Amazon listings.
Drop into ChatGPT (or your AI of choice) – Use a prompt like, “Analyze these for emotional sentiment. What feelings are customers expressing? What problems are they solving? What language repeats?”
Extract Emotional Angles – Look for clusters: trust, pride, satisfaction, relief, identity, etc.
Translate into Messaging Pillars – Create 3–5 core messaging angles that represent your product’s emotional impact.
Test in Ads and Landing Pages – Build multiple creatives — each aligned with a different pillar — and track which one drives the most engagement and conversions.
Final Thoughts: Emotions Scale. AI Speeds It Up.
The secret to ecommerce success isn’t just in your product specs. It’s in the emotional response you trigger. And now, thanks to AI, you can discover those responses faster than ever.
As Joe Putnam puts it:
“AI doesn’t give you the final product. But it gets you 80% of the way there — and helps you uncover ideas you wouldn’t find on your own.”
In this episode of Intended Consequences, Brian Massey sits down with Deborah O’Malley, founder of GuessTheTest.com, to explore the fast-changing world of AI in experimentation — from A/B testing myths to the ways AI is already changing how digital marketers approach conversion optimization.
And yes, they really do debate whether AI will kill our creativity.
Deborah pulls no punches: “People are still testing button colors and headlines when they should be testing concepts.”
That’s one of the many interesting misconceptions about experimentation. But as she explains, the most valuable insights come from big, bold tests — especially ones that challenge your brand’s assumptions. And with the arrival of generative AI, we now have the ability to scale those tests like never before.
How AI in Experimentation Is Changing the Game
AI isn’t just writing headlines — it’s redesigning the entire optimization process. Deborah and Brian explore a few critical shifts:
1. Faster Hypothesis Generation
AI can instantly produce dozens of test ideas based on your existing content, analytics, or competitor sites. This helps marketers and CRO pros move from analysis paralysis to active testing — fast.
“You can use AI to brainstorm variations you’d never think of on your own,” Deborah explains. “That means more creative testing… not less.”
2. Pattern Recognition at Scale
While most human optimizers rely on gut instinct or anecdotal evidence, AI can spot trends in user behavior across massive datasets. That means smarter test prioritization, better personalization, and tighter feedback loops.
3. Test Ideas From Outside Your Echo Chamber
AI doesn’t share your brand biases — and that’s a good thing. By using tools like ChatGPT to simulate how different personas react to your copy or design, you can explore radically new angles without waiting for an actual test to finish.
From “Interesting” to “Impactful”
One of Deborah’s boldest claims: We should stop chasing ‘interesting’ test results.
Why? Because what’s interesting isn’t always what moves the needle.
“You want tests that are valid, repeatable, and drive real business results. That’s where AI can help — it brings a level of objectivity and scale that humans alone can’t match.”
In other words, AI in experimentation isn’t replacing us — it’s upgrading us.
Want to Test Better? Start Here.
Whether you’re a CRO veteran or just getting started with testing, this episode is packed with practical insights:
✅ Which A/B tests are still worth running ✅ How to think beyond copy tweaks and start testing experiences ✅ Why generative AI might be your best brainstorming partner ✅ And how to avoid common pitfalls that make test results meaningless
And don’t worry — it’s not all tech talk. Deborah and Brian also cover the human side of experimentation, from internal politics to the fear of failure.
Final Thoughts: Embrace AI in Your Testing Workflow
This episode challenges us to move past the superficial and start building testing programs that matter. Whether you’re optimizing landing pages, ecommerce funnels, or entire customer journeys, AI in experimentation is the lever that can help you scale faster and learn deeper — without sacrificing creativity.
“When used well, AI becomes the co-pilot of every test you run,” Brian says. “It accelerates creativity, supports analysis, and helps you ask better questions — the real key to CRO.”
A high-converting landing page looks deceptively simple, but if you’ve made online offers, you know how hard it can be to get the results you’re looking for.
In this guide, we talk about how to optimize a landing page for peak performance, why it matters, landing page best practices, and key strategies for improving your landing page copy, design, and overall performance.
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is the page in any campaign — ad, email, social media post, or website link — that “catches” the clicks generated. For a Google Shopping Ad, the product page is the landing page. For a SaaS business, a standalone web page may be developed that promotes the product, service, or offer.
Landing pages are powerful because they are designed to deliver on the promise made and encourage visitors to take a specific action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a white paper.
The success of a marketing campaign is as dependent on the landing page as it is the ad creative.
To keep the promise made in the ad, email, social post, or link that preceded the page.
To ask your visitor to do something.
If you don’t know the promise that is being made that brings visitors to the page, you are building some other kind of page.
If you are putting any information on the page that does not make the visitor feel more comfortable and confident in the offer, you are building some other kind of page.
Landing page optimization is the process of fine-tuning a landing page’s content and design to maximize its ability to convert visitors into leads or customers. Landing page optimization should adhere to five core guidelines:
Keep the promise: The landing page should align with the message and value proposition presented in the ad or link that led the visitor to the page.
Craft a compelling offer: The landing page should clearly communicate the offer or benefit that visitors will receive in exchange for their action.
Design for conversions: The layout, design, and copy on the landing page should be optimized to guide visitors through the content on the page and make it clear that they are being asked to do something. The layout should establish a clear visual hierarchy that pulls a visitor’s eyes through the messaging. This includes using persuasive copywriting, relevant images, and clear call-to-actions while minimizing confusion.
Promote trust and credibility: The landing page should build trust by displaying customer testimonials, reviews, or other forms of social proof. It should also ensure that the page is secure and error-free.
Track and analyze: Using analytics tools, the optimizer will monitor the performance of the landing page and identify areas for improvement. Split testing can be used to test different elements of the landing page and determine what works best for the target audience.
Why Landing Page Optimization Matters Now, More than Ever
It’s more challenging than ever to get your message in front of your best customers. Landing page optimization helps you identify the issues that keep your offers from converting while improving their conversion rate.
These issues in particular are impacting the effectiveness of most landing pages:
Steady increase in search ad costs
More noise in social news feeds
Rising user expectations
Increasing competition in digital spaces
Advancements in technology
Rising user expectations
The average conversion rate for landing pages across all industries is 5.89%, according to HubSpot. Wordstream’s estimate is lower, at 2.35%, with only the top 25% of brands hitting 5.31% or more. Meanwhile, 10% is considered a good conversion rate.
Regardless of the true average, there’s a pretty deep disparity between a good conversion rate and the conversion rate most marketers are achieving. From our experience, that boils down to trust.
People buy from brands they know, like and trust. Many landing pages focus almost exclusively on their offer. This “all-about-me” approach kills trust.
That’s why, when optimizing landing pages, marketers need to ensure the page communicates credibility and trust.
Increasing competition in digital spaces
The digital economy has radically increased the competitive landscape for most businesses. Within this landscape, there are some things we can control and some we cannot.
What we can’t control are the things that our competitors influence, such as ad auctions and SEO.
The cost of Google Ads is trending up, pricing out many brands. According to the 2024 Google Ads Benchmark:
Cost per click increased for 86% of industries.
Conversion rates decreased for 12 out of 23 industries.
Cost per lead increased for 19 out of 23 industries.
Social media platforms have designed their algorithms to devalue most commercial posts so that businesses must advertise. And these ads no longer deliver “cheap” clicks.
The #1 result in Google’s search results gets 27.6% of organic search traffic. Competition for this is heavy.
What we can control are the assets we build for our digital businesses.
Our email lists
Our SMS lists
Our landing pages and websites
These assets cannot be taken from you. Investing in them creates a barrier that your competition cannot take away by bidding more.
Improving your conversion rates by 10% has the same effect on your business as reducing cost per ad click by 10%. Both decrease your acquisition costs by 10%, but one of these strategies is in your control and the other is not.
Your competitive edge comes from your ability to provide an effective user experience.
Does investing a portion of your ad spend in your landing experiences make sense?
Research by Forrester found that delivering excellent experiences directly impacts a business’s bottom line:
36% higher growth rates
1.9 times the return on ad spend
1.9 times higher average order value
It’s only through the conversion optimization process that companies are able to improve the user experience and refine their messaging. By providing better data, it helps brands adapt to changing trends and consumer behaviors, raising credibility and trust in the eyes of potential customers.
Advancements in technology
Technological advances like AI and machine learning (ML) are revolutionizing the way landing page optimization is done. They enhance the functionality of CRO tools by providing additional insights, task automation, and optimization opportunities. And they are able to identify opportunities that human analysts might miss, leading to more effective CRO strategies.
Here are a few benefits we’ve seen from AI and ML technology:
Enhancing Personalization: AI-powered tools analyze user behavior, demographics, and preferences to create personalized landing pages that resonate with each individual.
Automating Optimization: Machine learning (ML) algorithms can automatically test and adjust landing page elements, such as content, images, and call-to-actions. They do this in real-time, making optimization efforts more efficient and giving them better outcomes.
Leveraging Predictive Analytics: AI models predict which landing page variations are likely to perform best for specific audience segments, allowing marketers to make data-driven decisions faster.
Delivering Better Customer Experiences: With AI and ML, marketers can create landing pages that are tailored to the individual needs and desires of each visitor, providing a seamless and engaging user experience that increases customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
Key Elements of an Optimized Landing Page
Landing Page Element 1: A clear and compelling offer
Visitors should know at a glance what the offer is and whether it’s right for them. The value proposition should establish two things very quickly:
That the visitor is in the right place for the problem they are trying to solve.
That there is a good reason for them to continue exploring the site.
Landing Page Element 2: Relevant and persuasive copy
The landing page should use conversion copywriting techniques to showcase the value proposition, benefits of the offer, and the value of taking action. The copy must:
Resonate with the target audience (but not everyone else)
Offer intrinsic value for engaging with the page and extrinsic value for taking action
Highlight the offer and everything it includes
Make it a no-brainer to take action
Landing Page Element 3: High-quality visuals
Your message isn’t just conveyed through words. Your text and images work together to convey your message. That being the case, a landing page should use high-quality images and videos to convey additional layers of meaning. These visuals should:
Support the offer visually
Make the page more engaging
Lead the visitor’s eye to important information
Captions are as important as headlines. Write captions below photos and graphics that explain why you chose that image for the reader. If you can’t come up with a good reason, the image shouldn’t be on the page.
Avoid stock photos and lifestyle images. This pandering may not be effective for our ever-smarter audiences.
Landing Page Element 4: A strong call to action (CTA)
The call to action is the reason a landing page exists — it should be easy to understand, easy to see, and easy to respond to.
A web form is the most common way for visitors to take action on a site. This can be the product selector on an ecommerce product page or simply a button to take visitors to the next step. Optimizers know that the call to action — be it a form, button, or calendar — should be very visible to visitors. It should be clear what is being asked of the visitor and what will happen if they take that action.
Calling the visitor to action is best done with active verbs: buy, order, download, call. We’ll talk more about urgency in a moment, but you can add subtle urgency to your CTA simply by adding words like “now.”
A strong CTA includes an action word and subtle urgency
A strong CTA includes an action word and subtle urgency
Calls to action are most effective when they are truthful. Am I actually going to get a quote when I complete this form, or am I going to get a call from a helpful salesperson? “Get an instant quote” is a good choice for the former, and “Request a quote” is appropriate for the latter. For guidance on creating CTAs that work, ask about our lead generation services.
Landing Page Element 5: Social proof
Social proof is a technique that uses the actions of others to influence the behavior of your visitors. It can be created in a variety of ways: number of happy customers, client logos, awards, and trust elements, for instance.
Management consulting firm Kearney reports that consumers typically make purchases based on recommendations from both friends / family and online reviews. That’s why many high-converting landing pages include testimonials or reviews from satisfied customers.
Landing Page Element 6: Urgency and Risk Reversal
The landing page should create a sense of urgency to encourage visitors to take action immediately. At the same time, it can relieve the visitor’s anxiety by taking risk out of the equation.
As we just mentioned, you can add subtle urgency with the word “now” in your call to action. But you can also create urgency with limited-time discounts or fast-action bonuses, or by mentioning the risks of not acting now.
If you are going to provide a money-back guarantee, warranty, or generous return policy, be specific in your description.
For instance, AppSumo drives action by placing a time limit on their offers. Products are steeply discounted and may never be available at the listed price again. They juxtapose this with a 60-day money-back guarantee to reduce perceived risk.
AppSumo uses urgency and a strong guarantee to drive action
Landing Page Element 7: Mobile friendliness
It’s vital that landing pages are easy to read and engage with on a mobile device.
61.21% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices.
The average consumer spends 4 hours and 37 minutes looking at their phone screen every day.
82% of online buyers purchased a product they found on social media while using their mobile phone.
Here’s how to ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly:
Above-the-fold content should be prioritized.
Copy and forms should be concise.
The page should be responsive.
Page load time should be less than 3 seconds, and ideally less than 1 second.
A word about page design: The design of a page will communicate credibility. A professional design delivers a subconscious message that this company is serious and credible. However, self-serving copy, unclear calls to action, lack of social proof, or broken mobile pages will instantly undo even the most competent of designs. Don’t focus on the design. Focus on the content.
Landing Page Optimization Process
As we’ve discussed, optimizing a landing page is about making incremental improvements in the page’s conversion rate. But it’s important to remember that this isn’t a linear process with a clear beginning and end.
Landing page optimization is an ongoing process of gathering insights, creating hypotheses, experimenting and testing, and evaluating results. For simplicity’s sake, we’ve broken the process into four stages. In reality, these stages may overlap, and you’ll likely be running multiple tests at the same time.
Stage 1: Conduct Research
How is the page currently performing?
Gather data from analytics, surveys, and user testing to identify areas for improvement.
Analyze ad campaigns and email offers to understand the promises made to visitors.
Define the goals and target audience for the landing page.
Stage 2: Identify Areas for Improvement
Review the landing page design, copy, and overall user experience.
Use heat maps, click tracking, and scroll tracking to identify areas of high and low engagement.
Conduct customer research to narrow design choices..
Stage 3: Implement Changes
Make incremental changes. If you can, design an experiment, such as an A/B test.
Prioritize changes that address the most critical issues first.
Collaborate with designers and copywriters to implement the changes effectively.
Stage 4: Evaluate Results
Track “bottom-line” metrics such as purchase rates, form completion rates, and checkout abandonment rates.
Use analytics and testing to measure the impact of the changes.
Make further adjustments based on the evaluation results to continuously improve the landing page performance.
Rinse and Repeat
Good conversion rates require a continuous process of experimentation, monitoring, and analysis that lead to small improvements over time.
Just remember, optimization decisions are data-driven, not opinion-based. By using data to guide optimization efforts, optimizers are able to design tests that continually improve conversion rates.
Best Practices for Well-Optimized Landing Pages
As marketers, we gravitate toward “best practices” for whatever strategy we’re employing. So before we dive too deeply into best practices, let’s be clear: The tactics that work for one brand and audience will differ from what works for another brand and audience, even if they’re in the same industry or serving the same audience.
Most best practices are just a starting point for conversion optimizers. But there are a few landing page optimization best practices that never change. In particular:
Keeping your pages audience-centric
Minimizing opportunities for visitors to navigate away from the page
A/B testing
Audience-Centric Pages
A well-optimized landing page offers is all about your audience — not your brand or product. The language, visuals, and messaging should be tailored to a unique audience and speak to their specific pain points and desires.
Done right, the landing page will make visitors feel seen and understood. Because it expresses their pain points better than they can, they sense that you have expertise in the area. This builds trust, and they begin to trust that your offer will work for them.
This landing page by #samsales speaks directly to the struggling salesperson. It acknowledges that salespeople dread prospecting and explains why it’s such a challenge. It then offers the solution: a playbook with everything the salesperson needs to prospect like a pro.
That’s likely enough to drive sales, but this landing page also answers the biggest objection: Is this product right for me? The answer doesn’t just share some of the specific information available in the guide. It also expresses the relief salespeople feel when they get this information.
An effective landing page keeps the focus on the audience, their desires, and their goals. Make sure your pages:
Clearly address visitors’ motivations, pains, and interests
Use their vocabulary, feelings, and knowledge level
Answer key objections before they become a hindrance to conversion
Focused Navigation
To increase conversions, a landing page should be stripped of any element that could distract visitors from the action they’re being asked to take. That includes navigation options.
Avoid using your website’s standard navigation scheme. Replace it with a navigation that supports the offer on your landing page. In many cases, the landing page doesn’t need navigation. Without unnecessary navigation, the landing page can focus the visitor’s attention on the primary call to action. This reduces confusion about the message and offer. It also encourages your visitors to stay on the page and take the desired action.
Yuppiechef tested two variations of their Wedding Registry landing page, one with navigation and one without. The variation with no navigation delivered twice as many conversions, and the conversion rate jumped from 3% to 6%.
Removing navigation and links reduces the number of choices available to visitors. This lowers the likelihood of them navigating off the page and raises the odds that they’ll take action.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of a landing page to determine which one performs better. This is a science-based approach to optimization that ensures the page continues to convert well.
It’s important to keep these A/B testing best practices in mind:
Ensure you have enough conversions: A/B testing requires a sufficient flow of conversions if the test is to reach statistical significance before you reach old age. Use a free test calculator to see if you have enough traffic and conversions on a page.
Define relevant metrics: Before you launch the test, establish the specific metrics you’ll use to measure the effectiveness of the landing pages. Compare rates, such as revenue per visitor, purchase rate, or form completion rate.
Establish a testing framework: Choose your preferred method of experimentation — A/B testing or multivariate testing. A/B testing compares two or more versions of a page, while multivariate testing involves varying multiple elements simultaneously. Multivariate testing requires a large amount of traffic.
Implement the changes: Create two (or more) versions of the landing page, each with different elements or content. Ensure that the changes align with your hypotheses or research about what might improve performance.
Drive traffic to the landing pages: To generate insights into user behavior and expectations, optimizers direct a sample of visitors to each version of the landing page. The sample size must be large enough to provide statistically significant results.
Collect and analyze data: Use analytics tools to track the performance of each landing page and gather data on the relevant metrics. Analyze the results to identify which version performs better based on the pre-defined metrics.
Make data-driven decisions: Based on the analysis, determine which version of the landing page has a higher conversion rate or other desired outcome. Consider implementing the more effective version or conducting further testing to refine the results.
Landing Page Optimization Strategies
The best conversion rates are only achieved through ongoing optimization. That’s why optimizers adopt a culture of experimentation and testing. Here are eight landing page optimization strategies they rely on to get maximum results.
1. Keep the Promise
A landing page’s primary purpose is to fulfill the expectations set by the link or advertisement that led visitors to the page. Failing to keep that promise makes people feel cheated, like you’ve broken a promise or bait-and-switched them. This can lead to distrust and high exit rates.
To avoid this, it’s crucial to ensure that the landing page’s offer aligns precisely with the promise made in the ad or link. Use similar language. Highlight the same benefits. Avoid any discrepancies that could confuse or disappoint visitors.
Segment does a good job of keeping its promise in this email-to-landing page sequence. Notice that everything feels consistent, from the color of the button to the way the problem is expressed.
By keeping the promise made in the previous funnel step, landing pages can build trust, enhance the user experience, and increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action.
2. Use a Descriptive Call to Action (CTA)
A descriptive call to action is an essential element on any landing page. It guides visitors towards the intended action and explicitly asks them to perform it.
A good example is the Segment landing page above. The CTA is clearly stated in the title of the form: “Register to Watch Recording.” The button, which stands out in green, then repeats the action this landing page is asking for: REGISTER.
Clear CTA on Segment’s landing page
To be effective, the call to action should be prominently displayed on the landing page, using visual cues such as contrasting colors, bold fonts, or eye-catching graphics. It should also be placed strategically to ensure that visitors can easily locate and engage with it. (We’ll talk about your options for CTA placement in a minute.)
For now, just realize that without a strong CTA, the landing page won’t work. And by optimizing the call to action, landing pages can increase conversion rates and drive more profitable outcomes.
3. Optimize Copy and Design
Optimizing landing pages requires a collaboration between copywriters, designers, and optimizers. Designers can provide valuable input on the visual presentation, while copywriters ensure that the messaging is clear, compelling, and aligned with the overall goals of the landing page.
Clear and Persuasive Copy
Well-crafted copy plays a vital role in landing page optimization. It helps to establish credibility, build trust, and address visitors’ concerns. Keep these copywriting tips top of mind:
Matching the ad: Align the landing page copy with the message and language used in the advertisement or promotion that brought the visitor to the page.
Addressing objections: Anticipate and address potential objections or questions the visitor may have.
Using persuasive language: Employ persuasive writing techniques to encourage visitors to take the desired action, such as highlighting the benefits, creating a sense of urgency, or using social proof.
Effective Design
The design of a landing page directly influences its visual appeal, user experience, and overall effectiveness. Key design considerations include:
Relevance to the offer: Use images, graphics, and layout to visually reinforce the landing page’s offer and value proposition.
Guiding the eye: Create visual cues, such as contrasting colors, bold fonts, and whitespace, to guide the visitor’s attention towards the most important elements of the page.
Minimizing distractions: Avoid unnecessary clutter or extraneous elements that can hinder the visitor’s focus and detract from the desired action.
4. Include Social Proof and Credibility
Social proof and credibility help to build trust between the visitor and the brand, and increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action. This is why landing pages often include trust symbols, such as logos of well-known brands or security seals.
Squirrly shows social proof on their landing page with this banner just under the fold:
Social proof on Squirrly’s lifetime deal landing page
Social proof on Squirrly’s lifetime deal landing page
It builds trust quickly by telling us that 200,000+ websites are using the tool, which has earned 4- and 5-star ratings on three reputable sites. It also shows a series of awards from G2.
5. Use Different Landing Page Types
Depending on your offer, you might need to adjust the layout of your landing page by moving the call to action. Here are four places to put your calls to action and their purpose:
Top Hat
The top hat places a call-to-action above the page’s content. Its purpose: to grab the reader’s attention and promote the offer even before they read the content.
Here’s how Airbnb does it. You can’t miss this call to action, and to ensure you don’t, it stays visible as you scroll through the page.
Pressure Release
When visitors don’t find what they want on the page, they scroll back to the top of the page to find the information they need: phone numbers, shopping cart links, calls to action, and the search bar. By placing these items in the upper right corner of the page, you make them impossible to miss, and in the process, release the pressure felt by your visitors.
This landing page by Imperial Ghostwriting is a good example. The top of the page has a three-way CTA — button, email, and phone number — for anyone who’s ready to take action.
Because it’s so close to the headline, the brain connects this call to action with the offer. But because it’s in the banner at the top of the page, it doesn’t disrupt the visual impact of the page.
Dripping Pan
The dripping pan is a call-to-action at the bottom of the page, giving visitors one last chance to take action. A visitor that has read the entire page is probably more likely to take action. Make it easy for them.
This landing page by Clifford Ghostwriting is a good example. The yellow box at the bottom of the page gives one final push to take action and includes a phone number to talk with an expert right away.
Coffee Breaks
The coffee break places in-line calls to action throughout the content of the page. This engages the reader and allows them to take action at whatever point they’re ready, without disrupting their reading flow.
This approach works well on a long-form landing page, like this one from DigitalMarketer. The call to action is strategically repeated throughout the page so it’s easy for people to take action, no matter where they are on the page.
Of course, there are other options as well. Here are some other landing page types that suit different purposes:
Wheelie Popper: A scroll-triggered pop-up that appears when a visitor has scrolled a certain percentage of the page.
Jilted Lovers: An exit-intent pop-up that appears when a visitor is about to leave the page.
Inliner: An inline call-to-action that is placed within the content of a landing page.
Compass: A call-to-action that is placed in the sidebar of a landing page.
6. Ask for Necessary Information Only
People are wary about sharing their personal information online. Even a simple request for the visitor’s email address can create a barrier and discourage them from taking action. It’s critical to keep this in mind when asking for personal information.
To combat this, consider each piece of information being requested in the landing page form, and only include fields that are absolutely necessary for the specific landing page’s purpose.
According to Google, the majority of mobile sites are still too slow and bloated to meet user’s expectations. Their research shows that:
As the number of page elements (text, titles, and images) increase, the probability of conversion drops 95%.
As the page load time increases from 1 second to 10 seconds, the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing increases 123%.
Adopt a mobile-first design approach to ensure your landing page is accessible, easy to navigate, and visually appealing on smaller screens.
8. Test and Iterate
The ongoing process of experimentation and testing allows you to collect valuable data and insights that improve future optimization efforts. This provides:
Higher Conversion Rates: Iterative testing helps identify areas for improvement, such as headlines, images, call-to-actions, and form designs, leading to increased conversion rates.
Data-Driven Optimization: Accurate data allows optimizers to generate real insights into customers and their expectations. Through experimentation and testing, they gain quantifiable data that support decision-making based on actual results rather than assumptions.
Identification of User Pain Points: By testing different variations, you can identify specific elements or content that create friction or obstacles for users, allowing you to address these pain points and improve the user experience.
Reduced Abandonment: By identifying and addressing potential barriers to conversion, testing helps reduce abandonment rates and increases the likelihood of users completing desired actions.
Increased ROI: Effective landing pages contribute to increased return on investment (ROI) by optimizing conversions and driving more qualified leads or sales.
Accelerate Your Conversion Journey: Key Steps Forward
Landing page optimization is a foundational strategy in digital marketing, unlocking increased conversions, enhanced user experience, and improved return on investment. But it requires a data-driven, scientific approach.
A fundamental concept in A/B testing is statistical hypothesis testing. It involves creating a hypothesis about the relationship between two data sets and then comparing these data sets to determine if there is a statistically significant difference. It may sound complicated, but it explains how A/B testing works.
In this article, we’ll take a high-level look at how statistical hypothesis testing works, so you understand the science behind A/B testing. If you prefer to get straight to testing, we recommend our turnkey conversion optimization services.
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
In A/B testing, you typically start with two types of hypotheses:
First, a Null Hypothesis (H0). This hypothesis assumes that there is no significant difference between the two variations. For example, “Page Variation A and Page Variation B have the same conversion rate.”
