Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is important at every stage of your business. But if you have a low-volume site, you may not be able to do the A/B testing that is the hallmark of so many CRO projects. Here are conversion optimization techniques that work no matter where you are on the CRO spectrum.
Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving your website to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action. Whether it’s making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter, effective CRO can dramatically enhance your online performance. Here are your best options for optimizing your website.
The Spectrum of Optimization
Brian and Joel explain that conversion rate optimization can be viewed on a spectrum, ranging from low-volume sites to advanced data-driven strategies. Each stage requires different approaches and considerations. In this podcast, they explore the different conversion optimization techniques that work for each stage of the spectrum.
Optimizing a Low-Volume Site
On one end of the spectrum is the lower volume website. To optimize these sites, you have to turn up your risk tolerance dial. Since you don’t have a big enough sample size to run accurate tests, you run into the optimization paradox: you have less data to understand how to bring about meaningful change, but you have to drive meaningful change in order to find detectable change.
The conversion rate is essentially a ratio. The smaller your sample size, the more subject the ratio is to fluctuation.
The truth is, it’s very difficult to make changes that win on any website. Even for the best in the business, the batting average is three out of ten. Four out of ten are winners to the dollar. Nobody knows exactly what’s going to work. That’s the puzzle of it. You have to fail systematically to uncover what’s going to work. For smaller websites, that’s even more challenging.
Conversion Optimization Techniques for Low-Volume Sites
Before and After Testing (BA Testing): Change something on the website and wait to see whether it improves results. It’s important to know which tools are needed for the occasion and how many tools you can be using at the same time. And, of course, if you aren’t measuring results, it’s not really optimization.
Home Run Testing: Also known as big swings, where you run an A/B test but apply your results to before and after testing. With this approach, you’re looking for signature wins of 50% to 70% lift. With a relatively small sample size, the math works out because the lift is so big. But you have to be willing to make an optimization error, calling a test a loser because it only had 20 or 30% lift — even if it could have improved things if you had been able to run the test long enough to get the right sample size.
Data-Informed Gut Decisions: On a lower volume website, you have to know your customers. You can have 40 to 30 conversions with the conversion rate showing a delta, but it’s still low volume. You don’t have statistical significance, but if there is no evidence that this is going to hurt you and there is evidence that the change will help you, then do it. Do it and move on.
Choosing an Agency for Low-Volume Sites
If you’re a smaller volume website, there’s bad news. Our full-team approach probably isn’t the best fit for you. The ROI won’t be there, and we don’t do deals unless we feel we can provide measurable value.
Optimization is about peeling back layer after layer of the onion — different types of onions and different types of data. You have to discover your customers’ preferences. Then you make meaningful changes for them.
Heuristic Analysis
Moving along the spectrum, Brian and Joel discuss heuristic analysis, which involves evaluating a site based on established best practices and design principles.
Heuristic analysis is useful for identifying low-hanging fruit and common issues in website design.
Fix the things that are broken: There’s only one rock-solid best practice. Make sure your site is not broken in a way that prevents people from taking the action you want them to take.
Context matters: Each website is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. Contextual understanding is essential.
Heuristic analysis has its limitations. What seems like an objectively good idea will have secondary effects. Fixing one issue may break the experience for your visitors.
Heuristic CRO is also more project-oriented. Over the long-term you must maintain constant upward pressure on the conversion rate, because everything else is putting downward pressure on you — ad costs, competition, market fluctuations, new technology. Optimizers watch your data and recognize what’s working, what’s not, and keep moving forward.
Heuristics Plus Message Testing
To take heuristics to the next level, you can use online focus groups or online survey services that let you test your designs. An example is the five-second test. For this type of testing, you design two to four versions of a page and put each variation in front of 25 people for five seconds. Then you ask questions like:
Do you know what this company does?
What would you do if you wanted to take action?
Do you think this company is credible?
You’re trying to understand whether people can understand your message at a glance.
The challenge with this type of testing is that people aren’t always honest. They give you the answers they think you want to hear. We like to stick with questions about how well we’re communicating rather than how well we’re presenting the product. That distinction makes sense.
Collecting Data on the Site
As you move further along the spectrum, the focus shifts to more advanced, data-driven strategies. You want to flesh out your heuristics ideas with data, which will reveal things that tend to lead to the most meaningful hypothesis or ideas.
Here, everything starts with asking good questions and running them through various sources of data. You can leverage session recordings, and for higher traffic sites, you can do heat map reports, which tell you where visitors are clicking and how far they’re scrolling on the page.
This gives you feedback on where problems exist and gives you pointed ideas at the highest level:
Where are people clicking on things that aren’t clickable?
Where aren’t people clicking that are clickable?
You can use this data to build a better visual hierarchy. This is important because the most important element on the page may be halfway down the page, and only 50% of visitors actually scroll that far. Or you may be overthinking things and making the page more complicated than it needs to be.
Hypothesis-Driven Testing
Once your site qualifies for AB testing — you can get a reasonable sample size for testing at least one good variation in the space of four to six weeks — you can layer heuristics and data for a full-blown conversion audit assessment.
A conversion optimization audit reviews your website through the eyes of the visitor. It’s notoriously difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, which is one of the advantages of having an external CRO agency.
An in-house CRO team is prone to test the wrong things. They let group-think interfere with their optimization efforts.
At Conversion Sciences, we:
Follow the scientific method
Do a lot of research
Collect ideas, score them, and rank them
A systematic, scientific approach to optimization — experimenting, trying things, and using data to fuel your hypotheses — minimizes risk. The most risky thing is to do nothing. The second most risky thing is to apply group-think to your testing.
The Optimization Spectrum
On one side of the spectrum, you have individual contributors and consultants who do a heuristic review. These people are often able to optimize the low-hanging fruit.
At Conversion Sciences, we work with businesses that have already picked their low-hanging fruit. Because of that, signature wins of 50% to 60% are rare. Our tests generally have 10% to 15% lifts. At higher volumes, we’re able to achieve 3% to 5% lifts that drive constant upward pressure.
With more sophisticated clients who are already using data effectively, we often discover blind spots. There are things they can’t see or answer questions about. Our Conversion Scientists® can see into those blind spots, and our development team can implement the technical solutions.
The challenge for any optimizer is to balance data collection with forward movement. It’s important to keep testing.
Knowing What and Where to Test
Optimization isn’t just about running tests; it’s about choosing the right elements to test and focusing on high-impact areas. It’s better to get a 2% increase on 100% of conversions than a 100% increase on 1% of the traffic or conversions.
When running an AB test, you want to keep the velocity up. Make sure you’ve always got tests in the water. That’s why it’s helpful to have a CRO agency that can handle development, design, and analytics.
The Importance of a Conversion Strategist
It’s hard to maintain an in-house optimization program. There are very few conversion strategists — we call them “Conversion Scientists® — who are actually good at optimization.
A successful CRO program requires a skilled team, and the Conversion Scientist is at its core. This person synthesizes data, develops hypotheses, and leads the optimization efforts.
Conversion Scientist: The hub of your CRO efforts. Needs to be experienced and data-driven.
Support Team: Includes developers, designers, and copywriters who are adept at testing and iterating based on data.
When we do a conversion consultation, we aim to understand where folks are with their business from a conversion volume perspective. We help them understand what their best path forward is, which may or may not involve us.
If it doesn’t involve us, we take the time and be very present in the moment and give them the best possible advice we can.
If there is a fit, we do our due diligence to determine how we can provide value. We talk about our core values and our North Star word: longevity. This is key because we can only achieve longevity by working with people we truly believe we can help and putting constant upward pressure on their conversion rates.
We have client relationships that have lasted six years or more. Often, by the time we’ve worked together for six years, we are affecting them internally. They begin to use data and experimentation on other parts of their business. That’s longevity.
Your Takeaway
Your optimization strategy exists on a spectrum. In early stages, you can evaluate the data to understand where friction exists. Perhaps you can perform simple tests. But when you’re ready to hire a CRO agency, you need to find an agency that uses the scientific method, understands how to ask the right questions and run the right tests, and seeks a long-term relationship.
Stay tuned for more ground rules from Two Guys on Your Website.
AB testing tactics can tell you whether your website changes are having a meaningful effect on your visitors. Before and after testing, sometimes referred to as BA testing, is similar, and it’s one of the easiest ways to learn how your design changes are impacting your visitors.
In this guide, you’ll learn what BA testing is, how it works, and how to get reliable results from before and after analysis.
What Is Before and After Testing?
Every change you make to your website is a test. Yet, changes are often made without analyzing the impact. Even small changes can have a material impact on your conversion rates.
Before and after testing (BA testing) is a type of conversion testing that evaluates the impact of changes to your website. As the name implies, it means comparing the performance of a new website or webpage to the previous version, so you know whether conversions increased or decreased after the change was pushed to production.
This can be as simple as looking at the number of conversions before the new webpage was launched and comparing it to the conversions after.
However, there are some problems with this approach that can lead you to the wrong conclusions. You might decide that the new design is an improvement, when in fact it materially lowered sales or leads. Alternatively, you may not notice a winning design because it looked like conversions went down when you launched it.
We are going to show you how to minimize the chances of making a bad call by using AB testing tactics for analyzing your changes.
The problem with before and after testing is that the results can be influenced by things that have nothing to do with the design change itself.
Here are some of the reasons leads or sales might drop after publishing a change to your website.
Your new design is not as good as the old one.
Thanks to AB testing, we have learned that even small changes to the layout of a page, copy, or images of a page can have a surprising effect on your visitors.
Your new design may not seem as credible to your visitors, making them hesitant to buy or submit a form.
You may tighten up your copy, eliminating information you felt was insignificant. Yet that information may have been important to a large segment of your visitors, leaving an important question unanswered for them.
Seasonality caused a drop in leads.
Many businesses have seasonal increases and decreases in their conversion rates. For example, most ecommerce websites enjoy more eager traffic during the holiday shopping season.
Businesses selling to other businesses (B2B) may experience an increase in leads at the end of the month, end of the quarter, or end of the year due to budgetary influences.
If you release your new design as these seasonal changes are happening, you may decide the new design is performing more poorly, when in fact the change was not the reason for the drop.
Your business changed its traffic mix.
We’d love to believe that the teams bringing traffic to the site are in close communication with the web development team. We know this is not always true.
For example, your paid search agency may change the bidding strategy, add keywords, or change ad copy at the same time you release your new design. This can have a material effect on the quality of the traffic, reducing your conversion rates.
Your email team may have changed the email schedule, reducing this highly qualified traffic.
Again, the change in the performance was not related to your design.
Your business ended a promotion.
It is not uncommon for new designs to be released at the beginning and end of promotional periods. This muddies the water when trying to ascertain if a new layout is truly worse, or if a discount was the reason for a change in sales.
A competitor increased their ad spend or started a promotion.
Your competitors will impact your traffic mix, and you may never know. If a competitor is siphoning off your prized ad traffic, you would expect your conversion rates to drop.
If this happened at the same time as your new design launched, you might conclude the new design is inferior to the original.
There was a technical error on the new design.
Sometimes a great new design is crippled by a bug, a glitch, or a longer load time. Your visitors may have preferred the new design and copy, but wouldn’t tolerate the slow or broken page.
AB Testing vs. BA Testing
The solution to the problems listed above is AB testing. In an AB test, the new design is shown to half of the traffic and the other half of the traffic sees the original. This ensures that any seasonal effects, changes in traffic, promotions, and competitor shenanigans impact both versions equally.
AB tests are designed to ensure that there are no differences between the original and new design. We can use the same AB testing tactics to give us more confidence in our before and after analysis.
With a little discipline, we can evaluate a new page against its predecessor with greater confidence in the conclusions.
Why Not Just Do an AB Test?
There are many reasons we will do a before and after test instead of an AB test.
We do not have the tools and team to do AB testing.
There are too many other AB tests running.
We don’t think a change is impactful enough for an AB test.
The change is temporary, but we still want to learn from it.
The site doesn’t get enough traffic to run effective AB tests.
The Benefits of Before and After Analysis
There are some serious advantages to doing before and after analysis.
Before and after tests don’t require sophisticated testing tools.
The benefit of a BA test is that you don’t need to use any fancy AB testing tools. Your Analytics tool (such as Google Analytics) has the data you need.
Before and after tests don’t require sophisticated planning and setup.
While we are going to apply AB testing tactics to our before and after analysis, before and after testing doesn’t require all of the planning and setup required by an AB test.
You can go back and evaluate past changes.
As long has you know the dates of changes made to your website, and the specifics of the changes, you can determine how those changes are impacting your conversion rates. This is not true of AB testing.
Before and after analysis uses analytics reports, and you probably have data going back a year or more.
AB Testing Tactics to Use for Before and After Analysis
To get the best analysis of the change, we want to follow the rules that an AB test follows.
The sample sizes should be similar.
The traffic should be similar.
We want to control for seasonality.
We want to compare conversion rates, not conversions.
Create a segment for your change.
Not every change will be a sitewide change. Often your change will affect only a single page or a page template.
To increase the accuracy of the analysis, only consider traffic that has seen the pages on which the change was made.
For example, if you change the layout of the product page template for your ecommerce website, you will want to create a segment of visitors that includes only those sessions that saw at least one product page. If you changed something in the design of your site’s header, you will use all of the traffic in your analysis.
Select the proper parameters for your analysis.
You are going to compare the performance of a page or website for a period before and a period after the launch of a change. If you’ve just launched a design change to production, you will have to wait to generate data for the new design.
How long?
Ideally, you would wait a period of time long enough to generate at least 100 conversions. Since before and after testing is prone to errors, you may wish to double this number.
For example, if you had 80 conversions before your BA test and 120 conversions afterwards, it appears that the changes have had a positive impact on the conversion rate. But with such a small sample size, it’s hard to be sure. By waiting until you reach 200 conversions after your changes, you may see a different result. At the very least, it minimizes the margin of error in before and after testing.
Select appropriate before and after periods.
To gain reliable insights from BA testing, you must run the test for a sufficient duration. Select a period of time that’s long enough to capture a significant amount of data and account for any short-term fluctuations.
Consider selecting durations of at least a month or longer to ensure an adequate sample size of conversions.
1. Compare similar timespans.
The length of the time that you choose for the original “before” version of the page should be the same as for the new page.
Use similar time periods in BA testing
Assuming that traffic is pretty consistent, this should give you a similar sample size for the before and after analysis.
Choose similar timeframes that have a similar number of conversions.
BA Testing Tips
Evaluate similar traffic.
The kind of traffic you are receiving and the quality of the traffic coming to your changed page will impact your before and after analysis.
In the following example, the company began sending email at the same time that changes were launched. Email traffic typically converts at rates several times the site average. (Hint: Are you doing enough with email?)
Make sure traffic is consistent in a BA test
Because of this, it will appear that the change made to the page caused a jump in conversions.
The solution here is to use only those traffic channels that remained consistent. In Google Analytics, use the Channels report to see if any traffic source changed.
Watch out for intra-week and intra-month seasonality.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows you to compare two periods quite easily. But, you should be aware that there is “seasonality” within each week and, often, within a month.
In the following example, the before period has five weekend days. The after period only has four. Since conversions typical drop on weekends, this may skew your analysis in favor of the original design.
In this example, the before period covers the end of the month while the after period covers the beginning of the month. This can cause skew in certain kinds of businesses.
Beware of year-over-year analysis.
Year-over-year analysis is one way to control for seasonality when doing a before and after test. With this analysis, you choose the period from last year that maps onto the period from this year that includes your site changes.
Be sure to take into account big changes in site traffic and buyer behavior, such as those we saw in the pandemic. Visitor behavior changed when we were encouraged to stay at home. And as the virus surged and waned, that behavior changed.
These types of behavioral changes lead us to put less faith in year-over-year analysis.
Compare conversion rates, not conversions.
While we hope to minimize changes in traffic when selecting time periods for our before and after test, there will be changes. A drop in traffic may reduce conversions, even as changes to our pages makes the conversion rate go up.
We don’t want to make this mistake.
Track conversion rate (dark blue line) instead of conversions (light blue line) in BA testing
Be sure to choose the conversion rate to evaluate your change, not just the number of conversions.
For ecommerce businesses, you should evaluate Revenue per Visit. This metric combines changes in conversion rate plus changes in average order value (AOV) that your change may have impacted.
Look for BIG changes in performance.
Even with all of this careful selection of time periods, we are victims of changes over time that we cannot control. As I’ve pointed out, we cannot know if changes in competitor behavior or the sentiment of visitors have changed.
As a result, we cannot put faith in small changes from our before and after analysis.
For a well-designed A/B test, we set our maximum P-value at 0.05. This ensures we have a 95% or better confidence that any change we’re seeing between the two periods is not due to random chance. For a before-and-after analysis, I recommend setting the P-value to 0.01. This means that we want to be 99% sure that a change in conversion rate (or other relevant metric) is not just random chance.
How can we calculate this P-value? We’ll use an A/B test calculator.
6. Use an A/B Test Calculator for before and after analysis.
To get a statistical calculation of how our change affected our conversion rate, we can use one of the free A/B Test Calculators available on the web. We like the CXL Test Calculator.
Since we are analyzing existing data as if we had run an A/B test, we’ll choose “Test Analysis.”
We can then go to Google Analytics and create a report with the date ranges we’ve selected for the before and after periods. It might look something like this:
In this case, our report shows Conversions (purchases), Users and the conversion rate for purchases.
We will plug these numbers into our A/B test calculator.
We can see in the report that:
We have a 15.8% lift from the original page (control) to the new page (variation). Is this a believable lift?
Our P-value is less than 0.001, which is a confidence interval higher than 99%.
In this case we would be proud of our change and would keep the new variation on the site.
Here’s an example of a test that went the other way:
In this case, the change we made had a negative implact on the purchase conversion rate. We can switch to a “two-tailed” test to see if the variation is statistically worse. In this case the P-value is less than 0.001, or against the control with 99% confidence.
We would recommend that you go back to the original page.
What if the P-value isn’t < 0.01? For instance, what if it was 0.04? What if the Control was better with a P-value of 0.04?
We call this “inconclusive.” There is not enough evidence that the variation is worse than the control to eliminate it. In such a situation you can choose to keep the variation or roll back to the original. Even if the variation had a lower conversion rate, if it wasn’t statistically significant, either could be the long-term winner.
However, most of the time, people feel safer keeping the one with the higher conversion rate.
When to Use Before and After Testing
Before and after testing, or pre-post analysis is like having design insurance. Designers and IT people are all to eager to make changes to the website. However, many of those changes will inadvertently decrease marketing performance. This is a statistically valid way to ensure others aren’t working against the business.
You can learn something about your visitors from these tests. When you understand what increases (or decreases) the business performance of the website, you can infer the preferences of your visitors and customers.
Finally, before and after testing lets you “sign the flowers,” a way of saying that you can take credit for conversion-improving changes. If you’ve earned it, take it.
Get Help from the Conversion Scientists®
BA testing, AB testing, and designing experiments can be complicated and confusing. With Conversion Sciences, you have a skilled team of Conversion Scientists who can work with you or provide a done-for-you conversion optimization program.
Looking for AI optimization services from people who understand the critical importance of data? When you partner with Conversion Sciences, you get better conversion rates as well as a well-optimized process. Let’s chat.
Here are the 20 top CRO-worthy AB testing software you must consider to help you increase your conversion rates in 2024.
There are a ton of AB testing tools on the market right now, and that number is only going to increase. When evaluating these tools for use in your own business, it can be difficult to wade through the marketing rhetoric and identify exactly which tools are a good fit. That’s why we reached out to our network of CRO specialists in order to bring you a comprehensive look at the best AB testing tools on the market.
Our goal here isn’t necessarily to give you a complete review of each tool, but rather, to show you which split testing tools are preferred by full-time CRO experts — people whose businesses depend completely on the results they are able to deliver to their clients.
At the end of the day, the “right” tool is going to vary depending on the business. As Paul Rouke, former Founder and Director of Customer-Centricity at CX agency PRWD, explains:
We see it time and time again: companies sign up to multi-year contracts for feature rich, enterprise level tools which have a fantastic looking client list, and it ends up burning through their entire CRO budget. Companies invest without considering the need for resource and skills, or they are simply sold on the tool’s ‘ease of use’.
Many companies don’t have the internal skills in place yet to actually utilize this tool, and so the all-singing, all-dancing tool hardly gets used. Also, people using the tool don’t understand the need for or cost of customer research, data, psychology, design, UX principles, etc., meaning they’re ultimately testing the wrong things.
The tools that in my experience deliver the most long-term value are those which are reasonably priced, allowing companies to spend more of their budget on making sure they are testing intelligently and developing an effective testing process.
No tool on this list will be the right fit for every business. That said, without breaking up our list into tiers, we would like to note 4 tools that came up very consistently from the experts we queried.
The two most popular AB testing tools by a wide margin were Optimizely and VWO. These are the most common AB testing tools used by Conversion Sciences clients, and virtually every single expert we chatted with is using both of these tools on a regular basis.
Another two tools that came up on our original poll (in about a third of responses), were Convert Experiences and UsabilityHub. Both of these tools received consistently strong reviews from the experts who used them and fill key needs in the CRO space, which we’ll discuss in their respective entries.
Without further ado, let’s talk a look at our list of recommended AB testing tools.
What We Use at Conversion Sciences
Our use of AB testing tools allows us to do post-test analysis of different segments.
So important is this stack to us that we’ve created a Google Sheets add-on for Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Most Recommended AB Testing Tools
Now, let’s look at our experts’ recommended options for running AB tests. We’ve listed these in order of frequency with which they were mentioned by our experts. This is not to be confused with a quality ranking.
Optimizely is basically the big kid on campus. It’s our experts’ go-to choice for working with enterprise level clients, and despite the significant price increases over the years, it remains the king.
It’s also reasonably user friendly for such a complex tool, as Shanelle Mullin summarizes:
Optimizely is the leading A/B testing tool by a fairly large margin. It’s easy to use – you don’t need to be technical to launch small tests – and the Stats Engine makes testing easier for beginners.
Here at Conversion Sciences, we use this tool every single day, so I asked them to give me a few thoughts on what they like and dislike about it.
According to the team, Optimizely offers some of the following benefits.
Easy editing access through the dashboard
Retroactive filtering (e.g., IP addresses)
Intuitive data display and goal comparison
Saved Audiences (not available in VWO)
Great integration with 3rd-party tools
AB testing software Optimizely dashboard with AB Test Experiments highlighted and Edit highlighted.
On the flip side, Optimizely is a bit lacking in these ways:
Test setup is not as intuitive compared to other tools
Slow updates for saved changes to the CDN
Doesn’t carry through query params/cookies within a certain test
Targeting is more difficult
Optimizely’s multivariate testing setup is simple and intuitive, and it’s the leading split testing tool for a reason. For businesses with the budget and team to utilize Optimizely to its fullest potential, it is clearly a must-own.
2. VWO
AB Testing Tool VWO Dashboard.
Coming in just behind Optimizely in the AB testing pantheon is Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). VWO is incredibly popular in the marketing space, and in addition to serving as a top choice for businesses with smaller budgets, it is also frequently used in conjunction with Optimizely by businesses who run complex testing campaigns.
Our Conversion Scientists® feel VWO offers some of the following benefits as compared to Optimizely:
More intuitive interface with color coding
Faster updates
Easier goal setup
Easier to download data
Better customer support
On the flip side, VWO is lacking in the following areas:
Can’t view goal reports all at once, which makes them harder to compare
No saved targeting, so you must start fresh with each test unless you clone
No cumulative CR graph if you have low traffic (or what VWO considers low traffic). Instead it gives CR ranges. You must export the data to get any usable information.
This perspective is mostly shared by the ConversionXL team as well, as explained by Shanelle Mullin:
VWO is very easy to use, especially with its WYSIWYG editor. They have something similar to Optimizely’s Stats Engine called Smart Stats, which is based on Bayesian decisions. VWO also offers heatmaps, clickmaps, personalization tools and on-page surveys.
Overall, VWO is in intriguing solo option for smaller to midsized businesses and also works very well in conjunction with Optimizely for enterprise clients.
3. Convert Experiences
AB testing tool Convert Experiences.
While Optimizely and VWO were the tools most commonly mentioned, Convert Experiences received some of the most effusive praise from those who had worked with it.
It seems to have hit a sweet spot for SME/SMBs, combining an exceptional power-to-price ratio with an intuitive interface and highly regarded customer support.
We are platform agnostic, so if our client already has a tool in use, then we try to use that. But in cases where the client has never done any testing before, we typically look first to use Convert (convert.com). I like Convert for a number of reasons. From the very beginning, it has been one of the easiest tools to integrate with Google Analytics. Also, for tricky variations, I’ve had better luck with Convert than others (Optimizely) at getting the variation to display just the way we want. And the support at Convert has always been excellent—again, better than most of their competitors.
We focus on small to medium size clients, and Convert is excellent for that segment with flexible pricing. It’s a great solution for small businesses doing in-house conversion optimization, but it can also work very well for agencies.
– Tom Bowen, Web Site Optimizers
Convert Experiences also stood out as the type of tool that catches new fans wherever it’s discovered, leading me to believe that it will continue to grow and pick up market share.
We have come across convert.com more and more in recent months working on client campaigns. If you are a true marketer and want actionable data then they are a good choice. The user interface is actually pretty good and you can actually understand the data they give you on experiments. They run on the typical drag and drop style experiment setup engine that most others do and can be manipulated even if you aren’t a technical wizard.
The price isn’t too bad either as they fall somewhere in the middle of Optimizely and VWO. I would recommend them to someone who has a bit of budget constraints but wants a bit more testing power. We have used them on multi million dollar per month campaigns with much success.
Convert Experiences is known for having some of the most robust multivariate testing options in it’s class. At the same time, it is also one of the few tools in its class to not offer any sort of email split testing capabilities.
Overall, it’s a highly recommended AB testing tool that is worth trying out.
Convert has great customer support (via live chat) and is easy to use. We’d recommend it to the same people who are considering using Optimizely and VWO.
SiteSpect initially distinguished itself as one of the first server-side testing solutions on the market, and it has remained a top choice for more technically sophisticated users and security-conscious clients.
For a long period, SiteSpect was one of the few platforms offering a server-side solution. This has given them a huge advantage by allowing more complex testing, by adapting to newer JavaScript technologies, and by accommodating security-conscious clients. – Stephen Pavlovich, Conversion
SiteSpect has the advantage that it works in a different way. It’s tag-free. SiteSpect edits the HTML before it even leaves the server, rather than after it has hit the user’s browser. It tends to be popular with companies that want to self-host and are technically sophisticated. – Karl Blanks, Conversion Rate Experts
As a server-side testing solution, SiteSpect avoids many of the issues that can arise with the more typical browser-based testing platforms that utilize javascript tags.