Second, an Alternative Hypothesis (H1). This hypothesis assumes there is a significant difference between the two variations. For example, “Page Variation B has a higher conversion rate than Page Variation A.”
The primary goal of A/B testing is not to prove the alternative hypothesis but to gather enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Here’s how it works in practical terms:
Step 1: We formulate a hypothesis predicting that one version (e.g., Page Variation B) will perform better than another (e.g., Page Variation A).
Step 2: We collect data. By randomly assigning visitors to either the control (original page) or the treatment (modified page), we can collect data on their interactions with the website.
Step 3: We analyze the results, comparing the performance of both versions to see if there is a statistically significant difference.
Step 4: If the data shows a significant difference, you can reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the alternative hypothesis is likely true. If there is no significant difference in conversion rates, you assume the null hypothesis is true and reject the alternative hypothesis.
Example
To illustrate this process, consider an example where you want to test whether changing the call-to-action (CTA) button from “Purchase” to “Buy Now” will increase the conversion rate.
Null Hypothesis: The conversion rates for “Purchase” and “Buy Now” are the same.
Alternative Hypothesis: The “Buy Now” CTA button will have a higher conversion rate than the “Purchase” button.
Test and Analyze: Run the A/B test, collecting data on the conversion rates for both versions.
Conclusion: If the data shows a statistically significant increase in conversions for the “Buy Now” button, you can reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the “Buy Now” button is more effective.
Importance of Statistical Significance in A/B Testing
Statistical significance tells you whether the results of a test are real or just random.
When you run an A/B test, for example, and Version B gets more conversions than Version A, statistical significance tells you whether that difference is big enough (and consistent enough) that it likely didn’t happen by chance.
It’s the difference between saying:
“This headline seems to work better…”
vs.
“We’re 95% confident this headline works better—and it’s worth making the change.”
In simple terms:
✅ If your test reaches statistical significance, you can trust the results. ❌ If it doesn’t, the outcome might just be noise—and not worth acting on yet.
We achieve statistical significance by ensuring our sample size is large enough to account for chance and randomness in the results.
Imagine flipping a coin 50 times. While probability suggests you’ll get 25 heads and 25 tails, the actual outcome might skew because of random variation. In A/B testing, the same principle applies. One version might accidentally get more primed buyers, or a subset of visitors might have a bias against an image.
To reduce the impact of these chance variables, you need a large enough sample. Once your results reach statistical significance, you can trust that what you’re seeing is a real pattern—not just noise.
That’s why it’s crucial not to conclude an A/B test until you have reached statistically significant results. You can use tools to check if your sample sizes are sufficient. By making these refinements, the text becomes more concise, clear, and easier to follow.
While it appears that one version is doing better than the other, the results overlap too much.
How Much Traffic Do You Need to Reach Statistical Significance?
The amount of traffic you need depends on several factors, but most A/B tests require at least 1,000–2,000 conversions per variation to reach reliable statistical significance. That could mean tens of thousands of visitors, especially if your conversion rate is low.
Here’s what affects your sample size requirement:
Baseline conversion rate – The lower it is, the more traffic you’ll need.
Minimum detectable effect (MDE) – The smaller the lift you want to detect (e.g., a 2% increase), the more traffic is needed.
Confidence level – Most tests aim for 95% statistical confidence.
Statistical power – A standard power level is 80%, which ensures a low chance of false negatives.
Rule of thumb: If your site doesn’t get at least 1,000 conversions per month, you may struggle to run statistically sound tests—unless you’re testing big changes that could yield large effect sizes.
How A/B Testing Tools Work
The tools that make A/B testing possible provide an incredible amount of power. If we wanted, we could use these tools to make your website different for every visitor to your website. The reason we can do this is that these tools change your site in the visitors’ browsers.
When these tools are installed on your website, they send some code, called JavaScript, along with the HTML that defines a page. As the page is rendered, this JavaScript changes it. It can do almost anything:
Change the headlines and text on the page.
Hide images or copy.
Move elements above the fold.
Change the site navigation.
When testing a page, we create an alternative variation of the page with one or more elements changed for testing purposes. In an A/B test, we limit the test to one element so we can easily understand the impact of that change on conversion rates. The testing tool then does the heavy lifting for us, segmenting the traffic and serving the control (or existing page) or the test variation.
It’s also possible to test more than one element at a time—a process called multivariate testing. However, this approach is more complex and requires rigorous planning and analysis. If you’re considering a multivariate test, we recommend letting a Conversion Scientist™ design and run it to ensure valid, reliable results.
Primary Functions of A/B Testing Tools
A/B testing software has the following primary functions.
Serve Different Webpages to Visitors
The first job of A/B testing tools is to show different webpages to certain visitors. The person who designed your test will determine what gets shown.
An A/B test will have a “control,” or the current page, and at least one “treatment,” or the page with some change. The design and development team will work together to create a different treatment. JavaScript must be written to transform the control into the treatment.
It is important that the JavaScript works on all devices and in all browsers used by the visitors to a site. This requires a committed QA effort. At Conversion Sciences, we maintain a library of devices of varying ages that allows us to test our JavaScript for all visitors.
Split Traffic Evenly
Once we have JavaScript to display one or more treatments, our A/B testing software must determine which visitors see the control and which see the treatments.
Typically, every other user will get a different page. Visitors are distributed evenly across variations—control, then treatment A, then B, then back to control, and so on—ensuring balanced traffic. Around it goes until enough visitors have been tested to achieve statistical significance.
It is important that the number of visitors seeing each version is about the same size. The software tries to enforce this.
Measure Results
The A/B testing software tracks results by monitoring goals. Goals can be any of a number of measurable things:
Products bought by each visitor and the amount paid
Subscriptions and signups completed by visitors
Forms completed by visitors
Documents downloaded by visitors
While nearly anything can be measured, it’s the business-building metrics—purchases, leads, signups—that matter most.
The software remembers which test page was seen. It calculates the amount of revenue generated by those who saw the control, by those who saw treatment one, and so on.
At the end of the test, we can answer one very important question: which page generated the most revenue, subscriptions or leads? If one of the treatments wins, it becomes the new control.
And the process starts over.
Do Statistical Analysis
The tools are always calculating the confidence that a result will predict the future. We don’t trust any test that doesn’t have at least a 95% confidence level. This means that we are 95% confident that a new change will generate more revenue, subscriptions or leads.
Sometimes it’s hard to wait for statistical significance, but it’s important lest we make the wrong decision and start reducing the website’s conversion rate.
Report Results
Finally, the software communicates results to us. These come as graphs and statistics that not only show results, they help you decide what to implement—and what to test next.
AB Testing Tools deliver data in the form of graphs and statistics.
It’s easy to see that the treatment won this test, giving us an estimated 90.9% lift in revenue per visitor with a 98% confidence.
Of course, there are a lot of A/B testing tools out there, with new versions hitting the market every year. While there are certainly some industry favorites, the tools you select should come down to what your specific businesses requires.
In order to help make the selection process easier, we reached out to our network of CRO specialists and put together a list of the top-rated tools in the industry. We rely on these tools to perform for multi-million dollar clients and campaigns, and we are confident they will perform for you as well.
While it’s true we can learn important things from an “inconclusive” AB test, that doesn’t mean we like inconclusive tests. Inconclusive tests occur when you put two or three good options out for an AB test, drive traffic to these options and — meh — none of the choices is preferred by your visitors.
Our visitors like the page the way it is (we call this page the “control”), and reject our changed pages.
Our visitors don’t seem to care whether they get the control or the changed pages.
Basically, it means we tried to make things better for our visitor, and they found us wanting. Back to the drawing board.
Teenagers have a word for this. It is a sonic mix of indecision, ambivalence, condescension and that sound your finger makes when you pet a frog. It is less committal than a shrug, less positive than a “Yes,” less negative than a “No,” and is designed to prevent any decision whatsoever from being reached.
It comes out something like, “Meh” — a word so flaccid that it doesn’t even deserve any punctuation. A period would clearly be too conclusive.
If you’ve done any testing at all, you know your traffic can give you a collective “Meh” as well. We scientists call this aninconclusive test.
Whether you’re testing ad copy, landing pages, offers, or keywords, there is nothing that will deflate a conversion testing plan more than a series of inconclusive tests, especially if your optimization program is young.
Subtlety is not the split tester’s friend. Your audience may not care if your headline is in a 16-point or 18-point font. If you’re getting frequent inconclusive tests, one of two things is going on:
You have a great “control” that is hard to beat, or
You’re not stretching enough
Craft another treatment, something unexpected, and throw it into the mix. Consider a “well-crafted absurdity” as Groupon did in its early days. The idea is to make the call-to-action button really big, offering something you think your audience wouldn’t want.
Or be a little edgy, addressing the unspoken reaction your visitor is likely having to your call to action, like OptinMonster does in this popup.
OptinMonster speaks directly to the visitor’s disdain for popups and transforms disinterest into interest.
2. Segment Your Test
We recently spent several weeks of preparation, a full day of shooting, and thousands of dollars on talent and equipment to capture some tightly controlled footage for video tests on an apparel site. This is the sort of test that is “too big to be inconclusive.” However, video is currently a very good bet for converting more search traffic.
Ecommerce websites are seeing up to 80% increases in conversion rates from video marketing.
Despite these statistics, our initial results showed that the pages with video weren’t converting significantly higher than the pages without video. However, things changed when we looked at individual segments.
New visitors liked long videos, while returning visitors liked shorter ones. Subscribers converted at much higher rates when shown a video recipe with close-ups on the products. Visitors who entered on product pages converted for one kind of video while those coming in through the home page preferred another.
It became clear that, when lumped together, one segment’s behavior was cancelling out gains by other segments. How can you dice up your traffic? How do different segments behave on your site?
Your analytics package can help you explore the different segments of your traffic. If you have buyer personas, target them with your ads and create a test just for them. Here are some ways to segment:
New vs. Returning visitors
Buyers vs. prospects
Which page did they land on?
Which product line did they visit?
Mobile vs. computer
Mac vs. Windows
Members vs. non-members
3. Measure Beyond the Click
Here’s a news flash: We often see a drop in conversion rates for a treatment that has higher engagement. This may be counterintuitive. If people are spending more time on our site and clicking more — two definitions of “engagement” — then shouldn’t they find more reasons to act?
Apparently not. Higher engagement may mean that they are delaying. Higher engagement may mean that they aren’t finding what they are looking for. Higher engagement may mean that they are lost.
If you’re running your tests to increase engagement, you may be hurting your conversion rate. In this case, “Meh” may be a good thing.
In an email test we conducted for a major energy company, we wanted to know if a change in the subject line would impact sales of a smart home thermostat. Everything else about the emails and the landing pages were identical.
The two best-performing emails had very different subject lines but identical open rates and click-through rates. However, sales for one of the email treatments were significantly higher. The winning subject line had delivered the same number of clicks but had primed the visitors in some way, making them more likely to buy.
If you are measuring the success of your tests based on clicks, you may be missing the true results. Yes, it is often more difficult to measure through to purchase, subscription, or registration. However, it really does tell you which version of a test is delivering to the bottom line. Clicks are only predictive.
4. Print A T-shirt That Says, “My Control Is Unbeatable”
Ultimately, you may just have to live with your inconclusive tests.
Every test tells you something about your audience. If your audience didn’t care how big the product image was, you’ve learned that they may care more about changes in copy. If they don’t know the difference between 50% off or $15.00 off, test offers that aren’t price-oriented.
Make sure that the organization knows you’ve learned something, and celebrate the fact that you have an unbeatable control. Don’t let “Meh” slow your momentum. Keep plugging away until that unexpected test that gives you a big win.
This post was originally published on March 1, 2016, and was adopted from an article that appeared on Search Engine Land. It has been updated with current research and examples.
Welcome to the ultimate guide to A/B testing, a comprehensive resource designed to help you master the art of optimizing your digital experiences. Whether you’re a marketer, a product manager, or a business owner, understanding and implementing A/B testing can be a game-changer for your online presence.
Effective CRO services include A/B testing because they’re the only data-driven method for increasing conversions and powering growth.
Key Takeaways
Data-Driven Decision Making: A/B testing removes guesswork by providing clear, measurable insights into what works and what doesn’t.
Continuous Improvement: Optimization is an ongoing process. Each test builds on previous learnings to create a culture of experimentation and innovation.
Understanding Your Audience: Pre-test research and segmentation help you tailor your tests to specific user behaviors and preferences for more impactful results.
Statistical Rigor: Achieving statistical significance ensures that your conclusions are reliable and not influenced by chance.
Collaboration and Communication: Sharing results with stakeholders and aligning them with business goals ensures long-term success.
A/B testing, also known as split testing or A/B/n testing, is the process of comparing two or more versions of a webpage, app, or marketing asset to determine which one performs better. It takes a scientific approach to optimizing digital experiences, removing the biases inherent in decision-making based on personal preference.
A/B testing randomly divides users into two groups, serving each group a different variation (A or B) to determine which gets the best results — essentially letting your visitors tell you what they prefer.
What to Expect from This Guide
This guide is designed to be your go-to resource for everything related to A/B testing. Here’s what you’ll learn:
The A/B Testing Process: Step-by-step guidance on conducting pre-test research, setting up tests, ensuring quality assurance, and analyzing results.
Common A/B Testing Strategies: Discover various testing strategies such as Gum Trampoline, Completion Optimization, Flow Optimization, and more.
Tips on Implementing Test Results: How to implement winning variations and document your findings for future improvements.
Common Challenges with A/B Testing: Tips on handling timing issues, visitor segmentation, and achieving statistical significance.
By the end of this guide, you will have a thorough understanding of the entire A/B testing process and a framework for running your own A/B tests. Whether you are just starting out or upleveling your game, this guide will help you optimize your website and drive business growth through data-backed decisions.
A/B testing can significantly improve your online presence and drive business growth. Here are some of the key advantages of incorporating A/B testing into your optimization strategy:
Improved Performance and Engagement
Increased Conversion Rates: By comparing different versions of a web page, you can identify which page elements lead to higher conversions.
Reduced Bounce Rates: Testing helps optimize content and design to keep users engaged and on-site longer.
Enhanced User Experience: Through iterative testing, you can tailor your digital assets to user preferences, resulting in more satisfying interactions.
Improved Performance and Engagement
Quantitative Insights: A/B tests yield clear, measurable results that can be easily analyzed and presented to stakeholders.
Risk Minimization: By testing changes before full implementation, you can avoid making page or website updates that could have a negative impact on key metrics.
Informed Product Development: Test results can guide future product roadmaps and feature prioritization.
Business Growth and Innovation
Increased Revenue: Optimizing user experiences through A/B testing often leads to higher sales and improved return on investment (ROI). Even small improvements in conversion rates can translate into significant revenue increases over time.
Competitive Advantage: A culture of continuous testing and improvement can set your business apart from competitors who rely on guesswork.
Deeper Audience Insights: A/B tests reveal valuable information about user behavior and preferences, enabling more targeted marketing strategies.
Operational Efficiency
Traffic Optimization: As traffic becomes more expensive, the rate at which online businesses are able to convert incoming visitors becomes more critical. A/B testing helps in optimizing this conversion rate, ensuring that you get the most out of your traffic.
Incremental Improvements: A/B testing allows you to make small improvements that are more cost-effective than major overhauls.
Continuous Improvement: Regular testing enables ongoing refinement of your digital assets and marketing strategies. This continuous cycle of testing and improvement ensures that your website or app remains optimized and aligned with user needs over time.
By leveraging A/B testing, you can make informed decisions, improve user experiences, and ultimately drive business growth through data-backed optimizations. This scientific approach to optimization empowers you to move beyond guesswork and subjective opinions, ensuring that your digital strategies are always aligned with user needs and market trends.
The Key to A/B Testing Success
To enjoy the benefits of A/B testing, we need to be confident that our results are valid and can be used to make informed decisions. That’s where statistical significance comes in.
Statistical significance measures the possibility that the observed difference between two variations (A and B) is due to chance rather than a real effect. It is typically expressed as a probability or p-value. When the p-value is below 0.05, it means there is less than a 5% chance that the observed difference occurred randomly.
In practical terms, statistical significance confirms that the changes made in the winning variation do, in fact, perform better than the losing variation and are not random fluctuations in the data. That’s why we always run a test until statistical significance is achieved.
It’s tempting to end a test when one variation begins to outperform the other, but test results will fluctuate through the test. Only when statistical relevance has been achieved can you be sure of the winner. That’s why most A/B testing platforms have built-in calculators. If not, you can find them online — here’s one by VWO.
Keep in mind, statistical significance does not indicate the impact or the practical importance of the change you’re testing. It simply gives you 95% confidence that the test is valid.
Now, Let’s dive into the A/B testing process. We’ll start with a high-level look at the steps to A/B testing and then review each of each step.
The A/B Testing Process: Step-by-Step Guide
The A/B testing process is a systematic and methodical approach to optimizing digital experiences. Here’s the six-step testing process used by CRO professionals:
Here’s the six-step testing process used by CRO professionals:
Step 1: Conduct Pre-test Research. A/B testing starts with assessing your current data. Gather both quantitative data (numbers and metrics) and qualitative data (user feedback and behavior) to gain a comprehensive understanding of your website’s performance and user experience.
Step 2: Generate Hypotheses. Based on your data analysis, create hypotheses about what changes might improve your website’s performance. This step marks the beginning of experimentation, where you identify potential page improvements to test.
Step 3: Design A/B Split Tests. Create your control (the original, or A version) and variation (the B version) based on your hypotheses. Ensure that you’re testing one variable at a time to isolate its impact.
Step 4: Run and Monitor Tests. Use A/B testing software to split your traffic between variations until statistical significance is achieved. Monitor the test closely to ensure data accuracy and catch any potential issues early.
Step 5: Analyze Test Results. Analyze your test results for statistical significance. Look beyond just the overall results to understand how different segments performed.
Step 6: Implement Results. If you have a clear winner, implement the changes across your website. Continue to monitor performance to ensure the improvements are maintained over time.
Now let’s explore each of these steps more deeply:
Step 1: Pre-Test Research
Pre-test research is the process of gathering and analyzing data to understand your visitors, their behaviors, and their needs before you start designing test variations.
This step is key because, at its core, optimization is about understanding your visitors. To create effective A/B test variations, you need to know who is visiting your website, what they like and don’t like about your existing site, and what they want instead. This insight allows you to formulate hypotheses that have a higher likelihood of improving user experience and driving conversions.
Steps to Conduct Pre-Test Research
Gather Existing Data. Start by analyzing the data you already have. Use tools like Google Analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings to understand user behavior on your website. Look for patterns in:
Traffic sources: Where are your visitors coming from?
Bounce rates: Which pages are causing visitors to leave quickly?
Conversion rates: Which pages or elements are performing well or poorly?
User flow: How are visitors navigating your site?
For example, you might discover that visitors from social media platforms have a higher bounce rate on your product pages compared to visitors who click through from search engines. This insight could lead to a hypothesis about tailoring product page content for different traffic sources.
Conduct User Research. Quantitative data tells you what is happening, but qualitative research helps you understand why. These methods can help you gather input from your visitors:
Surveys: Ask visitors about their experience on your site.
Feedback forms: Collect specific comments about certain pages or features.
Usability testing: Observe how real users interact with your site in real time.
For instance, a survey might reveal that customers find your checkout process confusing, leading your team to a hypothesis about simplifying the checkout flow.
Analyze Competitor Data. Study your competitors’ websites to benchmark your own performance and set realistic goals. This can inspire new ideas and opportunities for testing. Look at their:
Design and layout
Messaging and value propositions
Features and functionality
This analysis might show that competitors are using trust badges prominently in their checkout process, suggesting a test idea for your own site.
Identify Key Metrics and Goals. Define the specific metrics you want to improve through A/B testing. For example, for an ecommerce site, you might aim to improve:
Conversion rate
Average order value
Revenue per visit
Click-through rate
Ensure these metrics align with your overall business objectives. If your goal is to increase customer lifetime value, you might focus on metrics related to repeat purchases or subscription sign-ups.
Segment Your Audience. Identify different user segments that behave differently or have different needs, such as:
New vs. returning visitors
Mobile vs. desktop users
Customers vs. strangers
Traffic source
Understanding these segments allows you to create more targeted tests and analyze results more effectively. For instance, you might find that a certain call-to-action performs better for new visitors but worse for returning customers.
Step 2: Hypothesis Generation
Once you’ve completed your pre-test research, it time to formulate educated guesses, or hypotheses, about what changes might improve your website’s performance. This is where data-driven insights meet creative problem-solving.
What Is a Hypothesis in A/B Testing?
In A/B testing, a hypothesis is a testable idea. It’s typically structured as an if-then statement that includes a proposed change, the predicted outcome if the change is implemented, and how success will be measured:
“If ___, then ___, as measured by ___.”
For example: “If we move the form above the fold, then sign-ups will increase by 10%, as measured by on-page form completions.”
When creating a hypothesis, it’s a good idea to follow this process:
Identify Problems and Opportunities. Pinpoint specific issues that need addressing or areas with potential for improvement.
Analyze Data. Thoroughly review data related to the issue. Look for patterns, anomalies, and areas of underperformance.
Brainstorm Solutions. For each problem or opportunity, brainstorm potential solutions. Think outside the box and collect a wide range of ideas.
Formulate Hypotheses. Turn your proposed solutions into structured hypotheses.
Prioritize. Not all hypotheses are created equal. Each hypothesis should be prioritized according to its potential impact, ease of implementation, and available resources.
Note: While hypothesis creation is listed as step #4 above, in many scenarios, hypotheses are developed as part of the step #1. Data is then collected to better understand the problem and potential solutions. When this approach is taken, you may uncover data or possible solutions that weren’t considered in step #1, invalidating the original hypothesis. When this happens, you can revise and reprioritize the original hypothesis based on the new data.
Tips for Effective Hypothesis Generation
It’s easy to generate hypotheses. The challenge is to create good hypotheses. Here’s how you can ensure your hypothesis pipeline is filled with test-worthy ideas.
Focus on One Change. A test can be designed to test multiple hypotheses, but each hypothesis should be specific and unambiguous.
Be Specific. Clearly state the change you’re making and the outcome you expect.
Make it Measurable. Ensure your predicted outcome can be quantified and measured.
Base it on Data. Your hypothesis should be grounded in research and data analysis, not just hunches.
Keep it Realistic. Keep your predictions within the realm of possibility.
Consider Multiple Factors. Remember that user behavior is complex. Consider various aspects like user psychology, design principles, and industry best practices when forming your hypotheses.
Document Your Reasoning. Always include the “because” part of your hypothesis. This helps you track your thought process and can inform future tests.
An A/B test is often called a “split” test because it involves splitting or dividing website traffic between two versions of a webpage or feature. The term “split” refers to how the audience or traffic is divided between the control version (A) and the variation (B).
A/B split testing is most effective when you know how to design the test to achieve your goals. This includes your testing strategy, objectives, the variables you’ll test, your segmentation plan, and the set-up of your tracking.
In a minute, I’ll show you how to design a split test, but first, we need to look at seven common A/B testing strategies.
Common A/B Testing Strategies
An A/B testing strategy is a systematic approach to planning, executing, and analyzing experiments. At Conversion Sciences, we use a variety of strategies, each appropriate for different situations.
Will you test big, disruptive changes to the webpage or make small, incremental tweaks? Will you optimize for general outcomes, such as completion rate or flow, or target specific pain points that create friction for visitors? Your strategy choice is based on risk tolerance, the current performance of the website, the resources available, and your specific goals.
Most optimizers choose one of these seven testing strategies.
Gum Trampoline
What: Focus on small, incremental changes to improve user experience and performance.
When: When bounce rates are high, especially from new visitors, or when you need to make continuous, minor adjustments.
How: Implement small, iterative tests on elements like button colors, font sizes, or minor layout adjustments to accumulate incremental improvements over time.
Completion Optimization
What: Improving the completion rate of a specific process or user journey.
When: When a high percentage of people are abandoning a checkout process, lead generation form, or registration form.
How: Improve the completion rate of that action by testing variations such as simplified forms, clearer instructions, or reduced steps in the process.
Flow Optimization
What: Enhancing the user journey or flow through a website, app, or any digital experience.
When: When you notice high drop-off rates or friction points in the user journey.
How: Streamline processes, improve navigation and usability, and test different layouts to make the user experience more seamless and efficient.
Minesweeper
What: Identifying and fixing pain points in the user journey.
When: When things are broken all over the site, or when there are multiple areas of friction that need immediate attention.
How: Use analytics and user feedback to identify critical pain points and then test fixes for these issues to improve overall user satisfaction and reduce drop-offs.
Big Rocks
What: Addressing significant issues that have a large impact on user experience and conversion rates.
When: Your site has a long history of optimization and ample evidence that an important component is missing or underperforming.
How: Identify key areas that, when improved, can have a substantial impact on performance. Test significant changes such as new features, major layout overhauls, or critical functionality improvements.
Big Swings
What: Testing more radical changes to see substantial improvements.
When: You are looking for significant improvements and are willing to take calculated risks. This could be during periods of low traffic or when you have a robust testing infrastructure in place.
How: Implement bold, innovative changes such as completely new designs, alternative user flows, or experimental features to see if they can drive substantial improvements in key metrics.
Go Nuclear
What: Making drastic, fundamental changes to the digital experience.
When: When you’re changing the backend platform, rebranding the company or product, or undergoing a major redesign.
How: Conduct thorough A/B testing before and after the major change to ensure the new version performs better than the old one. This involves extensive planning, testing of critical components, and careful analysis to mitigate risks and maximize benefits.
Effective A/B testing follows a structured, scientific approach to ensure objectivity and validity. Here’s how to set up a robust A/B test:
Choose Your A/B Testing Tool. There are several A/B testing platforms on the market, each with its own strengths, so choose one that aligns with your specific needs and technical capabilities. Here are three popular options:
Optimizely: A robust platform offering advanced features and integrations, ideal for larger enterprises with complex testing needs.
VWO: Known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features, VWO is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
AB Tasty: Combines A/B testing with personalization features, making it a good choice for businesses focusing on tailored user experiences.