Tag-based solutions typically charge by the number of tag calls you make, even if those tags don’t end up being used.
Tag-based solutions often require third-party cookies, which certain browsers or browser settings might not support, causing you to lose the ability to test a large percentage of traffic.
Tag-based solutions can have imprecise reporting because the javascript doesn’t always fire.
While this value proposition won’t be the deciding factor for many businesses, for those requiring a server-side solution, SiteSpect is one of the best options on the market.
5. AB Tasty
AB testing software ABTasty reports screen capture
AB Tasty is a solution for testing, re-engagement of users, and content personalisation, designed for marketing teams. Paul Rouke had a good bit to say here, so I’ll let him take it away.
The tools that in my experience deliver the most long-term value are those which are reasonably priced, allowing companies to spend more of their budget on making sure they are testing intelligently and developing an effective testing process. I talk about this in-depth in my article The Great Divide Between BS and Intelligent Optimization.
On this note, my favorite tool would be something like AB Tasty, which is priced sensibly, yet has a powerful platform that facilitates a wide range of testing, from simple iterative tests through to innovative tests, along with strategic tests which can help evolve a business proposition and market positioning.
I would recommend AB Tasty (and similarly Convert.com) to the following types of companies:
(1) Companies just starting to invest in conversion optimisation – they won’t break the bank, they won’t overwhelm you with add-ons you will never use as you’re starting out, but they have the capability to match your progress as you scale up your testing output
(2) Companies who have been investing in conversion optimisation but who want to start using a higher portion of their budget (75% or more) on people, skills, process and methodology in order to deliver a greater impact and ROI
(3) Companies frustrated at investing significant amounts of money in enterprise testing platforms, which aren’t being used anywhere near their potential and are taking away from the budget for investing in people, skills and developing an intelligent process for strategic optimisation.
6. Evolv AI
AB testing software Ascend uses machine learning.
Evolv brings advanced machine learning algorithms to the CRO space, helping you identy exactly why your customers aren’t converting, how to fix it, and the potential revenue impact. It was one of the first conversion optimization apps to leverage AI, and it’s becoming exponentially more precise over time.
This is important because it speeds up multivariate testing. Evolutionary, or genetic algorithms do a better job of finding optimum combinations, isolating the richest local maximum for a solution set.
Our team of scientists love being able to assemble our highest rated hypotheses and throw them in the mix to have the machine sort them for us. This really is the future of conversion optimization.
7. Kameleoon
Kameleoon is a web experimentation tool that offers some of the most well-thought-out reporting of any tool we’ve used. They offer features for websites and apps with a dash of AI to identify segments and predict conversions.
Kameleoon makes it easy for our product managers and marketing teams to build experiments. It fits into our tech stack and our existing product release process. Developers get feature flagging and we get to experiment without taking up all their time.
Alexandre Suon, Head of Experimentation, Accor Group
8. Qubit
Testing Platform Qubit Example Screen Capture
Qubit is a testing platform focused primarily on personalization. Accordingly, it has some of the strongest segmentation capabilities of any tool on this list.
Qubit has a strong focus on granular segmentation – and the suite covering analytics through to testing gives it an advantage. They’ve now broken out of their traditional retail focus to become a strong personalisation platform across sectors.
If advanced segmentation or personalization are a priority for your business or clients, Qubit is a tool worth checking out.
9. Adobe Target
AB testing software Adobe Target
Long known for being the most expensive AB testing tool on the market, we’ve found that Adobe Target works best with sites that already use Adobe Analytics.
If your business is already paying for Adobe Analytics, adding Adobe Target is virtually a no-brainer. If your business is not using Adobe Analytics, ignoring Adobe Target is virtually a no-brainer.
I like Adobe Target. The integration of Adobe Analytics and Target is strong – especially being able to push data two-ways. And the fact that Target is normally an inexpensive upsell for Analytics customers is a bonus.
2 Marketing Software Tools With Built-In AB Testing
In addition to dedicated AB testing tools, there are some great marketing software out there that include built-in split testing capabilities. This is fairly common with tools like landing page builders, email service providers, or lead capture solutions.
As Justin Christianson explains, there are some positives and negatives to relying on these built-in tools:
Most page builders out there such as LeadPages and Instapage have split testing capabilities built into their platforms. The problem is you don’t have much control over the goals measured and the adaptability to test more complex elements. The good thing is they are extremely easy to setup and use for those quick and dirty type tests. I recommend the use of this to just get some tests up and running, as constantly testing is extremely important. If you are currently using a platform with these native testing capabilities then this is a good place to start.
1. Unbounce
One particular tool that was highlighted by several of our experts was Unbounce, one of the web’s more popular landing page builders.
I also like Unbounce, and not just because I like Oli Gardner. It seems most everyone there lives and breathes landing pages, so the expertise that comes with the tool is virtually unmatched. Their support is also excellent. Unbounce works really well when we’re creating a new landing page from scratch and want to try different variations, since it’s so easy to create brand new pages using the tool.
Unbounce is an excellent tool for A/B testing your landing pages. While many landing page tools also offer A/B testing, I think Unbounce has the best and most flexible page editor when creating variations of your pages to be tested, and their landing page templates have the most CRO best practices included already.
Unbounce is outstanding for online marketing teams that want the most flexibility when creating and A/B testing their landing pages – many other landing page tools are limited to a fixed grid system which makes it much harder to make changes.
Another popular tool was OptinMonster, which began as a popular popup tool and has evolved into a more fully featured lead generation software.
Optin Monster is an outstanding tool that lets you easily A/B test visitor opt-in incentives to see which converts best – not only headlines, images and CTAs, but also which types perform best (like a discount versus a free guide). In particular it offers great customization options and many popup styles, and exit intent popups.
Optin Monster is particularly useful for the many website marketers who don’t have enough traffic to do formal A/B testing (using tools like Optimizely or VWO) but still want to get a better idea of their best performing content variations. It has great pricing options suitable for online businesses on a low budget.
– Rich Page
12 Tools For Gathering Data
As every good split tester knows, your AB tests are only as good as the hypotheses you are testing. The following tools represent our experts’ favorite choices for collecting data to fuel effective AB tests.
UsabilityHub was by far the most frequently mentioned analytics tool by our group of CRO experts. UsabilityHub is a collection of 5 usability tests that can be administered to visitors in order to collect key insights.
UsabilityHub is great for clarity testing and getting quick indications of potential improvements. It is also great for uncovering personal biases in the creation of page variations. I would recommend it to anyone doing conversion optimization or even basic usability testing.
While many of the tools on this list deal primarily with quantitative data, UsabilityHub offers uniquely efficient ways to collect valuable qualitative data.
Once I’ve identified underperforming pags, the next step is to figure out what’s wrong with those pages by gathering qualitative data. For top landing pages, including the homepage, I like to run one of UsabilityHub’s “5 Second Tests” to gauge whether people understand the product or service offered. The first question I always ask is “what do you think this company sells?”. I’ve gotten some surprisingly bad results, where large numbers of respondents gave the wrong answer. In these cases, running a simple A/B test on a headline and/or hero shot to clarify what the company does is an easy win.
It also can be a cost-effective alternative if your website doesn’t get enough traffic to facilitate use of an actual split testing tool.
UsabilityHub is essential if you want to do A/B testing but your website doesn’t have enough traffic to do so. Instead it enables you to show your proposed page improvements to testers (including your visitors) to get their quick feedback, particularly using the highly useful ‘Question Test’ and ‘Preference Test’ features.
UsabilityHub can be particularly useful for the many website marketers who don’t have enough traffic to do formal A/B testing (using tools like Optimizely or VWO) but still want to get a better idea of their best performing content variations.
– Rich Page
2. Google Analytics
Analytics platform Google Analytics Screen Capture
To the surprise of exactly no one, Google Analytics was high up on the list of recommended analytics tools. Yet despite its popularity, very few marketers or business owners are using this free tool to its full potential.
Theresa Baiocco makes the follow recommendations for getting started:
There’s so much data in Google Analytics that it’s easy to suffer from paralysis by analysis. It helps to have a few reports you use regularly and know what you’re looking for before jumping in. The obvious reports for finding the most problematic pages in your funnel are the funnel visualization and goal flow reports. But I also like to look at top landing pages, and using the “comparison” view, I see which of them have higher bounce rates than average for the site. Those 3 reports together are a good starting point for identifying which pages to work on first.
When it comes to applying Google Analytics to your AB testing efforts, John Ekman of Conversionista offers some advice:
Most of the AB testing tools provide an easy integration with Google Analytics. Do not miss this opportunity in your AB testing setup!
When you integrate your testing tool with GA it means that you will be able to break down your test results and look at A vs. B in all dimensions available in GA. You will be able to see behavior segmented by device, returning vs new visitors, geography etc.
For example: if you are using Enhanced Ecommerce setup for GA you will be able to compare your E-commerce funnel for the A version vs. the B version. Maybe the A version gets more add to carts, but then that effect withers off and the result in the checkout is the same?!
Example of Google Analytics ecommerce report for AB test variation.
Word of warning: as soon as you start segmenting your data you might lose statistical significance in the underlying segments. Even if your AB test results are statistically significant on the overall level that does not mean that the deviations you see in smaller segments of your test data are significant. The smaller the data sample size, the harder it is to reach significance. What you think is a strong signal is just some data noise.
User intelligence tool Crazy Egg confetti report screen capture.
Crazy Egg is one of the more popular heatmap and click-tracking tools online, thanks to an attractive interface, an affordable price point, and a deceptively powerful feature set.
Our Conversion Scientists not only use Crazy Egg, we highly recommend it. Here’s what they says about it:
Crazy Egg offers tools to help you visually identify the most popular areas of your page, help you see which parts of your pages are working and which ones are not, and give you greater insight as to what your users are doing on your pages via both mobile and desktop sites.
4. UserTesting.com
User testing platform UserTesting.com
UserTesting.com is a unique service that provides videos of real users in your target market experiencing your site and talking through what they’re thinking.
This service is recommended by Craig Andrews, who had the following to say:
UserTesting.com is great for hypothesis generation and uncovering personal biases. It is an absolutely fantastic tool for persuading clients on the reality and importance of certain site issues, and I would recommend it to anyone doing conversion optimization or even basic usability testing
5. UserZoom (formerly Validately)
UserZoom user testing video.
UserZoom provides a complete online user testing service.
For a somewhat less expensive alternative to UserTesting.com we have found UserZoom to be an effective solution. The quality of the panel members is good, and their panel is large enough that user tests are completed quickly.
6. ClickTale
Heatmapping and session recording tool ClickTale dashboard
Clicktale is a cloud-based analytic system that allows you to visualize your customer’s experience on your website from their perspective. It’s an enterprise-level tool that combines session recording with click and scroll tracking, and while it comes with an enterprise price tag, it’s made some significant quality strides over the last few years.
There has been a huge improvement in Clicktale over the past three years, in tracking, reporting and accuracy. If you want “any old session recording JS”, boxed-product application out there, there are a variety of options. If you want accurate rendering that is linked to your existing analytics and a company that will help you tune as your own website evolves, then Clicktale is a good choice. It’s the one I’ve chosen as I wouldn’t want to risk the privacy of my customers or risk degrading the performance of my website. Clicktale also gives me a representative sample that is accurate by resolution and responsive design.
7. Hotjar
Hotjar offers heatmap reports, session recordings, polls, surveys and more.
HotJar is a jack of all trades type tool: an all-in-one tool that does heatmaps, scroll tracking, recordings, funnel tracking, form analysis, feedback polls, surveys, and more.
And from what a few of our Conversion Scientists have seen so far, it does all of those things about as well as you would expect from a jack of all trades.
On the plus side, Hotjar has prioritized creating an exceptional user experience, so if you are a solo blogger wanting a feature-rich, easy-to-use toolkit in one place with a reasonable price tag, Hotjar might be the perfect choice for you.
Stephen Esketzis had the following to say about his experience with the tool:
So overall, HotJar really is a great tool with a lot of value to offer any online business (or website in general at that). There’s not many businesses that work online I wouldn’t recommend this tool to.
With a no-brainer price point (and even a free plan) it’s pretty hard to go wrong.
8. Mouseflow
Mouseflow is another Swiss army knife of user intelligence. The service bundles screen recording, heatmap reports, on-site surveys, funnel tracking and form analysis.
Mouseflow user behavior analytics tool.
We like it because it provides advanced segmentation. Filters include traffic source, platform, location, and more. It also supports segmentation by custom variables.
On the Intended Consequences podcast, Evan Hill said of the power of data:
“So I would I think that’s one of the most exciting things for a marketer who finally grabs this tool installs it, because they’re about to get the data they need to have really really interesting meetings.”
9. Inspectlet
Session recording software Inspectlet.
Inspectlet is primarily a session recording tool with additional heatmaps as well. Here’s what Anders Toxboe had to say about it in a recent review:
Inspectlet is simple to use. It gets out of the way in order to let the user do what he or she needs. The simple funnel analysis and filtering options is a breeze to use and covered my basic needs.Inspectlet does what it does good with a few minor glitches. It doesn’t have the newer features that have started appearing lately such as watching live recordings, live chatting, surveys, and polls.
In other words, Inspectlet is an easy-to-use, budget-friendly session recording tool that might be right for you depending on your needs.
10. SessionCam
Session recording software SessionCam offers a Suffer Score.
SessionCam is a session recording tool that has also added heatmaps form analytics to its offering. It’s a classic example of a tool that combines better-than-average functionality with a more-difficult-than-average user interface.
SessionCam provides a lot of useful functionality, but its user interface isn’t the easiest to learn or use. Getting the most out of it requires a nontrivial investment of time.
And later:
UX designers have long known that, where there is internal resistance to change, showing stakeholders clear evidence of users experiencing problems can be a powerful tool in persuading them to recognize and address issues. SessionCam meets the need for a tool that provides this data in a much more dynamic, cost-effective way than using traditional observation techniques.
SessionCam [also] manages [to protect user data] effectively by masking the data that users enter into form fields, so you can put their concerns to rest.
If you are looking for a more robust session recording and form analytic tool that keeps user data safe, SessionCam is worth checking out.
11. Lucky Orange
Lucky Orange is kind of like Crazy Egg with a bit of UserTesting.com, a bit of The Godfather, and a bit of a hundred other things. It’s a surprisingly diverse package of conversion features that make you start to believe their claim as “the original all-in-one conversion optimization suite”, despite the incredibly low price point.
Despite the hundred new tools that have popped up since Lucky Orange hit the market, Theresa Baiocco still swears by the original:
No testing program is complete without analyzing how users behave on the site. Optimizers all have their favorite tools for gathering this data, and while the newest and hottest kid on the block is Hotjar, I still like using my old go-to: Lucky Orange. Starting at just $10/month, Lucky Orange gives you visitor recordings, conversion funnel reports, form analytics, polls, chat, and heat maps of clicks, scroll depth, and mouse movements – all in one place.
12. Adobe Analytics
Analytics platform Adobe Analytics site overview.
Adobe Analytics is a big data analysis tool that helps CMOs understand the performance of their businesses across all digital channels. It enables real time web, mobile and social analytics across online channels, and data integration with offline and third-party sources.
In other words, Adobe Analytics is a $100k+ per year, enterprise level analytics tool that has some serious firepower. Here’s what David Williams of ASOS.com had to say about it:
After a thorough review of the market, we chose Adobe Analytics to satisfy our current and future analytics and optimization needs. We needed a solution that could scale globally with our business, improve productivity, and offer out-of-the box integration with our key partners to deliver more value from our existing investments. Adobe’s constant pace of innovation continues to deliver value for our business, and live stream (the event firehose) is the latest capability that opens up exciting opportunities for how we engage with customers.
AB Testing Tools Conclusion
Well that’s that: 20 of the most recommended AB testing tools from a diverse collection of the web’s leading CRO experts.
Have you used any of these tools before? Do you have a favorite that wasn’t included? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
And if you are looking for a quick way to calculate how a conversion lift could increase your bottom line, be sure to check out our Optimization Calculator.
1. How Much will a Conversion Optimization Consultant Cost me?
Small conversion rate optimization firms can be found for as little as $2,500 per month to run tests. For a full team approach, expect to pay between $5,000 and $15,000 per month. Enterprise-focused firms will charge up to $50,000 per month.
Agencies that specialize in search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media and media buying are adding conversion optimization services to their line card for a small fee because clients, like you, are asking for it.
Keep in mind, these agencies are not necessarily conversion specialists. They may be able to run AB ests, but the small fee they charge isn’t likely to impact your bottom line.
Know what you buy into.
When it’s time to pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business, you have to understand what their offer actually is.
Do you know how your conversion rate optimization consultant measures success? A great question to ask when you are trying to choose the agency that best fits your website needs.
2. When Will I Start to See Positive Results and a Good Return on Investment
There are two main determinants of your ROI from conversion optimization:
The average value of a conversion (transaction or lead).
The number of conversions you have each month.
The more you make on each conversion, the more you will profit from increases in your conversion rate. The more conversions you have each month, the more ideas you’ll be able to A/B test during that month.
Having said that, conversion optimization is an ongoing process, so it’s important to choose a consultant that can give you ongoing improvements in your conversion rates. After all, their job is to increase your revenues.
To find the answer to this question, ask the consultant about:
Their experence, especially with companies similar to yours
The number of ideas they will be able to work through
Their process for choosing good ideas to test
3. Do I Need to Have My Own Resources? How Much Time Will I Have to Invest in This Project?
This will depend on the type of engagement you are looking for. For example, at Conversion Sciences, we offer our clients a couple of service options.
If they prefer to hand over the conversion rate optimization portion to us, we furnish them with a full CRO team. No company resources needed. Just plan to spend an hour with your conversion consultant each week on an ongoing basis and a bit more while we learn about your online business. Learn more about our Fully-Managed CRO Services here.
If they have an internal conversion team already in place, or they don’t have sufficient traffic to warrant full-time engagement, our clients can opt for our Conversion Rate Optimization Audit. This gives them a thorough analysis of their customer journey that they can use to develop their own experiments.
Our advice: Always ask this question. It will help you better compare and find the best CRO consultant for your website.
4. How Will You Measure Success?
This is a great question that can separate the wheat from the chaff. Let’s explain.
The best answer a CRO consultant can give you is, “We will improve bottom-line metrics such as leads generated, transactions, or subscribers and that’s how we will measure success.”
With this approach, the conversion consultant is incentivized to look at the bottom line as their measure of success. It also aligns the conversion consultant goals with your business goals.
Be careful of optimizing for secondary measures, such as clicks to a page with a form, bounce rate, the time visitors spend on your site or the number of pages they visit on average. It’s possible to improve these numbers without improving bottom-line metrics such as leads generated, transactions, or subscribers.
5. Can You Guarantee Results or a Conversion Rate Increase?
You may be evaluating conversion rate optimization companies that offers a guarantee as well as agencies that work for a percentage of the increased revenue.
While these seem like very tempting offers, they can give you very different experiences over time.
The most extreme guarantee is a pay-for-performance arrangement that boils down to, “I get a cut of your revenues.” On the plus side, the consultant doesn’t get paid if they don’t deliver higher revenues. On the downside, they may get credit for your own in-house promotions, which could raise your costs.
Another thing to remember is that, as revenues increase, this approach leads to higher monthly fees. If your conversion rates improve significantly, that’s good. But it means your consultant is getting paid very high fees. This can make you feel like you’re paying too much.
A variation to this is to pay your consultant only for revenue growth. However, if there is a period in which revenues do not grow, your consultant will be incentivized to pull resources away from your business just when you need them most.
Pay-for-performance may look good up-front. It has a built-in guarantee that reduces the risk of hiring a consultant you’re unfamiliar with. But we have found that it does little to properly align your goals with your consultant.
Would you like a better solution?
Consider asking the conversion consultant to continue working for free if a predetermined goal is not met in a set timeframe.
For example, if they can’t demonstrate a 10% increase in revenue in six months, they keep working for free. When they hit the results, they can start billing you again.
6. How Well Do You Know My Industry / Technology / Platform / Distribution Channel / Market?
If there’s one thing that testing teaches us very quickly, it’s that there is no such thing as a “magic formula.” Ideas that work for similar sites may not work on your audience. Every audience is different.
A conversion optimization consultant that has worked with a number of your competitors will have a playbook of ideas to consider. Many of these ideas never would have occurred to a team with less experience in your industry. If the consultant also know your website platform and technology, their learning curve will be limited mostly to your product, service or business brand.
Having said that, industry experience can also be a hindrance. If the conversion consultant is overly familiar with websites in your industry, they may not be able to look at your site with fresh eyes — a key advantage of external vendors.
All-in-all, a disciplined optimization process will work in any industry. Ask the consultant for some examples of novel ideas that are specific to your industry, but make sure they have a proven, repeatable process.
Before you pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business, decide whether you are looking for a fresh pair of eyes, or for somebody that can quickly catch up and contribute as if they had always been a part of your team.
7. Can You Share Some Case Studies?
A case study will help you understand how the consultant helped other businesses improve conversion rates in lead generation, sales or subscriptions. If a case study shows giant performance gains, take it with a grain of salt. This can happen for you, but not always.
A consultant should be able to show you their case studies, but it’s a good idea to ask to speak with their clients as well.
The consultant will likely refer you to clients they’ve had success with, but it gives you a chance to ask about situations in which your conversion consultant struggled.
How a consultant deals with adversity is as important as how they behave when things are good.
Should your CRO agency guarantee results or a conversion rate Increase?
8. How Will You Get to Know My Target Audience and What Is Your Process Like?
Successful conversion consultants will tell you that they let the data tell them about your audience. Your analytics data, surveys, reviews, and chat transcripts can reveal many issues with your website. If that is not enough, they will also use surveys, session recordings, heatmap reports, and A/B testing.
Any other answer from a CRO consultant could demonstrate that they do not have the optimization experience needed to perform the job.
Getting to know your target audience will be one of the first steps in the CRO process, but it’s important to underestand their entire process. If it isn’t outlined on their website, ask them to explain it to you.
In particular, you’ll want to know how much of your time will be spent supporting the on-boarding process and if there are any additional fees for software or special ad-hoc work.
9. Do You Do Split Testing or Can You Implement Personalized AI-Powered Experiences to My Visitors?
An experienced conversion rate optimization consultant will be well versed on every optimization technique and tool available and will recommend the one that is the best fit for your business.
Stay away from anyone who tries to steer you towards a single solution. For example, be wary of consultants that focus on A/B testing only. Many ideas can be validated or discarded without an A/B test. Ask about online panels, session recordings, heatmap reports, and eye-tracking studies for alternatives.
The most important aspect of experimenting is the choice of ideas to focus on. Since it is easier to generate ideas than to test them, it’s important that the consultant have a process for evaluating and ranking ideas based on expected ROI.
There are a number of standardized ways to rank ideas. The most common framework is ICE, which stands for Impact, Confidence, and Effort. It helps collect and rank all of the ideas that come up when starting a conversion rate optimization project.
Consultants who rely primarily on heuristics, or best practices, rely on their own experience to decide what to test. This makes them little better than you at picking what to test.
Asking how they prioritize test ideas will weed out the weakest prospective vendors. After all, a solid understanding of methodologies demonstrates the kind of professionalism you are looking for.
11. What Would You Like to Know About Our Company?
Good conversion optimizers will have lots of answers to this question.
They will be ravenous for any data you have, including things like chat transcripts, marketing research, surveys, personas, reviews, advertising data and more. That’s because conversion consultants are uniquely able to turn your existing research into test hypotheses.
Be suspicious of a consultant that doesn’t want to know more about YOUR business. Optimization professionals have inquisitive minds and they always want to know more. By giving them a chance to ask you questions, you can evaluate their curious nature and mental process.
12. Do the People I’ll Be Working With Have Strong Optimization Experience?
More than likely, you’ll have a chance to speak to the top people on the consultant’s team. But it’s important to know who will be assigned to your account.
Are they experienced? How many years?
If they are juniors, what type of supervision will the consultant provide?
Does the person overseeing a junior optimizer have strategic marketing experiencee?
Conversion optimization is a challenging field. This is not a set of skills that is easy to teach in the classroom — which is why the consultant’s process matters.
Your consultant should be able to articulate a repeatable, proven process that has a history of positive results.
13. How Soon Will I See Results?
You will find a wide range of minimum engagements in the marketplace of CRO consultants. Some will take a chance and work with you on a month-to-month basis. Others will require a commitment of three months or more, up to twelve months.
If a consultant asks for no minimum, you should nevertheless ask them for a reasonable timeframe in which you can evaluate their results, a time at which they should be able to defend their performance.
The month-to-month consultant may be willing to take a chance on your website, but you can’t afford the loss of time if their gamble doesn’t pay off. Hold them to a timeframe, but we recommend giving them four months or more.
Most A/B tests are inconclusive. Beware of those who promise results within a short timeframe. CRO consultants should share previous and similar experiences, but they won’t be able to make claims about your returns until they start working with you.
Keep in mind, estimates and experience aren’t promises of future performance. No two websites or businesses are completely alike. The optimizers working on your website will need to gather and analyze lots of data before they can set realistic expectations.
14. Do You Work With the Tools We Own or Can Afford?
If you have already invested in conversion optimization tools, mention this in your first conversation. You will want your consultant to know you expect them to use your tools proficiently, or to have experience with similar tools from different vendors.
As far as affordability goes, we live in a golden age of marketing tools. There are many options at many price points. The consultant should be able to help you choose a tool that fits their needs and your budget.
Note: Most conversion consultants will give you a better return on your investment in optimization tools.
Here is a list of questions you may – and should – ask before you choose the best conversion optimization consultant for your online business.
15. What Is the Consultant’s Testing Philosophy?
Each consultant will have a testing philosophy. Some favor scientific rigor. Others favor quick decisions. Here are some questions to ask them, with the answers you will want to hear.
How long do AB tests take?
No AB test should be stopped before two full weeks have passed. If you have a high volume of conversions, one week may be acceptable, but no less. Read our AB testing guide here.
Will you stop a variation if it looks really negative?
Most conversion consultants will monitor tests and stop any variations that seem to be underperforming to avoid lost sales and fewer leads.
Do you let tests overlap?
If your prospective conversion consultant plans to run tests on multiple pages of your site, there is a risk of polluting the data and making bad calls. They should be able to keep visitors from one test getting into other tests on your site.
How do you do quality assurance on tests?
The tools used by a conversion consultant give them sweeping powers to alter your site. It is surprisingly easy to break your website with these tools. A thorough Quality Assurance (QA) process includes testing on multiple devices and involves several people before changes go live.
What kind of post-test analysis do you do?
Even if a test finishes and there is no winning variation, your conversion consultant can learn important things from the data.
Their knowledge of analytics will allow them to see how the test impacted other segments of your audience.