Define Clear Objectives. Start by clearly defining your test goals and hypotheses. Your goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with your overall business objectives. For example:
Goal: Increase newsletter sign-ups by 20%
Hypothesis: Changing the CTA button color from blue to green will increase sign-ups by 10%, as measured by form completions because people associate green with “go.”
Note: Your objectives will inform the type of A/B test you choose from the seven options we reviewed above.
Choose Variables to Test. Select one primary variable to change in your variation. Common test elements include:
Headlines or copy
Call-to-action buttons (color, text, placement)
Images or videos
Page layout
Form fields
Create Variations. Design your control (original version) and variation(s) based on your hypothesis. Remember to change only one element to isolate its impact.
Determine Sample Size and Test Duration. Calculate the required sample size to achieve statistical significance. Your testing tool likely has a calculator, but you can also use this one. Keep in mind, your sample size depends on several factors:
Your current conversion rate: Lower conversion rates usually require larger sample sizes to detect significant changes
The minimum detectable effect (MDE): This is the smallest improvement you want to be able to detect. Smaller effects require larger sample sizes.
Statistical significance level: To achieve at least 95% confidence that the results are not due to chance, you’ll need larger sample sizes.
Statistical power: Usually set at 80%, this is the probability of detecting a real effect. Higher statistical power requires larger sample sizes.
Population size: For smaller target populations, you’ll need a larger sample size to ensure representativeness. (If you don’t have enough traffic, we don’t recommend A/B tests. Listen to this episode of the Two Guys on Your Website podcast to learn conversion optimization techniques that work for small populations.)
Plan for Segmentation. Consider how you’ll analyze results for different user segments (e.g., new vs. returning visitors, mobile vs. desktop users).
Set Up Tracking. Accurate tracking ensures meaningful results. Here are the key tracking elements that need to be in place:
Analytics: Set up Google Analytics event tracking for key user actions, and configure goals and conversions relevant to your test objectives.
A/B testing tool integration: Make sure your chosen testing platform is connected to Google Analytics, your content management system (CMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and any development tools you use.
Data validation: Before launching your test, perform an A/A test to validate your tracking setup is working correctly and not introducing any bias or errors.
Once you’ve designed your A/B test, you’re ready to set up and run your A/B test. This process involves careful planning, execution, and monitoring to ensure reliable results.
Create the test versions. The original page is your control (Version A). Create a variation (Version B) to test your hypothesis.
Set up the test in A/B testing software. The software will split your traffic between these versions. In most cases, each page gets 50% of the traffic, but you can set the percentages in the software.
Run the test until you reach statistical relevance. Most tests run for at least two weeks, but it may go longer if you haven’t reached statistical relevance yet.
AB testing software VWO test report showing the winning variation.
How to Ensure Quality Assurance
Quality assurance (QA) safeguards the integrity of your experiments and the reliability of your results, minimizing errors and data discrepancies. These QA processes address the technical user experience (UX) and data integrity aspects of a successful A/B test:
Pre-test Validation. Before launching a test, thoroughly check both the control and variation(s) across different devices, browsers, and operating systems to ensure they display and function correctly.
Consistent User Experience. Verify that users have a consistent experience regardless of which version they see. This includes checking that all links work, forms submit properly, and there are no visual glitches.
Data Accuracy and Tracking. Data is key to valid A/B tests. Double-check that your analytics tools are correctly set up to track the metrics you’re testing.
Fallback and Error Handling. Prepare for potential technical issues by implementing fallback options. If the variation fails to load, ensure users still see the control version to avoid lost conversions.
Continuous Monitoring. Once the test is live, continuously monitor its performance. Look for any anomalies in the data or unexpected user behavior that might indicate a problem with the test setup.
Step 5: Test Results Analysis
Proper analysis ensures that you draw accurate conclusions and make data-driven decisions. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to evaluate your A/B test results:
Statistical Significance. The first and most crucial aspect of evaluating test results is determining whether you reached statistical significance. This indicates whether the observed differences between variations are likely due to chance or represent a real effect.
Confidence Level: Typically, a 95% confidence level is used in A/B testing. This means there’s only a 5% chance that the observed difference is due to random variation.
P-value: Look for a p-value of less than 0.05, which corresponds to the 95% confidence level. A lower p-value indicates stronger evidence against the null hypothesis.
Sample Size: Ensure your sample size is large enough to detect meaningful differences. Smaller sample sizes can lead to inconclusive or misleading results.
Practical Significance. While statistical significance tells you if results are reliable, practical significance determines if the change is worth implementing.
Effect Size: Consider the magnitude of the improvement. A 0.5% increase might be statistically significant but may not justify the effort of implementation.
Business Impact: Translate the percentage improvement into actual revenue or other key business metrics to assess the real-world impact.
Segment Analysis. Don’t just look at overall results. Analyze how different segments performed:
Device Types: Compare results across desktop, mobile, and tablet users.
Traffic Sources: Examine how organic, paid, and direct traffic responded to changes.
New vs. Returning Visitors: These groups often behave differently and may respond differently to variations.
Geographic Locations: If applicable, look at performance across different regions.
Secondary Metrics. While focusing on your primary conversion goal, it’s also important to evaluate secondary metrics:
Engagement Metrics: Time on page, bounce rate, pages per session.
Micro-conversions: Newsletter signups, add-to-carts, or other steps in the funnel.
Long-term Metrics: Customer lifetime value, retention rates (if data is available).
Validity Checks. Ensure your test results are valid:
Test Duration: Confirm the test ran for an appropriate length of time, typically at least two weeks and covering full business cycles.
External Factors: Consider any external events (e.g., marketing campaigns, seasonality) that might have influenced results.
Technical Issues: Verify there were no technical problems during the test that could have skewed results.
Review Segments: Look for any segments where there were significant differences.
Power Analysis: Determine if you need a larger sample size to detect an effect.
Refine Hypothesis: Consider if your initial hypothesis needs adjustment based on the data collected.
Documentation and Learning. Regardless of the outcome:
Document Findings: Record all aspects of the test, including hypothesis, variations, results, and insights gained.
Share Insights: Communicate results with stakeholders, explaining both what happened and potential reasons why.
Iterate: Use learnings to inform future test ideas and hypotheses.
By thoroughly evaluating your A/B test results using these methods, you can ensure that your optimization efforts are based on solid data and insights, leading to more effective improvements in your digital experiences.
Step 6: Implementing Test Results
After conducting a successful A/B test, the next crucial step is to document the results, update stakeholders, and, if you have a winner, implement it effectively.
Documenting and Learning
Proper documentation of your A/B tests builds institutional knowledge and informs future optimization efforts. That’s why optimizers always record test results and insights, including:
Background and context
Problem statement and hypothesis
Test setup and methodology
Results and analysis
Insights gained, including any unexpected findings
Documentation should be comprehensive yet concise. We try to strike a balance between providing essential information and avoiding unnecessary details. Use spreadsheets to prioritize test ideas, track experiments, and calculate test results. Docs are preferred for an in-depth analysis of each test — they allow you to capture your insights and learnings and share them with stakeholders.
Insights from previous tests will fuel future optimization efforts. Consider creating a testing roadmap that builds on your learnings. For instance, if highlighting reviews was successful, your next test might explore different ways of presenting these reviews or testing review-based elements on other pages of your site.
Updating Decision-Makers
To ensure the long-term success of your optimization program, it’s crucial to communicate your results effectively to stakeholders. Here’s how to do that:
Communicating Results and Plans to Stakeholders. Prepare a clear, concise presentation of your test results, focusing on the metrics that matter most to your business. For example, instead of just reporting a 15% increase in click-through rate, translate this into estimated revenue impact.
Linking Results to Business Goals. Show how your A/B testing program aligns with and contributes to broader business objectives. For instance, if a key company goal is to increase customer lifetime value, demonstrate how your optimizations in the onboarding process are leading to higher retention rates.
Proposing Next Steps. Based on your results and learnings, present a clear plan for future tests and optimizations. This might include a prioritized list of upcoming tests, resource requirements, and projected impacts.In many organizations, only 10% to 20% of experiments generate positive results, with just one in eight A/B tests driving significant change.
As mentioned above, if a winning test won’t drive significant conversion rate improvements, you may opt not to implement the change — it simply isn’t worth the effort. However, when you do implement a change, you need to be sure the improvements you saw in the test translate into real-world performance gains. Here’s how to do that.
Implementing the Winning Version
Once you’ve identified a statistically significant winner in your A/B test, it’s time to implement this version across your entire user base. You can do this in one of two ways:
Option 1: Replacing the Original with the Winning Variant
This step involves updating your website or application to reflect the changes tested in the winning variation. For example, if your test showed that changing a call-to-action button from “Sign Up” to “Start Free Trial” increased conversions by 15%, you would update all instances of this button across your site.
Option 2: Gradual Rollout
In some cases, especially for high-traffic websites or significant changes, it’s wise to implement the winning version gradually. Initially, you would roll out the change to a small percentage of users (say, 10%) and slowly increase the percentage of visitors who see it until it’s fully launched. This approach allows you to monitor for any unexpected issues that might not have shown up during the test.
Monitoring Post-Implementation Performance
After implementing the winning version, continue to monitor performance to be sure the improvements seen during the test phase are maintained in the long term. Make sure you’re tracking key metrics such as conversion rates, engagement levels, and revenue figures.
False positives occur for a variety of reasons. A test might fail to reach statistical relevance or include too many variations. Or maybe it falls prey to the history effect — something in the outside world that affects people’s perception of your test. We’ve seen this happen in holiday seasons, a news event that has captured people’s attention, and even a competitor launching a new product.
If you implement a change and see a drop in site metrics, you need to respond quickly. First, revert to your control page so you can stop the bleeding. Then try to identify the issue:
Study your post-implementation data to confirm that the drop in metrics was due to the change and not other factors.
Review the original test to find issues that might have led to a false positive.
Check for external factors that could have influenced the test: seasonal trends, marketing campaigns, competitor actions, or technical issues.
Consider running a follow-up test to verify the original findings and explore alternative hypotheses.
By following these steps, you ensure that the insights gained from your A/B tests are effectively implemented, documented, and leveraged for ongoing optimization. This systematic approach not only improves your current performance but also builds a foundation for continuous improvement in your digital experiences.
Common Challenges in A/B Testing
A/B testing is a powerful tool for optimization, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Understanding and addressing these challenges empowers you to conduct effective tests and obtain reliable results.
Timing Issues and External Factors
As mentioned above, we need to be aware of timing issues and external factors that could deliver fast positives or negatives. Here are a few of the external issues that can impact the validity of an A/B test:
Seasonal Variations: User behavior often changes based on seasons, holidays, or specific times of the year. For example, an e-commerce site might see drastically different conversion rates during the holiday shopping season compared to other times of the year.
Market Fluctuations: Economic changes, industry trends, or sudden market shifts can impact user behavior and skew test results. A stock market crash, for instance, could significantly affect conversion rates on a financial services website, and we all experienced the impact of the pandemic and the uncertain economy that followed.
Competitor Actions: User behavior is easily impacted by competitor promotions or new product launches. If a major competitor starts a significant discount campaign during your test, it could affect your results.
Media Events: News cycles, viral content, or major world events can temporarily change user behavior and attention. A breaking news story related to your industry could suddenly increase or decrease engagement with your site.
Technical Issues: Unexpected technical problems, such as server downtime or slow loading speeds, can impact user experience and skew test results if they occur unevenly across variations.
Marketing Campaign Changes: Changes in your own marketing efforts, such as starting or stopping an ad campaign, can lead to different types of traffic arriving at your site, potentially affecting test results.
Timing issues can potentially lead to false positives or negatives, but in most cases, A/B testing mitigates them by simultaneously testing our variations. In an A/A test, we compare changes made at different times. Different external conditions exist in each test period. A/B testing ensures both the control and treatment groups are exposed to the same external factors during the testing period, allowing you to isolate the impact of the elements you’re testing.
Visitor Segmentation
Another significant challenge in A/B testing is ensuring your results accurately represent your entire audience. This challenge results from the complexity and diversity of user behaviors across different segments of your audience. For example:
Audience Diversity. Your website attracts a wide variety of visitors. Some are tire kickers, students, or researchers. Only a percentage are potential customers, and even these are not a homogeneous group. They can vary significantly based on factors such as:
Demographics (age, gender, location)
Device types (desktop, mobile, tablet)
Traffic sources (organic search, paid ads, social media, email)
User intent (browsing, researching, ready to purchase)
New vs. returning visitors
Each of these segments may interact with your website differently and respond to changes in unique ways.
Sample Representation. When conducting an A/B test, you’re typically working with a sample of your overall audience. It’s challenging to ensure the test sample accurately represents your entire user base. If your sample is skewed towards a particular segment, your test results may not apply to your broader audience.
Time-based Variations. User behavior can vary based on time of day, day of the week, or season. For example, B2B websites might see different behaviors during business hours compared to evenings or weekends. Ecommerce sites often experience seasonal fluctuations. These temporal variations can impact test results if not properly accounted for.
Geographic and Cultural Differences. For websites with a global audience, cultural differences and regional preferences can significantly impact user behavior. A change that resonates with users in one country might not have the same effect in another.
Here’s how to ensure your A/B tests accurately represent your entire audience:
Use proper segmentation in your analysis to understand how different user groups respond to changes.
Run tests long enough to capture a representative sample of your audience.
Consider running separate tests for significantly different audience segments.
Use stratified sampling techniques to ensure all important segments are proportionally represented in your test.
Here are some common ways to segment your traffic:
User demographics (age, gender, income level, etc.)
Browser type
Operating system
By analyzing these segments separately, you can uncover valuable insights about how different groups interact with your site and tailor your optimization efforts accordingly.
Creating a Culture of Testing
For more than a decade, we’ve advocated for a culture of optimization — equipping everyone to optimize their results through experimentation and A/B testing — because the data it provides can quickly scale growth and profits.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of limiting A/B testing to professional conversion optimizers. But practitioners aren’t the only people capable of running successful tests, especially with today’s technology. The key is to give your team the training, tools and workflows they need.
Booking.com is a good example. For more than ten years, they’ve allowed anyone to test anything, without requiring approval. As a result, they run more than 1,000 rigorous tests at a time, which means at any given time, two visitors will get two different variations of the page.
I opened Booking.com from two computers at the same time and got two variations of the page.
Experimentation has become ingrained in Booking.com’s culture, allowing every employee to test their ideas for improved results. Booking.com keeps a repository of tests, both failures and successes, so people can verify the test hasn’t been previously performed.
Conclusion
For optimizers, A/B testing is one of our most powerful strategies for improving website performance, driving conversions, and making data-driven decisions. In this guide, we’ve walked through the entire A/B testing process — from understanding the statistical foundations of hypothesis testing to running tests effectively and overcoming common challenges.
Next Steps
Now that you have a comprehensive understanding of A/B testing, it’s time to put this knowledge into action. Start by identifying areas of your website that could benefit from optimization. Conduct thorough pre-test research, formulate hypotheses based on data, and use the tools and strategies outlined in this guide to run effective tests.
Remember, A/B testing is not a one-time activity — it’s a continuous process. By committing to regular experimentation and learning from every test, you can stay ahead of competitors, delight your users, and drive meaningful business growth.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing program, this guide serves as a roadmap for mastering A/B testing. The journey of optimization is ongoing, but with the right approach, tools, and mindset, the rewards are well worth the effort.
A well-crafted landing page is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing, capable of turning casual visitors into loyal customers. But if you’ve ever created a landing page, you know how much strategic planning and execution they require.
At Conversion Sciences, after years of perfecting the art and science of landing page optimization, we’ve identified six essential elements that can transform an ordinary landing page into a high-performing asset. This guide will explore these elements in detail, share actionable tips, and provide real-world insights to help you master landing page optimization.
What Makes a Successful Landing Page?
Landing pages are stand-alone web pages designed to perform two jobs:
Keep the promise made in the ad, email, social post, or link that preceded the page.
Ask your visitor to do something, like filling out a form, downloading a resource, or purchasing.
Unlike homepages, which serve multiple purposes, landing pages focus on a single goal. This specificity makes them one of your most effective tools for converting visitors into leads or customers.
No time to learn it all on your own? Check out our turn-key Conversion Rate Optimization Services and book a consultation to see how we can help you.
The Benefits of Well-Optimized Landing Pages
We’ve seen the difference even small improvements in landing page performance can make. Here are three of the top outcomes you’ll experience when your landing pages are doing their job.
1. Maximize ROI
Most web pages don’t convert — they’re not designed to. But landing pages are designed to convert. They outperform popups, signup boxes, and wheels of fortune for opt-ins, with a 23% conversion rate.
Landing pages outperform other lead generation tactics with a 23% conversion rate.
Across all industries, the average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%, according to Wordstream. But the top 10% of landing pages achieve conversion rates of 11.45% or higher, depending on the landing page type.
Benchmarks for landing page conversion rates vary widely by industry, but these are the averages.
2. Simplify Decision-Making
The human brain craves simplicity, especially when faced with choices. High-converting landing pages capitalize on this by reducing cognitive load. They use clear calls-to-action (CTAs), concise copy, and a streamlined design to guide visitors toward a single desired outcome.
Imagine landing on a page that bombards you with navigation menus, multiple CTAs, and walls of text. It’s overwhelming, right? Now compare that to a page with a single, bold CTA — like “Sign Up Now” — and enough information to convince you to act. This simple page removes distractions, making it easier for visitors to decide.
You can thank Hick’s Law for this insight. It tells us that the more choices you offer, the longer it takes for someone to make a decision. And it explains why a simplified landing pages can move visitors quickly down the conversion funnel.
💡 In one of our projects, simplifying the layout of an eCommerce landing page led to a 15% reduction in bounce rates and a corresponding increase in sales.
3. Enhance Engagement
Grabbing and holding a visitor’s attention is no small feat. High-converting landing pages achieve this by delivering tailored content that speaks directly to the visitor’s needs and interests.
Take, for instance, an online retailer promoting a seasonal sale. A landing page promoting winter apparel with targeted messaging — like “Stay Warm and Save Big This Winter” — is far more engaging than a generic sales page. Add to that personalized content, such as product recommendations based on browsing history, and the page becomes a magnet for conversions.
Engagement isn’t just about content, though. The design and user experience play crucial roles. Eye-tracking studies show that users focus on areas with clean layouts, contrasting colors, and compelling visuals. By optimizing these elements, you can create a page that captivates visitors and keeps them moving toward your goal.To increase engagement, design and the user experience are key. For example, when we improved UX/UI for Boingo, they saw a 2x increase in sales and a 38% lift in overall revenue.
Optimizing UX/UI gave Boingo a 2x increase in sales and a 38% life in overall revenue.
Creating a Successful Landing Page
It’s easy to obsess over landing page best practices: Is this the right font? Is the color theme too loud, not loud enough? Too many options? Not enough options? What is with this border?
But bottom line, a landing page is ultra-simple. It keeps a promise and entices visitors to take action. That’s it. So let’s break down the basic components of a landing page and what you need to think about for each.
1. A Compelling Offer
Your offer is the foundation of your landing page. It’s the “why” behind the action you want visitors to take. To make your offer irresistible:
Make it About Them: Focus on your visitor and what they want.
Address Pain Points: Let them know you understand their challenges.
Present a Solution: Give them a painless way to solve their problem.
A compelling offer is clear and compelling. At its most basic, it tells you what you’ll get if you take action. For example, a SaaS company might offer a free trial with messaging like, “Get 14 days of unlimited access—no credit card required.”
Look at how simply Netflix presents its offer:
What you want/get: Unlimited movies, TV shows, and more
Cost: “Starts at $6.99.”
Risk reduction: “Cancel anytime.”
Netflix has a streamlined landing page that makes it easy to say yes.
Keep It Minimal: Ask only for essential information. An email address is often enough to start a relationship.
Provide Context: Use microcopy to explain why you’re asking for certain details.
Use an “invitational” CTA on the button: “Get Started” creates less friction than a transactional CTA like “Buy Now.”
Pro Tip: Our clients have seen conversion rates increase by up to 40% after reducing their forms from six fields to three. The more form fields your visitor has to fill out, the more friction they feel, and the less likely they are to convert.
If in doubt, look at Google’s homepage:
Google’s landing page is ultra simple with no friction
The offer is implied: search for anything. The form has just one field. And its buttons, “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky,” are invitational.
This simple white page makes a complete landing page. But of course, for your landing pages, you’ll want a few more conversion elements, so let’s explore those elements and how they will help you create a successful landing page.
3. Persuasive Copy
Not all visitors arrive ready to convert. Even slight objections can prevent them from taking action. Clear, compelling copy answers objections, builds trust, and explains why taking action today is smarter than waiting.
Short, text-based descriptions of the landing page offer can make a difference. Keep in mind persuasive copy doesn’t focus on your business or even the product. Always talk about what’s in it for the visitor.
Speak directly to their concerns: use empathetic language to acknowledge potential doubts.
Build confidence: highlight benefits with stats or testimonials.
Emphasize simplicity: reassure them that completing the action is quick and easy.
But persuasive copy isn’t your only option. Media can also make a difference. Studies have found that 9 out of 10 people want companies to create more videos, and 38.6% of marketers report that videos positively impact their conversion rate.
Whether you’re using text or video, try to create urgency so people take immediate action. Phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Only 5 Spots Left” can help — just make sure the urgency is real. If you’re selling a digital product, you can’t run out of inventory, but you can make your offer available only until midnight.
Quick Tip: Generic statements don’t drive action. To persuade, you need to be ultra-specific. Notice how the numbers in these examples draw the eye:
A fitness coach promoting a meal plan: “Discover the secret to losing 10 pounds in 30 days—no fad diets required.”
A trainer promoting an online course: “Join 11,377 professionals who’ve leveled up their careers with our training.”
4. Proof and Trust Elements
Trust is the linchpin of online conversions. Without it, even the most compelling offer can fail. To establish trust:
Leverage Social Proof: Add testimonials, case studies, or customer reviews.
Show Trust Badges: Highlight SSL certificates, security seals, or payment logos.
Use Recognizable Logos: Display well-known client or partner brands to boost credibility.
Example: After adding trust elements to an ecommerce client’s product pages and optimizing key elements of their value proposition, they saw an 18% lift in revenue per session, a 12% growth in customer acquisition rate, and a 6% increase in average order value. Proof and trust can significantly improve a landing page’s performance.
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This Galeton ecommerce landing page highlights quality ratings to prove the quality of their products and increase trust.
5. Relevant Images
Visuals aren’t just about aesthetics; they play a critical role in conveying value and enhancing understanding. Effective images:
Illustrate the Offer: Use screenshots, product photos, or mockups to make intangible offers feel tangible.
Enhance Emotional Appeal: Choose images that resonate with your audience’s aspirations or pain points.
Avoid Stock Clichés: Generic visuals can undermine trust and authenticity.
It doesn’t matter whether you sell a physical or digital product — an image makes it “real.” Rendering downloadable resources, like eBooks or white papers, as physical items in images helps users perceive them as tangible and valuable.
Example: Amy Porterfield presents screenshots from her online business courses on desktops, tablets, and phones. This quickly communicates the depth and accessibility of her training.
Even if you sell a digital product, you must “make it real” with graphics
6. Clean and Focused Design
Design can make or break your landing page. A cluttered layout confuses visitors, while a clean design keeps them engaged. Key principles include:
Use Contrast for CTAs: Make your call-to-action button stand out with bold colors.
Optimize for Mobile: With over half of web traffic coming from mobile devices, responsive design is a must.
Reduce Distractions: Remove unnecessary navigation or external links that might lead visitors away.
Pro Tip: Even if you love your design, your visitors may not. Take Jaguar’s logo redesign.
Jaguar’s new logo met with resistance from their loyal fans
As it enters “The New Era” of electric cars, Jaguar felt a redesign was in order. Many consumers disagree. LinkedIn posts call it a “car crash” and “downgrade branding” and predict harm to their brand:
Most landing pages don’t get the backlash Jaguar’s rebrand got, but it’s a good illustration of why we design pages for our visitors, not our own preferences.
To understand what visitors like (and don’t like), our Conversion Scientists® use heatmaps and user testing tools like Hotjar. If people avoid any part of the page, there’s likely something wrong with the layout or design, and these tools tell them where they can refine the landing page design to improve conversions.
Why guess when you can know? CRO tools provide the insights and data you need to make smart optimization decisions.
Here’s our scientific breakdown of these elements:
Here are the steps you can take to create a controlled Landing Page reaction in your digital laboratory.
Please include attribution to our website with this graphic.
Landing Page Best Practices: Expert Tips for Landing Page Mastery
Creating a landing page that converts is only the first step. To maximize results, you need to continually refine and optimize every aspect of the page. This second half of the article dives deeper into the strategies and tools used by top marketers to fine-tune their landing pages for peak performance.
Optimization requires regular testing, data analysis, and a willingness to iterate based on user behavior and industry trends. The difference between a good landing page and a great one often lies in the details — small adjustments that have a disproportionate impact on conversions. From mastering A/B testing to understanding how different metrics influence your strategy, this section equips you with the knowledge and tools to take your landing pages to the next level.
Not all landing pages are created equal. Tailoring your approach to specific objectives can enhance performance:
Lead Generation: Offer a clear value exchange, like an eBook or webinar for minimal information.
eCommerce: Showcase product images, highlight key features, and include trust signals like secure payment icons.
Affiliate Marketing: Focus on relevance and clarity to drive click-throughs and conversions.
Example: One of our clients in the SaaS space increased lead generation by 35% after optimizing their landing page with a simplified form and enhanced trust elements.
Metrics That Matter
To measure the success of your landing page, track these key performance indicators (KPIs):
Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete the desired action.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave without taking action.
Time on Page: A higher duration indicates strong engagement.
We recommend using tools like Google Analytics, Optimizely, or Crazy Egg can help you monitor these metrics and identify areas for improvement.
Tools and Resources for Landing Page Success
Some basic tools that will help you optimize your landing pages are:
Unbounce: For creating and testing landing pages without coding.
Hotjar: To analyze user behavior with heatmaps and session recordings.
VWO: For A/B testing to see what resonates with your audience.
When you’re ready to up your conversion game, check out our list of 20 AB testing tools recommended by CRO pros.