For example, it is common for an idea to impact desktop and mobile visitors very differently. The same is true for new visitors versus returning visitors.
This is called “post-test” analysis. It allows you to get even more value from every A/B test. This should be part of their capability.
Can you perform multivariate tests?
If you have a high-volume site, multivariate testing is a way to work through many design changes, discovering what combination is most impactful for a given website.
Multivariate testing is not appropriate for most businesses.
However, you should ask about the newer generation of AI-driven multivariate testing that uses machine learning to personalize your website in real time.
How to Pick a Conversion Optimization Consultant for Your Online Business
Final word of advice: no matter who you choose, make sure the consultant you hire is the one that is able to deliver on the strategy you need.
The best CRO agencies will tell you if they are unable to help you and may even recommend alternative solutions to your business problem.
Use these questions when you’re ready to pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business. Who knows? It may even be us!
Profitability depends on your ability to turn visitors into users and users into paying customers. This is the double-conversion dilemma. Even small conversion gains can make a difference.
That’s why SaaS conversion rate optimization (CRO) is essential for driving growth.
In this guide, you’ll learn about CRO for SaaS companies, how it improves SaaS growth and profitability, and what CRO strategies are needed to strengthen your sales funnel and improve lead generation.
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the art and science of continuously raising the value of website visitors. It’s the ongoing process of increasing the rate at which visitors take specific actions, such as subscribing, requesting a demo, or completing a purchase.
Conversion rate optimization for SaaS applies this process to the SaaS customer journey, improving the flow from sign-up and trial to purchase, onboarding, and beyond.
How is this done? With the scientific method.
Six steps of the scientific method
For example, let’s say you’re trying to improve pricing page conversions. A CRO consultant will create hypotheses about how to improve the page’s performance and run a series of tests to discover what works. They will then repeat this process to achieve continuous improvements.
The optimization process is especially valuable to SaaS companies because their valuation is tied to long-term revenue growth. A conversion rate boost of 1% doesn’t just increase revenue by 1%. It increases the company’s value by 1%.
SaaS companies also have a longer, more complex customer journey. You must convince visitors to try the product, then onboard them sufficiently for them to get value out of the trial, and then entice them to commit to a longer-term purchase. This is not a linear process.
It is not unusual to increase the number of people signing up to try the app and then finding that fewer people overall are becoming buyers.
Additionally, many SaaS products will require a salesperson to get involved due to cost or complexity.
To ensure sales, you must improve conversion rates at each stage while maintaining the quality of the prospects — and every small increase can translate to significant growth in revenue.
The CRO process uncovers sticking points where people stop using the product or fail to progress through the pipeline. Through experimentation, it finds ways to unstick, re-engage, and turn those people into paying customers.
And here’s the interesting thing: In SaaS, conversion rate improvements are multiplicative rather than additive.
So if you improve customer acquisition by 20% and sales conversions by 10%, you won’t see a 30% lift. You’ll actually see a 32% lift.
Over time, this compounding effect can add up, making CRO a core growth strategy for SaaS companies.
2. CRO Lowers Acquisition Costs
Conversion optimization raises the percentage of leads or users that convert into customers, giving you more sales without an increase in customer acquisition costs (CAC). This improves the efficiency of your ad spend, making your marketing dollars go further.
It also creates a virtuous cycle. By testing every element of the conversion funnel, you can uncover the friction and pain points that lower conversion rates. This gives you the insight to create highly effective campaigns that convert well.
3. CRO Increases Organic Search Traffic
SEO and CRO are partner strategies, working together to improve traffic and conversions. SEO attracts qualified traffic. CRO ensures visitors have a good user experience and take their next step to becoming a customer.
4. CRO Improves The User Experience
To improve SaaS conversions, CRO removes friction points that can harm the user experience. It creates a site that puts users’ needs first, which boosts satisfaction and brand perception. The user experience of your marketing website sets the expectation for the user experience in the application.
CRO for SaaS can help you identify the markets and channels that will be most profitable for you. And as we’ve already seen, it can lower acquisition costs, making your SaaS company more profitable.
How to Measure Conversion Rates in SaaS
The conversion rate formula is:
(Number of Conversions / Number of Visitors) * 100 = Conversion Rate %
Divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors, and multiply by 100. This gives you the conversion rate of whatever you’re testing — form completion, download, or purchase, for example.
Keep in mind, because SaaS has multiple touch points and conversion events, measuring conversion rates can be tricky. You’ll need to track conversion rates across the entire customer journey. You also need to take into account your sales volume, the time it takes to close deals, churn rate, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
It can help to understand SaaS conversion rate benchmarks.
B2B SaaS Conversion Rate Benchmarks
Use these conversion rate benchmarks to gauge the success of your marketing and sales efforts.
SaaS marketing conversion rate benchmarks
Website visits to leads: 2-5%
Leads to marketing qualified leads (MQLs): 20-30%
High-touch SaaS sales conversion rate benchmarks
SaaS products that require a sales team generally have an ACV (average contract value) of $6K to $15K on the low end. Extremely large deals, often called enterprise SaaS, start at six figures. Here are the conversion rate benchmarks for high-touch SaaS sales:
Marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to sales-qualified leads (SQLs): 13-27%
SQLs to Opportunities: 50-62%
Opportunities to Closed Won: 15-31%
Conversion rate benchmarks for high-touch SaaS (Gartner)
Low-touch B2B SaaS conversion rate benchmarks:
Low-touch B2B SaaS products have an ACV (average contract value) of $100-$5,000. These products are typically sold on a month-to-month subscription ranging from $10 to $500.
Free trials with no credit card required: 25% of SaaS businesses
Free trials with credit card required: 40-60%
Freemium conversion rates: 1-10%
More B2B SaaS conversion rate benchmarks:
User activation rate: 36%
Product adoption rate: 14-55%, with an average of 33%
Customer churn rate: 3-5%, with a goal of <3%
Customer retention rate: 79-90%
The SaaS Conversion Journey
As with other B2B products, the SaaS customer journey moves from awareness to consideration and conversion. But in SaaS, these stages are much more complex, and the customer journey continues long after the sale.
Because of this, it’s impossible to map the Saa customer journey in a way that applies to every SaaS business. We can, however, describe the key stages of a SaaS customer journey for both low-touch and high-touch SaaS products.
The Stages of a Low-Touch Saas Customer Journey
Awareness – The user becomes aware of their problem and your product.
Education – The user learns as much as possible about their problem, your product, and how it solves the problem.
Acquisition – The user downloads a trial or free version of the product.
Onboarding – The user goes through a tutorial to understand how the product works.
Activation – The user begins to use the product and recognize its value.
Conversion – The user decides they need all the features of the product and upgrades from the trial or free plan to a premium plan.
Retention – The product becomes an essential part of the user’s life. They use it daily or weekly and won’t consider churning.
Referral – The user is so happy with the product, they become an evangelist, giving you word-of-mouth marketing and referrals.
Renewal – Through renewals, add-ons, and upsells, the user continues to increase their lifetime value.
The distinguishing feature in this model is the trial or freemium offer. With most other online purchases, the customer makes the buying decision based on a product description, images, and testimonials. With SaaS, they want to be sure the user experience is good, the features do what they want, and the product will fit into their workflow.
Through the trial offer, users are able to experience the product themselves. Even a short trial gives customers a low-risk way to decide whether your product is right for them. The challenge, of course, is to avoid giving away too much.
If you’re offering a freemium model, you need to give users a stripped-down version of the product that lets them experience success but also leaves them wanting more. That’s a hard balance to strike, but if you can get it right, this model can bring in lots of new customers.
A free trial may give users access to all your features (including premium ones) for a specific time period. The trick here is getting the time period right. A trial of 7 days may not be long enough for users to fully explore your features. A 30-day trial will give them more time to fall in love with your product but can add to your costs.
The Stages of a High-Touch Saas Customer Journey
Awareness – The prospect becomes aware of their problem and your product.
Education – The prospect researches options, including features and benefits of products in their selection pool.
Demo – The prospect requests a demo, with key stakeholders present.
Product purchase – The prospect selects your product.
Implementation – The product is installed and configured for the customer’s specific needs.
Onboarding – Users are trained to use the product.
Adoption – The product becomes part of users’ daily routine.
Upsell – The customer upgrades or purchases additional features or seats.
Renewal – The customer sees the value of the product and renews their subscription every year.
Notice that this model doesn’t include a trial. High-touch SaaS products are usually more complex, which means a trial isn’t possible. Instead, prospects rely on a demo to understand how the product works.
Unlike a trial, a demo doesn’t let the buyer navigate the product themselves, but it does let them see it in action. It also lets them talk to an account representative and get their questions answered.
In both low-touch and high-touch SaaS products, growth is achieved through long-term subscriptions, upsells, and contract expansion. For that to happen, though, you have to help users understand the value of the product and not only adopt it but become super-users.
Conversion rate optimization allows you to improve every stage of the customer journey — regardless of the type or structure of your journey. It ensures a positive user experience that translates into better adoption rates, lower churn rates, and higher revenue.
Different Conversion Events in SaaS
To generate a sale in SaaS, you must successfully move users to action at multiple points along the customer journey. Let’s look at some key conversion points for SaaS.
Free Trial Sign-Up: When a user signs up for a free trial of your SaaS product, it indicates interest and the intent to explore your software.
Paid Subscription: The user upgrades from a free trial or freemium plan to a paid subscription. This is where you start generating revenue. It’s also the point at which you implement customer marketing to build loyalty and increase the lifetime value of the customer.
Onboarding Completion: Successful onboarding is key to user adoption and retention, so completion rates matter. Track user engagement throughout your onboarding sequence to understand where engagement drops. Then test different tactics, such as gamification, to keep users engaged.
Adoption: One of the key challenges after purchase is getting users at a client account to use the product. This requires helping a champion sell your product internally. New accounts, log-in rates, and session lengths will tell you how well you’re doing at that. The usage metrics tracked in CRO allow you to track the features people use most to understand where you can add or improve features.
Usage Frequency: When a user’s engagement drops, it generally signals that they’ll churn in a few months. As with adoption rates, CRO retention metrics track users’ log-in rates, session length, and the number of actions they take within a session. It’s a good idea to start customer re-engagement campaigns as soon as you see this metric lag.
Upgrades/Downgrades: Users might upgrade to higher-tier plans for more features or downgrade to lower-tier plans based on their needs. These actions impact your revenue and can indicate user satisfaction or changing requirements.
Referral Sign-Up: Happy customers tend to make referrals, but you can incentivise this action as well. To improve this metric, CROs optimize your process for engaging with prospects who enter the pipeline from a referral, while actively encouraging referrals from loyal users.
Renewal: Customer renewal rates directly impact your revenue. CROs know that it’s vital to track and optimize the timing and rate of renewals.
Unsubscribes: A low churn rate is another key to SaaS profits. The CRO process identifies events that trigger churn and develop campaigns to re-engage users. To optimize those campaigns, CROs use data around the events that can make a churning customer change their mind and decide to continue their subscription.
These conversion events are key to growth, which is why conversion rate optimization for SaaS focuses heavily on testing unique ways to improve them. One of those methods is conversion funnels.
Mapping Conversion Funnels and Key Moments
While running routine tests to improve key SaaS metrics, optimizers create conversion funnels for each stage of the customer journey. For example, they build funnels that:
Increase trials or demos
Boost acquisition
Improve onboarding
Raise retention rates
Maximize lifetime value
Each funnel focuses on a specific micro-conversion. Together, they improve conversion rates across the entire customer journey.
To understand how this works, we’ll need to look more closely at conversion funnels and how they work.
A conversion funnel, also known as a sales or marketing funnel, is a framework used in digital marketing to illustrate the stages a prospect goes through before taking a desired action.
It’s called a funnel because, similar to a real-world funnel, there are fewer people at the bottom of a funnel than at the top. The top of the funnel will include anyone who lands on your website or engages with your content. Your goal is to engage qualified prospects and weed out everyone else. As a result, every stage of the funnel has fewer people in it, and at the bottom, you only have serious prospects.
Prospects don’t necessarily move through a funnel in a linear fashion, but the funnel model helps optimizers know how each stage of the customer journey is performing as part of the whole.
We typically break the funnel into three broad stages:
TOFU: top of funnel
MOFU: middle of funnel
BOFU: bottom of funnel
In SaaS, it’s also important to include a fourth stage: Below the Funnel.
Each part of the funnel aligns with a specific stage of the customer journey, giving you eight distinct stages in a B2B SaaS conversion funnel. Keep in mind, though, this also gives you eight drop-off points where prospects can leave the funnel.
Awareness Stage (TOFU): At the widest part of the funnel, the prospect has just become aware of your product. This stage is optimized by raising awareness of your brand and product. Strategies include content marketing, social media, SEO, and advertising. Frequency of impressions is essential at this stage.
Interest Stage (MOFU): In this stage, users are aware of your brand or product and have decided to learn more about you. They may engage with your content, sign up for newsletters, or explore your product’s features and benefits. Content such as ebooks, webinars, and case studies can be effective here. WIth gated content, you are building an ever expanding list of prospects to move to the next stage. Relevant content is the driving force at this stage.
Consideration Stage (MOFU): Users at this stage are considering your offerings more seriously. They may compare your product with competitors’, read reviews, and seek additional information. They may also consider a trial subscription or look for a walk-through video to understand how your product works. Anticipate their questions and objections at this stage.
Intent Stage (BOFU): At this point, users are actively considering making a purchase or taking a specific action. They may add items to their cart, request a quote, or sign up for a free trial. Conversion optimization and targeted messaging are essential here. Strategies for removing friction from the sign-up processes proliferate here.
Evaluation Stage (BOFU): The user is now in a trial or evaluating a demo. At this stage, the on-boarding process must be optimized. In a product-led growth (PLG) approach, the product is designed to make it intuitive and easy to use. However, optimizers know that instructional materials will be needed to help users be successful with the product quickly..
Conversion Stage (BOFU): This is the ultimate goal of the funnel. Users convert by making a purchase or upgrading from a free plan. The application becomes the salesperson. Optimizers look for ways to highlight upgradeable features and offer ways to reduce costs by increasing the length of the commitment. .
Post-Conversion Stage (Below the Funnel): Use and adoption are the focus at this stage of the funnel. Look for opportunities to nurture customer relationships, provide excellent customer support, and encourage repeat purchases or ongoing engagement. Your CRO should have usage metrics at the ready to evaluate usage and adoption rates. Done right, optimization at this stage boosts loyalty and advocacy.
Advocacy and Loyalty Stage (Below the Funnel): Loyal customers who love your brand will often become advocates, referring others and doing word-of-mouth marketing.
Elevate Your CRO Game: Next Steps for Your SaaS Company
Even small improvements in your conversion rates can impact revenue and growth.
At Conversion Sciences, we’re not a standard CRO agency. We use the scientific method to identify and fix the issues causing SaaS revenue leak. Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists today.
Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think captures a core tenet of conversion optimization: People have a limited reserve of energy when researching a solution to their problem. Don’t make them think too hard about how your website or product will solve that problem. If it isn’t intuitive, if it doesn’t provide an obvious and engaging user experience, they will leave.
But giving your users a clear journey is harder than you might think. So in this article, we’ve compiled our top SaaS website best practices, including actionable strategies for improving conversion rates.
The Importance of CRO for SaaS Websites
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is especially important for SaaS websites. Revenue growth depends on your ability to convert visitors to trials, trials to paying customers, and customers into long-term, loyal users.
To help, SaaS optimization generally focuses on four key components:
A landing page that sells the next step
A call to action for taking that step
An optimized way to take action (content form, sign up process, etc.)
A “Thank You” experience that helps the visitor be successful at this new step
The landing page will make or break your SaaS conversion rates. The landing page can serve traffic from outside the website, or satisfy on-site offers, such as the ubiquitous “Learn more”. Every one of these pages should be enticing the prospect to go to the next step.
Optimizers treat almost every webpage as a landing page, giving the visitor what they are looking for and asking them to take the next step.
Web Design Elements to Consider for Optimal SaaS Website Performance
CRO for SaaS websites is largely about improving the user experience. For example, these elements can make or break your SaaS conversion rates:
Clear value proposition
Engaging CTAs pointing to the next step
Trust indicators, payment partner logos, security badges, and links to your privacy policy
Social proof, including customer testimonials and customer logos
Page load speed
Mobile optimized template
Helpful navigation
To optimize your SaaS website for conversions, a memorable user experience is created at every touchpoint, but especially on these web pages:
Product page: Provides all of the information a visitor needs to move to pricing
Pricing page: Helps the visitor understand their choices and offers trial or purchase
Homepage: Directs traffic to the landing pages within the site
Contact page: Catches those who fall out of the typical journey
When a user clicks on one of these pages, they should see the information they expect. A product page should tell them all about the product, answering their questions about what it does and how. A pricing page should show visitors their buying options and what they get with each package. Sitewide, visitors should be able to find the information they’re looking for in just a few clicks.
The challenge is creating that experience. It’s impossible to know in advance what will work — and your own preferences don’t matter. To design a website that attracts and converts your best customers, you need to test everything.
In short, you need to leverage CRO best practices to continually refine and improve your website.
Proven CRO Strategies and Tips for SaaS Website Success
CRO tactics include a wide range of disciplines: testing, usability improvements, marketing, design best practices, and more. Here are nine strategies proven to improve SaaS website conversion rates.
CRO Strategy #1: A/B Testing
A/B testing, also called split testing, gives us a highly reliable way to test an idea, or hypothesis. It’s based on the scientific method and attempts to disprove a hypothesis about how a page could be changed to improve a specific conversion rate. If the hypothesis cannot be disproved, it is assumed to be true.
A/B testing starts with a hypothesis. For example, if we believe our customer logos are too far down a page, our test hypothesis would be:
If we move the portion of the landing page containing customer logos to below the hero area, we expect more visitors to complete the form as measured by conversion rate.
An experiment is then designed to test the hypothesis. In the case of our hypothesis, a variation of the page is designed. Traffic is sent equally to the original and the variation.
Then we see which generated the most conversions. If there is a statistical improvement in the performance of variation, it becomes the new page — and new control to be beat.
Optimizers take great care to ensure statistical relevance is achieved with each A/B test. The variation with the statistically higher conversion rate becomes the new page to be optimized.
A/B testing delivers incremental gains in SaaS conversions month over month. Use it to put upward pressure on your sales funnel conversion rates and improve lead generation campaigns.
If your messaging doesn’t address the user’s problem or desire, or if it’s confusing on any level, there is very little we can do to improve your conversion rates.
Compelling messaging establishes your value proposition in your visitors’ minds. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that a page with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention longer — as much as one or two minutes longer — but you must communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.
Optimizers will focus on the opening statements. This should express who you are and what you do as quickly as possible. It answers two questions:
Am I in the right place to solve my problem?
Is there a good reason to keep exploring this solution?
CityCliq improved their positioning and increased the clickthrough rate of their home page 90%. Their original positioning statement didn’t communicate what they do: “Businesses grow faster online.” The new positioning statement was a direct statement about what the user gets from their product: “Create a webpage for your business.” This change improved clickthrough in two weeks.
To be effective, your messaging must meet the user’s expectations. Optimizers try to give visitors the right information on the right page (e.g., pricing information on the pricing page). The goal is to answer their questions completely, anticipating their questions.
Here are a few ways to improve the messaging on your SaaS website:
Be direct, clear, and action-oriented.
Use graphics and video that enhance your messaging.
Use layout to place your message in the right place.
Personalize when possible.
CRO Strategy #3: Personalization
Personalization is an effective way to improve engagement — and this often means more conversions. According to McKinsey2, 71% of consumers expect you to deliver personalized interaction, and 76% get frustrated if you don’t.
McKinsey found that consumers expect personalization from the brands they choose.
To create loyalty and improve conversions, optimizers look for ways to personalize people’s experience. Here are some tactics for doing that:
Personalize emails:
Address the recipient by name in emails.
Segment emails, so your messaging fits the recipient’s stage in the customer journey.
Align messaging to the user’s previous purchases or behaviors.
Create unique email sequences for users at key conversion stages, such as onboarding, adoption, and churn risk.
Add dynamic content to landing pages, so they speak directly to the user.
Use calls to action (CTAs) that align with the user’s readiness to convert.
Keep your messaging clear, concise, and compelling.
Personalize search and retargeting:
Use geolocation to display ads that align with the user’s local conditions, like ski equipment ads in Denver or swimwear ads in Miami.
Use retargeting to deliver ads that are appropriate for the user’s online behavior and interests.
Create a natural flow within conversion funnels — messaging and design should be consistent on the ad, landing page, form, and emails so trust levels remain high.
A/B tests offer excellent data for personalization. For example, we have created A/B tests that looked inconclusive initially. When we looked at the impact of the test on mobile visitors, we often find that visitors on an Android device preferred the variation while those coming on an iPhone preferred the control.
This becomes an opportunity to personalize based on device. The Android users will see the variation and the iPhone visitors will see the control. Personalization tools allow this kind of personalization.
Other segments to analyze for personalization opportunities:
First-time visitors vs. returning visitors
Current customers
Visitors who are on your mailing list
Geographic location (city, state, country)
Gender (be careful not to stereotype)
Mobile vs.desktop visitors
Time since last visit
The advantage of using A/B testing to drive your personalization is that you have the data that tells you what the different visitors want and an easy way to target them when they are on your website.
CRO Strategy #4: Retargeting Campaigns
When people engage with your website but don’t convert, you can continue to engage with them off-site through retargeting ads.
Retargeting delivers targeted ads to users across the web, in apps, and on social media, reminding them of your offer and encouraging them to engage with it further. It can be an effective way to get people to return to an abandoned shopping cart, revisit a product page, or review related content.
Keep in mind, flow is important. You’ll need to tailor a message that matches their previous interaction, so you can create a personalized experience that resonates and reinforces the value of your product.
Here are some tools to set up effective retargeting campaigns:
NOTE: Retargeting places a cookie on the visitor’s browser to identify them when on other websites. This tells the retargeting company to show them your retargeting ad. The use of these “third-party” cookies is being curtailed due to privacy concerns by the major browser manufacturers. Alternatives tracking technologies will need to be put in place.
CRO Strategy #5: UX and UI Optimization
UX (user experience) optimization focuses on creating a seamless and meaningful experience for visitors.
UI (user interface) optimization improves the appearance and usability of the website, page, or app.
Both rely on intuitive design, which aims to build trust by ensuring a page/site feels intuitive and performs as expected. It looks for anything that creates friction and adjusts as needed to create a smooth experience.
A good example is 37signals. They saw a 102.5% boost in Highrise signups after adding a picture of a customer to the page.
To optimize UX and UI, you need to understand how visitors interact with the page or site. For example, are they getting stuck? Can they navigate the page/site easily? Do they stay on the page long enough to read your messaging? (Most users leave a page in 45-50 seconds3.)
For UX and UI optimization, optimizers use tools like these:
Heap Analytics, for retroactive analysis of user behavior
CRO Strategy #6: Friction Points
If a good UX improves trust, friction destroys it. Anything that frustrates, confuses, or slows a visitor can create friction. A visitor comes to you with a reservoir of mental energy. Each mistake or moment of confusion drains that reservoir, increasing the “cognitive load.” For example:
Unclear messaging or value proposition
Cluttered web pages
Too many choices
Information that doesn’t anticipate their questions
Hidden pricing
Convoluted navigation
Lengthy forms
To improve conversion rates, optimizers remove friction. They seek a page that is well-designed, with clear messaging and CTAs, and good flow. Make it easy to find buttons and fill out forms.
CRO Strategy #7: Page Load Speed
One of the biggest frustrations for visitors is a slow website. When they click, a slow response slows their momentum and decreases their perceived credibility of your business. This is especially true on mobile devices.
Website conversion rates drop by 4.42% with each second of load time. (Portent5)
70% of consumers say they’re less likely to buy from a slow website. (Unbounce6)
A page that loads in 1 second has a conversion rate 3x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds. (Portent)
Compare these statistics to the average website load time in 20237: 2.5 seconds on a desktop and 8.6 seconds on a mobile device. To remove this friction point, you need to beat the average, reducing your load speed time as much as possible.
Here are a few ways to do that.
Quality website hosting
Compress images and deliver properly sized images
Leverage browser caching
Minimize plugins
User Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Reducing redirects
Minifying CSS and JavaScript
We find the reports generated by the free tools at webpagetest.org to be fantastic at diagnosing the causes of slow-loading pages.
CRO Strategy #8: Gathering and Acting on Feedback
However much you may try to improve your user experience, friction points may still exist. The best way to find them is to get real user feedback.
Given the chance, they’ll let you know that your signup forms need fixing or your site navigation is confusing. They can also review your changes and give you direct feedback.
For example, the Dropbox Community gives users a place to get quick answers to their questions, but it also helps the Product team know where and how they can improve. When they changed their estimated time to sync feature with a progress bar, users complained. This feedback told Dropbox that time was a “critical unit of measurement” and that features should help users manage their time.
The Dropbox team now uses the community to prioritize the issues they tackle. You can do the same, using customer feedback to find friction points, provide a better user experience, and improve messaging.
Here are some tactics for gathering user insights:
Through user feedback, you can identify page elements or experiences that harm trust. But you can also add trust elements to your pages to build trust and improve conversions.
For example, many SaaS companies display awards to quickly communicate their value:
SaaS awards can quickly communicate value
Low-touch SaaS products that have a checkout page on your website can use ecommerce trust badges. Ecommerce company UnderstandQuran added two trust badges to their sign-up page — a money-back guarantee badge and an Apple app store badge — they saw a 32.57% increase in sales over an 11 day period.
Trust badges increased sales 32.57%.
Here are some trust signals that improve SaaS conversion rates:
SSL certificates
Transparent privacy policies
Security badges and certificates
Customer reviews and ratings
Awards and recognition
Elevate Your CRO Game: Next Steps for Your SaaS Company
There’s no better way to ensure SaaS growth than with CRO for SaaS. Through conversion rate optimization, you can make incremental improvements in your conversion rate at every stage of the customer journey, helping you get and keep your valuable customers.
Need help? At Conversion Sciences, we’re not a standard CRO agency. We use the scientific method to identify and fix the issues causing SaaS revenue leak. Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists today.
If you’re looking for lead generation landing page examples to help you craft the perfect landing page, beware.
Many of the landing pages you see online are not actually working. In fact, many of them turn more people away than not.
Lead generation landing pages and squeeze pages can attract and convert a high percentage of new leads for your business, keeping your pipeline full. But there’s a science to landing page lead generation — and that’s what we cover in this guide.
Keep reading to learn how and why lead generation pages are different, what makes a successful lead gen landing page, and 17 landing page examples (that are working and not working) — with expert tips on how to improve them.
Landing Pages vs. Web Pages: What’s the Difference?
The public-facing pages on your website are largely informational. They’re designed to keep people on the site as long as possible, and they do that with smart internal links and valuable content that answers questions and educates visitors.
Web pages are great for attracting traffic and positioning your products or services. They aren’t that effective at converting visitors. For that you need lead generating landing pages.
Landing pages have only two jobs.
To keep the promise made in the ad, email, social post, or link that preceded the page.
To ask your visitor to do something.
Landing pages work because they don’t encourage browsing or exploring. They’re designed to promote one specific offer and drive visitors to complete one designated course of action.
One of the most common uses for landing pages is to generate leads.
A lead generation landing page is a landing page that focuses on capturing visitor data by offering something of value in exchange for their information. It’s one piece in a conversion funnel, and it’s designed to attract qualified leads for further marketing and sales.
A good lead gen landing page appeals exclusively to your ideal prospects. Typically, it offers content that helps them solve a problem or gives them advanced information they want. But it could also offer a free trial, an app, a demo, or a short consultation.
Lead generation landing pages that convert are very simple. They’re typically short, with a few key elements:
An attention-getting headline
Copy that explains the value of the offer
An image of the item being offered
A form where visitors can enter their information to claim the offer
Why Do You Need a Lead Gen Landing Page?
To understand why you need lead gen landing pages, let’s take a quick look at how they work.
The best way to leverage lead gen landing pages is to design campaigns around specific offers. (More about that in a moment.)
Once you have an offer your ideal prospects can’t resist, you’ll build a landing page for it. This page will be designed specifically for your target audience and offer. It will leverage the words they use to talk about their issues. It will address their concerns. And it will offer a specific solution that they already want.
This landing page will probably never appear in your site navigation. Instead, it will live in the background of your website. When you want to turn on your lead gen campaign, you’ll start sending traffic to it through ads, blog posts, social media posts, and emails.
With this approach, each marketing campaign exists in its own silo. You can test and optimize every element until the page is working perfectly.
The result?
Dedicated campaigns that you can turn on and off at will
Higher conversion rates
Lower acquisition costs
Your website should generate traffic and educate visitors, but your web pages shouldn’t be overly salesy. Lead generation landing pages, on the other hand, can be as salesy as they need to be. They bridge the gap between traffic generation and lead conversion, delivering the highest qualified leads from start to finish.
What Makes a Successful Lead Generation Landing Page?
This is the million dollar question every marketer wants answered. Like every profitable online experience, it starts with an irresistible offer.
Your offer must be both relevant and qualifying.
It needs to attract the highest possible number of qualified prospects, and it needs to offer information they’re already looking for. This isn’t the time to create interest. You need to tap into an existing desire.
The easiest way to do that is to:
Review your PPC (pay-per-click) data. What are the ads with the highest clickthrough rate?
Evaluate competitor ads. What are they offering?
Analyze your social media posts. Which topics get the most engagement?
Look at your email analytics. Which topics have the highest clickthrough rate?
Email open rates tell us which topics our readers are most interested in.
There’s more to a lead generation landing page than a compelling offer. Here are a few landing page optimization themes that we touch on again and again — not only in this guide but also and with our clients.
An effective landing page is also intuitive. Your visitors shouldn’t have to think for even a millisecond. They should be able to understand and respond whether they’re reading or skimming the page.
The page should load in less than 2 seconds. The faster the better. Any longer, and your prospect will move on.
The page should be mobile friendly. More than half of your visitors will likely visit the page on a mobile device. Make sure it’s readable and easy to operate from any device. (Use a platform like BrowserStack that makes it easy to view your lead gen landing page on multiple devices.)
Your page should follow the rule of one. It should have one clear goal and one clear CTA. That’s it. Because visitors with too many options usually choose no option.
Finally, A/B split test your page to continually improve its performance over time.
How to Evaluate Lead Generation Landing Page Examples
In a minute, we’ll look at 17 of the best landing page examples we could find. But before we do, let’s look at how you need to evaluate them.
When evaluating a landing page, ask yourself if it’s executing its two jobs effectively.
Does the page have a compelling offer? Is it clear what promise was made to the visitors?
Does the page ask the visitor to make a choice?
Next, look at the page’s trust and value signals. To do that, answer these two questions:
Do I feel like I’m in the right place? Does this page flow seamlessly from the previous page/post?
Is there a reason to keep reading?
Finally, evaluate the elements of the page:
Unique value proposition in words and images
Effective layout of content
Credibility and authority signals
Social proof
Risk reversal
One more helpful tip: When evaluating someone else’s landing page, use a browser plugin like Wapalyzer, Ghostery, or Builtwith to see if the page has an A/B testing tool installed. If it does, you might give more weight to it, as they could be testing their designs.
Ready for some landing page ideas to start generating leads?
17 Lead Generation Landing Page Examples
The best landing page examples show you what’s working today. But as I mentioned above, many of the landing pages online today haven’t been optimized for conversions, which means they aren’t actually working as well as they could.
To help you know the difference, we’ve scoured the web for good and bad examples of lead gen landing pages. And for every example, we tell you what they’re doing right and what they need to improve.
We don’t know the conversion rates of most of these pages. However, you can use these landing page examples and our tips as a guide when designing your own effective pages.
Example 1: Don’t “charge” too much for your offer
A lead generation landing page offers something for free — but visitors must still pay. Rather than paying with money, they pay with their information.
As with any pricing strategy, you need to offer enough value to justify your “price.” That means keeping your forms as short as possible.
Take this landing page by Applause.
Do you need nine fields on your landing page?
This offer is clear: to get access to a targeted white paper.
The summary gives three compelling reasons to take action.
The form lies at the top of the page, and will peak above the fold on most monitors.
Credibility is provided through customer logos, and social proof is presented through social media testimonials.
What could we improve?
The form asks for a lot of information. Is this reasonable for a white paper? Maybe not.
The form is laid out in 3 rows of 3 columns. This can make the form seem larger and more time-consuming.
The typical direction visitors would go to fill out this form would be to start in the first column from top and go down to the bottom. But the first field says “First Name” with the “Last Name” field jumping over into the next column
This layout makes the form feel difficult. And difficulty creates friction, which lowers conversions.
Example 2: Make your offer clear and direct
Messaging on your landing page needs to be clear and concise. But it shouldn’t be too concise. You need to include enough information to communicate persuasively.
Take this example from Uber:
Uber’s promise is clear and specific.
The promise is clear: at least $2,160. Note: this specific number is more persuasive than something like “$2000+”.
The CTA is clear: Sign up now.
But without more information, the page is more about a dollar figure than becoming an Uber driver.
Uber can assume that everyone knows who they are and, therefore, details aren’t necessary. But your brand likely doesn’t enjoy this level of recognition..
At a minimum, it needs a unique value proposition in both words and images. It could also use some trust and credibility signals, such as numbers of drivers, testimonials, or real earnings.
A visitor landing here has to work hard to understand that they’re signing up as an Uber driver.
Keep your message as clear and direct as possible. Make sure you provide details about the offer and the benefits of taking action. And don’t rely on fine print to explain the offer — that’s a sure way to erode trust.
Example 3: Be careful with conceptual landing pages
Landing pages need to be clear and direct. If you try to be too clever or conceptual, you can confuse (and lose) prospects. A conceptual page is one that sacrifices clarity to be cute or clever. This forces visitors to connect the dots between the message and the offer rather than having it clearly spelled out for them.
Much like this page.
Clarity beats cleverness every time.
Here, Planhat’s headline is direct: Choose Planhat, not GainSight. They throw in a cute image to try to communicate their point. But there’s no value statement that tells a visitor why they should choose one over the other.
Their CTA, “Book a demo to find out why,” leverages curiosity. But you must look below the form to see the benefits and trust signals that might drive conversions.
This page has several good conversion elements:
Customer logos
G2 rating and logo
Three benefits of using Planhat
But without a clear, strong headline, it falls short. A high-converting landing page has a clear, direct headline that tells visitors what they’ll get when they engage with the page. The hero image works with that copy to fully communicate value.
Don’t try to be overly cute or clever. Clarity wins every day.
Example 4: Establish a visual hierarchy
Your landing page needs a good hierarchy of information, so it’s easy to understand for skimmers and readers. This landing page by LinkedIn is a good example.
Do you immediately know what action you should take?
A visual hierarchy is designed to help the visitor see what is most important. The job of the visual hierarchy is to help them choose an action. Contrast and white space are two ways designers establish a visual hierarchy.
In this page, there are two calls to action in the hero area, both dark blue on a blue background. This doesn’t help the visitor discern one from the other visually. And if the visitor doesn’t know the difference between “Core” and “Advanced” they will not click. This page needs to present the difference to the visitor.
Designers love to be consistent with colors, but this works against the visual hierarchy. All buttons are within the color of the page’s palette. They are on an equal level with other dark blue elements.
It is the video that is at the top of the visual hierarchy. It “pops,” elevating it. If this is the most important action the visitor can take, then this is helping them choose.
The landing page has three distinct sections, each with its own purpose: to communicate value, make a promise, and highlight the key benefits.
At the top of the page (above the fold) is the value proposition: “From sales prospecting to closing deals, do it all with Sales Navigator.” Details are available in the one-minute video. And you can take action right away by clicking the appropriate button.
The second section contains a clear promise, proof elements, and the mechanism for delivering that promise.
Promise: beat quota.
Mechanism: build relationships that last.
Proof: the average results achieved by social sellers.
Social proof: LinkedIn’s 1+ billion member network.
Notice the call to action, “Start your free trial,” in both columns of this section. That makes it easy for people to take action as soon as they’re ready.
The final section is similar to the P.S. of a sales letter. It summarizes the page by listing the three biggest benefits of Sales Navigator for B2B salespeople. Each is illustrated with a colorful icon so people who process information visually or are just scanning the page will quickly understand the value of Sales Navigator — and hopefully scroll back up to read the copy more closely.
The only thing missing is one final CTA button below these benefits, so visitors don’t have to scroll back up to take action.
Example 5: Remove extraneous information
When building a landing page, we recommend starting with a clean page, not your corporate template or, in this case, the blog template.
The corporate pages and blog pages introduce content that doesn’t fit the two jobs of a high-converting landing page. Page templates usually come with navigation that invites qualified prospects to delay their action.
What not to do:
Your landing page shouldn’t look like a blog post.
The sidebar is inviting the visitor to leave the page before they’ve even seen that they can take action. A good landing page holds on to the visitor until they’ve made their decision.
Replacing this competing content with the submission form, which is way at the bottom, would make it clear that they can take action.
The top of the page should have the value proposition and promise, so visitors immediately understand the offer.
Instead, visitors have to scroll down nearly half of the page before they see the offer and form.
Don’t make visitors scroll to find your form.
Start fresh with a minimal template for your landing pages. Examine existing landing pages for any information that doesn’t make the visitor feel comfortable and confident taking action.
Example 6: Don’t assume we know what you do.
Fovitech offers affordable photo and video studio lighting solutions.
Unfortunately, they were leading visitors straight to this page from a pay-per-click ad.
Visitors should know right away what you’re offering.
It’s hard to know where we’ve just landed because all they talk about is getting the best price. Guaranteed. But they’ve failed to tell us what it is they are actually offering.
Most people won’t care about price until they first know whether or not you have something they’re even interested in.
Example 7: Sell the offer, not just the product.
You’ve probably noticed a recurring theme in our review of these landing page optimization examples: Your landing page needs to be all about your prospect and their fears, hopes, and desires.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of promoting your brand or the product. But lead generation is about getting people into your conversion funnel. Not selling. Not yet. You want them to subscribe or download your offer. So your sole focus is to sell the offer.
Let’s look at an example:
Are you selling your offer or your product?
Wiser lets you capture in-store and online data, making it easy to turn insights into actionable data. Their Live Price Check app is a smart lead gen offer since it is closely related to their products.
This landing page makes a compelling offer: check product prices 75% faster.
However, they talk only about the product, and not the offer, which is a free trial.
This section focuses primarily on the product.
Visitors are likely asking themselves: Will I be able to actually do price analysis during my trial? Will I get immediate access or do I have to talk to someone? Will I need training to use the software?
This is a common mistake. Landing pages that offer reports fail to sell the report. Is it long or a quick read? Is it written by a third party? Does it have lots of graphs and images?
This page has some strong elements. Above the headline, it gives social proof: trusted by 500+ retailers and brands.
And the above-the-fold copy promises a compelling outcome while explaining what the app does: Jump ahead of the competition with Live Price Checker’s FREE actionable pricing insights.
This page is well structured and easy to scan. It tells you how the app works and the benefits you’ll gain from using it. And they make it easy to gain access — you only have to enter your email address to get free access.
It repeats the offer at the bottom of the page, as all landing pages should. However, here we learn that the offer is actually a “conversation.” I suspect that this turns many potential prospects away.
If your call to action doesn’t match your initial offer, you’ll lose trust.
Example 8: Don’t offer too many choices.
It’s tempting, once you get people on your landing page, to show them all their options and let them choose the offer they like best.
But more options are not better, according to a 2000 study by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. When presented with too many options, we actually find it harder to make a choice. To make matters worse, when we finally make a decision, we’re less satisfied with whatever choice we make.
This is called choice overload, and it’s the reason every landing page should have just one message, one offer, and one call to action.
Take this landing page as an example.
Choice overload can lead to no action at all.
This page has multiple offers:
Book a call
Chat with us
Get 50% off
Get a free quote
Subscribe
There’s so much going on, it’s hard to know where to start. You can hear the voices in the visitor’s head: “If I book a call does that mean I miss out on 50% off?”
Despite the clear messaging on this page, a first-time visitor will struggle to understand what action they should take. The messaging pulls them in different directions, creating a sense of overwhelm.
A good solution is to create unique landing pages for each call to action and each customer segment. That way, you can focus the message and give visitors one action to perform.
Example 9: Choose images that support the value proposition.
Take a look at this section of the Gusto landing page. Which of these images is “real” and which are stock photos?
Real photos of real people build trust.
It’s obvious to almost every human, even before you notice that two of the images are captioned.
Too often landing pages are designed with placeholders for images, and someone goes to a stock photo site to get happy people that look like the target customer.
Give your images the “Caption Test.” If you can’t write a caption that matches the intent of the image, it’s not a good image. For example, the intent of the second image is “Pay contractors in more than 120 countries.” The image caption is “Woman on a laptop in no place identifiable.” It’s the wrong image. The image should give some visual clue that this person is in another country.
It is much more effective to take the extra step and show real clients and real employees. Adding the caption assures the reader that they are seeing real people, and that gives the page credibility.
Example 10: Make your content readable.
If you want people to enter your conversion funnel, your landing page needs to be easy to read and easy to understand. To achieve this, you need to merge good design with good copywriting.
Take this landing page example from Samcart:
You can improve readability with good design and good copywriting.
This page is easy to read both visually and textually. White space and a strategic layout work together to guide visitors’ eyes as they scroll down the page.
At the top of the page, the value proposition and offer are clear, though much of the message is conveyed through the hero image. If you fill out the form, you’ll get an ebook, The Profit Playbook, with 53 strategies that can double your profits.
Black text on a white background is easy to read and small pops of color draw the visitor’s eye. Lots of white space keeps page elements from competing with one another. As you can see on this landing page, less really is more.
Readability is key to high conversion rates. Make sure your visitors can see and understand your offer. Keep the messaging and layout as simple as possible.
Example 11: Don’t assume your clients understand your jargon
Speaking of clarity, jargon may show off your industry knowledge, but for newcomers, technical terms can be confusing.
Take this landing page, for example:
Jargon may look impressive, but it can be confusing.
This offer is confusing on multiple levels, but the jargon only makes it worse. Some people may know what MFA and SSO mean, many don’t — even qualified prospects who are early in their research.
LastPass does explain these terms in the copy — which helps — but having jargon in the headline makes it harder to convey value.
And even after explaining the terms, the value statement is confusing: “Are MFA and SSO enough to cover all your organization’s identities?” Only people with deep industry experience will understand what that means. Most other people will likely consider exiting the page without filling out the form. After all, if they can’t understand the landing page copy, they probably won’t understand the ebook.
Example 12: Don’t let your hero image compete with the message.
Clarity is king on landing pages. We’ve already talked about the importance of readability. This landing page example shows why that’s so important.
Here, the hero image not only draws attention away from the value statement, it makes it difficult to read.
Make sure your words are easy to see and understand.
This landing page has a good value proposition, but the feature image is so busy, it doesn’t allow you to focus on the message. Not only that, there isn’t enough contrast between the white text and the wheat-colored background. As a result, the top-of-page copy is virtually unreadable.
To add insult to injury, the image doesn’t really advance the value proposition. As we said above, it’s best to use images of your product, your clients, or your employees. As it is, the black call to action button, which should be high in the visual hierarchy, blends into the black color in the image.
A few more layout changes should also be tested. For instance, the form should be moved up, next to the promise: Get All Relevant Data in One Place. Currently, it’s at the bottom of the page.
This form would perform better if it were higher on the page.
Above it are images that appear to be proof points, but they need context to communicate more clearly.
Images usually need context to communicate more clearly.
These images could be used to highlight the product’s benefits by reducing their size and adding a blurb of copy beside each.
This layout change also gives you a visual hierarchy, with the value proposition and promise at the top of the page and benefits/outcomes below that. It only needs a strong summary statement and call to action at the bottom of the page.
Example 13: Establish value with the headline and subheading.
Everything on the page should support the promise.
Ceros puts their value statement front and center with the headline: “Interactive content marketing — no code required.”
The top-of-page then adds context and makes the promise. It answers the question, who is Ceros (an AI-powered content creation ecosystem). It explains in one sentence the types of content you can create (reports, ebooks, etc.). And then it shares the promise: faster and increased content output.
Everything on the page supports this promise. The subheads, for instance:
Easily design & publish interactive content
Track content engagement in real time
And the call to action: Create the content your audience deserves.
It also offers good social proof: 850+ of the world’s leading brands use Ceros, with a few highly recognizable logos.
Example 14: Present one clear message that drives one response.
Inconsistent messaging can hurt your conversion rates.
The core elements are here, but the message is disjunct, making this offer less compelling than it should be.
The headline is the title of the ebook, but that’s not clear. There are several ways to fix this, all of which should be on your landing page checklist. There is no picture of the ebook or its cover. This would have made clear what was being offered. The form has no call to action at the top, such as “Get your free Ebook.” The button could say “Download Your Ebook.”
In the body, the opening line says that now is the time to embrace AI. This still fails to establish the value of the offer and, worse, it insinuates that the visitor doesn’t already know that. This introduces a bit of mixed messaging, which continues throughout this landing page.
The next paragraph tries to make the connection between AI and higher deal velocity and higher conversion rates. But because it doesn’t state this explicitly, the visitor has to connect the dots.
Paragraph 3 finally has the promise: learn how AI helps you create and close more deals. This would have more impact if the copy had made the connection between AI and better sales performance.
And finally, the call to action is, “Don’t get left behind.” Again, this creates mixed messaging. This statement assumes the visitor is resistant to AI, which contradicts the headline’s assumptions.
Listing the authors is a great way to build the credibility of the ebook. None of this messaging aligns.
Example 15: Provide a navigation menu specific to the offer.
Founded in 1932, SNHU has transformed from an accounting and secretarial science school to a university offering more than 200 programs in business, education, social sciences and liberal arts.
With over 3,000 students on campus and more than 170,000 online, SNHU claims to be one of the fastest growing universities in the entire nation.
Let’s take a look at how their lead gen page is attempting to make it grow even faster.
Any navigation should be specific to the page.
The form fields speak directly to the visitor’s needs which makes it feel very personalized and helps to qualify.
It’s also supported by strong benefits.
The page removes the main menu found on the Home page below and replaces it with a menu that is very specific to the landing page.
SNHU’s main menu
Example 16: Make your offer match the ad, email, social post, or link.
Any disconnect between the messaging, layout, or call to action within a marketing funnel can create distrust. That’s why continuity is so important. As users click from the email or ad to the landing page and beyond, each page must look like it flows from the previous page.
This example from Salesforce starts with an email.
The email
The email is short and sweet:
Title of ebook: Learn how to optimize advisor productivity.
Graphic: Combines photos with illustrations.
Button: Read the report.
The promise: Learn how to improve advisor productivity.
Text link: Read the report
When the user clicks, they’re taken to this landing page.
The landing page
Here, there’s good continuity from the email, but it could still be improved.
For example, the value headline on the landing page doesn’t match the email. In fact, wealth management wasn’t even mentioned in the email. That could create some confusion.
The subhead and body copy get back on track. They reproduce, almost word for word, the email copy, creating some continuity in the messaging.
Visually, the graphics are similar, with the photo and illustration combo. But the primary color in the email is blue. Here, it’s purple.
Details like these can interrupt the continuity and degrade trust.
Example 17: Use a quiz instead of a form.
Rhino Fleet Tracking offers GPS tracking systems that enable businesses to monitor trucks, vans, trailers and improve the communication between drivers, managers and staff to maintain a high level of security.
Instead of using a “pancake form” where form fields are stacked like pancakes on a plate, Conversion Sciences created a more interactive quiz style form. Before it asks for personal information, it asks qualifying questions to bring visitors into the form.
The quiz starts by asking a question directly related to the visitor’s problem.
By asking for details about visitor’s situation, the quiz demonstrates that the company is not just trying to get their contact information to send to the sales team. The copy “We can help” is a nice confidence booster.
By successfully answering these questions, the visitor gains momentum for the rest of the steps. The visitor is ready to provide some personal information.
Only now will the quiz ask for contact information and opt-in permissions.
It is tempting to ask for an email address up front in case the visitor abandons the form. We have found that saving this for last is more effective. However, it might be smart to ask for the email before requesting the remaining contact information, which is found in the final step here.
The original landing page had a regular “pancake” form, as shown below.
We ran an A/B test of this form against a version of the quiz-style form.
In an A/B test of this page against the quiz-style form, there was a 61% increase in completion rates for the quiz over the single-page form.
We believe the reason completion rates are higher for this kind of form, even though it has more steps and asks for more information, is due to two things:
We have more room to explain why we are asking for the information.
The visitor may feel the effects of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, in which they don’t want to lose the work they’ve done.
Time to Optimize: Your CRO Journey Begins Now
As you can see from these examples, landing pages are not your average web page. Landing page designs and copy are focused on two jobs: keeping the promise and asking the target audience to make a choice. .
The best landing pages not only convert more prospects, they can lower ad spend and yield a higher ROI while opening the gates to fill your pipeline with quality leads.
But as you’ve seen, there’s a science to creating a lead generation landing page that converts. You need to understand your target audience, their pains and hopes, and the type of offers they’ll respond to.If you’d like to remove more of the mystery and apply our proven formulas to your lead gen landing pages, let us know. Conversion Sciences is a conversion rate optimization agency that specializes in conversion rate optimization services.
How predictable are people when they are on the Web? As it turns out, they are not very predictable at all. For any site, the audience is very different, even among sites in the same business.
Whenever we try to predict how people will behave, we are trying to predict the future. This is how we forecast outcomes and the potential revenue behind an idea or campaign. As a result, it’s vital to understand how this is done.
Here are four ways we tend to do this on the Web. (Note: not all of them are recommended!)
1. “What worked for others will work for us in the future.”
Predicting the future based on what your competitors is doing is like painting a room to match your neighbor’s furniture. Your site is different. Your audience is different.
And what others are doing may not be working for them. They may be just copying someone else.
There was a time when everyone used rotating images on their homepages. In our tests, we found that rotating header images rarely beat static images.
We see that all the time. A tactics that works for one website becomes a trend. Everyone follows without testing its effectiveness for their audience and their website.
2. “What I like is what everyone will like.”
Most of our sites suffer from what we call “selling to ourselves.” The major problem with this approach is that everyone on your team is a different self. The designer designs for herself, the writer writes for himself, and the marketing exec approves what they themselves approve of. The site will speak with many different voices, both visually and textually.
This approach only predicts the future for visitors who are like the members of this team, who have the skillsets that the members of this team take for granted.
3. “What we have today will continue to work for us.”
While things can change, this is one of the more reliable ways to predict the future. We say that, based on past experience and data, we can predict what will happen tomorrow.
This method predicts the status quo, but does not properly incorporate sales growth into the future vision.
4. “We must experiment to see what will work in the future.”
When we say, for example, “Our competitors are using video, therefore we should use video,” we are stating a hypothesis.
When we test this hypothesis, we are finding out if our statement predicts the future. Then we can say, “Our test shows that video led more visitors to buy, so we can assume in the future that video will generate more sales.”
Likewise, saying, “I don’t like watching videos when I shop online, so visitors will not like video on our site,” can also be stated as a hypothesis, though the opposite of the one we stated above.
If we had already tested video, we would be able to predict if visitors like video or not based on the sales generated. We don’t need to guess because we have gained the ability to predict the future.
A Unified Fortune Telling Technology
Only the fourth option relies on the scientific process. With this approach, every idea becomes a hypothesis to be tested, and it becomes possible to tell the future with more accuracy.
We always test from where we are today, adding our hypothesis to the mix and testing it against the page as it is.
It makes sense to consider what others are doing and our personal taste when coming up with ideas. It is when we put those ideas in the context of the existing site and test them that we gain a future-seeing goggles.
Full funnel conversion optimization – or the Conversion Sciences Profit Funnel™ – provides the analysis and insights to help you prepare for the future and positively impact your business bottom line.
Getting form optimization from your landing page templates goes beyond knowing the key components of a landing page form. It’s about creating a user journey that guides visitors toward an informed choice.
Let’s unravel the blueprint for landing page form optimization best practices that are not only user-friendly but are conversion-optimized powerhouses.
1. Keep it Simple
Everyone starts a form with a certain amount of cognitive energy. The more motivated they are to complete a form the bigger the bank of energy they have. However, if you deplete their cognitive energy before they complete the form they abandon.
When optimizing forms, make everything clear and easy for people to fill out. When forms are simple, users can quickly give the information needed without any stress. Here’s how to simplify web form optimization:
Fewer fields: Reduce the number of fields and ask only what you need to know.
Clear field labels: Use easy words and clear language that everyone understands.
Logical order: Arrange questions in a sensible order.
Ease of navigation: Make the form easy to get through with clear steps.
White space: Leave enough open space to avoid a crowded look.
Make sure the form loads fast to keep people’s attention. Give easy-to-understand help messages if someone makes a mistake. Make it responsive on mobile phones, tablets and computers.
Is this asking too much information to simply register for a webinar?
2. Write Clear Field Labels for Optimizing Forms
Clear field labels are the road signs in the journey of filling out a form. They tell users where to go, ensuring they don’t take a wrong turn and abandon the process out of frustration. Follow these guidelines to craft a clear landing page template when optimizing forms:
Be direct: Use simple words. For instance, instead of saying, “Proceed to input your electronic mail,” just say, “Enter your email.”