Best Practices for Ongoing Optimization
Creating a successful landing page isn’t a one-time task. Continuous improvement is key. Here’s how to stay ahead:
Regular Testing: Use A/B testing to evaluate headlines, CTAs, and layouts.
User Feedback: Gather insights from surveys or heatmaps to understand user behavior.
Content Updates: Keep your page fresh by aligning it with current campaigns or trends.
We’ve seen the impact of incremental improvements on a landing page’s performance. But if you’re curious to know how it will improve your results, submit the Conversion Optimization Upside Calculator, and we’ll do the calculations for you.
Final Thoughts: Creating a Landing Page That Converts
Creating a high-performing landing page doesn’t happen by chance — it requires strategy, testing, and attention to detail. By focusing on the six essential elements outlined above, you can craft simple landing pages that consistently deliver results.
What they don’t realize is that there’s another, more critical key to unlocking conversions.
We humans have won the evolution lottery in many ways (thank you, opposable thumbs), but we’ve never overcome our tendency to take shortcuts. And of all the shortcuts we take, confirmation bias is probably the biggest.
Let’s take a closer look at what confirmation bias is, how it affects us as humans, and more particularly, as marketers. Then we’ll uncover the only marketing approach that will beat our biases and improve our website conversion rates.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, favor, and recall information that supports our existing beliefs or hypotheses — while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them — so we can confirm that we’re right or process information faster.
Confirmation bias isn’t intentional. It’s more of a mental management system than deliberate self-deception.
Why does confirmation bias occur? Why are we so prone to it?
This marketing statistic may provide some insight: We are exposed to anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 ads a day. Add to that our busy lifestyles. We’re constantly juggling careers, families, friends, and self-care. Our brains are processing so much information at any given moment, we need decision-making shortcuts, or heuristics, to avoid overwhelm.
We like to be right. So we seek information that confirms and supports our personal beliefs and habits while ignoring innformation we disagree with.
Three Types of Bias
There are three types of confirmation bias:
Biased search for information
Biased interpretation of information
Biased recall of information
Biased search for information
People tend to test hypotheses, or ideas, by searching for evidence that’s consistent with their current beliefs. They phrase their search queries to find information supporting their expectations and gather data to prove their preexisting ideas are true.
We see this a lot in conversion optimization. When running an AB test for the first time, a marketer is likely to design the test to prove their idea right. By contrast, experienced optimizers know to design AB tests to disprove their hypothesis.
Interestingly, when we’re asked for information, the way the question is phrased can influence the way we answer. If asked, “Are you happy with your job?” we’re more likely to answer positively. If asked, “Are you unhappy with your job?” we’ll be more likely to disclose the things we don’t like.
Biased interpretation of information
We often use logic to defend illogical beliefs, and you can see that in the way we interpret information. For example, a 1979 Stanford study found that, when given compelling evidence for and against capital punishment, people used the data to support their original viewpoint and gave more credence to information that supported their beliefs.
This study also found that “disconfirmation bias” makes us more resistant to information or viewpoints that contradict our existing beliefs. We set a higher standard of proof for any hypothesis that contradicts our current expectations. We also work harder to disconfirm evidence by questioning the validity of the source or looking for flaws in the argument.
Biased recall of information
You’ve likely heard the term selective recall. It exists because our brains have pre-existing folders to store that information.
Studies have found that any information that aligns with prior expectations and beliefs is easier to store and recall than information that does align with our beliefs. As a result, we tend to remember information that reinforces our expectations.
Confirmation Bias Examples
When your brother calls you for advice but only accepts it if you tell him what he wants to hear, you’re seeing confirmation bias in action. He believes he found the solution and wants your stamp of approval.
You see confirmation bias in business when a company cuts a sponsorship deal with a controversial figure, and the brand is boycotted. Like Nike’s 2018 ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who, two years earlier, began kneeling for the national anthem in pre-game ceremonies to protest racial injustice.
Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick
Now, let’s look at some examples of how confirmation bias impacts our ability to process and parse data — which is key to our ability to parse your website data and understand your visitor’s behavior.
We all know how easy it is for bad actors to distort or manipulate data. What we don’t realize is how often we do this to ourselves, interpreting information in a way that distorts our own understanding.
Remember, we like to take shortcuts, so when we see this graph of ice cream sales compared to forest fires, what do we conclude?
Ice cream sales and forest fires are so highly correlated, ice cream must cause forest fires.
Meanwhile, looking at this next graph of ice cream sales vs. weight gain, you might assume ice cream will help you lose weight.
Ice cream may be the dieter’s dream dessert!
This is a ridiculous assumption, so we don’t take it seriously. But what happens when our conclusions are less obvious? Bias affects our ability to see the truth. It leads us to ignore gaps in our data. And it leads to poor decision-making.
For example, both of our ice cream graphs ignore a third issue, which is seasonality. In the summer, we tend to watch our weight so we’ll look good in our bathing suits, and it’s hot, so we love to eat ice cream.
The Effects of Confirmation Bias on Your Marketing Results
The Cognitive Bias Codex, rendered by John Manoogian, lists 188 cognitive biases, grouped into four categories.
The Cognitive Bias Codex illustrates the number of biases we can fall prey to.
According to the codex, cognitive bias tends to kick in in four scenarios:
We’re processing too much information
We don’t have enough context or meaning for that information
The information we’re processing has a higher priority or is used frequently
We need to make a decision or act quickly
Show me one marketer who isn’t processing too much information and making quick decisions without full context! Our work is most definitely the product of unconscious confirmation bias.
And it may explain why we put things on our sites that support what we believe instead of what our customers need to hear to convert. The typical marketing project includes researchers, copywriters, designers, and stakeholders, all with their own preferences and biases. In a worst-case scenario, this can be disastrous:
Researchers who gather information about the market and competitor products have a tendency to search for the information they expect to find, confirming their preexisting beliefs.
The copywriter may or may not evaluate the research, but if they do, they look for evidence that supports their preconceived ideas. Then, when drafting the copy, they choose words and phrases that speak to their learning styles and convey their biases.
The designer creates a visual design based on their own preferences about color and fonts. Then they bring in an executive and team members to review the design — who will all ask for changes based on their biases.
This is a worst-case scenario, but it does show the potential for confirmation bias to dampen your website conversions. You and your team are not immune. You have a tendency to favor information that supports your individual biases. And each of you works in a way that feels comfortable to you.
But these biases can kill a good landing page. They affect your organization at the deepest levels. And they can keep you from achieving the results you know are possible — which is why our Conversion Scientists® rely on science and the scientific method.
The Only Way to Avoid Confirmation Bias
Because everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias, we need a workaround. We need a way to get our biases out of the way so we can make better decisions and get better results.
For marketers, that means discovering what’s really going on with our visitors by thinking like a behavioral scientist.
The good news is you’re already doing it. Every time you post something on social media and check how many likes, comments, and shares you have, and then do more of those posts, you’re using behavioral science.
You’re using other people’s behaviors to determine what you’re going to do next. We just want to formalize that process to ensure our biases don’t override our natural tendencies.
That’s where the scientific method comes into play. When you come up with an idea for a landing page, instead of creating three mock-ups and choosing the one you like best or is most similar to your competitor’s page, you test which one works.
A scientific approach to conversion optimization, or CRO, removes personal biases, opinions, and preferences from the process and forces us to make data-driven decisions. It involves formulating hypotheses, conducting experiments, and analyzing results to draw conclusions.
Here’s what the scientific process looks like when applied to the CRO process:
Do some research.
Generate and prioritize some ideas.
Research an idea.
Design a landing page that proves our promising idea wrong.
Run tests.
Listen to what the data says.
Evaluate.
Iterate: Generate more ideas, investigate, test, listen, repeat.
When we follow this process, we can keep ourselves honest. Instead of adopting the highest paid opinion in the room or implementing web designs that may or may not work, we can use data to increase conversions on the website or marketing campaign.
Have you ever rebuilt a landing page or updated a website, only to realize that web conversions are low or non-existent?
It’s more common than you think, which is why we’re sharing the exact conversion rate optimization process and CRO strategies we use at Conversion Sciences to optimize ecommerce pages, conversion funnels, digital marketing campaigns, and more.
In this guide, you’ll learn core elements of the conversion rate optimization process:
The biggest reason you’re struggling to get people to take the desired action you ask for on your site (It’s not what you think!)
The steps of conversion rate optimization (CRO), and why they matter
How to generate test ideas (or hypotheses, as we like to call them) that can improve pages with lower conversion rates
How to prioritize those ideas based on their ability to drive results
The exact process our conversion experts use to develop messaging and web designs that convert
Tips for experimenting and split testing to ensure your optimization efforts pay off
After learning the optimization strategies we reveal here, you’ll know how professional optimizers design pages that persuade people to fill out your forms, improve your checkout process, or simply take the desired action for that page.
Of course, if this feel like too much work and you’d prefer fully-managed conversion optimization services, we can help with that as well.
Why Website Conversion Rates Aren’t What They Ought to Be
In a minute, I’ll walk you through the website design process we use to improve conversions for our clients. But first, we need to acknowledge the elephant room: confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias, is just one of the biases our brains use, causing us to favor information that aligns with our existing beliefs or hypotheses while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them. CRO is designed to combat this.
Confirmation bias is everywhere, even the conversion lab. That’s why we need the conversion rate optimization process.
We struggle to build websites, landing pages, and digital experiences that convert because we like to take shortcuts.
Our brains are always looking for the shortest route possible when making decisions. As marketers, that means we tend to put things on our sites that worked for us in the past and to avoid things that didn’t work in the past, regardless of what our customers need and want.
We need to find a way to circumvent our biases so we can include the page elements our visitors want and exclude the elements they don’t want — so we can get the results we’re looking for.
That’s where science comes in
For centuries, science — including conversion optimization — has been used to get our biases out of the way so we can make better decisions and drive higher conversion rates.
For marketers, that means discovering what’s really going on with our visitors. We do that by thinking like a behavioral scientist — using people’s behaviors to determine what their pain points are and what they like and don’t like.
We just need to formalize that process to keep confirmation bias out of the picture — which is where the scientific method comes into play. Instead of designing a page we think will convert, we run experiments and tests to build a page that actually converts.
Here’s what the scientific process looks like when applied to the CRO web design process:
Do some research.
Generate and prioritize some ideas.
Select an idea.
Design a change to our landing page to test our promising idea.
Run the experiment.
Listen to what the data says.
Evaluate and learn.
Iterate: Generate more ideas, investigate, test, listen, repeat.
When we follow this process, we can keep ourselves honest. Instead of adopting the highest paid bias in the room or relying on the biases of an expert designer, we can experiment to increase conversions on the website or marketing campaign.
Now, let’s look at how our Conversion Scientists® do that.
The (Science-Based) CRO Process for High Converting Websites
Most people think conversion optimization and conversion focused web design is about AB testing. And yes, optimizers love AB testing. It’s a core feature of the conversion optimization process. But in reality, we deal with ideas.
When a page is not performing as expected, the first step is to identify why. We have to generate ideas and conduct research to identify the underlying issues.
The insights you gain from this process help you understand the website visitor on a deeper level. You come away with better ideas for how you can improve the user experience for them. You also understand what it will take to improve conversions and sales.
I’ve condensed the scientific process into five actionable steps you can take to improve your average conversion rate — erasing any worries about confirmation bias or mental shortcuts.
The Optimizer’s Process: How to Optimize Your Website or Landing Page
Generate Optimization Ideas
Prioritize Ideas
Develop the Messaging
Design the Page for Conversions
Test and Optimize
Step 1. Generate Optimization Ideas
Improving a webpage starts with ideas about what’s not working right or what can be improved on the website or web page. For example:
Put a call to action at the top of [this landing page].
Redesign [this page] because it’s too cluttered.
Let’s produce videos for all of our products to show how they get used.
We call these ideas hypotheses, and you want to collect as many ideas as you can that could potentially boost conversions. Here are some sources for generating test ideas:
Data You Already Have
Use data from ad platforms and paid search to understand what language and offers get attention.
A/B Testing
Conduct A/B tests to determine if an idea will improve conversions.
Compare performance of changes made to a page or site to a similar period before the change. This method doesn’t control for external factors like market changes.
Online Focus Groups
Use online focus groups to get input from a larger number of people. Use this to narrow down messaging and design options.
Surveys
Conduct surveys of customers or prospects to answer important questions about their motivations, needs, and questions.
Analytics
Analyze website analytics to discover problem areas, evaluate traffic sources, grade landing pages and much more.
Site Feedback
Collect feedback from your website visitors to help identify why they are struggling.
Chat Transcripts
Review chat transcripts to discover common questions that your website could perhaps answer better.
Talk to Salespeople and Customer Service Reps
Salespeople and service reps can tell you the kinds of questions customers and prospects are asking when they talk.
Authoritative Blogs
Look at industry blogs for ideas that have worked for others and for research.
Customer Knowledge
Use your own experience and knowledge of your customers to generate ideas.
By collecting ideas in this way, you will void the brainstorming sessions that provide only limited ideas and hypotheses. These sessions can help generate ideas, but suffer from the biases of the group. Instead, use a structured CRO approach to choose the right ideas to research and test.
As you gather ideas, add them to a spreadsheet like this one.
Start by capturing your ideas in the “Hypothesis” column.
For each idea, record:
The page or section it appears on
The design element on the page you want to address (component)
Write the idea in hypothesis format.
The Hypothesis Format
If I [hypothesis], I expect [behavior] to change as measured by [metric].
Then put that idea into one of five buckets that describe its impact on the page’s performance:
Messaging
Layout/UX
Credibility
Social proof
Security
Fix it (e.g., the page is broken)
You should have ideas for each of these five buckets.
Step 2. Prioritize Your Ideas
Once you’ve collected your ideas, evaluate them on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the following criteria:
Evidence: How much evidence supports the idea.
Impact: The potential impact of the idea.
Effort: The level of effort required to implement the idea.
Traffic: How much traffic is affected.
ROI: The potential return on investment.
Being consistent with the way you rate each of these ideas is more important than being accurate with your rating.
Time is an issue when you’re optimizing website performance. We can’t test everything, and in truth, not all good ideas are worth pursuing. So how do you identify the ideas you don’t want to spend time on? We’ll start by deprioritizing the ideas that aren’t worth testing
Here are four reasons to kill a good idea:
1. Too Few People Will See It: If not enough traffic sees the change, it’s not worth testing.
It’s on a page that doesn’t get a lot of traffic
It’s in the footer, and heat maps tells you that people don’t scroll that far
To rise to the top of your list, the change should be very visible or in a key location.
If an idea is not visible, score it lower.
2. It’s too Much Work: Ideas that require a lot of website design, video production, or development pull a lot of resources before you know they will work.
If the idea requires too much preparation, score it lower.
3. It’s too Small of an Idea: The idea needs to have a significant impact to score highly.
Changing one word in a headline may not have enough of an impact. However, there are small changes that could make a large impact. For example, on this product page for the Paul Frederick website, we added a little guarantee statement next to the “Add to Bag” button.
A small change can have a big impact.
This looks like a small change, but it’s next to the CTA, which is a high-impact design element. Visually, it appears to be low impact, but it delivered an 11% lift in an AB test.
If an idea has the potential to make a big impact, score it higher.
4. You don’t have any supporting Data: You need evidence that you’re addressing a real problem that, if addressed, could improve conversion rates. As a result, you need to find data that supports your hypothesis and justifies an experiment.
Turn to your conversion rate optimization tools, customer research, and competitive research for this:
Analytics
Customer surveys
Site feedback
Chat transcripts
Sales conversations
Support conversations
Competitor websites and campaigns
The more evidence you can find to support your idea, the higher it will rise on your list.
Step 3. Select a high-ranking idea and design a test
Once you’ve prioritized your ideas, you’re ready to begin experimenting. Having the right messaging and value proposition is table stakes for any persuasive website. This is a good place to start.
Example: Testing Copy
Keep in mind, testing long versus short copy will only get you so far. Instead, test different ways of writing copy to engage the greatest number of visitors.
There are four personalities that you need to optimize for, and they align with four research modes outlined in Brian and Jeffrey Eisenbert’s book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? I talk in depth about these buyer personas here, but let’s look at a quick overview:
Competitives
Decision making: quick and logical
Expectation: Help them make a smart decision quickly.
Their learning mode: “I need to know what’s in it for me.”
Tip: Put key information at the top of the page.
Myers-Briggs equivalent: NT
Methodicals
Decision making: deliberate and logical
Expectation: Give them enough information to make their own decision.
Their learning mode: “I understand the processes and details.”
Tip: Include a logical navigation that helps them find additional pages with more information.
Myers-Briggs equivalent: SJ
Humanists
Decision making: deliberate and emotional
Expectation: To know, like, and trust you, as a company.
Their learning mode: “I want to know how I will feel if I take action.”
Tip: Use social proof and trust symbols on the page.
Myers-Briggs equivalent: NF
Spontaneous
Decision making: quick and emotional
Expectation: The basic information they need to take action, and an obvious way to respond quickly.
Their learning mode: “I tend to just give things a try.”
Tip: Put the call-to-action form in the hero area.
Myers-Briggs equivalent: SP
Be aware, when you craft your web copy, you will be battling your own biases. I’m a very humanist writer. My head of content is more of a competitive. Both of us write copy from our own quadrants.
But there are workarounds that we use to design messaging that appeals to everyone who visits the website.
How to Optimize a Page to Speak to All Modalities
Here’s an example of a page from our website that attempts to speak to all four types.
Unfortunately, when we try to speak to everyone, we end up speaking to no one.
Conversion-optimized messaging will appeal to the personality types of your target buyers. So start by evaluating your ideal buyers against the four personality types I listed above. That may be all four types or just a few. For example, at Conversion Sciences, our clients don’t align with the Myers-Briggs “SP” personality, so we don’t optimize for that.
Once you’ve identified the personalities you need to engage with, you can use this process to rewrite the copy to align with other modalities.
1. Write the web as you normally would.
As I mentioned above, your copywriter will likely write from their own modality. That’s okay. Just make sure it’s persuasive copy that can drive visitors to take a desired action.
2. Rewrite the copy in another voice.
This has always been a challenge for writers. We tend to write in our own style and have difficulty writing for the specific modes.
With AI, however, this is easy. Since AI recognizes the Myer’s Brigg’s personality types, you can ask it to rewrite your copy in another voice to ensure it appeals to these modalities:
Competitive: NT
Methodical: SJ
Humanist: NF
Spontaneous: SP
For instance, if you’re a humanist writer (an NF) like me, you’ll ask AI to rewrite the copy for another modality.
“Please rewrite this copy for a digital marketer who has an SJ Myers Briggs Type.”
Note: One of the best GPTs for copywriting is Claude, though Google’s Gemini was recently found to outperform ChatGPT. AI is evolving quickly and “what’s best” is likely to change. So use whatever tool you’re most comfortable with.
3. Rewrite the copy again for each personality.
This gives you substantially different versions of the same web copy, and that’s exactly what you want when we’re AB testing messaging. We want very different results, so we can get make big impacts.
4. Create a variation of the copy that could appeal to all personalities.
Take elements from the winning variations of the copy you generated above and consolidate them into one version that speaks to all personalities.
This process helps you create messaging that’s specifically designed to increase the percentage of people who convert, since it speaks to every visitor’s personality type. Once you have conversion-optimized copy, you’re ready to focus on the design of the page.
Note: You need to check AI outputs because they can hallucinate, making claims in your copy that aren’t true. Use a diff checker like Editpad to see where the AI is making changes to your copy.
Step 4. Designing landing pages that convert
When a visitor opens a landing page, we want them to know two things:
Number one, we want them to know they’re in the right place. So the landing page has to keep the promise that was made in the ad, email, or social media post that brought them to the page.
Number two, we want to give them a reason to read on. Highlight something that is unique or unexpected about your product or brand. Make them curious about how you solve a problem or make a product unique.
We also want them to know we’re asking them to do something. It needs to be clear, visually that there’s a next step in their journey with us.
Good web design ensures nothing on the page distracts users from achieving the goal you’ve set for them on the page, whether that’s to fill out a form, make a purchase, or click a button.
But when most people hear the term “designing landing pages” or “website design,” they tend to focus on the layout, colors, fonts and images. They aren’t thinking about the conversion potential of a page.
Remember, we want a conversion-focused website design that draws the visitors’ to the information that builds the value proposition of the page or site. Designers use techniques that create a visual hierarchy, leading the eye through the page in a way that highlights key messages and calls to action.
We’ve trained our design teams to design for the business executives, not the business’s customers.
Keep in mind, like the rest of the optimization team, designers have their own confirmation biases. They’re likely to create a visual design based on their own preferences. When they’re done, they’ll bring in an executive and other people on the team who review the landing page or website’s design — who will ask for changes based on their biases.
At the end of the day, this process will result in a webpage that works for the organization, but not necessarily the end user.
Conversion designers, like conversion copywriters, know how to design for conversion. They understand their own biases. They understand the importance of the user experience and to use design to help you meet your conversion goals.
Here are some of the tools designers will use to create a successful visual hierarchy for a conversion-focused page design. This will provide a better user experience and boost your conversion rate:
White space – can make an element stand out. Often used around your call to action, so it bumps up in the visual hierarchy
Negative space – providing blank spaces that guide the user’s eyes.
Font size and coloring – can be used to communicate key messages when visitors scan the page.
Juxtaposition – putting design elements together in a way that amplifies the message
Color – color is a powerful way to make page elements like buttons “pop.”
Highlights – making the pieces of your value proposition and messaging that drive conversions stand out
But conversion-focused web design doesn’t stop there. You also need to think about how you can visually communicate credibility, authority, and trustworthiness. Here are a few ideas:
Credibility signals:
The number of years you’ve been in business
The number of products you’ve sold
Your experience
Your awards
Membership in industry associations
Trust organizations, such as the Better Businses Bureau
Social proof signals:
Testimonials from happy customers
Ratings and reviews
Mentions by media outlets, like Forbes or Inc.
Customer logos
Risk reversal elements:
Links to your privacy policy
A lock symbol on your order button
A guarantee or return policy
Value proposition:
A navigation bar that answers, “Am I in the right place?”
Logo, company name, and tagline in the top banner
Make key product/service categories visible in the navigation bar
Step 5. Test and Optimize
By now, you’ve already done the hardest parts of an optimizer’s job. You’ve created some ideas for optimizing the performance of the page. You’ve developed messaging that speaks to every personality and learning modality represented by your ideal customer. And you’ve used used a design approach that can lift landing page conversion.
You’re ready to start running experiments and AB tests and letting your data guide your decisions.
Before starting any tests, however, it’s important to adopt the right mindset. So I’m going to give you a quick look inside the optimizer’s brain. (Scary, I know!)
Optimizers are only concerned with two questions:
Am I in the right place for what I’m trying to do or for the problem I’m trying to solve?
Is there a reason for me to keep reading?
When your visitors arrive at your website, they immediately scan the page to answer the first question. This is why you website design needs to make it easy to understand what your website is about.
It’s also why functional headlines work better than clever headlines. For example, which of these headlines makes you understand where you are?
“A Place of New Beginnings”
“Addiction Torments the Addict and Their Loves Ones”
You might find the first headline on any number of websites: from a hospital’s maternity page to a home builder’s website. The second one is obviously from an addiction treatment center.
That orients the visitor. They either leave or stay because they know they’re in the right place. Now they try to answer question 2: Is there a reason to keep reading?
To answer that question, they scan your headlines, subhead, and navigation labels. They’re looking for that one part of your value proposition that says, “There’s something different here, something you need to understand.”
This is why your unique selling proposition should be clearly communicated on every page of your website. It should also be subtly conveyed through your messaging and graphics.
For example, at Conversion Sciences, our use of the scientific method sets us apart from other CRO agencies. Because of that, we infuse every page with scientific ideas and the scientific method. Science is in our DNA. And if you spend enough time on our website, you’ll understand that. We even call our optimizers Conversion Scientists and have trademarked the name.
Your visitors are looking for your DNA, so you need to communicate it on every page of your website. That means you’ll avoid “lazy design.” By that, I mean:
Copy that’s written by AI alone, without human editing
Landing page builders with generic templates
Stock photos
Novel design trends
Design services that focus primarily on how the page looks
Stock photos are a big issue for me. Most websites show images of people smiling, walking through the park, or typing on a laptop. These are “lifestyle images” that don’t move the value proposition forward.
They don’t express your unique DNA.
I could talk for hours about this (and I do in my workshops). But I’ll save it for another article.
For now, I want you to start thinking like an optimizer. To do that, you’ll prioritize the two questions above. You’ll evaluate your website by how well it answers those two questions. And you’ll redesign your website and build new pages with those same two questions in mind.
Then, when running experiments and tests for conversion-focused web design, follow these two tips to get better conversion rates:
Increase Sample Size: Ensure your experiments have a large enough sample size for reliable results. I talk more about that in this article on behavioral data.
Increase the Quality of Experiments: Focus on conducting high-quality experiments with impactful hypotheses and a methodology that keeps your program from getting derailed.
Optimize for the right things: You want to improve the number of conversions, or actions taken by your customers. But the best way to do that is to optimize your conversion rate (the number of conversions as a percentage of the total sample size).
The Conversion Rate Optimization Process: Key to High Converting Websites
Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process that requires a scientific approach. Otherwise, you’ll fall prey to confirmation biases that lower your conversion potential.
By following the CRO process I’ve shared here, you can significantly improve your conversion rates, website performance, and business growth.
Embrace the scientific method, leverage available data, and continually test and refine your strategies to achieve the best results. Ready to take a data-first approach to your business growth? Let’s talk about how our Conversion Scientists® can apply our proven approach to conversion optimization to your website. Schedule your free consultation here.
Google’s document leak uncovered surprising connections between conversion rate optimization (CRO), search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience (UX). Listen in as Conversion Scientists® Joel Harvey and Brian Massey talk about these connections and what they mean for optimizers.