Use top-aligned labels: Placing labels above the fields is often the best choice as it makes it easier for users to scan and complete quickly.
No technical jargon: Avoid using technical terms that might confuse users; keep the language simple and universal.
Mandatory fields: Clearly indicate which fields are mandatory to fill out, usually with an asterisk (*), so users know they can’t skip these.
Field length: The length of the field should match the length of the answer. For example, a phone number field should be a manageable length.
It’s almost always unwise to place form labels below the fields.
3. Include a Visible, Contrasting Form CTA Button
Forms act as highly visible “conversion beacons” on landing pages, making it clear to the visitor that they are being asked to do something. However, a visible, contrasting call to action (CTA) button will reinforce the desired action.
A form CTA should grab the users’ attention, nudging them naturally and assertively toward making that click. It’s more than a button. It steers users in the right direction. The button should contain contrasting colors that draw the eyes and break visual monotony, creating a focal point that’s almost magnetic.
The button size should be substantial enough to be noticed but not so large that it overwhelms other content. Position it strategically, ideally in a central and prominent spot, where users’ eyes naturally drift. Pair it with compelling text that drives action — steer clear of generic phrases like “click here.”
The design of this form downplays the call to action.
4. Provide Visual Cues and Instructions
Visual cues and instructions help users move through a form intuitively, without feeling lost. When optimizing forms, consider these tips and strategies for implementing visual cues:
Icons and imagery: Use icons to indicate different steps or types of information required, helping users quickly understand what’s expected.
Step indicators: In multi-step forms, use step indicators to show users their progress, giving them a sense of accomplishment and urging them to continue.
Tool tips: Consider tool tips that offer additional information when hovered over, helping to clarify any potential doubts or questions.
Color coding: Use different colors to indicate the status of each field (e.g., red for errors, green for correctly filled fields), providing real-time feedback.
Arrows and pointers: Use arrows to guide the user’s eye flow, subtly directing them from one field to the next in a logical manner.
5. Use Smart Placeholder Text
When making a landing page with form layouts, it’s a good idea to use placeholder text. The placeholder text is the faint text you see in the boxes where the user will type information. It helps people know what they should put in each box.
Placeholder text shouldn’t replace the primary field labels that tell people what each box is for; it’s just there to give extra help.
Keep the placeholder text short and simple. Use everyday words that everyone can understand so people aren’t wondering what they should do. The text color should be lighter than the color people see when they start typing so they can see the difference between their words and your hints.
Test your form to make sure the placeholder text works well, and the layout looks good on different devices such as phones, tablets and computers. That way, visitors will have an easier time using your form, no matter what they use to view it.
6. Implement Progressive Profiling
Progressive profiling is a technique used in digital marketing to gradually collect information about a lead over time rather than asking for all the details at once. Progressive profiling reduces form length, eases the user’s experience and enriches the data profile of the user as they continue to engage with your site or offerings.
The perks? Users are more likely to complete shorter forms with a simpler layout. As they see value and build trust with your brand over time, they’ll be more inclined to share additional information, enabling you to fine-tune your marketing efforts.
Follow this step-by-step guide to implement progressive profiling for form optimization:
Determine priority information: Decide the most crucial details you need from a user on their first interaction.
Set up marketing automation: Use a marketing automation platform that supports progressive profiling.
Establish triggers: Set up triggers based on user behaviors. For instance, on a user’s first visit, they can be asked to provide their name and email. On their second interaction, you might ask for their job title or company name.
Limit the number of fields: Each interaction should introduce only a couple of new fields. This ensures that users are not overwhelmed.
Provide value in exchange: Each time you ask for more information, ensure you’re offering something of value in return.
Ensure data privacy: Be transparent about how you’ll use the data and comply with data protection regulations.
7. Aim for Mobile-Friendly Landing Page Form Optimization
In 2023, 59% of website traffic came from mobile phones, and that percentage is trending upward. Making your landing page mobile responsive ensures a positive user experience that’ll likely result in more completed forms.
To make a mobile-friendly landing page form, start with an uncluttered layout that’s easy to navigate on smaller screens. Make the text readable with buttons large enough to tap effortlessly. A good user experience occurs when the visitor doesn’t have to struggle to read tiny text or tap small buttons.
One of the best ways to improve the mobile form experience is to deliver the proper keyboard for each form field. Both iPhone and Android have special keyboards for:
Numeric fields for phone number, credit card, etc.
Email fields
Fields that ask for a URL
Text fields
Choose the right keyboard for each form field.
Test the landing page template on different mobile phones and browsers to make sure it works flawlessly. Pay attention to load times. If the page or the form loads slowly, you’ll lose potential customers. Ensure that everything looks right and works correctly. Usability sets the stage for a seamless interaction with your potential customers.
The regular keyboard capitalizes and inserts spaces, which are not good for a website address.
8. Include Trust and Privacy Indicators
Building trust with users is a pivotal step. Certificates, privacy policies, and trust badges reassure users that their information is secure and will be handled properly. Here is how to effectively include trust and privacy indicators that give you credibility.
SSL certificates: These are proof that your website is secure. This proof of security is usually represented by a padlock icon in the browser’s address bar. Make sure to obtain one for your site to guarantee data security.
Privacy policy links: Always include a link to your privacy policy near the form. This should detail how user data will be used and protected, offering assurance to users.
Trust badges: Adding trust badges from well-known security firms or payment systems can give your users peace of mind. Place them in visible areas, such as near payment information fields.
Plain language: Use clear, straightforward language to explain the security features so users understand your safety measures without feeling overwhelmed with technical jargon.
Testimonials and reviews: If possible, include reviews or testimonials near the form. Positive feedback from other users can bolster trust.
Displaying these elements prominently (but not intrusively) can strike the right balance between providing assurance and maintaining a clean design. Encouraging trust facilitates a smoother path to conversion.
This form has two links offering risk reversal.
9. Minimize Distractions
Creating a space free of clutter allows users to concentrate solely on the form and steer clear of any hindrances that might disrupt the flow. It retains the user’s attention and subtly nudges them to fill out the form, thereby improving conversion rates.
Limited navigation: Reduce the options for users to navigate away from the page. It could mean having no menu bar or limiting the number of clickable links.
Simple design: Embrace a clean, simple design that highlights the form rather than overshadowing it. Use whitespace effectively to draw attention to the form.
Focused content: Ensure the content on the page aligns with the goal of the form. Avoid adding irrelevant information that doesn’t support the user in completing the form.
Subdued colors: Choose a color scheme that’s pleasing to the eye and doesn’t distract users from the task at hand. Avoid bright, flashy colors that can divert the user’s attention.
Relevant images: While images can enhance a page, be sure they’re not distracting users from the main action point, which is your form.
No CAPTCHA: All of the research we have seen indicates that CAPTCHA tests designed to reduce spam significantly reduce form completion rates. Just don’t do it.
Don’t make your prospects play games to complete a form.
10. Consider Error Handling and Validation
User-friendly error handling and validation are keystones in landing page form optimization. They ensure users can easily correct mistakes. They also foster a smoother, frustration-free experience, which, in turn, amplifies conversion rates.
Here are the best techniques for handling errors and validation:
Real-time feedback: Implement real-time feedback to instantly inform users of any errors, allowing them to correct mistakes as they go rather than after submission, which can be more frustrating.
Specific error messages: When an error occurs, provide clear, specific error messages. Error messages should indicate exactly what the issue is, guiding users to a quick resolution.
Highlight errors: Use visual cues like color changes or icons to pinpoint exactly where the error occurred, making it easier for users to spot and correct.
Friendly language: Use friendly, supportive language in your error messages to avoid frustrating users.
On mobile, beware of validation error messages that appear off-screen. It is recommended that error messages appear on or near the field that needs attention. Avoid posting error messages at the top of the form or the top of the page, as these may be off-screen for a mobile user.
Which fields are incomplete? (I was never able to complet this transaction.)
11. Perform AB Testing and Form Optimization
A/B testing is a must-have in the digital landscape. It allows you to make informed decisions based on data and performance metrics. A/B testing and optimization includes refining and optimizing to ensure your landing page form is performing at optimum levels, which bolsters conversion rates. Here’s a step-by-step guide that helps you do it correctly:
Define your goal: Clearly establish what you aim to achieve with the test, be it increasing the conversion rate, reducing form abandonment, etc.
Create a hypothesis: Develop a hypothesis that you intend to test based on your observations or analytics data.
Identify variables: Pick out the elements you wish to test. It could be the form’s layout, the number of fields, the color scheme, etc.
Develop variants: Create at least two different versions of your landing page form (A and B), altering the identified variables.
Run the test: Execute the test by routing one-half of your visitors to version A and the other half to version B.
Collect data: Let the test run for a sufficient time to gather a substantial amount of data.
Analyze results: Scrutinize the data to find out which version performed better in line with your predefined goals.
Implement changes: Based on your results, implement the winning strategies from the more successful version.
Post A/B testing, continuous optimization comes into play. It’s about nurturing perpetual improvement, where insights gleaned from one test feed into the hypotheses for future tests.
12. Use Analytics and Tracking
Use analytics and tracking tools to understand user behavior and the overall performance of your form. These tools track a variety of metrics that give you the actionable insights you need to continually refine and optimize your form.
Metrics to keep an eye on include:
Form completion rate: This metric tells you the percentage of visitors who took the desired action, giving a direct measure of your form’s success.
Form abandonment rate: Keeping track of how many users start but don’t finish the form can help you pinpoint the problematic areas that need attention.
Field abandonment rate: Measures the percentage of visitors who leave before completing a specific field.
Field completion time: This tells you how long, on average, a visitor took to complete a field. Delays can indicate user confusion or resistance.
Time spent on page: Analyzing the time users spend on your form page can offer insights into the form’s complexity and user engagement level.
Error messages: Monitoring the frequency and types of error messages displayed can help you identify areas that need improved user experience.
By looking at user behavior and form performance, you begin developing optimization strategies that can improve your form completion rates. You will craft a form that’s user-friendly and finely tuned to facilitate higher conversions. It’s about blending science with strategy to foster a landing page form that’s primed for success.
Better Form Optimization Leads to More Conversions
Effective form design is crucial for form optimization, enhancing user experience and increasing conversion rates. You can significantly improve conversion rates by adhering to best practices such as simplicity, clear CTAs, and intuitive layouts. Regular testing and refinement based on user feedback are essential for maintaining optimal form effectiveness.
In digital marketing, landing page forms are essential for transforming casual browsers into engaged customers. Forms serve as a first handshake, introducing individuals to your brand while gathering vital information to personalize their experience.
When crafting these forms, the golden rule is efficiency. A well-structured form respects the user’s time and demonstrates a focused approach, asking for only what’s necessary to kick-start a relationship for you and a potential customer.
Below, we share valuable tips for landing page best practices and how to design and optimize your forms to convert more leads into loyal customers.
Completing a contact form: Here, visitors are reaching out, offering a direct line for you to showcase what your brand can do.
Signing up for newsletters: When visitors decide to stay looped in, they hand over their email addresses to get regular updates.
Downloading resources: Be it an insightful ebook, a white paper, or a podcast, if a visitor downloads it, that’s a conversion.
Requesting a quote or information: This signals a deeper interest as visitors are asking to know more about what you’re offering.
Making a purchase or signing up for a service: When a visitor opens their wallet and makes a purchase, it’s a conversion you want to celebrate.
We divide conversions into two main types:
In a primary conversion, the visitor hits the bullseye and helps you meet the main goal of your landing page by making a purchase or filling out a contact form.
Secondary conversions are additional actions users take if they need more time to complete the primary conversion but demonstrate interest, such as subscribing to a newsletter or downloading a whitepaper.
In either case, the goal of your landing form is to capture essential information from visitors, helping to transform them from casual browsers into qualified leads.
Why Use Landing Page Forms?
Forms are the backbone of any successful landing page strategy. They’re like friendly greeters at a store’s entrance, helping to introduce potential customers to what the business offers while gathering helpful information along the way. A successfully executed form also allows you to connect with, learn about, and encourage your visitors to act.
Connect With Your People
These forms are all about making connections. By encouraging visitors to share some information about themselves, you build relationships with people who are genuinely interested in your offering. We call it capturing leads.
Learn About Your People
Forms are a goldmine for gathering customer data. They help you gain insights to refine your approach and offer products, deals, or information more aligned with what your audience wants. It’s a smart way to keep people engaged and coming back for more.
Encourage Your People to Commit
Let’s not forget about sales! A well-designed form can smoothly guide a visitor from browsing your site to purchasing. It’s like having a helpful shop assistant who knows exactly when to step in and offer just the right suggestion to help a customer make their choice.
In this article, we focus on landing page form optimization, but as mentioned above, your form is part of a larger landing page strategy. Don’t forget to optimize your landing page for conversion as well. These landing page templates will help.
Key Components of a High-Converting Form
If you want your landing page forms to convert, have your endgame in mind. This ensures that every element of your form is strategically aligned to encourage users to complete the desired action.
Each field in the form reassures and motivates the user, helping them gain momentum and ultimately leading to a conversion. They provide a great user experience but also reduce submissions from unqualified prospects. The following elements help you achieve these goals.
Compelling Headline
A great headline is a firm handshake with the visitor; it grabs their attention and holds on tight. It should resonate with the potential customers and hint at the value they will receive.
Here are some pro techniques for writing winning headlines:
Keep it tight. The best headlines are no more than six to ten words. This makes it easier to read at a glance, and more importantly, to fit more easily on mobile devises.
Make it active: A good headline feels energetic. The best way to inject energy is to write the headline with an active verb, ideally in the present tense.
Omit the unnecessary: Strike articles (words like a, an, and the) whenever possible. And instead of conjunctions (think and or but), use commas.
Be specific: Vague is boring. Use specific numbers and details to capture attention.
Need some inspiration for your next compelling headline? Think of action phrases like:
“Unlock Your Exclusive Offer”
“Elevate Your Programming Skills in 30 Minutes”
“Order Today to Save 60%!”
“Advance Your Career by 5 Years”
“Discover 3 Secrets to a Healthier You!”
“Reduce Reverb with the Industry’s #1 Digital Mixer.”
These headlines are enticing, offering a promise of value and evoking a sense of exclusivity and advancement.
Clear Benefit Statement
A benefit statement goes hand in hand with the headline, offering a concise yet comprehensive overview of what users stand to gain if they take action. It could be phrased like any of these:
“Save Time and Money with Exclusive Deals Delivered to Your Inbox!”
“Gain Instant Access to Expert Advice and Industry Insights!”
“Join Now and Start Enjoying Members-Only Content and Resources!”
“Secure Your Spot to Get First Dibs on All Our New Releases and Discounts!”
“Complete the Form and Take the First Step Toward a Better You!”
Crafting a potent benefit statement involves pinpoint precision and a firm focus on value. When drafting your statements, remember these three quick tips:
Emphasize the unique rewards the user will gain, painting a vivid yet specific picture of the advantages.
Use energetic and affirmative language to foster enthusiasm and convey confidence; this is not the time for passivity.
Make it as concise as possible; every word should serve a purpose, driving home the benefit without meandering.
Highlight the benefits vividly, spotlighting the value of completing the form.
Clear and Concise Instructions
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a landing page form is to assume users understand what they need to do next. It’s important to clearly communicate the purpose of registration forms, how to fill them out, and what happens after they do.
Your goal is to design a smooth user experience. Imagine that you’re having a direct conversation with your potential customers. Guide them in a friendly yet assured manner.
Make field labels clear and concise. This reduces guesswork and increases the likelihood that users will accurately complete every field. It can help to use some basic copywriting techniques:
Use words that are easy to understand — avoid jargon.
Be clear, not creative or clever.
Use the fewest words necessary to communicate clearly.
It may be necessary to write simple instruction, complete with checkboxes, bullet points, or numbers to guide the user through their next steps.
However you approach it, make sure you use a simple, less-is-more layout to reduce confusion. Good form design includes easy-to-read field labels, a clean layout, and responsive feedback that acknowledges correct user input. It also adopts a layout that looks good on phones and tablets since 45% of form data is submitted on mobile devices.
Proper Use of Form Fields
Form design studies have found that unnecessary form fields create friction and reduce conversion rates. The statistics are sobering:
81% of users have abandoned an online form after beginning to fill it out.
27% of users have abandoned an online form because it was too long.
67% of users will abandon a form forever if they encounter any complications.
To avoid form abandonment, it’s important to reduce complication. Think “less is more.”
Your form layout should include only as many fields as you need.
Are you offering a report or whitepaper? Users know you only need their email address to send them the information they’re requesting. They may be willing to share their name and phone number, but it’s unlikely they’ll answer a dozen fields asking for details about their job or their business.
Are they filling out a demo-request form? Users understand that you need more information to put together a demo. You can ask about their job role and business but you should avoid asking penetrating questions that can be asked face-to-face.
A smart strategy in form design is to leverage “stop fields,” fields that ask too much of your visitors when compared to the perceived value of the offer.
These fields tend to cause form abandonment — but keep in mind, there is bad form abandonment and good form abandonment.
Bad form abandonment occurs when a qualified prospect was unwilling to complete the form. Good form abandonment occurs when you discourage unqualified prospects from completing the form. And that’s where stop fields come into play. Used strategically, they can reduce conversion while increasing the quality of your leads.
Stop fields may include:
Mobile phone number
Dropdowns
Business revenue
Number of employees
Social security number
Date of birth
CAPTCHA
Dropdowns or checkboxes that do not include the “right” answer for a visitor will cause abandonment.
Form optimization is key. When designing your form, for every field in your form, ask two questions:
Do I need this information to fulfill the offer?
Will this field eliminate unqualified prospects?
Determining what information to ask for involves a careful consideration of your goals. Are you aiming to nurture leads, sign users up for a newsletter, or perhaps register them for a webinar? The nature of your offering should dictate the kind of information you require.
Primary contact details: Ask for basic contact details such as name and email address, which allows you to build a connection and communicate with the user.
Segmentation information: Include a field to gather segmentation information (like job title or industry).
Feedback or specific interests: Include a field where users can state their interests or ask questions.
Remember to keep your field labels as simple as possible, so they don’t reduce trust or increase abandonment rates.
Progress Indicators for Multi-Step Forms
Progress indicators offer a roadmap on longer or multi-step forms, letting users know where they are in the process and how much further they have to go. They enhance the user experience by providing a sense of accomplishment with each completed step and encouraging users to proceed to the next step.
Here are some guidelines for effectively using progress indicators in quiz-style or multi-step landing page forms:
Layout: Ensure that the progress indicator is clearly visible—ideally at the top of the form—so users can easily see their progress at any point.
Simplicity: Keep it simple. Use basic shapes and minimalistic form design to denote progress without distracting from the main task.
Step descriptions: Each step in the progress indicator should have a brief description, helping users understand what is expected in each section.
Active step highlight: Highlight the active step to provide a visual cue of the current stage in the completion process.
Dynamic feedback: Offer dynamic feedback, updating the progress bar as users navigate the form.
Also, use colors strategically, such as using a distinct color to denote completed steps and create a visual differentiation. Consider providing incentives for completing different stages, encouraging users to reach the end of the process.
Thank You Page or Confirmation Message
A well-crafted thank you page or confirmation message is a golden opportunity to further engage with users and create a lasting impression. It provides a satisfying closure to the form submission process, reassuring users that their effort was successful while enhancing their overall experience.
The thank you page also creates an “Endowment Effect.” This is the afterglow that kicks in once someone has decided to take action on your landing page. It “endows” your business with a heightened trust. This is an ideal time to ask users to do something more.
An effective thank you page or confirmation message can include a variety of elements, such as:
Confirmation details: Include a summary of the information submitted or the next steps, reassuring users that the process has been successfully completed.
Engagement opportunities: Offer additional resources, such as blog posts, ebooks, or webinars, to encourage users to explore further and stay engaged with your brand.
Social sharing buttons: Encourage users to share their actions on social media, potentially increasing your reach and attracting more visitors.
Subscription option: Provide an option to subscribe to your newsletter to foster a long-term relationship with the user.
Schedule a time: If the offer is for a demo or consultation, ask the visitor to go ahead and schedule a time with a calendar widget.
Provide feedback: We love to ask a question on the thank you page, such as “What almost kept you from requesting the report?”
Here are some examples of effective thank you pages or confirmation messages:
Content Download Thank You Page:
Message: “Thank you, [Name]! Your ebook is on its way to your inbox.”
Next steps: Share some popular blog posts they can read while they wait.
Sharing: Include buttons to easily share the ebook offer with friends on social platforms.
Webinar Registration Thank You Page:
Message: “You’re all set, [Name]! We look forward to seeing you at the [Webinar Name].”
Details: Include a summary of the webinar details (date, time) and an option to add it to their calendar.
Preparation: Add links to pre-webinar reading materials or relevant videos.
Strong Call to Action (CTA)
A strong and clear call to action (CTA) isn’t just a button or a small part of your landing page forms. It’s essentially the crescendo of your user’s journey on your page. It’s the final nudge that encourages the user to take the desired action, steering them from being a visitor to a potential lead or customer.
A well-crafted CTA can significantly boost conversions and play a pivotal role in a successful landing page. Here are a handful of examples of successful CTAs:
“Get My Free Ebook Now!”
“Join the Webinar”
“Start My Free Trial”
“Yes, I Want Exclusive Access!”
“Subscribe & Save”
Notice how these CTAs use enthusiastic and encouraging language, coupled with a value proposition, to make the action more enticing.
Use these simple techniques for crafting persuasive CTAs:
Be clear and direct: Use straightforward language that clearly indicates the action you want the user to take.
Create urgency: If appropriate, create a sense of urgency by using time-bound language to encourage quick action.
Highlight value: Showcase the value proposition prominently, highlighting what the user stands to gain from taking the action.
Use actionable verbs: Start with verbs that encourage action, like “Get,” “Join,” or “Discover,” to foster enthusiasm and a readiness to act.
Optimize size and placement: Ensure the CTA is a noticeable size and placed prominently on the page to grab attention.
Better Forms Lead to More Conversions
We’ve dissected the pivotal role forms play in digital marketing, emphasizing the elements that can boost conversion rates. From understanding the essence of conversions to identifying ways to improve form design and so much more, we gave you the inside scoop on creating compelling landing page forms that take potential customers across the finish line.
Two Guys on Your Website: The Different Conversion Optimization Techniques You Should Consider
Conversion OptimizationConversion rate optimization (CRO) is important at every stage of your business. But if you have a low-volume site, you may not be able to do the A/B testing that is the hallmark of so many CRO projects. Here are conversion optimization techniques that work no matter where you are on the CRO spectrum.
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Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving your website to increase the percentage of visitors who take a desired action. Whether it’s making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter, effective CRO can dramatically enhance your online performance. Here are your best options for optimizing your website.
The Spectrum of Optimization
Brian and Joel explain that conversion rate optimization can be viewed on a spectrum, ranging from low-volume sites to advanced data-driven strategies. Each stage requires different approaches and considerations. In this podcast, they explore the different conversion optimization techniques that work for each stage of the spectrum.
Optimizing a Low-Volume Site
On one end of the spectrum is the lower volume website. To optimize these sites, you have to turn up your risk tolerance dial. Since you don’t have a big enough sample size to run accurate tests, you run into the optimization paradox: you have less data to understand how to bring about meaningful change, but you have to drive meaningful change in order to find detectable change.
The conversion rate is essentially a ratio. The smaller your sample size, the more subject the ratio is to fluctuation.
The truth is, it’s very difficult to make changes that win on any website. Even for the best in the business, the batting average is three out of ten. Four out of ten are winners to the dollar. Nobody knows exactly what’s going to work. That’s the puzzle of it. You have to fail systematically to uncover what’s going to work. For smaller websites, that’s even more challenging.
Conversion Optimization Techniques for Low-Volume Sites
Before and After Testing (BA Testing): Change something on the website and wait to see whether it improves results. It’s important to know which tools are needed for the occasion and how many tools you can be using at the same time. And, of course, if you aren’t measuring results, it’s not really optimization.
Home Run Testing: Also known as big swings, where you run an A/B test but apply your results to before and after testing. With this approach, you’re looking for signature wins of 50% to 70% lift. With a relatively small sample size, the math works out because the lift is so big. But you have to be willing to make an optimization error, calling a test a loser because it only had 20 or 30% lift — even if it could have improved things if you had been able to run the test long enough to get the right sample size.
Data-Informed Gut Decisions: On a lower volume website, you have to know your customers. You can have 40 to 30 conversions with the conversion rate showing a delta, but it’s still low volume. You don’t have statistical significance, but if there is no evidence that this is going to hurt you and there is evidence that the change will help you, then do it. Do it and move on.
Choosing an Agency for Low-Volume Sites
If you’re a smaller volume website, there’s bad news. Our full-team approach probably isn’t the best fit for you. The ROI won’t be there, and we don’t do deals unless we feel we can provide measurable value.
Optimization is about peeling back layer after layer of the onion — different types of onions and different types of data. You have to discover your customers’ preferences. Then you make meaningful changes for them.
Heuristic Analysis
Moving along the spectrum, Brian and Joel discuss heuristic analysis, which involves evaluating a site based on established best practices and design principles.
Heuristic analysis is useful for identifying low-hanging fruit and common issues in website design.
Fix the things that are broken: There’s only one rock-solid best practice. Make sure your site is not broken in a way that prevents people from taking the action you want them to take.
Context matters: Each website is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. Contextual understanding is essential.
Heuristic analysis has its limitations. What seems like an objectively good idea will have secondary effects. Fixing one issue may break the experience for your visitors.
Heuristic CRO is also more project-oriented. Over the long-term you must maintain constant upward pressure on the conversion rate, because everything else is putting downward pressure on you — ad costs, competition, market fluctuations, new technology. Optimizers watch your data and recognize what’s working, what’s not, and keep moving forward.
Heuristics Plus Message Testing
To take heuristics to the next level, you can use online focus groups or online survey services that let you test your designs. An example is the five-second test. For this type of testing, you design two to four versions of a page and put each variation in front of 25 people for five seconds. Then you ask questions like:
You’re trying to understand whether people can understand your message at a glance.
The challenge with this type of testing is that people aren’t always honest. They give you the answers they think you want to hear. We like to stick with questions about how well we’re communicating rather than how well we’re presenting the product. That distinction makes sense.
Collecting Data on the Site
As you move further along the spectrum, the focus shifts to more advanced, data-driven strategies. You want to flesh out your heuristics ideas with data, which will reveal things that tend to lead to the most meaningful hypothesis or ideas.
Here, everything starts with asking good questions and running them through various sources of data. You can leverage session recordings, and for higher traffic sites, you can do heat map reports, which tell you where visitors are clicking and how far they’re scrolling on the page.
This gives you feedback on where problems exist and gives you pointed ideas at the highest level:
You can use this data to build a better visual hierarchy. This is important because the most important element on the page may be halfway down the page, and only 50% of visitors actually scroll that far. Or you may be overthinking things and making the page more complicated than it needs to be.
Hypothesis-Driven Testing
Once your site qualifies for AB testing — you can get a reasonable sample size for testing at least one good variation in the space of four to six weeks — you can layer heuristics and data for a full-blown conversion audit assessment.
A conversion optimization audit reviews your website through the eyes of the visitor. It’s notoriously difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, which is one of the advantages of having an external CRO agency.
An in-house CRO team is prone to test the wrong things. They let group-think interfere with their optimization efforts.
At Conversion Sciences, we:
A systematic, scientific approach to optimization — experimenting, trying things, and using data to fuel your hypotheses — minimizes risk. The most risky thing is to do nothing. The second most risky thing is to apply group-think to your testing.
The Optimization Spectrum
On one side of the spectrum, you have individual contributors and consultants who do a heuristic review. These people are often able to optimize the low-hanging fruit.
At Conversion Sciences, we work with businesses that have already picked their low-hanging fruit. Because of that, signature wins of 50% to 60% are rare. Our tests generally have 10% to 15% lifts. At higher volumes, we’re able to achieve 3% to 5% lifts that drive constant upward pressure.
With more sophisticated clients who are already using data effectively, we often discover blind spots. There are things they can’t see or answer questions about. Our Conversion Scientists® can see into those blind spots, and our development team can implement the technical solutions.
The challenge for any optimizer is to balance data collection with forward movement. It’s important to keep testing.
Knowing What and Where to Test
Optimization isn’t just about running tests; it’s about choosing the right elements to test and focusing on high-impact areas. It’s better to get a 2% increase on 100% of conversions than a 100% increase on 1% of the traffic or conversions.
When running an AB test, you want to keep the velocity up. Make sure you’ve always got tests in the water. That’s why it’s helpful to have a CRO agency that can handle development, design, and analytics.
The Importance of a Conversion Strategist
It’s hard to maintain an in-house optimization program. There are very few conversion strategists — we call them “Conversion Scientists® — who are actually good at optimization.
A successful CRO program requires a skilled team, and the Conversion Scientist is at its core. This person synthesizes data, develops hypotheses, and leads the optimization efforts.
When we do a conversion consultation, we aim to understand where folks are with their business from a conversion volume perspective. We help them understand what their best path forward is, which may or may not involve us.
If it doesn’t involve us, we take the time and be very present in the moment and give them the best possible advice we can.
If there is a fit, we do our due diligence to determine how we can provide value. We talk about our core values and our North Star word: longevity. This is key because we can only achieve longevity by working with people we truly believe we can help and putting constant upward pressure on their conversion rates.
We have client relationships that have lasted six years or more. Often, by the time we’ve worked together for six years, we are affecting them internally. They begin to use data and experimentation on other parts of their business. That’s longevity.
Your Takeaway
Your optimization strategy exists on a spectrum. In early stages, you can evaluate the data to understand where friction exists. Perhaps you can perform simple tests. But when you’re ready to hire a CRO agency, you need to find an agency that uses the scientific method, understands how to ask the right questions and run the right tests, and seeks a long-term relationship.
Stay tuned for more ground rules from Two Guys on Your Website.
Apply AB Testing Tactics to Before and After Testing
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingAB testing tactics can tell you whether your website changes are having a meaningful effect on your visitors. Before and after testing, sometimes referred to as BA testing, is similar, and it’s one of the easiest ways to learn how your design changes are impacting your visitors.
In this guide, you’ll learn what BA testing is, how it works, and how to get reliable results from before and after analysis.
What Is Before and After Testing?
Every change you make to your website is a test. Yet, changes are often made without analyzing the impact. Even small changes can have a material impact on your conversion rates.
Before and after testing (BA testing) is a type of conversion testing that evaluates the impact of changes to your website. As the name implies, it means comparing the performance of a new website or webpage to the previous version, so you know whether conversions increased or decreased after the change was pushed to production.
This can be as simple as looking at the number of conversions before the new webpage was launched and comparing it to the conversions after.
However, there are some problems with this approach that can lead you to the wrong conclusions. You might decide that the new design is an improvement, when in fact it materially lowered sales or leads. Alternatively, you may not notice a winning design because it looked like conversions went down when you launched it.
We are going to show you how to minimize the chances of making a bad call by using AB testing tactics for analyzing your changes.
Read the Complete AB Testing Guide here.
The Problem with Before and After Testing
The problem with before and after testing is that the results can be influenced by things that have nothing to do with the design change itself.
Here are some of the reasons leads or sales might drop after publishing a change to your website.
Your new design is not as good as the old one.
Thanks to AB testing, we have learned that even small changes to the layout of a page, copy, or images of a page can have a surprising effect on your visitors.
Your new design may not seem as credible to your visitors, making them hesitant to buy or submit a form.
You may tighten up your copy, eliminating information you felt was insignificant. Yet that information may have been important to a large segment of your visitors, leaving an important question unanswered for them.
Seasonality caused a drop in leads.
Many businesses have seasonal increases and decreases in their conversion rates. For example, most ecommerce websites enjoy more eager traffic during the holiday shopping season.
Businesses selling to other businesses (B2B) may experience an increase in leads at the end of the month, end of the quarter, or end of the year due to budgetary influences.
If you release your new design as these seasonal changes are happening, you may decide the new design is performing more poorly, when in fact the change was not the reason for the drop.
Your business changed its traffic mix.
We’d love to believe that the teams bringing traffic to the site are in close communication with the web development team. We know this is not always true.
For example, your paid search agency may change the bidding strategy, add keywords, or change ad copy at the same time you release your new design. This can have a material effect on the quality of the traffic, reducing your conversion rates.
Your email team may have changed the email schedule, reducing this highly qualified traffic.
Again, the change in the performance was not related to your design.
Your business ended a promotion.
It is not uncommon for new designs to be released at the beginning and end of promotional periods. This muddies the water when trying to ascertain if a new layout is truly worse, or if a discount was the reason for a change in sales.
A competitor increased their ad spend or started a promotion.
Your competitors will impact your traffic mix, and you may never know. If a competitor is siphoning off your prized ad traffic, you would expect your conversion rates to drop.
If this happened at the same time as your new design launched, you might conclude the new design is inferior to the original.
There was a technical error on the new design.
Sometimes a great new design is crippled by a bug, a glitch, or a longer load time. Your visitors may have preferred the new design and copy, but wouldn’t tolerate the slow or broken page.
AB Testing vs. BA Testing
The solution to the problems listed above is AB testing. In an AB test, the new design is shown to half of the traffic and the other half of the traffic sees the original. This ensures that any seasonal effects, changes in traffic, promotions, and competitor shenanigans impact both versions equally.
AB tests are designed to ensure that there are no differences between the original and new design. We can use the same AB testing tactics to give us more confidence in our before and after analysis.
With a little discipline, we can evaluate a new page against its predecessor with greater confidence in the conclusions.
Why Not Just Do an AB Test?
There are many reasons we will do a before and after test instead of an AB test.
The Benefits of Before and After Analysis
There are some serious advantages to doing before and after analysis.
Before and after tests don’t require sophisticated testing tools.
The benefit of a BA test is that you don’t need to use any fancy AB testing tools. Your Analytics tool (such as Google Analytics) has the data you need.
Before and after tests don’t require sophisticated planning and setup.
While we are going to apply AB testing tactics to our before and after analysis, before and after testing doesn’t require all of the planning and setup required by an AB test.
You can go back and evaluate past changes.
As long has you know the dates of changes made to your website, and the specifics of the changes, you can determine how those changes are impacting your conversion rates. This is not true of AB testing.
Before and after analysis uses analytics reports, and you probably have data going back a year or more.
AB Testing Tactics to Use for Before and After Analysis
To get the best analysis of the change, we want to follow the rules that an AB test follows.
Create a segment for your change.
Not every change will be a sitewide change. Often your change will affect only a single page or a page template.
To increase the accuracy of the analysis, only consider traffic that has seen the pages on which the change was made.
For example, if you change the layout of the product page template for your ecommerce website, you will want to create a segment of visitors that includes only those sessions that saw at least one product page. If you changed something in the design of your site’s header, you will use all of the traffic in your analysis.
Select the proper parameters for your analysis.
You are going to compare the performance of a page or website for a period before and a period after the launch of a change. If you’ve just launched a design change to production, you will have to wait to generate data for the new design.
How long?
Ideally, you would wait a period of time long enough to generate at least 100 conversions. Since before and after testing is prone to errors, you may wish to double this number.
For example, if you had 80 conversions before your BA test and 120 conversions afterwards, it appears that the changes have had a positive impact on the conversion rate. But with such a small sample size, it’s hard to be sure. By waiting until you reach 200 conversions after your changes, you may see a different result. At the very least, it minimizes the margin of error in before and after testing.
Select appropriate before and after periods.
To gain reliable insights from BA testing, you must run the test for a sufficient duration. Select a period of time that’s long enough to capture a significant amount of data and account for any short-term fluctuations.
Consider selecting durations of at least a month or longer to ensure an adequate sample size of conversions.
1. Compare similar timespans.
The length of the time that you choose for the original “before” version of the page should be the same as for the new page.
Assuming that traffic is pretty consistent, this should give you a similar sample size for the before and after analysis.
BA Testing Tips
Evaluate similar traffic.
The kind of traffic you are receiving and the quality of the traffic coming to your changed page will impact your before and after analysis.
In the following example, the company began sending email at the same time that changes were launched. Email traffic typically converts at rates several times the site average. (Hint: Are you doing enough with email?)
Because of this, it will appear that the change made to the page caused a jump in conversions.
The solution here is to use only those traffic channels that remained consistent. In Google Analytics, use the Channels report to see if any traffic source changed.
Watch out for intra-week and intra-month seasonality.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows you to compare two periods quite easily. But, you should be aware that there is “seasonality” within each week and, often, within a month.
In the following example, the before period has five weekend days. The after period only has four. Since conversions typical drop on weekends, this may skew your analysis in favor of the original design.
In this example, the before period covers the end of the month while the after period covers the beginning of the month. This can cause skew in certain kinds of businesses.
Beware of year-over-year analysis.
Year-over-year analysis is one way to control for seasonality when doing a before and after test. With this analysis, you choose the period from last year that maps onto the period from this year that includes your site changes.
Be sure to take into account big changes in site traffic and buyer behavior, such as those we saw in the pandemic. Visitor behavior changed when we were encouraged to stay at home. And as the virus surged and waned, that behavior changed.
These types of behavioral changes lead us to put less faith in year-over-year analysis.
Compare conversion rates, not conversions.
While we hope to minimize changes in traffic when selecting time periods for our before and after test, there will be changes. A drop in traffic may reduce conversions, even as changes to our pages makes the conversion rate go up.
We don’t want to make this mistake.
Be sure to choose the conversion rate to evaluate your change, not just the number of conversions.
For ecommerce businesses, you should evaluate Revenue per Visit. This metric combines changes in conversion rate plus changes in average order value (AOV) that your change may have impacted.
Look for BIG changes in performance.
Even with all of this careful selection of time periods, we are victims of changes over time that we cannot control. As I’ve pointed out, we cannot know if changes in competitor behavior or the sentiment of visitors have changed.
As a result, we cannot put faith in small changes from our before and after analysis.
For a well-designed A/B test, we set our maximum P-value at 0.05. This ensures we have a 95% or better confidence that any change we’re seeing between the two periods is not due to random chance. For a before-and-after analysis, I recommend setting the P-value to 0.01. This means that we want to be 99% sure that a change in conversion rate (or other relevant metric) is not just random chance.
How can we calculate this P-value? We’ll use an A/B test calculator.
6. Use an A/B Test Calculator for before and after analysis.
To get a statistical calculation of how our change affected our conversion rate, we can use one of the free A/B Test Calculators available on the web. We like the CXL Test Calculator.
Since we are analyzing existing data as if we had run an A/B test, we’ll choose “Test Analysis.”
We can then go to Google Analytics and create a report with the date ranges we’ve selected for the before and after periods. It might look something like this:
In this case, our report shows Conversions (purchases), Users and the conversion rate for purchases.
We will plug these numbers into our A/B test calculator.
We can see in the report that:
In this case we would be proud of our change and would keep the new variation on the site.
Here’s an example of a test that went the other way:
In this case, the change we made had a negative implact on the purchase conversion rate. We can switch to a “two-tailed” test to see if the variation is statistically worse. In this case the P-value is less than 0.001, or against the control with 99% confidence.
We would recommend that you go back to the original page.
What if the P-value isn’t < 0.01? For instance, what if it was 0.04? What if the Control was better with a P-value of 0.04?
We call this “inconclusive.” There is not enough evidence that the variation is worse than the control to eliminate it. In such a situation you can choose to keep the variation or roll back to the original. Even if the variation had a lower conversion rate, if it wasn’t statistically significant, either could be the long-term winner.
However, most of the time, people feel safer keeping the one with the higher conversion rate.
When to Use Before and After Testing
Before and after testing, or pre-post analysis is like having design insurance. Designers and IT people are all to eager to make changes to the website. However, many of those changes will inadvertently decrease marketing performance. This is a statistically valid way to ensure others aren’t working against the business.
You can learn something about your visitors from these tests. When you understand what increases (or decreases) the business performance of the website, you can infer the preferences of your visitors and customers.
Finally, before and after testing lets you “sign the flowers,” a way of saying that you can take credit for conversion-improving changes. If you’ve earned it, take it.
Get Help from the Conversion Scientists®
BA testing, AB testing, and designing experiments can be complicated and confusing. With Conversion Sciences, you have a skilled team of Conversion Scientists who can work with you or provide a done-for-you conversion optimization program.
Looking for AI optimization services from people who understand the critical importance of data? When you partner with Conversion Sciences, you get better conversion rates as well as a well-optimized process. Let’s chat.
The 20 Most Recommended AB Testing Tools By Leading CRO Experts (2024 Update)
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingThere are a ton of AB testing tools on the market right now, and that number is only going to increase. When evaluating these tools for use in your own business, it can be difficult to wade through the marketing rhetoric and identify exactly which tools are a good fit. That’s why we reached out to our network of CRO specialists in order to bring you a comprehensive look at the best AB testing tools on the market.
Our goal here isn’t necessarily to give you a complete review of each tool, but rather, to show you which split testing tools are preferred by full-time CRO experts — people whose businesses depend completely on the results they are able to deliver to their clients.
We’ll cover two primary categories of tools:
At the end of the day, the “right” tool is going to vary depending on the business. As Paul Rouke, former Founder and Director of Customer-Centricity at CX agency PRWD, explains:
No tool on this list will be the right fit for every business. That said, without breaking up our list into tiers, we would like to note 4 tools that came up very consistently from the experts we queried.
The two most popular AB testing tools by a wide margin were Optimizely and VWO. These are the most common AB testing tools used by Conversion Sciences clients, and virtually every single expert we chatted with is using both of these tools on a regular basis.
Another two tools that came up on our original poll (in about a third of responses), were Convert Experiences and UsabilityHub. Both of these tools received consistently strong reviews from the experts who used them and fill key needs in the CRO space, which we’ll discuss in their respective entries.
Without further ado, let’s talk a look at our list of recommended AB testing tools.
What We Use at Conversion Sciences
Our use of AB testing tools allows us to do post-test analysis of different segments.
Our post-test analysis stack:
So important is this stack to us that we’ve created a Google Sheets add-on for Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Most Recommended AB Testing Tools
Now, let’s look at our experts’ recommended options for running AB tests. We’ve listed these in order of frequency with which they were mentioned by our experts. This is not to be confused with a quality ranking.
1. Optimizely
Optimizely is basically the big kid on campus. It’s our experts’ go-to choice for working with enterprise level clients, and despite the significant price increases over the years, it remains the king.
It’s also reasonably user friendly for such a complex tool, as Shanelle Mullin summarizes:
Here at Conversion Sciences, we use this tool every single day, so I asked them to give me a few thoughts on what they like and dislike about it.
According to the team, Optimizely offers some of the following benefits.
On the flip side, Optimizely is a bit lacking in these ways:
Optimizely’s multivariate testing setup is simple and intuitive, and it’s the leading split testing tool for a reason. For businesses with the budget and team to utilize Optimizely to its fullest potential, it is clearly a must-own.
2. VWO
Coming in just behind Optimizely in the AB testing pantheon is Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). VWO is incredibly popular in the marketing space, and in addition to serving as a top choice for businesses with smaller budgets, it is also frequently used in conjunction with Optimizely by businesses who run complex testing campaigns.
Our Conversion Scientists® feel VWO offers some of the following benefits as compared to Optimizely:
More intuitive interface with color coding
On the flip side, VWO is lacking in the following areas:
This perspective is mostly shared by the ConversionXL team as well, as explained by Shanelle Mullin:
Overall, VWO is in intriguing solo option for smaller to midsized businesses and also works very well in conjunction with Optimizely for enterprise clients.
3. Convert Experiences
While Optimizely and VWO were the tools most commonly mentioned, Convert Experiences received some of the most effusive praise from those who had worked with it.
It seems to have hit a sweet spot for SME/SMBs, combining an exceptional power-to-price ratio with an intuitive interface and highly regarded customer support.
Convert Experiences also stood out as the type of tool that catches new fans wherever it’s discovered, leading me to believe that it will continue to grow and pick up market share.
Convert Experiences is known for having some of the most robust multivariate testing options in it’s class. At the same time, it is also one of the few tools in its class to not offer any sort of email split testing capabilities.
Overall, it’s a highly recommended AB testing tool that is worth trying out.
4. SiteSpect
SiteSpect initially distinguished itself as one of the first server-side testing solutions on the market, and it has remained a top choice for more technically sophisticated users and security-conscious clients.
As a server-side testing solution, SiteSpect avoids many of the issues that can arise with the more typical browser-based testing platforms that utilize javascript tags.
While this value proposition won’t be the deciding factor for many businesses, for those requiring a server-side solution, SiteSpect is one of the best options on the market.
5. AB Tasty
AB Tasty is a solution for testing, re-engagement of users, and content personalisation, designed for marketing teams. Paul Rouke had a good bit to say here, so I’ll let him take it away.
6. Evolv AI
Evolv brings advanced machine learning algorithms to the CRO space, helping you identy exactly why your customers aren’t converting, how to fix it, and the potential revenue impact. It was one of the first conversion optimization apps to leverage AI, and it’s becoming exponentially more precise over time.
This is important because it speeds up multivariate testing. Evolutionary, or genetic algorithms do a better job of finding optimum combinations, isolating the richest local maximum for a solution set.
Our team of scientists love being able to assemble our highest rated hypotheses and throw them in the mix to have the machine sort them for us. This really is the future of conversion optimization.
7. Kameleoon
Kameleoon is a web experimentation tool that offers some of the most well-thought-out reporting of any tool we’ve used. They offer features for websites and apps with a dash of AI to identify segments and predict conversions.
8. Qubit
Qubit is a testing platform focused primarily on personalization. Accordingly, it has some of the strongest segmentation capabilities of any tool on this list.
If advanced segmentation or personalization are a priority for your business or clients, Qubit is a tool worth checking out.
9. Adobe Target
Long known for being the most expensive AB testing tool on the market, we’ve found that Adobe Target works best with sites that already use Adobe Analytics.
If your business is already paying for Adobe Analytics, adding Adobe Target is virtually a no-brainer. If your business is not using Adobe Analytics, ignoring Adobe Target is virtually a no-brainer.
Here’s how Stephen Pavlovich feels about it:
2 Marketing Software Tools With Built-In AB Testing
In addition to dedicated AB testing tools, there are some great marketing software out there that include built-in split testing capabilities. This is fairly common with tools like landing page builders, email service providers, or lead capture solutions.
As Justin Christianson explains, there are some positives and negatives to relying on these built-in tools:
1. Unbounce
One particular tool that was highlighted by several of our experts was Unbounce, one of the web’s more popular landing page builders.
2. OptinMonster
Another popular tool was OptinMonster, which began as a popular popup tool and has evolved into a more fully featured lead generation software.
12 Tools For Gathering Data
As every good split tester knows, your AB tests are only as good as the hypotheses you are testing. The following tools represent our experts’ favorite choices for collecting data to fuel effective AB tests.
1. UsabilityHub
UsabilityHub was by far the most frequently mentioned analytics tool by our group of CRO experts. UsabilityHub is a collection of 5 usability tests that can be administered to visitors in order to collect key insights.
While many of the tools on this list deal primarily with quantitative data, UsabilityHub offers uniquely efficient ways to collect valuable qualitative data.
It also can be a cost-effective alternative if your website doesn’t get enough traffic to facilitate use of an actual split testing tool.
2. Google Analytics
To the surprise of exactly no one, Google Analytics was high up on the list of recommended analytics tools. Yet despite its popularity, very few marketers or business owners are using this free tool to its full potential.
Theresa Baiocco makes the follow recommendations for getting started:
When it comes to applying Google Analytics to your AB testing efforts, John Ekman of Conversionista offers some advice:
For those interested in tapping into the full potential of Google Analytics, here’s some resources you may need..
3. Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is one of the more popular heatmap and click-tracking tools online, thanks to an attractive interface, an affordable price point, and a deceptively powerful feature set.
Our Conversion Scientists not only use Crazy Egg, we highly recommend it. Here’s what they says about it:
4. UserTesting.com
UserTesting.com is a unique service that provides videos of real users in your target market experiencing your site and talking through what they’re thinking.
This service is recommended by Craig Andrews, who had the following to say:
5. UserZoom (formerly Validately)
UserZoom provides a complete online user testing service.
For a somewhat less expensive alternative to UserTesting.com we have found UserZoom to be an effective solution. The quality of the panel members is good, and their panel is large enough that user tests are completed quickly.
6. ClickTale
Clicktale is a cloud-based analytic system that allows you to visualize your customer’s experience on your website from their perspective. It’s an enterprise-level tool that combines session recording with click and scroll tracking, and while it comes with an enterprise price tag, it’s made some significant quality strides over the last few years.
As Dieter Davis summarized recently for UX Magazine:
7. Hotjar
HotJar is a jack of all trades type tool: an all-in-one tool that does heatmaps, scroll tracking, recordings, funnel tracking, form analysis, feedback polls, surveys, and more.
And from what a few of our Conversion Scientists have seen so far, it does all of those things about as well as you would expect from a jack of all trades.
On the plus side, Hotjar has prioritized creating an exceptional user experience, so if you are a solo blogger wanting a feature-rich, easy-to-use toolkit in one place with a reasonable price tag, Hotjar might be the perfect choice for you.
Stephen Esketzis had the following to say about his experience with the tool:
8. Mouseflow
Mouseflow is another Swiss army knife of user intelligence. The service bundles screen recording, heatmap reports, on-site surveys, funnel tracking and form analysis.
We like it because it provides advanced segmentation. Filters include traffic source, platform, location, and more. It also supports segmentation by custom variables.
On the Intended Consequences podcast, Evan Hill said of the power of data:
9. Inspectlet
Inspectlet is primarily a session recording tool with additional heatmaps as well. Here’s what Anders Toxboe had to say about it in a recent review:
10. SessionCam
SessionCam is a session recording tool that has also added heatmaps form analytics to its offering. It’s a classic example of a tool that combines better-than-average functionality with a more-difficult-than-average user interface.
Peter Hornsby had the following to say in his review for UXmatters:
And later:
If you are looking for a more robust session recording and form analytic tool that keeps user data safe, SessionCam is worth checking out.
11. Lucky Orange
Lucky Orange is kind of like Crazy Egg with a bit of UserTesting.com, a bit of The Godfather, and a bit of a hundred other things. It’s a surprisingly diverse package of conversion features that make you start to believe their claim as “the original all-in-one conversion optimization suite”, despite the incredibly low price point.
Despite the hundred new tools that have popped up since Lucky Orange hit the market, Theresa Baiocco still swears by the original:
12. Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is a big data analysis tool that helps CMOs understand the performance of their businesses across all digital channels. It enables real time web, mobile and social analytics across online channels, and data integration with offline and third-party sources.
In other words, Adobe Analytics is a $100k+ per year, enterprise level analytics tool that has some serious firepower. Here’s what David Williams of ASOS.com had to say about it:
AB Testing Tools Conclusion
Well that’s that: 20 of the most recommended AB testing tools from a diverse collection of the web’s leading CRO experts.
Have you used any of these tools before? Do you have a favorite that wasn’t included? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
And if you are looking for a quick way to calculate how a conversion lift could increase your bottom line, be sure to check out our Optimization Calculator.
How to Pick a Conversion Optimization Consultant for your Online Business
Conversion Marketing Strategy, Conversion OptimizationMaybe you have exhausted your resources or maybe you’d rather have CRO experts maximize your profits. Whatever your situation, it’s time to pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business, whether it’s eCommerce, lead gen or subscription website.
But how do you know which optimization professional is the best? Better yet, how do you know which one is the best fit for your needs?
Here are 14 key questions to consider when choosing our prospective conversion rate optimization (CRO) agency. Buckle up because here we go!
1. How Much will a Conversion Optimization Consultant Cost me?
Small conversion rate optimization firms can be found for as little as $2,500 per month to run tests. For a full team approach, expect to pay between $5,000 and $15,000 per month. Enterprise-focused firms will charge up to $50,000 per month.
Agencies that specialize in search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media and media buying are adding conversion optimization services to their line card for a small fee because clients, like you, are asking for it.
Keep in mind, these agencies are not necessarily conversion specialists. They may be able to run AB ests, but the small fee they charge isn’t likely to impact your bottom line.
Know what you buy into.
When it’s time to pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business, you have to understand what their offer actually is.
Do you know how your conversion rate optimization consultant measures success? A great question to ask when you are trying to choose the agency that best fits your website needs.
2. When Will I Start to See Positive Results and a Good Return on Investment
There are two main determinants of your ROI from conversion optimization:
The more you make on each conversion, the more you will profit from increases in your conversion rate. The more conversions you have each month, the more ideas you’ll be able to A/B test during that month.
Your consultant should be able to help you estimate the relative return on your CRO investment.
Having said that, conversion optimization is an ongoing process, so it’s important to choose a consultant that can give you ongoing improvements in your conversion rates. After all, their job is to increase your revenues.
To find the answer to this question, ask the consultant about:
3. Do I Need to Have My Own Resources? How Much Time Will I Have to Invest in This Project?
This will depend on the type of engagement you are looking for. For example, at Conversion Sciences, we offer our clients a couple of service options.
If they prefer to hand over the conversion rate optimization portion to us, we furnish them with a full CRO team. No company resources needed. Just plan to spend an hour with your conversion consultant each week on an ongoing basis and a bit more while we learn about your online business. Learn more about our Fully-Managed CRO Services here.