Fundamental Building Blocks of SEO and CRO (04:00 – 06:00)
Strategies for Great Content and User Experience (06:00 – 11:00)
Balancing Personal Voice with SEO Requirements (11:00 – 14:00)
Differences Between Web Design and UX Design (14:00 – 19:00)
Importance of User Research in UX Design (19:00 – 23:00)
The Holistic Approach to User Experience (23:00 – 26:00)
Summarizing the Conversation (26:00 – 28:00)
***
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are often seen as separate entities. But there’s a surprising amount of overlap between the two: Both aim to improve user experience (UX) and deliver great content, ultimately leading to higher engagement and conversions.
Google’s document leak made this abundantly clear. In fact, we’re excited about the connection between CRO, SEO, and user experience.
Let’s explore how these disciplines intersect and how you can leverage their synergy to boost your online performance.
The Interplay of CRO and SEO
When considering the relationship between CRO and SEO, think of them as two sides of the same coin. CRO is SEO. The things that fundamentally improve your SEO are also the things that fundamentally help you to improve your conversion rate.
Google’s recent revelations make this undeniable. The core elements of successful SEO are great content and an excellent user experience. It’s not about keyword stuffing; it’s about quality.
There was a time when SEO was all about exact match domains and keyword stuffing. But those days are long gone.
Today, SEO is about understanding and meeting user needs, which is precisely where CRO comes into play.
“It’s not just about keyword stuffing. It’s about having the best content and a great user experience. Those are the real fundamentals of SEO and CRO.”
Fundamental Building Blocks of SEO and CRO
At the heart of both SEO and CRO is a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. Whether you’re offering content, a product, or a service, the key is to provide something valuable that addresses a problem or fulfills a desire.
Without this fundamental understanding, your optimization efforts will only go so far. The era of gaming the system with keyword tricks is long gone. Genuine engagement is now the cornerstone of success.
This approach applies to both SEO and CRO. To succeed today, you must adopt a user-centric mindset.
“If people don’t like the content, no matter what you’ve done from the keyword and link perspective, it probably isn’t going to work anyway, because other people aren’t going to be talking about it,” Brian emphasizes.
Strategies for Great Content and User Experience
Creating great content and a seamless user experience requires a balanced approach. On one hand, you need to be yourself and communicate authentically. On the other, you must adhere to the data-driven demands of SEO, such as keyword density and topic coverage. Reconciling these strategies can be challenging, but it’s essential.
Consider this advice from Anne Handley’s newsletter: “Be yourself, be your brand, and talk the way you talk.”
This encourages a more relaxed, authentic approach to content creation. However, there’s also the technical side of SEO, which often requires precise keyword usage and structured content to rank well.
Start by embracing your unique voice and passion for the subject. Write as if you’re speaking directly to your audience, sharing your insights and experiences in a way that feels natural.
Joel captures this balance well: “The argument for writing with your own voice is that it has energy and passion. The content is fun. By contrast, whenever you’re writing for parameters to feed an SEO algorithm, it isn’t fun.”
Once you have your core content, refine it to incorporate SEO best practices. This means integrating relevant keywords naturally, ensuring the content flows well and remains reader-friendly.
By doing so, you’re not only creating content that is optimized for search engines but also maintaining the authenticity and flow of your original message.
Balancing Personal Voice with SEO Requirements
Balancing a personal, authentic voice with the technical requirements of SEO is one of the biggest challenges in content creation.
Content infused with passion and personality is more engaging and resonates more deeply with users. While SEO is crucial for driving traffic, it shouldn’t overshadow the need for genuine, compelling content.
As Brian says, “If you’re letting SEO lead it completely, that is the tail wagging the dog.”
Instead, aim for a harmonious blend where SEO insights inform but don’t dictate your content.
Use data to inform and influence your decisions. Not only will you be able to maintain an authentic voice, you’ll also build a stronger connection with your audience.
Differences Between Web Design and UX Design
Understanding the distinction between web design and UX design is critical. While both aim to enhance user interaction with a website, they do so in fundamentally different ways.
Web design often centers around aesthetics and layout, focusing on how the site looks and feels. This involves creating visually appealing elements, choosing color schemes, and ensuring the site is attractive to visitors.
In contrast, UX (User Experience) design delves deeper into how users interact with and experience your site. A UX designer’s role involves continuous research and testing to ensure every element on the site meets user expectations and enhances their experience.
As Brian explains, the UX designer is “designing to the content.” A web designer is generally laying out a page and leaving space for images and copy to be added after they’ve done their job.
For example, a web designer might create a visually stunning homepage, but a UX designer will take it further by testing how users navigate that page, identifying friction points, and making adjustments based on user feedback. Their process ensures that the design is not only attractive but also functional and user-friendly.
Importance of User Research in UX Design
User research is a cornerstone of effective UX design. It’s not just about creating visually appealing designs, it’s about ensuring every interaction aligns with user needs and expectations.
User research helps identify and rectify any friction points in the user journey, leading to a smoother and more satisfying experience.
Think about the difference between designing a beautiful website and designing a website that users find intuitive and enjoyable. The latter requires a deep understanding of your users, which comes from thorough research.
By gathering insights into user behavior, preferences, and pain points, you can design experiences that are not only visually appealing but also highly functional and user-friendly.
“User research isn’t just a one-time activity. It’s an ongoing process that involves continuously gathering feedback and making iterative improvements,” Brian emphasizes.
By continuously optimizing each touchpoint, you create a cohesive and engaging journey that fosters loyalty and drives conversions.
For instance, conducting user surveys, interviews, and usability testing can reveal valuable insights about how users interact with your site. These insights can then inform design decisions, leading to a more intuitive and satisfying user experience.
The Holistic Approach to User Experience
Think of user experience like the role of a flight attendant. A flight attendant’s job isn’t just about serving drinks or demonstrating safety procedures. It encompasses the entire journey of the passenger, ensuring comfort, safety, and a pleasant experience from the moment they board to the time they disembark.
User experience works the same way. It’s not just about avoiding errors; it’s about creating delightful, memorable interactions at every touchpoint.
From the initial website visit to the final purchase, every interaction should enhance user satisfaction. This involves addressing potential issues, eliminating friction, and finding opportunities to delight users and exceed their expectations.
“Nothing exists in a vacuum,” says Harvey. “Nothing exists without its own context. So experience is a holistic thing. Everything you do and show and say to people, as well as how it makes them feel — that’s user experience.”
It’s like a flight attendant who is attentive to small details, like remembering a passenger’s preference or providing reassurance during turbulence. When optimizers pay attention to details in UX design — providing intuitive navigation, fast load times, and personalized content — it can significantly impact user satisfaction and conversion rates.
Your Takeaways
Understanding the deep connections between CRO and SEO is crucial for any digital marketer. Here are the key takeaways:
Great Content and User Experience: Focus on delivering valuable, engaging content and a seamless user experience.
Authentic Voice: Balance SEO requirements with authentic, passionate content creation.
User Research: Incorporate user research into UX design to ensure every interaction meets user expectations.
Holistic Approach: Treat user experience as a comprehensive journey, from first interaction to final conversion—just like the holistic care a flight attendant provides throughout a passenger’s journey.
By implementing these principles, you can enhance your digital marketing strategy and achieve better results. Stay tuned for more insights in our next episode! Optimize your user experience: Get a free conversion consultation.
Beyond Data: How ChatGPT Uncovers Emotions to Fuel Effective Ad Concepts with Joe Putnam [Podcast]
Ecommerce CROEmotions drive conversions — and in this episode of Intended Consequences, Brian Massey sits down with Joe Putnam, founder of Conversion Engine, to explore how top-performing ecommerce brands are using AI CRO strategies to scale faster, test better, and connect more deeply with their customers.
You’ll hear how Joe’s team analyzes customer reviews at scale to uncover emotional triggers, how they test ad angles that competitors often miss, and why a “boots that hurt” campaign might not be the golden angle you think it is.
🎧 Listen to the full episode here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Ready to improve your ecommerce site’s performance? Learn more about Conversion Science’s fully-managed Ecommerce Optimization Services.
Why Emotions Still Win in Marketing (Even for Practical Products)
“People buy with emotion and justify with logic,” Joe explains — and it’s not just for luxury brands like BMW.
From cowboy boots to baby products, emotional triggers like trust, belonging, pride, and joy show up in customer language all the time. Even in seemingly utilitarian products like closet storage or bathroom scales, people make decisions based on how they feel about the product, not just what it does.
The key is knowing which emotional buttons to push, and that’s where AI CRO strategies come into play.
Finding Emotional Patterns
Sentiment analysis is the process of identifying the emotions behind the words people use — especially in product reviews, support tickets, and social comments.
Traditionally, marketers had to manually scan hundreds of reviews to pick up on these emotional patterns. Today, Joe’s team uses ChatGPT and other AI tools to streamline this process:
“We copy and paste hundreds of reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to do an emotional sentiment analysis,” Joe says. “What problems are being solved? What are people feeling? What language are they using?”
AI CRO strategies like this quickly surface pain points, unique selling propositions, and emotional value statements that can power ad copy, email campaigns, and landing pages.
Building an Emotional Connection
Once the team has pulled emotional themes from the reviews, they organize them into distinct messaging angles — each one reflecting a different emotional trigger. These angles might include:
Instead of just running ads that say, “Tired of boots that hurt?” over and over, Joe’s team builds multiple ads targeting different emotional angles. Then, they let the data reveal which message resonates most with the brand’s audience.
Takeaway: You’re probably underutilizing your customer reviews. With the right prompt, AI can uncover 3–5 powerful emotional angles you may have never tested.
Does AI-led Sentiment Analysis Work for All Products?
Yes, even for “boring” or utilitarian products. Joe explains:
“Whether you’re selling cowboy boots or closet storage, you’re always trying to tap into emotion. It might be fear, trust, anxiety, or satisfaction. But emotion is there. And when you find the right one, your results improve.”
Some products might lean into pride or aspiration. Others might connect through relief or peace of mind. In every case, the emotional experience is as important as the feature set.
Why AI Doesn’t Replace the Marketer
Let’s be clear: AI isn’t doing the job for you — it’s helping you do your job better.
Joe emphasizes that AI CRO strategies are a shortcut to better ideas, not a replacement for judgment:
“You still need human intelligence to decide which angles are worth testing, which copy resonates, and which ideas are off-brand. AI gives us more clay to mold — but we still have to be the sculptor.”
AI may generate seven ad angles. But maybe only two of them are good. With a trained marketing team, you can spot the winners, test them faster, and scale what works.
Additional Reading: How to Seamlessly Integrate AI Marketing Into Your Strategy
The Role of Landing Pages in Emotional Alignment
The best ads in the world can fail if the landing page doesn’t match the emotional promise.
One mistake Joe often sees: sending all ad traffic to the same product listing or category page, regardless of the ad’s message.
Instead, he recommends:
“If the ad is about personal pride or reward, make sure the landing page reflects that. That emotional consistency is what drives higher conversions.”
Mistakes to Avoid with AI and CRO
While AI can be powerful, it’s not infallible. Joe warns of a few key pitfalls:
❌ Mistake 1: Believing Every Insight is Gold
Not every insight generated by AI deserves to be tested. Use your experience and brand knowledge to filter the noise.
❌ Mistake 2: Ignoring the Landing Page
Even strong ads will underperform if the landing page doesn’t deliver on the emotional promise of the creative.
❌ Mistake 3: Over-engineering Prompts
You don’t need “prompt engineering” skills to make this work. Start simple:
“Conduct emotional sentiment analysis on these reviews.”
Let the AI do the heavy lifting — then dig deeper based on what it returns.
Quickstart Guide: How to Use AI in Your Ecommerce Ad Strategy
If you want to try this for your brand, here’s a simple way to get started:
Final Thoughts: Emotions Scale. AI Speeds It Up.
The secret to ecommerce success isn’t just in your product specs. It’s in the emotional response you trigger. And now, thanks to AI, you can discover those responses faster than ever.
As Joe Putnam puts it:
“AI doesn’t give you the final product. But it gets you 80% of the way there — and helps you uncover ideas you wouldn’t find on your own.”
Want help turning sentiment analysis into high-converting campaigns? 🔬 Talk to a Conversion Scientist
The End of Interesting: AI in Experimentation with Deborah O’Malley [Podcast]
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingIn this episode of Intended Consequences, Brian Massey sits down with Deborah O’Malley, founder of GuessTheTest.com, to explore the fast-changing world of AI in experimentation — from A/B testing myths to the ways AI is already changing how digital marketers approach conversion optimization.
And yes, they really do debate whether AI will kill our creativity.
🎧 Listen to the full episode here:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Ready to improve your site’s performance? Learn more about Conversion Science’s Optimization Services.
Are You Running the Wrong A/B Tests?
Deborah pulls no punches: “People are still testing button colors and headlines when they should be testing concepts.”
That’s one of the many interesting misconceptions about experimentation. But as she explains, the most valuable insights come from big, bold tests — especially ones that challenge your brand’s assumptions. And with the arrival of generative AI, we now have the ability to scale those tests like never before.
How AI in Experimentation Is Changing the Game
AI isn’t just writing headlines — it’s redesigning the entire optimization process. Deborah and Brian explore a few critical shifts:
1. Faster Hypothesis Generation
AI can instantly produce dozens of test ideas based on your existing content, analytics, or competitor sites. This helps marketers and CRO pros move from analysis paralysis to active testing — fast.
“You can use AI to brainstorm variations you’d never think of on your own,” Deborah explains. “That means more creative testing… not less.”
2. Pattern Recognition at Scale
While most human optimizers rely on gut instinct or anecdotal evidence, AI can spot trends in user behavior across massive datasets. That means smarter test prioritization, better personalization, and tighter feedback loops.
3. Test Ideas From Outside Your Echo Chamber
AI doesn’t share your brand biases — and that’s a good thing. By using tools like ChatGPT to simulate how different personas react to your copy or design, you can explore radically new angles without waiting for an actual test to finish.
From “Interesting” to “Impactful”
One of Deborah’s boldest claims: We should stop chasing ‘interesting’ test results.
Why? Because what’s interesting isn’t always what moves the needle.
“You want tests that are valid, repeatable, and drive real business results. That’s where AI can help — it brings a level of objectivity and scale that humans alone can’t match.”
In other words, AI in experimentation isn’t replacing us — it’s upgrading us.
Want to Test Better? Start Here.
Whether you’re a CRO veteran or just getting started with testing, this episode is packed with practical insights:
✅ Which A/B tests are still worth running
✅ How to think beyond copy tweaks and start testing experiences
✅ Why generative AI might be your best brainstorming partner
✅ And how to avoid common pitfalls that make test results meaningless
And don’t worry — it’s not all tech talk. Deborah and Brian also cover the human side of experimentation, from internal politics to the fear of failure.
Learn more about conversion-focused web design and redesign that achieves better results faster.
Final Thoughts: Embrace AI in Your Testing Workflow
This episode challenges us to move past the superficial and start building testing programs that matter. Whether you’re optimizing landing pages, ecommerce funnels, or entire customer journeys, AI in experimentation is the lever that can help you scale faster and learn deeper — without sacrificing creativity.
“When used well, AI becomes the co-pilot of every test you run,” Brian says. “It accelerates creativity, supports analysis, and helps you ask better questions — the real key to CRO.”
Want to improve your testing strategy?
💡 Talk to a Conversion Scientist and start testing what actually matters.
🔬 Learn about our fully-managed Conversion Optimization Services
Links
ABtesting.ai
LinkedIn: How to actually use AI to improve your site
Notion: AI-Driven Experimentation Tools
A Comprehensive Guide to Landing Page Optimization in 2025
Landing Page OptimizationA high-converting landing page looks deceptively simple, but if you’ve made online offers, you know how hard it can be to get the results you’re looking for.
In this guide, we talk about how to optimize a landing page for peak performance, why it matters, landing page best practices, and key strategies for improving your landing page copy, design, and overall performance.
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is the page in any campaign — ad, email, social media post, or website link — that “catches” the clicks generated. For a Google Shopping Ad, the product page is the landing page. For a SaaS business, a standalone web page may be developed that promotes the product, service, or offer.
Landing pages are powerful because they are designed to deliver on the promise made and encourage visitors to take a specific action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a white paper.
The success of a marketing campaign is as dependent on the landing page as it is the ad creative.
A successful landing page serves two purposes:
If you don’t know the promise that is being made that brings visitors to the page, you are building some other kind of page.
If you are putting any information on the page that does not make the visitor feel more comfortable and confident in the offer, you are building some other kind of page.
Learn more about landing page optimization in Conversion Sciences’ Landing Page Optimization Course.
What Is Landing Page Optimization?
Landing page optimization is the process of fine-tuning a landing page’s content and design to maximize its ability to convert visitors into leads or customers. Landing page optimization should adhere to five core guidelines:
Keep the promise: The landing page should align with the message and value proposition presented in the ad or link that led the visitor to the page.
Craft a compelling offer: The landing page should clearly communicate the offer or benefit that visitors will receive in exchange for their action.
Design for conversions: The layout, design, and copy on the landing page should be optimized to guide visitors through the content on the page and make it clear that they are being asked to do something. The layout should establish a clear visual hierarchy that pulls a visitor’s eyes through the messaging. This includes using persuasive copywriting, relevant images, and clear call-to-actions while minimizing confusion.
Promote trust and credibility: The landing page should build trust by displaying customer testimonials, reviews, or other forms of social proof. It should also ensure that the page is secure and error-free.
Track and analyze: Using analytics tools, the optimizer will monitor the performance of the landing page and identify areas for improvement. Split testing can be used to test different elements of the landing page and determine what works best for the target audience.
There’s a craft to designing high performing landing pages. Read our top landing page best practices here.
Why Landing Page Optimization Matters Now, More than Ever
It’s more challenging than ever to get your message in front of your best customers. Landing page optimization helps you identify the issues that keep your offers from converting while improving their conversion rate.
These issues in particular are impacting the effectiveness of most landing pages:
Rising user expectations
The average conversion rate for landing pages across all industries is 5.89%, according to HubSpot. Wordstream’s estimate is lower, at 2.35%, with only the top 25% of brands hitting 5.31% or more. Meanwhile, 10% is considered a good conversion rate.
Regardless of the true average, there’s a pretty deep disparity between a good conversion rate and the conversion rate most marketers are achieving. From our experience, that boils down to trust.
People buy from brands they know, like and trust. Many landing pages focus almost exclusively on their offer. This “all-about-me” approach kills trust.
That’s why, when optimizing landing pages, marketers need to ensure the page communicates credibility and trust.
Increasing competition in digital spaces
The digital economy has radically increased the competitive landscape for most businesses. Within this landscape, there are some things we can control and some we cannot.
What we can’t control are the things that our competitors influence, such as ad auctions and SEO.
The cost of Google Ads is trending up, pricing out many brands. According to the 2024 Google Ads Benchmark:
Social media platforms have designed their algorithms to devalue most commercial posts so that businesses must advertise. And these ads no longer deliver “cheap” clicks.
The #1 result in Google’s search results gets 27.6% of organic search traffic. Competition for this is heavy.
What we can control are the assets we build for our digital businesses.
These assets cannot be taken from you. Investing in them creates a barrier that your competition cannot take away by bidding more.
Improving your conversion rates by 10% has the same effect on your business as reducing cost per ad click by 10%. Both decrease your acquisition costs by 10%, but one of these strategies is in your control and the other is not.
Your competitive edge comes from your ability to provide an effective user experience.
Does investing a portion of your ad spend in your landing experiences make sense?
Research by Forrester found that delivering excellent experiences directly impacts a business’s bottom line:
It’s only through the conversion optimization process that companies are able to improve the user experience and refine their messaging. By providing better data, it helps brands adapt to changing trends and consumer behaviors, raising credibility and trust in the eyes of potential customers.
Advancements in technology
Technological advances like AI and machine learning (ML) are revolutionizing the way landing page optimization is done. They enhance the functionality of CRO tools by providing additional insights, task automation, and optimization opportunities. And they are able to identify opportunities that human analysts might miss, leading to more effective CRO strategies.
Here are a few benefits we’ve seen from AI and ML technology:
Enhancing Personalization: AI-powered tools analyze user behavior, demographics, and preferences to create personalized landing pages that resonate with each individual.
Automating Optimization: Machine learning (ML) algorithms can automatically test and adjust landing page elements, such as content, images, and call-to-actions. They do this in real-time, making optimization efforts more efficient and giving them better outcomes.
Leveraging Predictive Analytics: AI models predict which landing page variations are likely to perform best for specific audience segments, allowing marketers to make data-driven decisions faster.
Delivering Better Customer Experiences: With AI and ML, marketers can create landing pages that are tailored to the individual needs and desires of each visitor, providing a seamless and engaging user experience that increases customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
Key Elements of an Optimized Landing Page
Landing Page Element 1: A clear and compelling offer
Visitors should know at a glance what the offer is and whether it’s right for them. The value proposition should establish two things very quickly:
Landing Page Element 2: Relevant and persuasive copy
The landing page should use conversion copywriting techniques to showcase the value proposition, benefits of the offer, and the value of taking action. The copy must:
Landing Page Element 3: High-quality visuals
Your message isn’t just conveyed through words. Your text and images work together to convey your message. That being the case, a landing page should use high-quality images and videos to convey additional layers of meaning. These visuals should:
Captions are as important as headlines. Write captions below photos and graphics that explain why you chose that image for the reader. If you can’t come up with a good reason, the image shouldn’t be on the page.
Avoid stock photos and lifestyle images. This pandering may not be effective for our ever-smarter audiences.
Landing Page Element 4: A strong call to action (CTA)
The call to action is the reason a landing page exists — it should be easy to understand, easy to see, and easy to respond to.
A web form is the most common way for visitors to take action on a site. This can be the product selector on an ecommerce product page or simply a button to take visitors to the next step. Optimizers know that the call to action — be it a form, button, or calendar — should be very visible to visitors. It should be clear what is being asked of the visitor and what will happen if they take that action.
Calling the visitor to action is best done with active verbs: buy, order, download, call. We’ll talk more about urgency in a moment, but you can add subtle urgency to your CTA simply by adding words like “now.”
A strong CTA includes an action word and subtle urgency
A strong CTA includes an action word and subtle urgency
Calls to action are most effective when they are truthful. Am I actually going to get a quote when I complete this form, or am I going to get a call from a helpful salesperson? “Get an instant quote” is a good choice for the former, and “Request a quote” is appropriate for the latter. For guidance on creating CTAs that work, ask about our lead generation services.
Landing Page Element 5: Social proof
Social proof is a technique that uses the actions of others to influence the behavior of your visitors. It can be created in a variety of ways: number of happy customers, client logos, awards, and trust elements, for instance.
Management consulting firm Kearney reports that consumers typically make purchases based on recommendations from both friends / family and online reviews. That’s why many high-converting landing pages include testimonials or reviews from satisfied customers.
Landing Page Element 6: Urgency and Risk Reversal
The landing page should create a sense of urgency to encourage visitors to take action immediately. At the same time, it can relieve the visitor’s anxiety by taking risk out of the equation.
As we just mentioned, you can add subtle urgency with the word “now” in your call to action. But you can also create urgency with limited-time discounts or fast-action bonuses, or by mentioning the risks of not acting now.
If you are going to provide a money-back guarantee, warranty, or generous return policy, be specific in your description.
For instance, AppSumo drives action by placing a time limit on their offers. Products are steeply discounted and may never be available at the listed price again. They juxtapose this with a 60-day money-back guarantee to reduce perceived risk.
AppSumo uses urgency and a strong guarantee to drive action
Landing Page Element 7: Mobile friendliness
It’s vital that landing pages are easy to read and engage with on a mobile device.
Here’s how to ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly:
A word about page design: The design of a page will communicate credibility. A professional design delivers a subconscious message that this company is serious and credible. However, self-serving copy, unclear calls to action, lack of social proof, or broken mobile pages will instantly undo even the most competent of designs. Don’t focus on the design. Focus on the content.
Landing Page Optimization Process
As we’ve discussed, optimizing a landing page is about making incremental improvements in the page’s conversion rate. But it’s important to remember that this isn’t a linear process with a clear beginning and end.
Landing page optimization is an ongoing process of gathering insights, creating hypotheses, experimenting and testing, and evaluating results. For simplicity’s sake, we’ve broken the process into four stages. In reality, these stages may overlap, and you’ll likely be running multiple tests at the same time.
Stage 1: Conduct Research
How is the page currently performing?
Stage 2: Identify Areas for Improvement
Stage 3: Implement Changes
Stage 4: Evaluate Results
Rinse and Repeat
Good conversion rates require a continuous process of experimentation, monitoring, and analysis that lead to small improvements over time.
Just remember, optimization decisions are data-driven, not opinion-based. By using data to guide optimization efforts, optimizers are able to design tests that continually improve conversion rates.
Best Practices for Well-Optimized Landing Pages
As marketers, we gravitate toward “best practices” for whatever strategy we’re employing. So before we dive too deeply into best practices, let’s be clear: The tactics that work for one brand and audience will differ from what works for another brand and audience, even if they’re in the same industry or serving the same audience.
Most best practices are just a starting point for conversion optimizers. But there are a few landing page optimization best practices that never change. In particular:
Audience-Centric Pages
A well-optimized landing page offers is all about your audience — not your brand or product. The language, visuals, and messaging should be tailored to a unique audience and speak to their specific pain points and desires.
Done right, the landing page will make visitors feel seen and understood. Because it expresses their pain points better than they can, they sense that you have expertise in the area. This builds trust, and they begin to trust that your offer will work for them.
This landing page by #samsales speaks directly to the struggling salesperson. It acknowledges that salespeople dread prospecting and explains why it’s such a challenge. It then offers the solution: a playbook with everything the salesperson needs to prospect like a pro.
That’s likely enough to drive sales, but this landing page also answers the biggest objection: Is this product right for me? The answer doesn’t just share some of the specific information available in the guide. It also expresses the relief salespeople feel when they get this information.
An effective landing page keeps the focus on the audience, their desires, and their goals. Make sure your pages:
Focused Navigation
To increase conversions, a landing page should be stripped of any element that could distract visitors from the action they’re being asked to take. That includes navigation options.