If they have an internal conversion team already in place, or they don’t have sufficient traffic to warrant full-time engagement, our clients can opt for our Conversion Rate Optimization Audit. This gives them a thorough analysis of their customer journey that they can use to develop their own experiments.
Our advice: Always ask this question. It will help you better compare and find the best CRO consultant for your website.
4. How Will You Measure Success?
This is a great question that can separate the wheat from the chaff. Let’s explain.
With this approach, the conversion consultant is incentivized to look at the bottom line as their measure of success. It also aligns the conversion consultant goals with your business goals.
Be careful of optimizing for secondary measures, such as clicks to a page with a form, bounce rate, the time visitors spend on your site or the number of pages they visit on average. It’s possible to improve these numbers without improving bottom-line metrics such as leads generated, transactions, or subscribers.
5. Can You Guarantee Results or a Conversion Rate Increase?
You may be evaluating conversion rate optimization companies that offers a guarantee as well as agencies that work for a percentage of the increased revenue.
While these seem like very tempting offers, they can give you very different experiences over time.
The most extreme guarantee is a pay-for-performance arrangement that boils down to, “I get a cut of your revenues.” On the plus side, the consultant doesn’t get paid if they don’t deliver higher revenues. On the downside, they may get credit for your own in-house promotions, which could raise your costs.
Another thing to remember is that, as revenues increase, this approach leads to higher monthly fees. If your conversion rates improve significantly, that’s good. But it means your consultant is getting paid very high fees. This can make you feel like you’re paying too much.
A variation to this is to pay your consultant only for revenue growth. However, if there is a period in which revenues do not grow, your consultant will be incentivized to pull resources away from your business just when you need them most.
Pay-for-performance may look good up-front. It has a built-in guarantee that reduces the risk of hiring a consultant you’re unfamiliar with. But we have found that it does little to properly align your goals with your consultant.
Would you like a better solution?
Consider asking the conversion consultant to continue working for free if a predetermined goal is not met in a set timeframe.
For example, if they can’t demonstrate a 10% increase in revenue in six months, they keep working for free. When they hit the results, they can start billing you again.
6. How Well Do You Know My Industry / Technology / Platform / Distribution Channel / Market?
If there’s one thing that testing teaches us very quickly, it’s that there is no such thing as a “magic formula.” Ideas that work for similar sites may not work on your audience. Every audience is different.
A conversion optimization consultant that has worked with a number of your competitors will have a playbook of ideas to consider. Many of these ideas never would have occurred to a team with less experience in your industry. If the consultant also know your website platform and technology, their learning curve will be limited mostly to your product, service or business brand.
Having said that, industry experience can also be a hindrance. If the conversion consultant is overly familiar with websites in your industry, they may not be able to look at your site with fresh eyes — a key advantage of external vendors.
All-in-all, a disciplined optimization process will work in any industry. Ask the consultant for some examples of novel ideas that are specific to your industry, but make sure they have a proven, repeatable process.
7. Can You Share Some Case Studies?
A case study will help you understand how the consultant helped other businesses improve conversion rates in lead generation, sales or subscriptions. If a case study shows giant performance gains, take it with a grain of salt. This can happen for you, but not always.
A consultant should be able to show you their case studies, but it’s a good idea to ask to speak with their clients as well.
The consultant will likely refer you to clients they’ve had success with, but it gives you a chance to ask about situations in which your conversion consultant struggled.
Should your CRO agency guarantee results or a conversion rate Increase?
8. How Will You Get to Know My Target Audience and What Is Your Process Like?
Successful conversion consultants will tell you that they let the data tell them about your audience. Your analytics data, surveys, reviews, and chat transcripts can reveal many issues with your website. If that is not enough, they will also use surveys, session recordings, heatmap reports, and A/B testing.
Any other answer from a CRO consultant could demonstrate that they do not have the optimization experience needed to perform the job.
Getting to know your target audience will be one of the first steps in the CRO process, but it’s important to underestand their entire process. If it isn’t outlined on their website, ask them to explain it to you.
In particular, you’ll want to know how much of your time will be spent supporting the on-boarding process and if there are any additional fees for software or special ad-hoc work.
9. Do You Do Split Testing or Can You Implement Personalized AI-Powered Experiences to My Visitors?
An experienced conversion rate optimization consultant will be well versed on every optimization technique and tool available and will recommend the one that is the best fit for your business.
Stay away from anyone who tries to steer you towards a single solution. For example, be wary of consultants that focus on A/B testing only. Many ideas can be validated or discarded without an A/B test. Ask about online panels, session recordings, heatmap reports, and eye-tracking studies for alternatives.
10. How Do You Know What to Optimize First?
The most important aspect of experimenting is the choice of ideas to focus on. Since it is easier to generate ideas than to test them, it’s important that the consultant have a process for evaluating and ranking ideas based on expected ROI.
There are a number of standardized ways to rank ideas. The most common framework is ICE, which stands for Impact, Confidence, and Effort. It helps collect and rank all of the ideas that come up when starting a conversion rate optimization project.
Consultants who rely primarily on heuristics, or best practices, rely on their own experience to decide what to test. This makes them little better than you at picking what to test.
Asking how they prioritize test ideas will weed out the weakest prospective vendors. After all, a solid understanding of methodologies demonstrates the kind of professionalism you are looking for.
11. What Would You Like to Know About Our Company?
Good conversion optimizers will have lots of answers to this question.
They will be ravenous for any data you have, including things like chat transcripts, marketing research, surveys, personas, reviews, advertising data and more. That’s because conversion consultants are uniquely able to turn your existing research into test hypotheses.
Be suspicious of a consultant that doesn’t want to know more about YOUR business. Optimization professionals have inquisitive minds and they always want to know more. By giving them a chance to ask you questions, you can evaluate their curious nature and mental process.
12. Do the People I’ll Be Working With Have Strong Optimization Experience?
More than likely, you’ll have a chance to speak to the top people on the consultant’s team. But it’s important to know who will be assigned to your account.
Conversion optimization is a challenging field. This is not a set of skills that is easy to teach in the classroom — which is why the consultant’s process matters.
Your consultant should be able to articulate a repeatable, proven process that has a history of positive results.
13. How Soon Will I See Results?
You will find a wide range of minimum engagements in the marketplace of CRO consultants. Some will take a chance and work with you on a month-to-month basis. Others will require a commitment of three months or more, up to twelve months.
If a consultant asks for no minimum, you should nevertheless ask them for a reasonable timeframe in which you can evaluate their results, a time at which they should be able to defend their performance.
The month-to-month consultant may be willing to take a chance on your website, but you can’t afford the loss of time if their gamble doesn’t pay off. Hold them to a timeframe, but we recommend giving them four months or more.
Most A/B tests are inconclusive. Beware of those who promise results within a short timeframe. CRO consultants should share previous and similar experiences, but they won’t be able to make claims about your returns until they start working with you.
Keep in mind, estimates and experience aren’t promises of future performance. No two websites or businesses are completely alike. The optimizers working on your website will need to gather and analyze lots of data before they can set realistic expectations.
14. Do You Work With the Tools We Own or Can Afford?
If you have already invested in conversion optimization tools, mention this in your first conversation. You will want your consultant to know you expect them to use your tools proficiently, or to have experience with similar tools from different vendors.
As far as affordability goes, we live in a golden age of marketing tools. There are many options at many price points. The consultant should be able to help you choose a tool that fits their needs and your budget.
Note: Most conversion consultants will give you a better return on your investment in optimization tools.
Here is a list of questions you may – and should – ask before you choose the best conversion optimization consultant for your online business.
15. What Is the Consultant’s Testing Philosophy?
Each consultant will have a testing philosophy. Some favor scientific rigor. Others favor quick decisions. Here are some questions to ask them, with the answers you will want to hear.
How long do AB tests take?
No AB test should be stopped before two full weeks have passed. If you have a high volume of conversions, one week may be acceptable, but no less. Read our AB testing guide here.
Will you stop a variation if it looks really negative?
Most conversion consultants will monitor tests and stop any variations that seem to be underperforming to avoid lost sales and fewer leads.
Do you let tests overlap?
If your prospective conversion consultant plans to run tests on multiple pages of your site, there is a risk of polluting the data and making bad calls. They should be able to keep visitors from one test getting into other tests on your site.
How do you do quality assurance on tests?
The tools used by a conversion consultant give them sweeping powers to alter your site. It is surprisingly easy to break your website with these tools. A thorough Quality Assurance (QA) process includes testing on multiple devices and involves several people before changes go live.
What kind of post-test analysis do you do?
Even if a test finishes and there is no winning variation, your conversion consultant can learn important things from the data.
Their knowledge of analytics will allow them to see how the test impacted other segments of your audience.
For example, it is common for an idea to impact desktop and mobile visitors very differently. The same is true for new visitors versus returning visitors.
This is called “post-test” analysis. It allows you to get even more value from every A/B test. This should be part of their capability.
Can you perform multivariate tests?
If you have a high-volume site, multivariate testing is a way to work through many design changes, discovering what combination is most impactful for a given website.
Multivariate testing is not appropriate for most businesses.
However, you should ask about the newer generation of AI-driven multivariate testing that uses machine learning to personalize your website in real time.
How to Pick a Conversion Optimization Consultant for Your Online Business
Final word of advice: no matter who you choose, make sure the consultant you hire is the one that is able to deliver on the strategy you need.
The best CRO agencies will tell you if they are unable to help you and may even recommend alternative solutions to your business problem.
Use these questions when you’re ready to pick a conversion optimization consultant for your online business. Who knows? It may even be us!
Conversion Rate Optimization for SaaS Companies
Conversion OptimizationProfitability depends on your ability to turn visitors into users and users into paying customers. This is the double-conversion dilemma. Even small conversion gains can make a difference.
That’s why SaaS conversion rate optimization (CRO) is essential for driving growth.
In this guide, you’ll learn about CRO for SaaS companies, how it improves SaaS growth and profitability, and what CRO strategies are needed to strengthen your sales funnel and improve lead generation.
What Is CRO and Why Is It Crucial for SaaS?
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the art and science of continuously raising the value of website visitors. It’s the ongoing process of increasing the rate at which visitors take specific actions, such as subscribing, requesting a demo, or completing a purchase.
Conversion rate optimization for SaaS applies this process to the SaaS customer journey, improving the flow from sign-up and trial to purchase, onboarding, and beyond.
How is this done? With the scientific method.
Six steps of the scientific method
For example, let’s say you’re trying to improve pricing page conversions. A CRO consultant will create hypotheses about how to improve the page’s performance and run a series of tests to discover what works. They will then repeat this process to achieve continuous improvements.
The optimization process is especially valuable to SaaS companies because their valuation is tied to long-term revenue growth. A conversion rate boost of 1% doesn’t just increase revenue by 1%. It increases the company’s value by 1%.
SaaS companies also have a longer, more complex customer journey. You must convince visitors to try the product, then onboard them sufficiently for them to get value out of the trial, and then entice them to commit to a longer-term purchase. This is not a linear process.
It is not unusual to increase the number of people signing up to try the app and then finding that fewer people overall are becoming buyers.
Additionally, many SaaS products will require a salesperson to get involved due to cost or complexity.
To ensure sales, you must improve conversion rates at each stage while maintaining the quality of the prospects — and every small increase can translate to significant growth in revenue.
For SaaS conversion optimization best practices, read this article.
Benefits of CRO for SaaS Brands
Let’s look at six benefits of CRO for SaaS.
1. CRO Increases Revenue
The CRO process uncovers sticking points where people stop using the product or fail to progress through the pipeline. Through experimentation, it finds ways to unstick, re-engage, and turn those people into paying customers.
And here’s the interesting thing: In SaaS, conversion rate improvements are multiplicative rather than additive.
So if you improve customer acquisition by 20% and sales conversions by 10%, you won’t see a 30% lift. You’ll actually see a 32% lift.
Additive: 0.20 + 0.10 = 0.30 * 100 = 30% boost
Multiplicative: 1.2 * 1.1 = 1.32 * 100 = 32% boost
Over time, this compounding effect can add up, making CRO a core growth strategy for SaaS companies.
2. CRO Lowers Acquisition Costs
Conversion optimization raises the percentage of leads or users that convert into customers, giving you more sales without an increase in customer acquisition costs (CAC). This improves the efficiency of your ad spend, making your marketing dollars go further.
It also creates a virtuous cycle. By testing every element of the conversion funnel, you can uncover the friction and pain points that lower conversion rates. This gives you the insight to create highly effective campaigns that convert well.
3. CRO Increases Organic Search Traffic
SEO and CRO are partner strategies, working together to improve traffic and conversions. SEO attracts qualified traffic. CRO ensures visitors have a good user experience and take their next step to becoming a customer.
4. CRO Improves The User Experience
To improve SaaS conversions, CRO removes friction points that can harm the user experience. It creates a site that puts users’ needs first, which boosts satisfaction and brand perception. The user experience of your marketing website sets the expectation for the user experience in the application.
5. CRO Optimizes Growth through Testing
SaaS growth has three levers: acquisition, sales conversions, and churn. All of these levers can be improved with a process of continuous testing and optimization.
6. CRO Provides Data To Improve Marketing Spend
CRO for SaaS can help you identify the markets and channels that will be most profitable for you. And as we’ve already seen, it can lower acquisition costs, making your SaaS company more profitable.
How to Measure Conversion Rates in SaaS
The conversion rate formula is:
(Number of Conversions / Number of Visitors) * 100 = Conversion Rate %
Divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors, and multiply by 100. This gives you the conversion rate of whatever you’re testing — form completion, download, or purchase, for example.
Keep in mind, because SaaS has multiple touch points and conversion events, measuring conversion rates can be tricky. You’ll need to track conversion rates across the entire customer journey. You also need to take into account your sales volume, the time it takes to close deals, churn rate, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
It can help to understand SaaS conversion rate benchmarks.
B2B SaaS Conversion Rate Benchmarks
Use these conversion rate benchmarks to gauge the success of your marketing and sales efforts.
SaaS marketing conversion rate benchmarks
High-touch SaaS sales conversion rate benchmarks
SaaS products that require a sales team generally have an ACV (average contract value) of $6K to $15K on the low end. Extremely large deals, often called enterprise SaaS, start at six figures. Here are the conversion rate benchmarks for high-touch SaaS sales:
Conversion rate benchmarks for high-touch SaaS (Gartner)
Low-touch B2B SaaS conversion rate benchmarks:
Low-touch B2B SaaS products have an ACV (average contract value) of $100-$5,000. These products are typically sold on a month-to-month subscription ranging from $10 to $500.
More B2B SaaS conversion rate benchmarks:
The SaaS Conversion Journey
As with other B2B products, the SaaS customer journey moves from awareness to consideration and conversion. But in SaaS, these stages are much more complex, and the customer journey continues long after the sale.
Because of this, it’s impossible to map the Saa customer journey in a way that applies to every SaaS business. We can, however, describe the key stages of a SaaS customer journey for both low-touch and high-touch SaaS products.
The Stages of a Low-Touch Saas Customer Journey
The distinguishing feature in this model is the trial or freemium offer. With most other online purchases, the customer makes the buying decision based on a product description, images, and testimonials. With SaaS, they want to be sure the user experience is good, the features do what they want, and the product will fit into their workflow.
Through the trial offer, users are able to experience the product themselves. Even a short trial gives customers a low-risk way to decide whether your product is right for them. The challenge, of course, is to avoid giving away too much.
If you’re offering a freemium model, you need to give users a stripped-down version of the product that lets them experience success but also leaves them wanting more. That’s a hard balance to strike, but if you can get it right, this model can bring in lots of new customers.
A free trial may give users access to all your features (including premium ones) for a specific time period. The trick here is getting the time period right. A trial of 7 days may not be long enough for users to fully explore your features. A 30-day trial will give them more time to fall in love with your product but can add to your costs.
The Stages of a High-Touch Saas Customer Journey
Notice that this model doesn’t include a trial. High-touch SaaS products are usually more complex, which means a trial isn’t possible. Instead, prospects rely on a demo to understand how the product works.
Unlike a trial, a demo doesn’t let the buyer navigate the product themselves, but it does let them see it in action. It also lets them talk to an account representative and get their questions answered.
In both low-touch and high-touch SaaS products, growth is achieved through long-term subscriptions, upsells, and contract expansion. For that to happen, though, you have to help users understand the value of the product and not only adopt it but become super-users.
Conversion rate optimization allows you to improve every stage of the customer journey — regardless of the type or structure of your journey. It ensures a positive user experience that translates into better adoption rates, lower churn rates, and higher revenue.
Different Conversion Events in SaaS
To generate a sale in SaaS, you must successfully move users to action at multiple points along the customer journey. Let’s look at some key conversion points for SaaS.
Free Trial Sign-Up: When a user signs up for a free trial of your SaaS product, it indicates interest and the intent to explore your software.
Paid Subscription: The user upgrades from a free trial or freemium plan to a paid subscription. This is where you start generating revenue. It’s also the point at which you implement customer marketing to build loyalty and increase the lifetime value of the customer.
Onboarding Completion: Successful onboarding is key to user adoption and retention, so completion rates matter. Track user engagement throughout your onboarding sequence to understand where engagement drops. Then test different tactics, such as gamification, to keep users engaged.
Adoption: One of the key challenges after purchase is getting users at a client account to use the product. This requires helping a champion sell your product internally. New accounts, log-in rates, and session lengths will tell you how well you’re doing at that. The usage metrics tracked in CRO allow you to track the features people use most to understand where you can add or improve features.
Usage Frequency: When a user’s engagement drops, it generally signals that they’ll churn in a few months. As with adoption rates, CRO retention metrics track users’ log-in rates, session length, and the number of actions they take within a session. It’s a good idea to start customer re-engagement campaigns as soon as you see this metric lag.
Upgrades/Downgrades: Users might upgrade to higher-tier plans for more features or downgrade to lower-tier plans based on their needs. These actions impact your revenue and can indicate user satisfaction or changing requirements.
Referral Sign-Up: Happy customers tend to make referrals, but you can incentivise this action as well. To improve this metric, CROs optimize your process for engaging with prospects who enter the pipeline from a referral, while actively encouraging referrals from loyal users.
Renewal: Customer renewal rates directly impact your revenue. CROs know that it’s vital to track and optimize the timing and rate of renewals.
Unsubscribes: A low churn rate is another key to SaaS profits. The CRO process identifies events that trigger churn and develop campaigns to re-engage users. To optimize those campaigns, CROs use data around the events that can make a churning customer change their mind and decide to continue their subscription.
These conversion events are key to growth, which is why conversion rate optimization for SaaS focuses heavily on testing unique ways to improve them. One of those methods is conversion funnels.
Mapping Conversion Funnels and Key Moments
While running routine tests to improve key SaaS metrics, optimizers create conversion funnels for each stage of the customer journey. For example, they build funnels that:
Each funnel focuses on a specific micro-conversion. Together, they improve conversion rates across the entire customer journey.
To understand how this works, we’ll need to look more closely at conversion funnels and how they work.
A conversion funnel, also known as a sales or marketing funnel, is a framework used in digital marketing to illustrate the stages a prospect goes through before taking a desired action.
It’s called a funnel because, similar to a real-world funnel, there are fewer people at the bottom of a funnel than at the top. The top of the funnel will include anyone who lands on your website or engages with your content. Your goal is to engage qualified prospects and weed out everyone else. As a result, every stage of the funnel has fewer people in it, and at the bottom, you only have serious prospects.
Prospects don’t necessarily move through a funnel in a linear fashion, but the funnel model helps optimizers know how each stage of the customer journey is performing as part of the whole.
We typically break the funnel into three broad stages:
In SaaS, it’s also important to include a fourth stage: Below the Funnel.
Each part of the funnel aligns with a specific stage of the customer journey, giving you eight distinct stages in a B2B SaaS conversion funnel. Keep in mind, though, this also gives you eight drop-off points where prospects can leave the funnel.
Awareness Stage (TOFU): At the widest part of the funnel, the prospect has just become aware of your product. This stage is optimized by raising awareness of your brand and product. Strategies include content marketing, social media, SEO, and advertising. Frequency of impressions is essential at this stage.
Interest Stage (MOFU): In this stage, users are aware of your brand or product and have decided to learn more about you. They may engage with your content, sign up for newsletters, or explore your product’s features and benefits. Content such as ebooks, webinars, and case studies can be effective here. WIth gated content, you are building an ever expanding list of prospects to move to the next stage. Relevant content is the driving force at this stage.
Consideration Stage (MOFU): Users at this stage are considering your offerings more seriously. They may compare your product with competitors’, read reviews, and seek additional information. They may also consider a trial subscription or look for a walk-through video to understand how your product works. Anticipate their questions and objections at this stage.
Intent Stage (BOFU): At this point, users are actively considering making a purchase or taking a specific action. They may add items to their cart, request a quote, or sign up for a free trial. Conversion optimization and targeted messaging are essential here. Strategies for removing friction from the sign-up processes proliferate here.
Evaluation Stage (BOFU): The user is now in a trial or evaluating a demo. At this stage, the on-boarding process must be optimized. In a product-led growth (PLG) approach, the product is designed to make it intuitive and easy to use. However, optimizers know that instructional materials will be needed to help users be successful with the product quickly..
Conversion Stage (BOFU): This is the ultimate goal of the funnel. Users convert by making a purchase or upgrading from a free plan. The application becomes the salesperson. Optimizers look for ways to highlight upgradeable features and offer ways to reduce costs by increasing the length of the commitment. .
Post-Conversion Stage (Below the Funnel): Use and adoption are the focus at this stage of the funnel. Look for opportunities to nurture customer relationships, provide excellent customer support, and encourage repeat purchases or ongoing engagement. Your CRO should have usage metrics at the ready to evaluate usage and adoption rates. Done right, optimization at this stage boosts loyalty and advocacy.
Advocacy and Loyalty Stage (Below the Funnel): Loyal customers who love your brand will often become advocates, referring others and doing word-of-mouth marketing.
Elevate Your CRO Game: Next Steps for Your SaaS Company
Even small improvements in your conversion rates can impact revenue and growth.
At Conversion Sciences, we’re not a standard CRO agency. We use the scientific method to identify and fix the issues causing SaaS revenue leak. Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists today.
SaaS Website Best Practices for Conversion Optimization
Conversion OptimizationSteve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think captures a core tenet of conversion optimization: People have a limited reserve of energy when researching a solution to their problem. Don’t make them think too hard about how your website or product will solve that problem. If it isn’t intuitive, if it doesn’t provide an obvious and engaging user experience, they will leave.
But giving your users a clear journey is harder than you might think. So in this article, we’ve compiled our top SaaS website best practices, including actionable strategies for improving conversion rates.
The Importance of CRO for SaaS Websites
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is especially important for SaaS websites. Revenue growth depends on your ability to convert visitors to trials, trials to paying customers, and customers into long-term, loyal users.
To help, SaaS optimization generally focuses on four key components:
The landing page will make or break your SaaS conversion rates. The landing page can serve traffic from outside the website, or satisfy on-site offers, such as the ubiquitous “Learn more”. Every one of these pages should be enticing the prospect to go to the next step.
Optimizers treat almost every webpage as a landing page, giving the visitor what they are looking for and asking them to take the next step.
For more on building effective landing pages, see 17 Lead Generation Landing Page Examples.
Web Design Elements to Consider for Optimal SaaS Website Performance
CRO for SaaS websites is largely about improving the user experience. For example, these elements can make or break your SaaS conversion rates:
To optimize your SaaS website for conversions, a memorable user experience is created at every touchpoint, but especially on these web pages:
When a user clicks on one of these pages, they should see the information they expect. A product page should tell them all about the product, answering their questions about what it does and how. A pricing page should show visitors their buying options and what they get with each package. Sitewide, visitors should be able to find the information they’re looking for in just a few clicks.
The challenge is creating that experience. It’s impossible to know in advance what will work — and your own preferences don’t matter. To design a website that attracts and converts your best customers, you need to test everything.
In short, you need to leverage CRO best practices to continually refine and improve your website.
Proven CRO Strategies and Tips for SaaS Website Success
CRO tactics include a wide range of disciplines: testing, usability improvements, marketing, design best practices, and more. Here are nine strategies proven to improve SaaS website conversion rates.
CRO Strategy #1: A/B Testing
A/B testing, also called split testing, gives us a highly reliable way to test an idea, or hypothesis. It’s based on the scientific method and attempts to disprove a hypothesis about how a page could be changed to improve a specific conversion rate. If the hypothesis cannot be disproved, it is assumed to be true.
A/B testing starts with a hypothesis. For example, if we believe our customer logos are too far down a page, our test hypothesis would be:
If we move the portion of the landing page containing customer logos to below the hero area, we expect more visitors to complete the form as measured by conversion rate.
An experiment is then designed to test the hypothesis. In the case of our hypothesis, a variation of the page is designed. Traffic is sent equally to the original and the variation.
Then we see which generated the most conversions. If there is a statistical improvement in the performance of variation, it becomes the new page — and new control to be beat.
Optimizers take great care to ensure statistical relevance is achieved with each A/B test. The variation with the statistically higher conversion rate becomes the new page to be optimized.
A/B testing delivers incremental gains in SaaS conversions month over month. Use it to put upward pressure on your sales funnel conversion rates and improve lead generation campaigns.
To see how optimizers do it, see our A/B testing guide and A/B testing tools overview.
CRO Strategy #2: Messaging
If your messaging doesn’t address the user’s problem or desire, or if it’s confusing on any level, there is very little we can do to improve your conversion rates.
Compelling messaging establishes your value proposition in your visitors’ minds. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that a page with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention longer — as much as one or two minutes longer — but you must communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.
Optimizers will focus on the opening statements. This should express who you are and what you do as quickly as possible. It answers two questions:
CityCliq improved their positioning and increased the clickthrough rate of their home page 90%. Their original positioning statement didn’t communicate what they do: “Businesses grow faster online.” The new positioning statement was a direct statement about what the user gets from their product: “Create a webpage for your business.” This change improved clickthrough in two weeks.
To be effective, your messaging must meet the user’s expectations. Optimizers try to give visitors the right information on the right page (e.g., pricing information on the pricing page). The goal is to answer their questions completely, anticipating their questions.
Here are a few ways to improve the messaging on your SaaS website:
CRO Strategy #3: Personalization
Personalization is an effective way to improve engagement — and this often means more conversions. According to McKinsey2, 71% of consumers expect you to deliver personalized interaction, and 76% get frustrated if you don’t.
McKinsey found that consumers expect personalization from the brands they choose.
To create loyalty and improve conversions, optimizers look for ways to personalize people’s experience. Here are some tactics for doing that:
Personalize emails:
Personalize landing pages:
Personalize search and retargeting:
A/B tests offer excellent data for personalization. For example, we have created A/B tests that looked inconclusive initially. When we looked at the impact of the test on mobile visitors, we often find that visitors on an Android device preferred the variation while those coming on an iPhone preferred the control.