Avoid using your website’s standard navigation scheme. Replace it with a navigation that supports the offer on your landing page. In many cases, the landing page doesn’t need navigation. Without unnecessary navigation, the landing page can focus the visitor’s attention on the primary call to action. This reduces confusion about the message and offer. It also encourages your visitors to stay on the page and take the desired action.
Yuppiechef tested two variations of their Wedding Registry landing page, one with navigation and one without. The variation with no navigation delivered twice as many conversions, and the conversion rate jumped from 3% to 6%.
Removing navigation and links reduces the number of choices available to visitors. This lowers the likelihood of them navigating off the page and raises the odds that they’ll take action.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of a landing page to determine which one performs better. This is a science-based approach to optimization that ensures the page continues to convert well.
It’s important to keep these A/B testing best practices in mind:
Ensure you have enough conversions: A/B testing requires a sufficient flow of conversions if the test is to reach statistical significance before you reach old age. Use a free test calculator to see if you have enough traffic and conversions on a page.
Define relevant metrics: Before you launch the test, establish the specific metrics you’ll use to measure the effectiveness of the landing pages. Compare rates, such as revenue per visitor, purchase rate, or form completion rate.
Establish a testing framework: Choose your preferred method of experimentation — A/B testing or multivariate testing. A/B testing compares two or more versions of a page, while multivariate testing involves varying multiple elements simultaneously. Multivariate testing requires a large amount of traffic.
Implement the changes: Create two (or more) versions of the landing page, each with different elements or content. Ensure that the changes align with your hypotheses or research about what might improve performance.
Drive traffic to the landing pages: To generate insights into user behavior and expectations, optimizers direct a sample of visitors to each version of the landing page. The sample size must be large enough to provide statistically significant results.
Collect and analyze data: Use analytics tools to track the performance of each landing page and gather data on the relevant metrics. Analyze the results to identify which version performs better based on the pre-defined metrics.
Make data-driven decisions: Based on the analysis, determine which version of the landing page has a higher conversion rate or other desired outcome. Consider implementing the more effective version or conducting further testing to refine the results.
Landing Page Optimization Strategies
The best conversion rates are only achieved through ongoing optimization. That’s why optimizers adopt a culture of experimentation and testing. Here are eight landing page optimization strategies they rely on to get maximum results.
1. Keep the Promise
A landing page’s primary purpose is to fulfill the expectations set by the link or advertisement that led visitors to the page. Failing to keep that promise makes people feel cheated, like you’ve broken a promise or bait-and-switched them. This can lead to distrust and high exit rates.
To avoid this, it’s crucial to ensure that the landing page’s offer aligns precisely with the promise made in the ad or link. Use similar language. Highlight the same benefits. Avoid any discrepancies that could confuse or disappoint visitors.
Segment does a good job of keeping its promise in this email-to-landing page sequence. Notice that everything feels consistent, from the color of the button to the way the problem is expressed.
By keeping the promise made in the previous funnel step, landing pages can build trust, enhance the user experience, and increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action.
2. Use a Descriptive Call to Action (CTA)
A descriptive call to action is an essential element on any landing page. It guides visitors towards the intended action and explicitly asks them to perform it.
A good example is the Segment landing page above. The CTA is clearly stated in the title of the form: “Register to Watch Recording.” The button, which stands out in green, then repeats the action this landing page is asking for: REGISTER.
Clear CTA on Segment’s landing page
To be effective, the call to action should be prominently displayed on the landing page, using visual cues such as contrasting colors, bold fonts, or eye-catching graphics. It should also be placed strategically to ensure that visitors can easily locate and engage with it. (We’ll talk about your options for CTA placement in a minute.)
For now, just realize that without a strong CTA, the landing page won’t work. And by optimizing the call to action, landing pages can increase conversion rates and drive more profitable outcomes.
3. Optimize Copy and Design
Optimizing landing pages requires a collaboration between copywriters, designers, and optimizers. Designers can provide valuable input on the visual presentation, while copywriters ensure that the messaging is clear, compelling, and aligned with the overall goals of the landing page.
Clear and Persuasive Copy
Well-crafted copy plays a vital role in landing page optimization. It helps to establish credibility, build trust, and address visitors’ concerns. Keep these copywriting tips top of mind:
Effective Design
The design of a landing page directly influences its visual appeal, user experience, and overall effectiveness. Key design considerations include:
4. Include Social Proof and Credibility
Social proof and credibility help to build trust between the visitor and the brand, and increase the likelihood that visitors will take the desired action. This is why landing pages often include trust symbols, such as logos of well-known brands or security seals.
Squirrly shows social proof on their landing page with this banner just under the fold:
Social proof on Squirrly’s lifetime deal landing page
Social proof on Squirrly’s lifetime deal landing page
It builds trust quickly by telling us that 200,000+ websites are using the tool, which has earned 4- and 5-star ratings on three reputable sites. It also shows a series of awards from G2.
5. Use Different Landing Page Types
Depending on your offer, you might need to adjust the layout of your landing page by moving the call to action. Here are four places to put your calls to action and their purpose:
Top Hat
The top hat places a call-to-action above the page’s content. Its purpose: to grab the reader’s attention and promote the offer even before they read the content.
Here’s how Airbnb does it. You can’t miss this call to action, and to ensure you don’t, it stays visible as you scroll through the page.
Pressure Release
When visitors don’t find what they want on the page, they scroll back to the top of the page to find the information they need: phone numbers, shopping cart links, calls to action, and the search bar. By placing these items in the upper right corner of the page, you make them impossible to miss, and in the process, release the pressure felt by your visitors.
This landing page by Imperial Ghostwriting is a good example. The top of the page has a three-way CTA — button, email, and phone number — for anyone who’s ready to take action.
Because it’s so close to the headline, the brain connects this call to action with the offer. But because it’s in the banner at the top of the page, it doesn’t disrupt the visual impact of the page.
Dripping Pan
The dripping pan is a call-to-action at the bottom of the page, giving visitors one last chance to take action. A visitor that has read the entire page is probably more likely to take action. Make it easy for them.
This landing page by Clifford Ghostwriting is a good example. The yellow box at the bottom of the page gives one final push to take action and includes a phone number to talk with an expert right away.
Coffee Breaks
The coffee break places in-line calls to action throughout the content of the page. This engages the reader and allows them to take action at whatever point they’re ready, without disrupting their reading flow.
This approach works well on a long-form landing page, like this one from DigitalMarketer. The call to action is strategically repeated throughout the page so it’s easy for people to take action, no matter where they are on the page.
Of course, there are other options as well. Here are some other landing page types that suit different purposes:
6. Ask for Necessary Information Only
People are wary about sharing their personal information online. Even a simple request for the visitor’s email address can create a barrier and discourage them from taking action. It’s critical to keep this in mind when asking for personal information.
To combat this, consider each piece of information being requested in the landing page form, and only include fields that are absolutely necessary for the specific landing page’s purpose.
Learn more about designing effective landing page forms.
7. Optimize for Mobile Devices
According to Google, the majority of mobile sites are still too slow and bloated to meet user’s expectations. Their research shows that:
Adopt a mobile-first design approach to ensure your landing page is accessible, easy to navigate, and visually appealing on smaller screens.
8. Test and Iterate
The ongoing process of experimentation and testing allows you to collect valuable data and insights that improve future optimization efforts. This provides:
Higher Conversion Rates: Iterative testing helps identify areas for improvement, such as headlines, images, call-to-actions, and form designs, leading to increased conversion rates.
Data-Driven Optimization: Accurate data allows optimizers to generate real insights into customers and their expectations. Through experimentation and testing, they gain quantifiable data that support decision-making based on actual results rather than assumptions.
Identification of User Pain Points: By testing different variations, you can identify specific elements or content that create friction or obstacles for users, allowing you to address these pain points and improve the user experience.
Reduced Abandonment: By identifying and addressing potential barriers to conversion, testing helps reduce abandonment rates and increases the likelihood of users completing desired actions.
Increased ROI: Effective landing pages contribute to increased return on investment (ROI) by optimizing conversions and driving more qualified leads or sales.
Accelerate Your Conversion Journey: Key Steps Forward
Landing page optimization is a foundational strategy in digital marketing, unlocking increased conversions, enhanced user experience, and improved return on investment. But it requires a data-driven, scientific approach.
Looking for conversion rate optimization services that pay for themselves? Conversion Sciences is unlike other conversion rate optimization agencies — we use the scientific method to identify and fix underperforming landing pages.
Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists.
Statistical Hypothesis Testing: A Simple Guide to Smarter A/B Tests
Conversion Optimization, CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingA fundamental concept in A/B testing is statistical hypothesis testing. It involves creating a hypothesis about the relationship between two data sets and then comparing these data sets to determine if there is a statistically significant difference. It may sound complicated, but it explains how A/B testing works.
In this article, we’ll take a high-level look at how statistical hypothesis testing works, so you understand the science behind A/B testing. If you prefer to get straight to testing, we recommend our turnkey conversion optimization services.
Null and Alternative Hypotheses
In A/B testing, you typically start with two types of hypotheses:
First, a Null Hypothesis (H0). This hypothesis assumes that there is no significant difference between the two variations. For example, “Page Variation A and Page Variation B have the same conversion rate.”
Second, an Alternative Hypothesis (H1). This hypothesis assumes there is a significant difference between the two variations. For example, “Page Variation B has a higher conversion rate than Page Variation A.”
Additional reading: How to Create Testing Hypotheses that Drive Real Profits
Disproving the Hypothesis
The primary goal of A/B testing is not to prove the alternative hypothesis but to gather enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Here’s how it works in practical terms:
Step 1: We formulate a hypothesis predicting that one version (e.g., Page Variation B) will perform better than another (e.g., Page Variation A).
Step 2: We collect data. By randomly assigning visitors to either the control (original page) or the treatment (modified page), we can collect data on their interactions with the website.
Step 3: We analyze the results, comparing the performance of both versions to see if there is a statistically significant difference.
Step 4: If the data shows a significant difference, you can reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the alternative hypothesis is likely true. If there is no significant difference in conversion rates, you assume the null hypothesis is true and reject the alternative hypothesis.
Example
To illustrate this process, consider an example where you want to test whether changing the call-to-action (CTA) button from “Purchase” to “Buy Now” will increase the conversion rate.
Importance of Statistical Significance in A/B Testing
Statistical significance tells you whether the results of a test are real or just random.
When you run an A/B test, for example, and Version B gets more conversions than Version A, statistical significance tells you whether that difference is big enough (and consistent enough) that it likely didn’t happen by chance.
It’s the difference between saying:
“This headline seems to work better…”
vs.
“We’re 95% confident this headline works better—and it’s worth making the change.”
In simple terms:
✅ If your test reaches statistical significance, you can trust the results.
❌ If it doesn’t, the outcome might just be noise—and not worth acting on yet.
We achieve statistical significance by ensuring our sample size is large enough to account for chance and randomness in the results.
Imagine flipping a coin 50 times. While probability suggests you’ll get 25 heads and 25 tails, the actual outcome might skew because of random variation. In A/B testing, the same principle applies. One version might accidentally get more primed buyers, or a subset of visitors might have a bias against an image.
To reduce the impact of these chance variables, you need a large enough sample. Once your results reach statistical significance, you can trust that what you’re seeing is a real pattern—not just noise.
That’s why it’s crucial not to conclude an A/B test until you have reached statistically significant results. You can use tools to check if your sample sizes are sufficient. By making these refinements, the text becomes more concise, clear, and easier to follow.
While it appears that one version is doing better than the other, the results overlap too much.
Additional Reading: Four Things You Can Do With an Inconclusive A/B Test
How Much Traffic Do You Need to Reach Statistical Significance?
The amount of traffic you need depends on several factors, but most A/B tests require at least 1,000–2,000 conversions per variation to reach reliable statistical significance. That could mean tens of thousands of visitors, especially if your conversion rate is low.
Here’s what affects your sample size requirement:
Rule of thumb: If your site doesn’t get at least 1,000 conversions per month, you may struggle to run statistically sound tests—unless you’re testing big changes that could yield large effect sizes.
How A/B Testing Tools Work
The tools that make A/B testing possible provide an incredible amount of power. If we wanted, we could use these tools to make your website different for every visitor to your website. The reason we can do this is that these tools change your site in the visitors’ browsers.
When these tools are installed on your website, they send some code, called JavaScript, along with the HTML that defines a page. As the page is rendered, this JavaScript changes it. It can do almost anything:
When testing a page, we create an alternative variation of the page with one or more elements changed for testing purposes. In an A/B test, we limit the test to one element so we can easily understand the impact of that change on conversion rates. The testing tool then does the heavy lifting for us, segmenting the traffic and serving the control (or existing page) or the test variation.
It’s also possible to test more than one element at a time—a process called multivariate testing. However, this approach is more complex and requires rigorous planning and analysis. If you’re considering a multivariate test, we recommend letting a Conversion Scientist™ design and run it to ensure valid, reliable results.
Primary Functions of A/B Testing Tools
A/B testing software has the following primary functions.
Serve Different Webpages to Visitors
The first job of A/B testing tools is to show different webpages to certain visitors. The person who designed your test will determine what gets shown.
An A/B test will have a “control,” or the current page, and at least one “treatment,” or the page with some change. The design and development team will work together to create a different treatment. JavaScript must be written to transform the control into the treatment.
It is important that the JavaScript works on all devices and in all browsers used by the visitors to a site. This requires a committed QA effort. At Conversion Sciences, we maintain a library of devices of varying ages that allows us to test our JavaScript for all visitors.
Split Traffic Evenly
Once we have JavaScript to display one or more treatments, our A/B testing software must determine which visitors see the control and which see the treatments.
Typically, every other user will get a different page. Visitors are distributed evenly across variations—control, then treatment A, then B, then back to control, and so on—ensuring balanced traffic. Around it goes until enough visitors have been tested to achieve statistical significance.
It is important that the number of visitors seeing each version is about the same size. The software tries to enforce this.
Measure Results
The A/B testing software tracks results by monitoring goals. Goals can be any of a number of measurable things:
While nearly anything can be measured, it’s the business-building metrics—purchases, leads, signups—that matter most.
The software remembers which test page was seen. It calculates the amount of revenue generated by those who saw the control, by those who saw treatment one, and so on.
At the end of the test, we can answer one very important question: which page generated the most revenue, subscriptions or leads? If one of the treatments wins, it becomes the new control.
And the process starts over.
Do Statistical Analysis
The tools are always calculating the confidence that a result will predict the future. We don’t trust any test that doesn’t have at least a 95% confidence level. This means that we are 95% confident that a new change will generate more revenue, subscriptions or leads.
Sometimes it’s hard to wait for statistical significance, but it’s important lest we make the wrong decision and start reducing the website’s conversion rate.
Report Results
Finally, the software communicates results to us. These come as graphs and statistics that not only show results, they help you decide what to implement—and what to test next.
AB Testing Tools deliver data in the form of graphs and statistics.
It’s easy to see that the treatment won this test, giving us an estimated 90.9% lift in revenue per visitor with a 98% confidence.
This is a large win for this client.
Curious about the wins you’d see with a Conversion Scientist™ managing your CRO program? Book a free strategy call today.
Selecting The Right Tools
Of course, there are a lot of A/B testing tools out there, with new versions hitting the market every year. While there are certainly some industry favorites, the tools you select should come down to what your specific businesses requires.
In order to help make the selection process easier, we reached out to our network of CRO specialists and put together a list of the top-rated tools in the industry. We rely on these tools to perform for multi-million dollar clients and campaigns, and we are confident they will perform for you as well.
Check out the full list of tools here: The 20 Most Recommended A/B Testing Tools By Leading CRO Experts
Four Things You Can Do With an Inconclusive A/B Test
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingWhile it’s true we can learn important things from an “inconclusive” AB test, that doesn’t mean we like inconclusive tests. Inconclusive tests occur when you put two or three good options out for an AB test, drive traffic to these options and — meh — none of the choices is preferred by your visitors.
Basically, it means we tried to make things better for our visitor, and they found us wanting. Back to the drawing board.
Teenagers have a word for this. It is a sonic mix of indecision, ambivalence, condescension and that sound your finger makes when you pet a frog. It is less committal than a shrug, less positive than a “Yes,” less negative than a “No,” and is designed to prevent any decision whatsoever from being reached.
It comes out something like, “Meh” — a word so flaccid that it doesn’t even deserve any punctuation. A period would clearly be too conclusive.
If you’ve done any testing at all, you know your traffic can give you a collective “Meh” as well. We scientists call this an inconclusive test.
Whether you’re testing ad copy, landing pages, offers, or keywords, there is nothing that will deflate a conversion testing plan more than a series of inconclusive tests, especially if your optimization program is young.
Here are some things to consider in the face of an inconclusive test. Or, if you’d like immediate help from skilled Conversion Scientists™, schedule a free conversion consultation today.
1. Add Something Really Different To The Mix
Subtlety is not the split tester’s friend. Your audience may not care if your headline is in a 16-point or 18-point font. If you’re getting frequent inconclusive tests, one of two things is going on:Craft another treatment, something unexpected, and throw it into the mix. Consider a “well-crafted absurdity” as Groupon did in its early days. The idea is to make the call-to-action button really big, offering something you think your audience wouldn’t want.
Or be a little edgy, addressing the unspoken reaction your visitor is likely having to your call to action, like OptinMonster does in this popup.
OptinMonster speaks directly to the visitor’s disdain for popups and transforms disinterest into interest.
2. Segment Your Test
We recently spent several weeks of preparation, a full day of shooting, and thousands of dollars on talent and equipment to capture some tightly controlled footage for video tests on an apparel site. This is the sort of test that is “too big to be inconclusive.” However, video is currently a very good bet for converting more search traffic.
Despite these statistics, our initial results showed that the pages with video weren’t converting significantly higher than the pages without video. However, things changed when we looked at individual segments.
New visitors liked long videos, while returning visitors liked shorter ones. Subscribers converted at much higher rates when shown a video recipe with close-ups on the products. Visitors who entered on product pages converted for one kind of video while those coming in through the home page preferred another.
It became clear that, when lumped together, one segment’s behavior was cancelling out gains by other segments.
How can you dice up your traffic? How do different segments behave on your site?
Your analytics package can help you explore the different segments of your traffic. If you have buyer personas, target them with your ads and create a test just for them. Here are some ways to segment:
3. Measure Beyond the Click
Here’s a news flash: We often see a drop in conversion rates for a treatment that has higher engagement. This may be counterintuitive. If people are spending more time on our site and clicking more — two definitions of “engagement” — then shouldn’t they find more reasons to act?
Apparently not. Higher engagement may mean that they are delaying. Higher engagement may mean that they aren’t finding what they are looking for. Higher engagement may mean that they are lost.
If you’re running your tests to increase engagement, you may be hurting your conversion rate. In this case, “Meh” may be a good thing.
In an email test we conducted for a major energy company, we wanted to know if a change in the subject line would impact sales of a smart home thermostat. Everything else about the emails and the landing pages were identical.
The two best-performing emails had very different subject lines but identical open rates and click-through rates. However, sales for one of the email treatments were significantly higher. The winning subject line had delivered the same number of clicks but had primed the visitors in some way, making them more likely to buy.
If you are measuring the success of your tests based on clicks, you may be missing the true results. Yes, it is often more difficult to measure through to purchase, subscription, or registration. However, it really does tell you which version of a test is delivering to the bottom line. Clicks are only predictive.
4. Print A T-shirt That Says, “My Control Is Unbeatable”
Ultimately, you may just have to live with your inconclusive tests.
Every test tells you something about your audience. If your audience didn’t care how big the product image was, you’ve learned that they may care more about changes in copy. If they don’t know the difference between 50% off or $15.00 off, test offers that aren’t price-oriented.
Make sure that the organization knows you’ve learned something, and celebrate the fact that you have an unbeatable control. Don’t let “Meh” slow your momentum. Keep plugging away until that unexpected test that gives you a big win.
Need help making your tests more conclusive? Explore our turnkey CRO services.
This post was originally published on March 1, 2016, and was adopted from an article that appeared on Search Engine Land. It has been updated with current research and examples.
A/B Testing Guide: The Proven 6-Step Process for Higher Conversions
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingWelcome to the ultimate guide to A/B testing, a comprehensive resource designed to help you master the art of optimizing your digital experiences. Whether you’re a marketer, a product manager, or a business owner, understanding and implementing A/B testing can be a game-changer for your online presence.
Effective CRO services include A/B testing because they’re the only data-driven method for increasing conversions and powering growth.
Key Takeaways
Table of Contents
A/B Testing Meaning
A/B testing, also known as split testing or A/B/n testing, is the process of comparing two or more versions of a webpage, app, or marketing asset to determine which one performs better. It takes a scientific approach to optimizing digital experiences, removing the biases inherent in decision-making based on personal preference.
A/B testing randomly divides users into two groups, serving each group a different variation (A or B) to determine which gets the best results — essentially letting your visitors tell you what they prefer.
What to Expect from This Guide
This guide is designed to be your go-to resource for everything related to A/B testing. Here’s what you’ll learn:
By the end of this guide, you will have a thorough understanding of the entire A/B testing process and a framework for running your own A/B tests. Whether you are just starting out or upleveling your game, this guide will help you optimize your website and drive business growth through data-backed decisions.
Need help right away? Schedule a Strategy Session with the Conversion Scientists.™
Benefits of A/B Testing
A/B testing can significantly improve your online presence and drive business growth. Here are some of the key advantages of incorporating A/B testing into your optimization strategy:
Improved Performance and Engagement
Improved Performance and Engagement
Business Growth and Innovation
Operational Efficiency
By leveraging A/B testing, you can make informed decisions, improve user experiences, and ultimately drive business growth through data-backed optimizations. This scientific approach to optimization empowers you to move beyond guesswork and subjective opinions, ensuring that your digital strategies are always aligned with user needs and market trends.
The Key to A/B Testing Success
To enjoy the benefits of A/B testing, we need to be confident that our results are valid and can be used to make informed decisions. That’s where statistical significance comes in.
Statistical significance measures the possibility that the observed difference between two variations (A and B) is due to chance rather than a real effect. It is typically expressed as a probability or p-value. When the p-value is below 0.05, it means there is less than a 5% chance that the observed difference occurred randomly.
In practical terms, statistical significance confirms that the changes made in the winning variation do, in fact, perform better than the losing variation and are not random fluctuations in the data. That’s why we always run a test until statistical significance is achieved.
It’s tempting to end a test when one variation begins to outperform the other, but test results will fluctuate through the test. Only when statistical relevance has been achieved can you be sure of the winner. That’s why most A/B testing platforms have built-in calculators. If not, you can find them online — here’s one by VWO.
Keep in mind, statistical significance does not indicate the impact or the practical importance of the change you’re testing. It simply gives you 95% confidence that the test is valid.
Now, Let’s dive into the A/B testing process. We’ll start with a high-level look at the steps to A/B testing and then review each of each step.
The A/B Testing Process: Step-by-Step Guide
The A/B testing process is a systematic and methodical approach to optimizing digital experiences. Here’s the six-step testing process used by CRO professionals:
Here’s the six-step testing process used by CRO professionals:
Step 1: Conduct Pre-test Research. A/B testing starts with assessing your current data. Gather both quantitative data (numbers and metrics) and qualitative data (user feedback and behavior) to gain a comprehensive understanding of your website’s performance and user experience.
Jump to: How to perform pre-test research
Step 2: Generate Hypotheses. Based on your data analysis, create hypotheses about what changes might improve your website’s performance. This step marks the beginning of experimentation, where you identify potential page improvements to test.
Jump to: How to generate a hypothesis
Step 3: Design A/B Split Tests. Create your control (the original, or A version) and variation (the B version) based on your hypotheses. Ensure that you’re testing one variable at a time to isolate its impact.
Jump to: How to design A/B split tests
Step 4: Run and Monitor Tests. Use A/B testing software to split your traffic between variations until statistical significance is achieved. Monitor the test closely to ensure data accuracy and catch any potential issues early.
Jump to: How to run and monitor tests
Step 5: Analyze Test Results. Analyze your test results for statistical significance. Look beyond just the overall results to understand how different segments performed.
Jump to: How to evaluate test results
Step 6: Implement Results. If you have a clear winner, implement the changes across your website. Continue to monitor performance to ensure the improvements are maintained over time.
Jump to: How to implement results
Now let’s explore each of these steps more deeply:
Step 1: Pre-Test Research
Pre-test research is the process of gathering and analyzing data to understand your visitors, their behaviors, and their needs before you start designing test variations.
This step is key because, at its core, optimization is about understanding your visitors. To create effective A/B test variations, you need to know who is visiting your website, what they like and don’t like about your existing site, and what they want instead. This insight allows you to formulate hypotheses that have a higher likelihood of improving user experience and driving conversions.
Steps to Conduct Pre-Test Research
Gather Existing Data. Start by analyzing the data you already have. Use tools like Google Analytics, heatmaps, and session recordings to understand user behavior on your website. Look for patterns in:
For example, you might discover that visitors from social media platforms have a higher bounce rate on your product pages compared to visitors who click through from search engines. This insight could lead to a hypothesis about tailoring product page content for different traffic sources.
Conduct User Research. Quantitative data tells you what is happening, but qualitative research helps you understand why. These methods can help you gather input from your visitors:
For instance, a survey might reveal that customers find your checkout process confusing, leading your team to a hypothesis about simplifying the checkout flow.
Analyze Competitor Data. Study your competitors’ websites to benchmark your own performance and set realistic goals. This can inspire new ideas and opportunities for testing. Look at their:
This analysis might show that competitors are using trust badges prominently in their checkout process, suggesting a test idea for your own site.
Identify Key Metrics and Goals. Define the specific metrics you want to improve through A/B testing. For example, for an ecommerce site, you might aim to improve:
Ensure these metrics align with your overall business objectives. If your goal is to increase customer lifetime value, you might focus on metrics related to repeat purchases or subscription sign-ups.
Segment Your Audience. Identify different user segments that behave differently or have different needs, such as:
Understanding these segments allows you to create more targeted tests and analyze results more effectively. For instance, you might find that a certain call-to-action performs better for new visitors but worse for returning customers.
Step 2: Hypothesis Generation
Once you’ve completed your pre-test research, it time to formulate educated guesses, or hypotheses, about what changes might improve your website’s performance. This is where data-driven insights meet creative problem-solving.
What Is a Hypothesis in A/B Testing?
In A/B testing, a hypothesis is a testable idea. It’s typically structured as an if-then statement that includes a proposed change, the predicted outcome if the change is implemented, and how success will be measured:
“If ___, then ___, as measured by ___.”
For example: “If we move the form above the fold, then sign-ups will increase by 10%, as measured by on-page form completions.”
For more examples, read How to Create Testing Hypotheses That Drive Real Profits
The Hypothesis Generation Process
When creating a hypothesis, it’s a good idea to follow this process:
Note: While hypothesis creation is listed as step #4 above, in many scenarios, hypotheses are developed as part of the step #1. Data is then collected to better understand the problem and potential solutions. When this approach is taken, you may uncover data or possible solutions that weren’t considered in step #1, invalidating the original hypothesis. When this happens, you can revise and reprioritize the original hypothesis based on the new data.
Tips for Effective Hypothesis Generation
It’s easy to generate hypotheses. The challenge is to create good hypotheses. Here’s how you can ensure your hypothesis pipeline is filled with test-worthy ideas.
Get the Conversion Sciences Hypothesis Tracker here.
Step 3: A/B Split Test Design
An A/B test is often called a “split” test because it involves splitting or dividing website traffic between two versions of a webpage or feature. The term “split” refers to how the audience or traffic is divided between the control version (A) and the variation (B).
A/B split testing is most effective when you know how to design the test to achieve your goals. This includes your testing strategy, objectives, the variables you’ll test, your segmentation plan, and the set-up of your tracking.
In a minute, I’ll show you how to design a split test, but first, we need to look at seven common A/B testing strategies.
Common A/B Testing Strategies
An A/B testing strategy is a systematic approach to planning, executing, and analyzing experiments. At Conversion Sciences, we use a variety of strategies, each appropriate for different situations.
Will you test big, disruptive changes to the webpage or make small, incremental tweaks? Will you optimize for general outcomes, such as completion rate or flow, or target specific pain points that create friction for visitors? Your strategy choice is based on risk tolerance, the current performance of the website, the resources available, and your specific goals.
Most optimizers choose one of these seven testing strategies.
Gum Trampoline
Completion Optimization
Flow Optimization
Minesweeper
Big Rocks
Big Swings
Go Nuclear
Dive more deeply into the 7 core testing strategies essential to optimization.
How to Design an A/B Split Test: 6 Steps
Effective A/B testing follows a structured, scientific approach to ensure objectivity and validity. Here’s how to set up a robust A/B test:
Choose Your A/B Testing Tool. There are several A/B testing platforms on the market, each with its own strengths, so choose one that aligns with your specific needs and technical capabilities. Here are three popular options:
Note: Read pro optimizers’ recommendations for A/B testing platforms here.
Define Clear Objectives. Start by clearly defining your test goals and hypotheses. Your goals should be specific, measurable, and aligned with your overall business objectives. For example:
Note: Your objectives will inform the type of A/B test you choose from the seven options we reviewed above.
Choose Variables to Test. Select one primary variable to change in your variation. Common test elements include:
Create Variations. Design your control (original version) and variation(s) based on your hypothesis. Remember to change only one element to isolate its impact.
Determine Sample Size and Test Duration. Calculate the required sample size to achieve statistical significance. Your testing tool likely has a calculator, but you can also use this one. Keep in mind, your sample size depends on several factors:
Plan for Segmentation. Consider how you’ll analyze results for different user segments (e.g., new vs. returning visitors, mobile vs. desktop users).
Set Up Tracking. Accurate tracking ensures meaningful results. Here are the key tracking elements that need to be in place:
If prioritizing hypotheses and designing tests seems challenging, consider outsourcing it to the CRO experts at Conversion Sciences.
Step 4: Running an A/B Test
Once you’ve designed your A/B test, you’re ready to set up and run your A/B test. This process involves careful planning, execution, and monitoring to ensure reliable results.
AB testing software VWO test report showing the winning variation.
How to Ensure Quality Assurance
Quality assurance (QA) safeguards the integrity of your experiments and the reliability of your results, minimizing errors and data discrepancies. These QA processes address the technical user experience (UX) and data integrity aspects of a successful A/B test:
Step 5: Test Results Analysis
Proper analysis ensures that you draw accurate conclusions and make data-driven decisions. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to evaluate your A/B test results:
Statistical Significance. The first and most crucial aspect of evaluating test results is determining whether you reached statistical significance. This indicates whether the observed differences between variations are likely due to chance or represent a real effect.
Note: Take a deep dive into statistical significance in this guide on statistical hypothesis testing.
Practical Significance. While statistical significance tells you if results are reliable, practical significance determines if the change is worth implementing.
Segment Analysis. Don’t just look at overall results. Analyze how different segments performed:
Secondary Metrics. While focusing on your primary conversion goal, it’s also important to evaluate secondary metrics:
Validity Checks. Ensure your test results are valid:
Analyzing Inconclusive Results. If your test is inconclusive:
Documentation and Learning. Regardless of the outcome:
By thoroughly evaluating your A/B test results using these methods, you can ensure that your optimization efforts are based on solid data and insights, leading to more effective improvements in your digital experiences.
Step 6: Implementing Test Results
After conducting a successful A/B test, the next crucial step is to document the results, update stakeholders, and, if you have a winner, implement it effectively.
Documenting and Learning
Proper documentation of your A/B tests builds institutional knowledge and informs future optimization efforts. That’s why optimizers always record test results and insights, including:
Documentation should be comprehensive yet concise. We try to strike a balance between providing essential information and avoiding unnecessary details. Use spreadsheets to prioritize test ideas, track experiments, and calculate test results. Docs are preferred for an in-depth analysis of each test — they allow you to capture your insights and learnings and share them with stakeholders.
Insights from previous tests will fuel future optimization efforts. Consider creating a testing roadmap that builds on your learnings. For instance, if highlighting reviews was successful, your next test might explore different ways of presenting these reviews or testing review-based elements on other pages of your site.
Updating Decision-Makers
To ensure the long-term success of your optimization program, it’s crucial to communicate your results effectively to stakeholders. Here’s how to do that:
Communicating Results and Plans to Stakeholders. Prepare a clear, concise presentation of your test results, focusing on the metrics that matter most to your business. For example, instead of just reporting a 15% increase in click-through rate, translate this into estimated revenue impact.
Linking Results to Business Goals. Show how your A/B testing program aligns with and contributes to broader business objectives. For instance, if a key company goal is to increase customer lifetime value, demonstrate how your optimizations in the onboarding process are leading to higher retention rates.
Proposing Next Steps. Based on your results and learnings, present a clear plan for future tests and optimizations. This might include a prioritized list of upcoming tests, resource requirements, and projected impacts.In many organizations, only 10% to 20% of experiments generate positive results, with just one in eight A/B tests driving significant change.
As mentioned above, if a winning test won’t drive significant conversion rate improvements, you may opt not to implement the change — it simply isn’t worth the effort. However, when you do implement a change, you need to be sure the improvements you saw in the test translate into real-world performance gains. Here’s how to do that.
Implementing the Winning Version
Once you’ve identified a statistically significant winner in your A/B test, it’s time to implement this version across your entire user base. You can do this in one of two ways:
Option 1: Replacing the Original with the Winning Variant
This step involves updating your website or application to reflect the changes tested in the winning variation. For example, if your test showed that changing a call-to-action button from “Sign Up” to “Start Free Trial” increased conversions by 15%, you would update all instances of this button across your site.
Option 2: Gradual Rollout
In some cases, especially for high-traffic websites or significant changes, it’s wise to implement the winning version gradually. Initially, you would roll out the change to a small percentage of users (say, 10%) and slowly increase the percentage of visitors who see it until it’s fully launched. This approach allows you to monitor for any unexpected issues that might not have shown up during the test.
Monitoring Post-Implementation Performance
After implementing the winning version, continue to monitor performance to be sure the improvements seen during the test phase are maintained in the long term. Make sure you’re tracking key metrics such as conversion rates, engagement levels, and revenue figures.
False positives occur for a variety of reasons. A test might fail to reach statistical relevance or include too many variations. Or maybe it falls prey to the history effect — something in the outside world that affects people’s perception of your test. We’ve seen this happen in holiday seasons, a news event that has captured people’s attention, and even a competitor launching a new product.
If you implement a change and see a drop in site metrics, you need to respond quickly. First, revert to your control page so you can stop the bleeding. Then try to identify the issue:
By following these steps, you ensure that the insights gained from your A/B tests are effectively implemented, documented, and leveraged for ongoing optimization. This systematic approach not only improves your current performance but also builds a foundation for continuous improvement in your digital experiences.
Common Challenges in A/B Testing
A/B testing is a powerful tool for optimization, but it comes with its own set of challenges. Understanding and addressing these challenges empowers you to conduct effective tests and obtain reliable results.
Timing Issues and External Factors
As mentioned above, we need to be aware of timing issues and external factors that could deliver fast positives or negatives. Here are a few of the external issues that can impact the validity of an A/B test:
Seasonal Variations: User behavior often changes based on seasons, holidays, or specific times of the year. For example, an e-commerce site might see drastically different conversion rates during the holiday shopping season compared to other times of the year.
Market Fluctuations: Economic changes, industry trends, or sudden market shifts can impact user behavior and skew test results. A stock market crash, for instance, could significantly affect conversion rates on a financial services website, and we all experienced the impact of the pandemic and the uncertain economy that followed.
Competitor Actions: User behavior is easily impacted by competitor promotions or new product launches. If a major competitor starts a significant discount campaign during your test, it could affect your results.
Media Events: News cycles, viral content, or major world events can temporarily change user behavior and attention. A breaking news story related to your industry could suddenly increase or decrease engagement with your site.
Technical Issues: Unexpected technical problems, such as server downtime or slow loading speeds, can impact user experience and skew test results if they occur unevenly across variations.
Marketing Campaign Changes: Changes in your own marketing efforts, such as starting or stopping an ad campaign, can lead to different types of traffic arriving at your site, potentially affecting test results.
Timing issues can potentially lead to false positives or negatives, but in most cases, A/B testing mitigates them by simultaneously testing our variations. In an A/A test, we compare changes made at different times. Different external conditions exist in each test period. A/B testing ensures both the control and treatment groups are exposed to the same external factors during the testing period, allowing you to isolate the impact of the elements you’re testing.
Visitor Segmentation
Another significant challenge in A/B testing is ensuring your results accurately represent your entire audience. This challenge results from the complexity and diversity of user behaviors across different segments of your audience. For example:
Audience Diversity. Your website attracts a wide variety of visitors. Some are tire kickers, students, or researchers. Only a percentage are potential customers, and even these are not a homogeneous group. They can vary significantly based on factors such as:
Each of these segments may interact with your website differently and respond to changes in unique ways.
Sample Representation. When conducting an A/B test, you’re typically working with a sample of your overall audience. It’s challenging to ensure the test sample accurately represents your entire user base. If your sample is skewed towards a particular segment, your test results may not apply to your broader audience.
Time-based Variations. User behavior can vary based on time of day, day of the week, or season. For example, B2B websites might see different behaviors during business hours compared to evenings or weekends. Ecommerce sites often experience seasonal fluctuations. These temporal variations can impact test results if not properly accounted for.
Geographic and Cultural Differences. For websites with a global audience, cultural differences and regional preferences can significantly impact user behavior. A change that resonates with users in one country might not have the same effect in another.
Here’s how to ensure your A/B tests accurately represent your entire audience:
Here are some common ways to segment your traffic:
By analyzing these segments separately, you can uncover valuable insights about how different groups interact with your site and tailor your optimization efforts accordingly.
Creating a Culture of Testing
For more than a decade, we’ve advocated for a culture of optimization — equipping everyone to optimize their results through experimentation and A/B testing — because the data it provides can quickly scale growth and profits.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of limiting A/B testing to professional conversion optimizers. But practitioners aren’t the only people capable of running successful tests, especially with today’s technology. The key is to give your team the training, tools and workflows they need.
Booking.com is a good example. For more than ten years, they’ve allowed anyone to test anything, without requiring approval. As a result, they run more than 1,000 rigorous tests at a time, which means at any given time, two visitors will get two different variations of the page.
I opened Booking.com from two computers at the same time and got two variations of the page.
Experimentation has become ingrained in Booking.com’s culture, allowing every employee to test their ideas for improved results. Booking.com keeps a repository of tests, both failures and successes, so people can verify the test hasn’t been previously performed.
Conclusion
For optimizers, A/B testing is one of our most powerful strategies for improving website performance, driving conversions, and making data-driven decisions. In this guide, we’ve walked through the entire A/B testing process — from understanding the statistical foundations of hypothesis testing to running tests effectively and overcoming common challenges.
Next Steps
Now that you have a comprehensive understanding of A/B testing, it’s time to put this knowledge into action. Start by identifying areas of your website that could benefit from optimization. Conduct thorough pre-test research, formulate hypotheses based on data, and use the tools and strategies outlined in this guide to run effective tests.
Remember, A/B testing is not a one-time activity — it’s a continuous process. By committing to regular experimentation and learning from every test, you can stay ahead of competitors, delight your users, and drive meaningful business growth.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing program, this guide serves as a roadmap for mastering A/B testing. The journey of optimization is ongoing, but with the right approach, tools, and mindset, the rewards are well worth the effort.
Need help implementing A/B testing on your website? At Conversion Sciences, we have a proven mix of conversion optimization services that can be implemented for sites in every industry.
To learn more, book a conversion strategy session today.
Creating a Landing Page that Converts: 6 Essential Elements [Infographic]
Landing Page OptimizationA well-crafted landing page is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing, capable of turning casual visitors into loyal customers. But if you’ve ever created a landing page, you know how much strategic planning and execution they require.
At Conversion Sciences, after years of perfecting the art and science of landing page optimization, we’ve identified six essential elements that can transform an ordinary landing page into a high-performing asset. This guide will explore these elements in detail, share actionable tips, and provide real-world insights to help you master landing page optimization.
What Makes a Successful Landing Page?
Landing pages are stand-alone web pages designed to perform two jobs:
Unlike homepages, which serve multiple purposes, landing pages focus on a single goal. This specificity makes them one of your most effective tools for converting visitors into leads or customers.
Need some inspiration? Browse our Lead Generation Landing Page Examples.
No time to learn it all on your own? Check out our turn-key Conversion Rate Optimization Services and book a consultation to see how we can help you.
The Benefits of Well-Optimized Landing Pages
We’ve seen the difference even small improvements in landing page performance can make. Here are three of the top outcomes you’ll experience when your landing pages are doing their job.
1. Maximize ROI
Most web pages don’t convert — they’re not designed to. But landing pages are designed to convert. They outperform popups, signup boxes, and wheels of fortune for opt-ins, with a 23% conversion rate.
Landing pages outperform other lead generation tactics with a 23% conversion rate.
Across all industries, the average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%, according to Wordstream. But the top 10% of landing pages achieve conversion rates of 11.45% or higher, depending on the landing page type.
Benchmarks for landing page conversion rates vary widely by industry, but these are the averages.
2. Simplify Decision-Making
The human brain craves simplicity, especially when faced with choices. High-converting landing pages capitalize on this by reducing cognitive load. They use clear calls-to-action (CTAs), concise copy, and a streamlined design to guide visitors toward a single desired outcome.
Imagine landing on a page that bombards you with navigation menus, multiple CTAs, and walls of text. It’s overwhelming, right? Now compare that to a page with a single, bold CTA — like “Sign Up Now” — and enough information to convince you to act. This simple page removes distractions, making it easier for visitors to decide.
You can thank Hick’s Law for this insight. It tells us that the more choices you offer, the longer it takes for someone to make a decision. And it explains why a simplified landing pages can move visitors quickly down the conversion funnel.
💡 In one of our projects, simplifying the layout of an eCommerce landing page led to a 15% reduction in bounce rates and a corresponding increase in sales.
3. Enhance Engagement
Grabbing and holding a visitor’s attention is no small feat. High-converting landing pages achieve this by delivering tailored content that speaks directly to the visitor’s needs and interests.
Take, for instance, an online retailer promoting a seasonal sale. A landing page promoting winter apparel with targeted messaging — like “Stay Warm and Save Big This Winter” — is far more engaging than a generic sales page. Add to that personalized content, such as product recommendations based on browsing history, and the page becomes a magnet for conversions.
Engagement isn’t just about content, though. The design and user experience play crucial roles. Eye-tracking studies show that users focus on areas with clean layouts, contrasting colors, and compelling visuals. By optimizing these elements, you can create a page that captivates visitors and keeps them moving toward your goal.To increase engagement, design and the user experience are key. For example, when we improved UX/UI for Boingo, they saw a 2x increase in sales and a 38% lift in overall revenue.
Optimizing UX/UI gave Boingo a 2x increase in sales and a 38% life in overall revenue.
Creating a Successful Landing Page
It’s easy to obsess over landing page best practices: Is this the right font? Is the color theme too loud, not loud enough? Too many options? Not enough options? What is with this border?
But bottom line, a landing page is ultra-simple. It keeps a promise and entices visitors to take action. That’s it. So let’s break down the basic components of a landing page and what you need to think about for each.
1. A Compelling Offer
Your offer is the foundation of your landing page. It’s the “why” behind the action you want visitors to take. To make your offer irresistible:
A compelling offer is clear and compelling. At its most basic, it tells you what you’ll get if you take action. For example, a SaaS company might offer a free trial with messaging like, “Get 14 days of unlimited access—no credit card required.”
Look at how simply Netflix presents its offer:
Netflix has a streamlined landing page that makes it easy to say yes.
2. A Simple Form
Forms are where conversions happen, but they can also be where visitors drop off. To increase form completion rates:
Pro Tip: Our clients have seen conversion rates increase by up to 40% after reducing their forms from six fields to three. The more form fields your visitor has to fill out, the more friction they feel, and the less likely they are to convert.
If in doubt, look at Google’s homepage:
Google’s landing page is ultra simple with no friction
The offer is implied: search for anything. The form has just one field. And its buttons, “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky,” are invitational.
This simple white page makes a complete landing page. But of course, for your landing pages, you’ll want a few more conversion elements, so let’s explore those elements and how they will help you create a successful landing page.
3. Persuasive Copy
Not all visitors arrive ready to convert. Even slight objections can prevent them from taking action. Clear, compelling copy answers objections, builds trust, and explains why taking action today is smarter than waiting.
Short, text-based descriptions of the landing page offer can make a difference. Keep in mind persuasive copy doesn’t focus on your business or even the product. Always talk about what’s in it for the visitor.
At Conversion Sciences, we’ve seen as much as a 42% lift in conversions after increasing a landing page’s persuasive power. (Here are some of our persuasive writing techniques.)
But persuasive copy isn’t your only option. Media can also make a difference. Studies have found that 9 out of 10 people want companies to create more videos, and 38.6% of marketers report that videos positively impact their conversion rate.
Whether you’re using text or video, try to create urgency so people take immediate action. Phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Only 5 Spots Left” can help — just make sure the urgency is real. If you’re selling a digital product, you can’t run out of inventory, but you can make your offer available only until midnight.
Quick Tip: Generic statements don’t drive action. To persuade, you need to be ultra-specific. Notice how the numbers in these examples draw the eye:
4. Proof and Trust Elements
Trust is the linchpin of online conversions. Without it, even the most compelling offer can fail. To establish trust:
Example: After adding trust elements to an ecommerce client’s product pages and optimizing key elements of their value proposition, they saw an 18% lift in revenue per session, a 12% growth in customer acquisition rate, and a 6% increase in average order value. Proof and trust can significantly improve a landing page’s performance.
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This Galeton ecommerce landing page highlights quality ratings to prove the quality of their products and increase trust.
5. Relevant Images
Visuals aren’t just about aesthetics; they play a critical role in conveying value and enhancing understanding. Effective images:
It doesn’t matter whether you sell a physical or digital product — an image makes it “real.” Rendering downloadable resources, like eBooks or white papers, as physical items in images helps users perceive them as tangible and valuable.
Example: Amy Porterfield presents screenshots from her online business courses on desktops, tablets, and phones. This quickly communicates the depth and accessibility of her training.
Even if you sell a digital product, you must “make it real” with graphics
6. Clean and Focused Design
Design can make or break your landing page. A cluttered layout confuses visitors, while a clean design keeps them engaged. Key principles include:
Pro Tip: Even if you love your design, your visitors may not. Take Jaguar’s logo redesign.
Jaguar’s new logo met with resistance from their loyal fans
As it enters “The New Era” of electric cars, Jaguar felt a redesign was in order. Many consumers disagree. LinkedIn posts call it a “car crash” and “downgrade branding” and predict harm to their brand:
Source
Source
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Most landing pages don’t get the backlash Jaguar’s rebrand got, but it’s a good illustration of why we design pages for our visitors, not our own preferences.
To understand what visitors like (and don’t like), our Conversion Scientists® use heatmaps and user testing tools like Hotjar. If people avoid any part of the page, there’s likely something wrong with the layout or design, and these tools tell them where they can refine the landing page design to improve conversions.
Why guess when you can know? CRO tools provide the insights and data you need to make smart optimization decisions.
Here’s our scientific breakdown of these elements:
Here are the steps you can take to create a controlled Landing Page reaction in your digital laboratory.
Please include attribution to our website with this graphic.
Landing Page Best Practices: Expert Tips for Landing Page Mastery
Creating a landing page that converts is only the first step. To maximize results, you need to continually refine and optimize every aspect of the page. This second half of the article dives deeper into the strategies and tools used by top marketers to fine-tune their landing pages for peak performance.
Optimization requires regular testing, data analysis, and a willingness to iterate based on user behavior and industry trends. The difference between a good landing page and a great one often lies in the details — small adjustments that have a disproportionate impact on conversions. From mastering A/B testing to understanding how different metrics influence your strategy, this section equips you with the knowledge and tools to take your landing pages to the next level.
Note: A/B testing isn’t always the most appropriate CRO technique. Listen in as our Scientists discuss the different types of CRO for different needs.
Landing Pages for Different Goals
Not all landing pages are created equal. Tailoring your approach to specific objectives can enhance performance:
Example: One of our clients in the SaaS space increased lead generation by 35% after optimizing their landing page with a simplified form and enhanced trust elements.
Metrics That Matter
To measure the success of your landing page, track these key performance indicators (KPIs):
We recommend using tools like Google Analytics, Optimizely, or Crazy Egg can help you monitor these metrics and identify areas for improvement.
Tools and Resources for Landing Page Success
Some basic tools that will help you optimize your landing pages are:
When you’re ready to up your conversion game, check out our list of 20 AB testing tools recommended by CRO pros.
Best Practices for Ongoing Optimization
Creating a successful landing page isn’t a one-time task. Continuous improvement is key. Here’s how to stay ahead:
We’ve seen the impact of incremental improvements on a landing page’s performance. But if you’re curious to know how it will improve your results, submit the Conversion Optimization Upside Calculator, and we’ll do the calculations for you.
Final Thoughts: Creating a Landing Page That Converts
Creating a high-performing landing page doesn’t happen by chance — it requires strategy, testing, and attention to detail. By focusing on the six essential elements outlined above, you can craft simple landing pages that consistently deliver results.
If you’re ready to take your landing pages to the next level, let us help you. Level up your skills with our Conversion Rate Optimization Training. Or ask about our fully-managed CRO services.
Contact us today for a free consultation.
Confirmation Bias: What It Is and How It’s Hurting Your Website Conversions
Persuasion ScienceEvery business owner I know is unhappy with their website conversions. They invest in quality traffic but struggle to convert it into leads and sales.
Usually, when they ask us for conversion rate optimization services, they’re worried about how persuasive their messaging is or whether the design of their website is hurting results.
What they don’t realize is that there’s another, more critical key to unlocking conversions.
We humans have won the evolution lottery in many ways (thank you, opposable thumbs), but we’ve never overcome our tendency to take shortcuts. And of all the shortcuts we take, confirmation bias is probably the biggest.
Let’s take a closer look at what confirmation bias is, how it affects us as humans, and more particularly, as marketers. Then we’ll uncover the only marketing approach that will beat our biases and improve our website conversion rates.
Learn how our fully managed CRO services can remove the biases that impact your website’s performance.
What Is Confirmation Bias?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, favor, and recall information that supports our existing beliefs or hypotheses — while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them — so we can confirm that we’re right or process information faster.
Confirmation bias isn’t intentional. It’s more of a mental management system than deliberate self-deception.
Why does confirmation bias occur? Why are we so prone to it?
This marketing statistic may provide some insight: We are exposed to anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 ads a day. Add to that our busy lifestyles. We’re constantly juggling careers, families, friends, and self-care. Our brains are processing so much information at any given moment, we need decision-making shortcuts, or heuristics, to avoid overwhelm.
We like to be right. So we seek information that confirms and supports our personal beliefs and habits while ignoring innformation we disagree with.
Three Types of Bias
There are three types of confirmation bias:
Biased search for information
People tend to test hypotheses, or ideas, by searching for evidence that’s consistent with their current beliefs. They phrase their search queries to find information supporting their expectations and gather data to prove their preexisting ideas are true.
We see this a lot in conversion optimization. When running an AB test for the first time, a marketer is likely to design the test to prove their idea right. By contrast, experienced optimizers know to design AB tests to disprove their hypothesis.
Interestingly, when we’re asked for information, the way the question is phrased can influence the way we answer. If asked, “Are you happy with your job?” we’re more likely to answer positively. If asked, “Are you unhappy with your job?” we’ll be more likely to disclose the things we don’t like.
Biased interpretation of information
We often use logic to defend illogical beliefs, and you can see that in the way we interpret information. For example, a 1979 Stanford study found that, when given compelling evidence for and against capital punishment, people used the data to support their original viewpoint and gave more credence to information that supported their beliefs.
This study also found that “disconfirmation bias” makes us more resistant to information or viewpoints that contradict our existing beliefs. We set a higher standard of proof for any hypothesis that contradicts our current expectations. We also work harder to disconfirm evidence by questioning the validity of the source or looking for flaws in the argument.
Biased recall of information
You’ve likely heard the term selective recall. It exists because our brains have pre-existing folders to store that information.
Studies have found that any information that aligns with prior expectations and beliefs is easier to store and recall than information that does align with our beliefs. As a result, we tend to remember information that reinforces our expectations.
Confirmation Bias Examples
When your brother calls you for advice but only accepts it if you tell him what he wants to hear, you’re seeing confirmation bias in action. He believes he found the solution and wants your stamp of approval.
You see confirmation bias in business when a company cuts a sponsorship deal with a controversial figure, and the brand is boycotted. Like Nike’s 2018 ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who, two years earlier, began kneeling for the national anthem in pre-game ceremonies to protest racial injustice.
Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick
Now, let’s look at some examples of how confirmation bias impacts our ability to process and parse data — which is key to our ability to parse your website data and understand your visitor’s behavior.
We all know how easy it is for bad actors to distort or manipulate data. What we don’t realize is how often we do this to ourselves, interpreting information in a way that distorts our own understanding.
Remember, we like to take shortcuts, so when we see this graph of ice cream sales compared to forest fires, what do we conclude?
Ice cream sales and forest fires are so highly correlated, ice cream must cause forest fires.
Meanwhile, looking at this next graph of ice cream sales vs. weight gain, you might assume ice cream will help you lose weight.
Ice cream may be the dieter’s dream dessert!
This is a ridiculous assumption, so we don’t take it seriously. But what happens when our conclusions are less obvious? Bias affects our ability to see the truth. It leads us to ignore gaps in our data. And it leads to poor decision-making.
For example, both of our ice cream graphs ignore a third issue, which is seasonality. In the summer, we tend to watch our weight so we’ll look good in our bathing suits, and it’s hot, so we love to eat ice cream.
With all of this in mind, let’s apply this same tendency to our marketing and conversion rate optimization process.
The Effects of Confirmation Bias on Your Marketing Results
The Cognitive Bias Codex, rendered by John Manoogian, lists 188 cognitive biases, grouped into four categories.
The Cognitive Bias Codex illustrates the number of biases we can fall prey to.
According to the codex, cognitive bias tends to kick in in four scenarios:
Show me one marketer who isn’t processing too much information and making quick decisions without full context! Our work is most definitely the product of unconscious confirmation bias.
And it may explain why we put things on our sites that support what we believe instead of what our customers need to hear to convert. The typical marketing project includes researchers, copywriters, designers, and stakeholders, all with their own preferences and biases. In a worst-case scenario, this can be disastrous:
Researchers who gather information about the market and competitor products have a tendency to search for the information they expect to find, confirming their preexisting beliefs.
The copywriter may or may not evaluate the research, but if they do, they look for evidence that supports their preconceived ideas. Then, when drafting the copy, they choose words and phrases that speak to their learning styles and convey their biases.
The designer creates a visual design based on their own preferences about color and fonts. Then they bring in an executive and team members to review the design — who will all ask for changes based on their biases.
This is a worst-case scenario, but it does show the potential for confirmation bias to dampen your website conversions. You and your team are not immune. You have a tendency to favor information that supports your individual biases. And each of you works in a way that feels comfortable to you.
But these biases can kill a good landing page. They affect your organization at the deepest levels. And they can keep you from achieving the results you know are possible — which is why our Conversion Scientists® rely on science and the scientific method.
The Only Way to Avoid Confirmation Bias
Because everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias, we need a workaround. We need a way to get our biases out of the way so we can make better decisions and get better results.
For marketers, that means discovering what’s really going on with our visitors by thinking like a behavioral scientist.
The good news is you’re already doing it. Every time you post something on social media and check how many likes, comments, and shares you have, and then do more of those posts, you’re using behavioral science.
You’re using other people’s behaviors to determine what you’re going to do next. We just want to formalize that process to ensure our biases don’t override our natural tendencies.
That’s where the scientific method comes into play. When you come up with an idea for a landing page, instead of creating three mock-ups and choosing the one you like best or is most similar to your competitor’s page, you test which one works.
A scientific approach to conversion optimization, or CRO, removes personal biases, opinions, and preferences from the process and forces us to make data-driven decisions. It involves formulating hypotheses, conducting experiments, and analyzing results to draw conclusions.
Here’s what the scientific process looks like when applied to the CRO process:
When we follow this process, we can keep ourselves honest. Instead of adopting the highest paid opinion in the room or implementing web designs that may or may not work, we can use data to increase conversions on the website or marketing campaign.
It’s time to remove the biases that interfere with your website conversions. Get started today by scheduling a free consultation with one of our Conversion Scientists®.
The Conversion Optimization Process for High Converting Websites
Conversion OptimizationHave you ever rebuilt a landing page or updated a website, only to realize that web conversions are low or non-existent?
It’s more common than you think, which is why we’re sharing the exact conversion rate optimization process and CRO strategies we use at Conversion Sciences to optimize ecommerce pages, conversion funnels, digital marketing campaigns, and more.
In this guide, you’ll learn core elements of the conversion rate optimization process:
Note: If you’re looking for marketing strategies, how to set up Google Analytics, a list of CRO tools, or even the benefits of conversion rate optimization, we have those for you as well. But in this guide, we’re inviting you into the lab so you can see how experienced optimizers do their job: generating ideas that are worth testing and then getting those ideas ready for AB testing.
After learning the optimization strategies we reveal here, you’ll know how professional optimizers design pages that persuade people to fill out your forms, improve your checkout process, or simply take the desired action for that page.
Of course, if this feel like too much work and you’d prefer fully-managed conversion optimization services, we can help with that as well.
Why Website Conversion Rates Aren’t What They Ought to Be
In a minute, I’ll walk you through the website design process we use to improve conversions for our clients. But first, we need to acknowledge the elephant room: confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias, is just one of the biases our brains use, causing us to favor information that aligns with our existing beliefs or hypotheses while disregarding or undervaluing evidence that contradicts them. CRO is designed to combat this.
Confirmation bias is everywhere, even the conversion lab. That’s why we need the conversion rate optimization process.
We struggle to build websites, landing pages, and digital experiences that convert because we like to take shortcuts.
Our brains are always looking for the shortest route possible when making decisions. As marketers, that means we tend to put things on our sites that worked for us in the past and to avoid things that didn’t work in the past, regardless of what our customers need and want.
We need to find a way to circumvent our biases so we can include the page elements our visitors want and exclude the elements they don’t want — so we can get the results we’re looking for.
That’s where science comes in
For centuries, science — including conversion optimization — has been used to get our biases out of the way so we can make better decisions and drive higher conversion rates.
For marketers, that means discovering what’s really going on with our visitors. We do that by thinking like a behavioral scientist — using people’s behaviors to determine what their pain points are and what they like and don’t like.
We just need to formalize that process to keep confirmation bias out of the picture — which is where the scientific method comes into play. Instead of designing a page we think will convert, we run experiments and tests to build a page that actually converts.
Here’s what the scientific process looks like when applied to the CRO web design process:
When we follow this process, we can keep ourselves honest. Instead of adopting the highest paid bias in the room or relying on the biases of an expert designer, we can experiment to increase conversions on the website or marketing campaign.
Now, let’s look at how our Conversion Scientists® do that.
The (Science-Based) CRO Process for High Converting Websites
Most people think conversion optimization and conversion focused web design is about AB testing. And yes, optimizers love AB testing. It’s a core feature of the conversion optimization process. But in reality, we deal with ideas.
When a page is not performing as expected, the first step is to identify why. We have to generate ideas and conduct research to identify the underlying issues.
The insights you gain from this process help you understand the website visitor on a deeper level. You come away with better ideas for how you can improve the user experience for them. You also understand what it will take to improve conversions and sales.
I’ve condensed the scientific process into five actionable steps you can take to improve your average conversion rate — erasing any worries about confirmation bias or mental shortcuts.
The Optimizer’s Process: How to Optimize Your Website or Landing Page
Step 1. Generate Optimization Ideas
Improving a webpage starts with ideas about what’s not working right or what can be improved on the website or web page. For example:
We call these ideas hypotheses, and you want to collect as many ideas as you can that could potentially boost conversions. Here are some sources for generating test ideas:
Data You Already Have
Use data from ad platforms and paid search to understand what language and offers get attention.
A/B Testing
Conduct A/B tests to determine if an idea will improve conversions.
Before and After Testing (BA Testing)
Compare performance of changes made to a page or site to a similar period before the change. This method doesn’t control for external factors like market changes.
Online Focus Groups
Use online focus groups to get input from a larger number of people. Use this to narrow down messaging and design options.
Surveys
Conduct surveys of customers or prospects to answer important questions about their motivations, needs, and questions.
Analytics
Analyze website analytics to discover problem areas, evaluate traffic sources, grade landing pages and much more.
Site Feedback
Collect feedback from your website visitors to help identify why they are struggling.
Chat Transcripts
Review chat transcripts to discover common questions that your website could perhaps answer better.
Talk to Salespeople and Customer Service Reps
Salespeople and service reps can tell you the kinds of questions customers and prospects are asking when they talk.
Authoritative Blogs
Look at industry blogs for ideas that have worked for others and for research.
Customer Knowledge
Use your own experience and knowledge of your customers to generate ideas.
By collecting ideas in this way, you will void the brainstorming sessions that provide only limited ideas and hypotheses. These sessions can help generate ideas, but suffer from the biases of the group. Instead, use a structured CRO approach to choose the right ideas to research and test.
As you gather ideas, add them to a spreadsheet like this one.
Download Conversion Sciences’ Hypothesis Prioritization Framework spreadsheet here:
Start by capturing your ideas in the “Hypothesis” column.
For each idea, record:
The Hypothesis Format
If I [hypothesis], I expect [behavior] to change as measured by [metric].
Then put that idea into one of five buckets that describe its impact on the page’s performance:
You should have ideas for each of these five buckets.
Step 2. Prioritize Your Ideas
Once you’ve collected your ideas, evaluate them on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the following criteria:
Being consistent with the way you rate each of these ideas is more important than being accurate with your rating.
Time is an issue when you’re optimizing website performance. We can’t test everything, and in truth, not all good ideas are worth pursuing. So how do you identify the ideas you don’t want to spend time on? We’ll start by deprioritizing the ideas that aren’t worth testing
Here are four reasons to kill a good idea:
1. Too Few People Will See It: If not enough traffic sees the change, it’s not worth testing.
To rise to the top of your list, the change should be very visible or in a key location.
If an idea is not visible, score it lower.
2. It’s too Much Work: Ideas that require a lot of website design, video production, or development pull a lot of resources before you know they will work.
If the idea requires too much preparation, score it lower.
3. It’s too Small of an Idea: The idea needs to have a significant impact to score highly.
Changing one word in a headline may not have enough of an impact. However, there are small changes that could make a large impact. For example, on this product page for the Paul Frederick website, we added a little guarantee statement next to the “Add to Bag” button.
A small change can have a big impact.
This looks like a small change, but it’s next to the CTA, which is a high-impact design element. Visually, it appears to be low impact, but it delivered an 11% lift in an AB test.
If an idea has the potential to make a big impact, score it higher.
4. You don’t have any supporting Data: You need evidence that you’re addressing a real problem that, if addressed, could improve conversion rates. As a result, you need to find data that supports your hypothesis and justifies an experiment.
Turn to your conversion rate optimization tools, customer research, and competitive research for this:
The more evidence you can find to support your idea, the higher it will rise on your list.
Step 3. Select a high-ranking idea and design a test
Once you’ve prioritized your ideas, you’re ready to begin experimenting. Having the right messaging and value proposition is table stakes for any persuasive website. This is a good place to start.
Example: Testing Copy
Keep in mind, testing long versus short copy will only get you so far. Instead, test different ways of writing copy to engage the greatest number of visitors.
There are four personalities that you need to optimize for, and they align with four research modes outlined in Brian and Jeffrey Eisenbert’s book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? I talk in depth about these buyer personas here, but let’s look at a quick overview:
Competitives
Methodicals
Humanists
Spontaneous
Be aware, when you craft your web copy, you will be battling your own biases. I’m a very humanist writer. My head of content is more of a competitive. Both of us write copy from our own quadrants.
But there are workarounds that we use to design messaging that appeals to everyone who visits the website.
How to Optimize a Page to Speak to All Modalities
Here’s an example of a page from our website that attempts to speak to all four types.
Unfortunately, when we try to speak to everyone, we end up speaking to no one.
Conversion-optimized messaging will appeal to the personality types of your target buyers. So start by evaluating your ideal buyers against the four personality types I listed above. That may be all four types or just a few. For example, at Conversion Sciences, our clients don’t align with the Myers-Briggs “SP” personality, so we don’t optimize for that.
Once you’ve identified the personalities you need to engage with, you can use this process to rewrite the copy to align with other modalities.
1. Write the web as you normally would.
As I mentioned above, your copywriter will likely write from their own modality. That’s okay. Just make sure it’s persuasive copy that can drive visitors to take a desired action.
2. Rewrite the copy in another voice.
This has always been a challenge for writers. We tend to write in our own style and have difficulty writing for the specific modes.
With AI, however, this is easy. Since AI recognizes the Myer’s Brigg’s personality types, you can ask it to rewrite your copy in another voice to ensure it appeals to these modalities:
For instance, if you’re a humanist writer (an NF) like me, you’ll ask AI to rewrite the copy for another modality.
“Please rewrite this copy for a digital marketer who has an SJ Myers Briggs Type.”
Note: One of the best GPTs for copywriting is Claude, though Google’s Gemini was recently found to outperform ChatGPT. AI is evolving quickly and “what’s best” is likely to change. So use whatever tool you’re most comfortable with.
3. Rewrite the copy again for each personality.
This gives you substantially different versions of the same web copy, and that’s exactly what you want when we’re AB testing messaging. We want very different results, so we can get make big impacts.
4. Create a variation of the copy that could appeal to all personalities.
Take elements from the winning variations of the copy you generated above and consolidate them into one version that speaks to all personalities.
This process helps you create messaging that’s specifically designed to increase the percentage of people who convert, since it speaks to every visitor’s personality type. Once you have conversion-optimized copy, you’re ready to focus on the design of the page.
Note: You need to check AI outputs because they can hallucinate, making claims in your copy that aren’t true. Use a diff checker like Editpad to see where the AI is making changes to your copy.
Step 4. Designing landing pages that convert
When a visitor opens a landing page, we want them to know two things:
Number one, we want them to know they’re in the right place. So the landing page has to keep the promise that was made in the ad, email, or social media post that brought them to the page.
Number two, we want to give them a reason to read on. Highlight something that is unique or unexpected about your product or brand. Make them curious about how you solve a problem or make a product unique.
We also want them to know we’re asking them to do something. It needs to be clear, visually that there’s a next step in their journey with us.
Good web design ensures nothing on the page distracts users from achieving the goal you’ve set for them on the page, whether that’s to fill out a form, make a purchase, or click a button.
But when most people hear the term “designing landing pages” or “website design,” they tend to focus on the layout, colors, fonts and images. They aren’t thinking about the conversion potential of a page.
Remember, we want a conversion-focused website design that draws the visitors’ to the information that builds the value proposition of the page or site. Designers use techniques that create a visual hierarchy, leading the eye through the page in a way that highlights key messages and calls to action.
We’ve trained our design teams to design for the business executives, not the business’s customers.
Keep in mind, like the rest of the optimization team, designers have their own confirmation biases. They’re likely to create a visual design based on their own preferences. When they’re done, they’ll bring in an executive and other people on the team who review the landing page or website’s design — who will ask for changes based on their biases.
At the end of the day, this process will result in a webpage that works for the organization, but not necessarily the end user.
Conversion designers, like conversion copywriters, know how to design for conversion. They understand their own biases. They understand the importance of the user experience and to use design to help you meet your conversion goals.
Here are some of the tools designers will use to create a successful visual hierarchy for a conversion-focused page design. This will provide a better user experience and boost your conversion rate:
But conversion-focused web design doesn’t stop there. You also need to think about how you can visually communicate credibility, authority, and trustworthiness. Here are a few ideas:
Credibility signals:
Social proof signals:
Risk reversal elements:
Value proposition:
Step 5. Test and Optimize
By now, you’ve already done the hardest parts of an optimizer’s job. You’ve created some ideas for optimizing the performance of the page. You’ve developed messaging that speaks to every personality and learning modality represented by your ideal customer. And you’ve used used a design approach that can lift landing page conversion.
You’re ready to start running experiments and AB tests and letting your data guide your decisions.
The conversion rate optimization process at work
To help, we’ve created this guide that covers everything you need to know about AB testing. Read it next if you want to starting experimenting — or if you’d prefer to get some professional help, explore our conversion optimization services.
Before starting any tests, however, it’s important to adopt the right mindset. So I’m going to give you a quick look inside the optimizer’s brain. (Scary, I know!)
Optimizers are only concerned with two questions:
When your visitors arrive at your website, they immediately scan the page to answer the first question. This is why you website design needs to make it easy to understand what your website is about.
It’s also why functional headlines work better than clever headlines. For example, which of these headlines makes you understand where you are?
You might find the first headline on any number of websites: from a hospital’s maternity page to a home builder’s website. The second one is obviously from an addiction treatment center.
That orients the visitor. They either leave or stay because they know they’re in the right place. Now they try to answer question 2: Is there a reason to keep reading?
To answer that question, they scan your headlines, subhead, and navigation labels. They’re looking for that one part of your value proposition that says, “There’s something different here, something you need to understand.”
This is why your unique selling proposition should be clearly communicated on every page of your website. It should also be subtly conveyed through your messaging and graphics.
For example, at Conversion Sciences, our use of the scientific method sets us apart from other CRO agencies. Because of that, we infuse every page with scientific ideas and the scientific method. Science is in our DNA. And if you spend enough time on our website, you’ll understand that. We even call our optimizers Conversion Scientists and have trademarked the name.
Your visitors are looking for your DNA, so you need to communicate it on every page of your website. That means you’ll avoid “lazy design.” By that, I mean:
Stock photos are a big issue for me. Most websites show images of people smiling, walking through the park, or typing on a laptop. These are “lifestyle images” that don’t move the value proposition forward.
They don’t express your unique DNA.
I could talk for hours about this (and I do in my workshops). But I’ll save it for another article.
For now, I want you to start thinking like an optimizer. To do that, you’ll prioritize the two questions above. You’ll evaluate your website by how well it answers those two questions. And you’ll redesign your website and build new pages with those same two questions in mind.
Then, when running experiments and tests for conversion-focused web design, follow these two tips to get better conversion rates:
Increase Sample Size: Ensure your experiments have a large enough sample size for reliable results. I talk more about that in this article on behavioral data.
Increase the Quality of Experiments: Focus on conducting high-quality experiments with impactful hypotheses and a methodology that keeps your program from getting derailed.
Optimize for the right things: You want to improve the number of conversions, or actions taken by your customers. But the best way to do that is to optimize your conversion rate (the number of conversions as a percentage of the total sample size).
The Conversion Rate Optimization Process: Key to High Converting Websites
Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process that requires a scientific approach. Otherwise, you’ll fall prey to confirmation biases that lower your conversion potential.
By following the CRO process I’ve shared here, you can significantly improve your conversion rates, website performance, and business growth.
Embrace the scientific method, leverage available data, and continually test and refine your strategies to achieve the best results. Ready to take a data-first approach to your business growth? Let’s talk about how our Conversion Scientists® can apply our proven approach to conversion optimization to your website. Schedule your free consultation here.
Two Guys on Your Website: The Surprising Link Between CRO and SEO
Conversion Marketing StrategyGoogle’s document leak uncovered surprising connections between conversion rate optimization (CRO), search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience (UX). Listen in as Conversion Scientists® Joel Harvey and Brian Massey talk about these connections and what they mean for optimizers.
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TLDR Summary
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Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are often seen as separate entities. But there’s a surprising amount of overlap between the two: Both aim to improve user experience (UX) and deliver great content, ultimately leading to higher engagement and conversions.
Google’s document leak made this abundantly clear. In fact, we’re excited about the connection between CRO, SEO, and user experience.
Let’s explore how these disciplines intersect and how you can leverage their synergy to boost your online performance.
The Interplay of CRO and SEO
When considering the relationship between CRO and SEO, think of them as two sides of the same coin. CRO is SEO. The things that fundamentally improve your SEO are also the things that fundamentally help you to improve your conversion rate.
Google’s recent revelations make this undeniable. The core elements of successful SEO are great content and an excellent user experience. It’s not about keyword stuffing; it’s about quality.
There was a time when SEO was all about exact match domains and keyword stuffing. But those days are long gone.
Today, SEO is about understanding and meeting user needs, which is precisely where CRO comes into play.
“It’s not just about keyword stuffing. It’s about having the best content and a great user experience. Those are the real fundamentals of SEO and CRO.”
Fundamental Building Blocks of SEO and CRO
At the heart of both SEO and CRO is a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. Whether you’re offering content, a product, or a service, the key is to provide something valuable that addresses a problem or fulfills a desire.
Without this fundamental understanding, your optimization efforts will only go so far. The era of gaming the system with keyword tricks is long gone. Genuine engagement is now the cornerstone of success.
This approach applies to both SEO and CRO. To succeed today, you must adopt a user-centric mindset.
“If people don’t like the content, no matter what you’ve done from the keyword and link perspective, it probably isn’t going to work anyway, because other people aren’t going to be talking about it,” Brian emphasizes.
Strategies for Great Content and User Experience
Creating great content and a seamless user experience requires a balanced approach. On one hand, you need to be yourself and communicate authentically. On the other, you must adhere to the data-driven demands of SEO, such as keyword density and topic coverage. Reconciling these strategies can be challenging, but it’s essential.
Consider this advice from Anne Handley’s newsletter: “Be yourself, be your brand, and talk the way you talk.”
This encourages a more relaxed, authentic approach to content creation. However, there’s also the technical side of SEO, which often requires precise keyword usage and structured content to rank well.
Start by embracing your unique voice and passion for the subject. Write as if you’re speaking directly to your audience, sharing your insights and experiences in a way that feels natural.
Joel captures this balance well: “The argument for writing with your own voice is that it has energy and passion. The content is fun. By contrast, whenever you’re writing for parameters to feed an SEO algorithm, it isn’t fun.”
Once you have your core content, refine it to incorporate SEO best practices. This means integrating relevant keywords naturally, ensuring the content flows well and remains reader-friendly.
By doing so, you’re not only creating content that is optimized for search engines but also maintaining the authenticity and flow of your original message.
Balancing Personal Voice with SEO Requirements
Balancing a personal, authentic voice with the technical requirements of SEO is one of the biggest challenges in content creation.
Content infused with passion and personality is more engaging and resonates more deeply with users. While SEO is crucial for driving traffic, it shouldn’t overshadow the need for genuine, compelling content.
As Brian says, “If you’re letting SEO lead it completely, that is the tail wagging the dog.”
Instead, aim for a harmonious blend where SEO insights inform but don’t dictate your content.
Use data to inform and influence your decisions. Not only will you be able to maintain an authentic voice, you’ll also build a stronger connection with your audience.
Differences Between Web Design and UX Design
Understanding the distinction between web design and UX design is critical. While both aim to enhance user interaction with a website, they do so in fundamentally different ways.
Web design often centers around aesthetics and layout, focusing on how the site looks and feels. This involves creating visually appealing elements, choosing color schemes, and ensuring the site is attractive to visitors.
In contrast, UX (User Experience) design delves deeper into how users interact with and experience your site. A UX designer’s role involves continuous research and testing to ensure every element on the site meets user expectations and enhances their experience.
As Brian explains, the UX designer is “designing to the content.” A web designer is generally laying out a page and leaving space for images and copy to be added after they’ve done their job.
For example, a web designer might create a visually stunning homepage, but a UX designer will take it further by testing how users navigate that page, identifying friction points, and making adjustments based on user feedback. Their process ensures that the design is not only attractive but also functional and user-friendly.
Importance of User Research in UX Design
User research is a cornerstone of effective UX design. It’s not just about creating visually appealing designs, it’s about ensuring every interaction aligns with user needs and expectations.
User research helps identify and rectify any friction points in the user journey, leading to a smoother and more satisfying experience.
Think about the difference between designing a beautiful website and designing a website that users find intuitive and enjoyable. The latter requires a deep understanding of your users, which comes from thorough research.
By gathering insights into user behavior, preferences, and pain points, you can design experiences that are not only visually appealing but also highly functional and user-friendly.
“User research isn’t just a one-time activity. It’s an ongoing process that involves continuously gathering feedback and making iterative improvements,” Brian emphasizes.
By continuously optimizing each touchpoint, you create a cohesive and engaging journey that fosters loyalty and drives conversions.
For instance, conducting user surveys, interviews, and usability testing can reveal valuable insights about how users interact with your site. These insights can then inform design decisions, leading to a more intuitive and satisfying user experience.
The Holistic Approach to User Experience
Think of user experience like the role of a flight attendant. A flight attendant’s job isn’t just about serving drinks or demonstrating safety procedures. It encompasses the entire journey of the passenger, ensuring comfort, safety, and a pleasant experience from the moment they board to the time they disembark.
User experience works the same way. It’s not just about avoiding errors; it’s about creating delightful, memorable interactions at every touchpoint.
From the initial website visit to the final purchase, every interaction should enhance user satisfaction. This involves addressing potential issues, eliminating friction, and finding opportunities to delight users and exceed their expectations.
“Nothing exists in a vacuum,” says Harvey. “Nothing exists without its own context. So experience is a holistic thing. Everything you do and show and say to people, as well as how it makes them feel — that’s user experience.”
It’s like a flight attendant who is attentive to small details, like remembering a passenger’s preference or providing reassurance during turbulence. When optimizers pay attention to details in UX design — providing intuitive navigation, fast load times, and personalized content — it can significantly impact user satisfaction and conversion rates.
Your Takeaways
Understanding the deep connections between CRO and SEO is crucial for any digital marketer. Here are the key takeaways:
By implementing these principles, you can enhance your digital marketing strategy and achieve better results. Stay tuned for more insights in our next episode! Optimize your user experience: Get a free conversion consultation.