This becomes an opportunity to personalize based on device. The Android users will see the variation and the iPhone visitors will see the control. Personalization tools allow this kind of personalization.
Other segments to analyze for personalization opportunities:
The advantage of using A/B testing to drive your personalization is that you have the data that tells you what the different visitors want and an easy way to target them when they are on your website.
CRO Strategy #4: Retargeting Campaigns
When people engage with your website but don’t convert, you can continue to engage with them off-site through retargeting ads.
Retargeting delivers targeted ads to users across the web, in apps, and on social media, reminding them of your offer and encouraging them to engage with it further. It can be an effective way to get people to return to an abandoned shopping cart, revisit a product page, or review related content.
Keep in mind, flow is important. You’ll need to tailor a message that matches their previous interaction, so you can create a personalized experience that resonates and reinforces the value of your product.
Here are some tools to set up effective retargeting campaigns:
NOTE: Retargeting places a cookie on the visitor’s browser to identify them when on other websites. This tells the retargeting company to show them your retargeting ad. The use of these “third-party” cookies is being curtailed due to privacy concerns by the major browser manufacturers. Alternatives tracking technologies will need to be put in place.
CRO Strategy #5: UX and UI Optimization
UX (user experience) optimization focuses on creating a seamless and meaningful experience for visitors.
UI (user interface) optimization improves the appearance and usability of the website, page, or app.
Both rely on intuitive design, which aims to build trust by ensuring a page/site feels intuitive and performs as expected. It looks for anything that creates friction and adjusts as needed to create a smooth experience.
A good example is 37signals. They saw a 102.5% boost in Highrise signups after adding a picture of a customer to the page.
To optimize UX and UI, you need to understand how visitors interact with the page or site. For example, are they getting stuck? Can they navigate the page/site easily? Do they stay on the page long enough to read your messaging? (Most users leave a page in 45-50 seconds3.)
For UX and UI optimization, optimizers use tools like these:
CRO Strategy #6: Friction Points
If a good UX improves trust, friction destroys it. Anything that frustrates, confuses, or slows a visitor can create friction. A visitor comes to you with a reservoir of mental energy. Each mistake or moment of confusion drains that reservoir, increasing the “cognitive load.” For example:
To improve conversion rates, optimizers remove friction. They seek a page that is well-designed, with clear messaging and CTAs, and good flow. Make it easy to find buttons and fill out forms.
CRO Strategy #7: Page Load Speed
One of the biggest frustrations for visitors is a slow website. When they click, a slow response slows their momentum and decreases their perceived credibility of your business. This is especially true on mobile devices.
Compare these statistics to the average website load time in 20237: 2.5 seconds on a desktop and 8.6 seconds on a mobile device. To remove this friction point, you need to beat the average, reducing your load speed time as much as possible.
Here are a few ways to do that.
We find the reports generated by the free tools at webpagetest.org to be fantastic at diagnosing the causes of slow-loading pages.
CRO Strategy #8: Gathering and Acting on Feedback
However much you may try to improve your user experience, friction points may still exist. The best way to find them is to get real user feedback.
Given the chance, they’ll let you know that your signup forms need fixing or your site navigation is confusing. They can also review your changes and give you direct feedback.
For example, the Dropbox Community gives users a place to get quick answers to their questions, but it also helps the Product team know where and how they can improve. When they changed their estimated time to sync feature with a progress bar, users complained. This feedback told Dropbox that time was a “critical unit of measurement” and that features should help users manage their time.
The Dropbox team now uses the community to prioritize the issues they tackle. You can do the same, using customer feedback to find friction points, provide a better user experience, and improve messaging.
Here are some tactics for gathering user insights:
Thank-you page surveys and exit-triggered surveys are among the most effective.
CRO Strategy #9: Security and Trust-Building
Through user feedback, you can identify page elements or experiences that harm trust. But you can also add trust elements to your pages to build trust and improve conversions.
For example, many SaaS companies display awards to quickly communicate their value:
SaaS awards can quickly communicate value
Low-touch SaaS products that have a checkout page on your website can use ecommerce trust badges. Ecommerce company UnderstandQuran added two trust badges to their sign-up page — a money-back guarantee badge and an Apple app store badge — they saw a 32.57% increase in sales over an 11 day period.
Trust badges increased sales 32.57%.
Here are some trust signals that improve SaaS conversion rates:
Elevate Your CRO Game: Next Steps for Your SaaS Company
There’s no better way to ensure SaaS growth than with CRO for SaaS. Through conversion rate optimization, you can make incremental improvements in your conversion rate at every stage of the customer journey, helping you get and keep your valuable customers.
Need help? At Conversion Sciences, we’re not a standard CRO agency. We use the scientific method to identify and fix the issues causing SaaS revenue leak. Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists today.
Citations
17 Lead Generation Landing Page Examples
Landing Page OptimizationIf you’re looking for lead generation landing page examples to help you craft the perfect landing page, beware.
Many of the landing pages you see online are not actually working. In fact, many of them turn more people away than not.
Lead generation landing pages and squeeze pages can attract and convert a high percentage of new leads for your business, keeping your pipeline full. But there’s a science to landing page lead generation — and that’s what we cover in this guide.
Keep reading to learn how and why lead generation pages are different, what makes a successful lead gen landing page, and 17 landing page examples (that are working and not working) — with expert tips on how to improve them.
Landing Pages vs. Web Pages: What’s the Difference?
The public-facing pages on your website are largely informational. They’re designed to keep people on the site as long as possible, and they do that with smart internal links and valuable content that answers questions and educates visitors.
Web pages are great for attracting traffic and positioning your products or services. They aren’t that effective at converting visitors. For that you need lead generating landing pages.
Landing pages have only two jobs.
Landing pages work because they don’t encourage browsing or exploring. They’re designed to promote one specific offer and drive visitors to complete one designated course of action.
One of the most common uses for landing pages is to generate leads.
For additional landing page inspiration, read our twenty landing page best practices.
We’ve also compiled some powerful ways to improve lead generation, and if you are looking for more help, we offer lead generation services.
What Is a Lead Generation Landing Page?
A lead generation landing page is a landing page that focuses on capturing visitor data by offering something of value in exchange for their information. It’s one piece in a conversion funnel, and it’s designed to attract qualified leads for further marketing and sales.
A good lead gen landing page appeals exclusively to your ideal prospects. Typically, it offers content that helps them solve a problem or gives them advanced information they want. But it could also offer a free trial, an app, a demo, or a short consultation.
Lead generation landing pages that convert are very simple. They’re typically short, with a few key elements:
Why Do You Need a Lead Gen Landing Page?
To understand why you need lead gen landing pages, let’s take a quick look at how they work.
The best way to leverage lead gen landing pages is to design campaigns around specific offers. (More about that in a moment.)
Once you have an offer your ideal prospects can’t resist, you’ll build a landing page for it. This page will be designed specifically for your target audience and offer. It will leverage the words they use to talk about their issues. It will address their concerns. And it will offer a specific solution that they already want.
This landing page will probably never appear in your site navigation. Instead, it will live in the background of your website. When you want to turn on your lead gen campaign, you’ll start sending traffic to it through ads, blog posts, social media posts, and emails.
With this approach, each marketing campaign exists in its own silo. You can test and optimize every element until the page is working perfectly.
The result?
Your website should generate traffic and educate visitors, but your web pages shouldn’t be overly salesy. Lead generation landing pages, on the other hand, can be as salesy as they need to be. They bridge the gap between traffic generation and lead conversion, delivering the highest qualified leads from start to finish.
What Makes a Successful Lead Generation Landing Page?
This is the million dollar question every marketer wants answered. Like every profitable online experience, it starts with an irresistible offer.
Your offer must be both relevant and qualifying.
It needs to attract the highest possible number of qualified prospects, and it needs to offer information they’re already looking for. This isn’t the time to create interest. You need to tap into an existing desire.
The easiest way to do that is to:
There’s more to a lead generation landing page than a compelling offer. Here are a few landing page optimization themes that we touch on again and again — not only in this guide but also and with our clients.
An effective landing page is also intuitive. Your visitors shouldn’t have to think for even a millisecond. They should be able to understand and respond whether they’re reading or skimming the page.
The page should load in less than 2 seconds. The faster the better. Any longer, and your prospect will move on.
The page should be mobile friendly. More than half of your visitors will likely visit the page on a mobile device. Make sure it’s readable and easy to operate from any device. (Use a platform like BrowserStack that makes it easy to view your lead gen landing page on multiple devices.)
Your page should follow the rule of one. It should have one clear goal and one clear CTA. That’s it. Because visitors with too many options usually choose no option.
Finally, A/B split test your page to continually improve its performance over time.
How to Evaluate Lead Generation Landing Page Examples
In a minute, we’ll look at 17 of the best landing page examples we could find. But before we do, let’s look at how you need to evaluate them.
When evaluating a landing page, ask yourself if it’s executing its two jobs effectively.
Next, look at the page’s trust and value signals. To do that, answer these two questions:
Finally, evaluate the elements of the page:
One more helpful tip: When evaluating someone else’s landing page, use a browser plugin like Wapalyzer, Ghostery, or Builtwith to see if the page has an A/B testing tool installed. If it does, you might give more weight to it, as they could be testing their designs.
Ready for some landing page ideas to start generating leads?
17 Lead Generation Landing Page Examples
The best landing page examples show you what’s working today. But as I mentioned above, many of the landing pages online today haven’t been optimized for conversions, which means they aren’t actually working as well as they could.
To help you know the difference, we’ve scoured the web for good and bad examples of lead gen landing pages. And for every example, we tell you what they’re doing right and what they need to improve.
We don’t know the conversion rates of most of these pages. However, you can use these landing page examples and our tips as a guide when designing your own effective pages.
Example 1: Don’t “charge” too much for your offer
A lead generation landing page offers something for free — but visitors must still pay. Rather than paying with money, they pay with their information.
As with any pricing strategy, you need to offer enough value to justify your “price.” That means keeping your forms as short as possible.
Take this landing page by Applause.
Do you need nine fields on your landing page?
This offer is clear: to get access to a targeted white paper.
The summary gives three compelling reasons to take action.
The form lies at the top of the page, and will peak above the fold on most monitors.
Credibility is provided through customer logos, and social proof is presented through social media testimonials.
What could we improve?
The form asks for a lot of information. Is this reasonable for a white paper? Maybe not.
The form is laid out in 3 rows of 3 columns. This can make the form seem larger and more time-consuming.
The typical direction visitors would go to fill out this form would be to start in the first column from top and go down to the bottom. But the first field says “First Name” with the “Last Name” field jumping over into the next column
This layout makes the form feel difficult. And difficulty creates friction, which lowers conversions.
Example 2: Make your offer clear and direct
Messaging on your landing page needs to be clear and concise. But it shouldn’t be too concise. You need to include enough information to communicate persuasively.
Take this example from Uber:
Uber’s promise is clear and specific.
The promise is clear: at least $2,160. Note: this specific number is more persuasive than something like “$2000+”.
The CTA is clear: Sign up now.
But without more information, the page is more about a dollar figure than becoming an Uber driver.
Uber can assume that everyone knows who they are and, therefore, details aren’t necessary. But your brand likely doesn’t enjoy this level of recognition..
At a minimum, it needs a unique value proposition in both words and images. It could also use some trust and credibility signals, such as numbers of drivers, testimonials, or real earnings.
A visitor landing here has to work hard to understand that they’re signing up as an Uber driver.
Keep your message as clear and direct as possible. Make sure you provide details about the offer and the benefits of taking action. And don’t rely on fine print to explain the offer — that’s a sure way to erode trust.
Example 3: Be careful with conceptual landing pages
Landing pages need to be clear and direct. If you try to be too clever or conceptual, you can confuse (and lose) prospects. A conceptual page is one that sacrifices clarity to be cute or clever. This forces visitors to connect the dots between the message and the offer rather than having it clearly spelled out for them.
Much like this page.
Clarity beats cleverness every time.
Here, Planhat’s headline is direct: Choose Planhat, not GainSight. They throw in a cute image to try to communicate their point. But there’s no value statement that tells a visitor why they should choose one over the other.
Their CTA, “Book a demo to find out why,” leverages curiosity. But you must look below the form to see the benefits and trust signals that might drive conversions.
This page has several good conversion elements:
But without a clear, strong headline, it falls short. A high-converting landing page has a clear, direct headline that tells visitors what they’ll get when they engage with the page. The hero image works with that copy to fully communicate value.
Don’t try to be overly cute or clever. Clarity wins every day.
Example 4: Establish a visual hierarchy
Your landing page needs a good hierarchy of information, so it’s easy to understand for skimmers and readers. This landing page by LinkedIn is a good example.
Do you immediately know what action you should take?
A visual hierarchy is designed to help the visitor see what is most important. The job of the visual hierarchy is to help them choose an action. Contrast and white space are two ways designers establish a visual hierarchy.
In this page, there are two calls to action in the hero area, both dark blue on a blue background. This doesn’t help the visitor discern one from the other visually. And if the visitor doesn’t know the difference between “Core” and “Advanced” they will not click. This page needs to present the difference to the visitor.
Designers love to be consistent with colors, but this works against the visual hierarchy. All buttons are within the color of the page’s palette. They are on an equal level with other dark blue elements.
It is the video that is at the top of the visual hierarchy. It “pops,” elevating it. If this is the most important action the visitor can take, then this is helping them choose.
The landing page has three distinct sections, each with its own purpose: to communicate value, make a promise, and highlight the key benefits.
At the top of the page (above the fold) is the value proposition: “From sales prospecting to closing deals, do it all with Sales Navigator.” Details are available in the one-minute video. And you can take action right away by clicking the appropriate button.
The second section contains a clear promise, proof elements, and the mechanism for delivering that promise.
Notice the call to action, “Start your free trial,” in both columns of this section. That makes it easy for people to take action as soon as they’re ready.
The final section is similar to the P.S. of a sales letter. It summarizes the page by listing the three biggest benefits of Sales Navigator for B2B salespeople. Each is illustrated with a colorful icon so people who process information visually or are just scanning the page will quickly understand the value of Sales Navigator — and hopefully scroll back up to read the copy more closely.
The only thing missing is one final CTA button below these benefits, so visitors don’t have to scroll back up to take action.
Example 5: Remove extraneous information
When building a landing page, we recommend starting with a clean page, not your corporate template or, in this case, the blog template.
The corporate pages and blog pages introduce content that doesn’t fit the two jobs of a high-converting landing page. Page templates usually come with navigation that invites qualified prospects to delay their action.
What not to do:
Your landing page shouldn’t look like a blog post.
The sidebar is inviting the visitor to leave the page before they’ve even seen that they can take action. A good landing page holds on to the visitor until they’ve made their decision.
Replacing this competing content with the submission form, which is way at the bottom, would make it clear that they can take action.
The top of the page should have the value proposition and promise, so visitors immediately understand the offer.
Instead, visitors have to scroll down nearly half of the page before they see the offer and form.
Don’t make visitors scroll to find your form.
Start fresh with a minimal template for your landing pages. Examine existing landing pages for any information that doesn’t make the visitor feel comfortable and confident taking action.
Example 6: Don’t assume we know what you do.
Fovitech offers affordable photo and video studio lighting solutions.
Unfortunately, they were leading visitors straight to this page from a pay-per-click ad.
Visitors should know right away what you’re offering.
It’s hard to know where we’ve just landed because all they talk about is getting the best price. Guaranteed. But they’ve failed to tell us what it is they are actually offering.
Most people won’t care about price until they first know whether or not you have something they’re even interested in.
Example 7: Sell the offer, not just the product.
You’ve probably noticed a recurring theme in our review of these landing page optimization examples: Your landing page needs to be all about your prospect and their fears, hopes, and desires.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of promoting your brand or the product. But lead generation is about getting people into your conversion funnel. Not selling. Not yet. You want them to subscribe or download your offer. So your sole focus is to sell the offer.
Let’s look at an example:
Are you selling your offer or your product?
Wiser lets you capture in-store and online data, making it easy to turn insights into actionable data. Their Live Price Check app is a smart lead gen offer since it is closely related to their products.
This landing page makes a compelling offer: check product prices 75% faster.
However, they talk only about the product, and not the offer, which is a free trial.
This section focuses primarily on the product.
Visitors are likely asking themselves: Will I be able to actually do price analysis during my trial? Will I get immediate access or do I have to talk to someone? Will I need training to use the software?
This is a common mistake. Landing pages that offer reports fail to sell the report. Is it long or a quick read? Is it written by a third party? Does it have lots of graphs and images?
This page has some strong elements. Above the headline, it gives social proof: trusted by 500+ retailers and brands.
And the above-the-fold copy promises a compelling outcome while explaining what the app does: Jump ahead of the competition with Live Price Checker’s FREE actionable pricing insights.
This page is well structured and easy to scan. It tells you how the app works and the benefits you’ll gain from using it. And they make it easy to gain access — you only have to enter your email address to get free access.
It repeats the offer at the bottom of the page, as all landing pages should. However, here we learn that the offer is actually a “conversation.” I suspect that this turns many potential prospects away.
If your call to action doesn’t match your initial offer, you’ll lose trust.
Example 8: Don’t offer too many choices.
It’s tempting, once you get people on your landing page, to show them all their options and let them choose the offer they like best.
But more options are not better, according to a 2000 study by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. When presented with too many options, we actually find it harder to make a choice. To make matters worse, when we finally make a decision, we’re less satisfied with whatever choice we make.
This is called choice overload, and it’s the reason every landing page should have just one message, one offer, and one call to action.
Take this landing page as an example.
Choice overload can lead to no action at all.
This page has multiple offers:
There’s so much going on, it’s hard to know where to start. You can hear the voices in the visitor’s head: “If I book a call does that mean I miss out on 50% off?”
Despite the clear messaging on this page, a first-time visitor will struggle to understand what action they should take. The messaging pulls them in different directions, creating a sense of overwhelm.
A good solution is to create unique landing pages for each call to action and each customer segment. That way, you can focus the message and give visitors one action to perform.
Example 9: Choose images that support the value proposition.
Take a look at this section of the Gusto landing page. Which of these images is “real” and which are stock photos?
Real photos of real people build trust.
It’s obvious to almost every human, even before you notice that two of the images are captioned.
Too often landing pages are designed with placeholders for images, and someone goes to a stock photo site to get happy people that look like the target customer.
Give your images the “Caption Test.” If you can’t write a caption that matches the intent of the image, it’s not a good image. For example, the intent of the second image is “Pay contractors in more than 120 countries.” The image caption is “Woman on a laptop in no place identifiable.” It’s the wrong image. The image should give some visual clue that this person is in another country.
It is much more effective to take the extra step and show real clients and real employees. Adding the caption assures the reader that they are seeing real people, and that gives the page credibility.
Example 10: Make your content readable.
If you want people to enter your conversion funnel, your landing page needs to be easy to read and easy to understand. To achieve this, you need to merge good design with good copywriting.
Take this landing page example from Samcart:
You can improve readability with good design and good copywriting.
This page is easy to read both visually and textually. White space and a strategic layout work together to guide visitors’ eyes as they scroll down the page.
At the top of the page, the value proposition and offer are clear, though much of the message is conveyed through the hero image. If you fill out the form, you’ll get an ebook, The Profit Playbook, with 53 strategies that can double your profits.
Black text on a white background is easy to read and small pops of color draw the visitor’s eye. Lots of white space keeps page elements from competing with one another. As you can see on this landing page, less really is more.
Readability is key to high conversion rates. Make sure your visitors can see and understand your offer. Keep the messaging and layout as simple as possible.
Example 11: Don’t assume your clients understand your jargon
Speaking of clarity, jargon may show off your industry knowledge, but for newcomers, technical terms can be confusing.
Take this landing page, for example:
Jargon may look impressive, but it can be confusing.
This offer is confusing on multiple levels, but the jargon only makes it worse. Some people may know what MFA and SSO mean, many don’t — even qualified prospects who are early in their research.
LastPass does explain these terms in the copy — which helps — but having jargon in the headline makes it harder to convey value.
And even after explaining the terms, the value statement is confusing: “Are MFA and SSO enough to cover all your organization’s identities?” Only people with deep industry experience will understand what that means. Most other people will likely consider exiting the page without filling out the form. After all, if they can’t understand the landing page copy, they probably won’t understand the ebook.
Example 12: Don’t let your hero image compete with the message.
Clarity is king on landing pages. We’ve already talked about the importance of readability. This landing page example shows why that’s so important.
Here, the hero image not only draws attention away from the value statement, it makes it difficult to read.
Make sure your words are easy to see and understand.
This landing page has a good value proposition, but the feature image is so busy, it doesn’t allow you to focus on the message. Not only that, there isn’t enough contrast between the white text and the wheat-colored background. As a result, the top-of-page copy is virtually unreadable.
To add insult to injury, the image doesn’t really advance the value proposition. As we said above, it’s best to use images of your product, your clients, or your employees. As it is, the black call to action button, which should be high in the visual hierarchy, blends into the black color in the image.
A few more layout changes should also be tested. For instance, the form should be moved up, next to the promise: Get All Relevant Data in One Place. Currently, it’s at the bottom of the page.
This form would perform better if it were higher on the page.
Above it are images that appear to be proof points, but they need context to communicate more clearly.
Images usually need context to communicate more clearly.
These images could be used to highlight the product’s benefits by reducing their size and adding a blurb of copy beside each.
This layout change also gives you a visual hierarchy, with the value proposition and promise at the top of the page and benefits/outcomes below that. It only needs a strong summary statement and call to action at the bottom of the page.
Example 13: Establish value with the headline and subheading.
Everything on the page should support the promise.
Ceros puts their value statement front and center with the headline: “Interactive content marketing — no code required.”
The top-of-page then adds context and makes the promise. It answers the question, who is Ceros (an AI-powered content creation ecosystem). It explains in one sentence the types of content you can create (reports, ebooks, etc.). And then it shares the promise: faster and increased content output.
Everything on the page supports this promise. The subheads, for instance:
And the call to action: Create the content your audience deserves.
It also offers good social proof: 850+ of the world’s leading brands use Ceros, with a few highly recognizable logos.
Example 14: Present one clear message that drives one response.
Inconsistent messaging can hurt your conversion rates.
The core elements are here, but the message is disjunct, making this offer less compelling than it should be.
The headline is the title of the ebook, but that’s not clear. There are several ways to fix this, all of which should be on your landing page checklist. There is no picture of the ebook or its cover. This would have made clear what was being offered. The form has no call to action at the top, such as “Get your free Ebook.” The button could say “Download Your Ebook.”
In the body, the opening line says that now is the time to embrace AI. This still fails to establish the value of the offer and, worse, it insinuates that the visitor doesn’t already know that. This introduces a bit of mixed messaging, which continues throughout this landing page.
The next paragraph tries to make the connection between AI and higher deal velocity and higher conversion rates. But because it doesn’t state this explicitly, the visitor has to connect the dots.
Paragraph 3 finally has the promise: learn how AI helps you create and close more deals. This would have more impact if the copy had made the connection between AI and better sales performance.
And finally, the call to action is, “Don’t get left behind.” Again, this creates mixed messaging. This statement assumes the visitor is resistant to AI, which contradicts the headline’s assumptions.
Listing the authors is a great way to build the credibility of the ebook. None of this messaging aligns.
Example 15: Provide a navigation menu specific to the offer.
Founded in 1932, SNHU has transformed from an accounting and secretarial science school to a university offering more than 200 programs in business, education, social sciences and liberal arts.
With over 3,000 students on campus and more than 170,000 online, SNHU claims to be one of the fastest growing universities in the entire nation.
Let’s take a look at how their lead gen page is attempting to make it grow even faster.
Any navigation should be specific to the page.
The form fields speak directly to the visitor’s needs which makes it feel very personalized and helps to qualify.
It’s also supported by strong benefits.
The page removes the main menu found on the Home page below and replaces it with a menu that is very specific to the landing page.
Example 16: Make your offer match the ad, email, social post, or link.
Any disconnect between the messaging, layout, or call to action within a marketing funnel can create distrust. That’s why continuity is so important. As users click from the email or ad to the landing page and beyond, each page must look like it flows from the previous page.
This example from Salesforce starts with an email.
The email
The email is short and sweet:
When the user clicks, they’re taken to this landing page.
The landing page
Here, there’s good continuity from the email, but it could still be improved.
For example, the value headline on the landing page doesn’t match the email. In fact, wealth management wasn’t even mentioned in the email. That could create some confusion.
The subhead and body copy get back on track. They reproduce, almost word for word, the email copy, creating some continuity in the messaging.
Visually, the graphics are similar, with the photo and illustration combo. But the primary color in the email is blue. Here, it’s purple.
Details like these can interrupt the continuity and degrade trust.
Example 17: Use a quiz instead of a form.
Rhino Fleet Tracking offers GPS tracking systems that enable businesses to monitor trucks, vans, trailers and improve the communication between drivers, managers and staff to maintain a high level of security.
Instead of using a “pancake form” where form fields are stacked like pancakes on a plate, Conversion Sciences created a more interactive quiz style form. Before it asks for personal information, it asks qualifying questions to bring visitors into the form.
The quiz starts by asking a question directly related to the visitor’s problem.
By asking for details about visitor’s situation, the quiz demonstrates that the company is not just trying to get their contact information to send to the sales team. The copy “We can help” is a nice confidence booster.
By successfully answering these questions, the visitor gains momentum for the rest of the steps. The visitor is ready to provide some personal information.
Only now will the quiz ask for contact information and opt-in permissions.
It is tempting to ask for an email address up front in case the visitor abandons the form. We have found that saving this for last is more effective. However, it might be smart to ask for the email before requesting the remaining contact information, which is found in the final step here.
The original landing page had a regular “pancake” form, as shown below.
We ran an A/B test of this form against a version of the quiz-style form.
We believe the reason completion rates are higher for this kind of form, even though it has more steps and asks for more information, is due to two things:
Time to Optimize: Your CRO Journey Begins Now
As you can see from these examples, landing pages are not your average web page. Landing page designs and copy are focused on two jobs: keeping the promise and asking the target audience to make a choice. .
The best landing pages not only convert more prospects, they can lower ad spend and yield a higher ROI while opening the gates to fill your pipeline with quality leads.
But as you’ve seen, there’s a science to creating a lead generation landing page that converts. You need to understand your target audience, their pains and hopes, and the type of offers they’ll respond to.If you’d like to remove more of the mystery and apply our proven formulas to your lead gen landing pages, let us know. Conversion Sciences is a conversion rate optimization agency that specializes in conversion rate optimization services.
Four Ways of Predicting the Future of Your Website
Conversion Marketing StrategyHow predictable are people when they are on the Web? As it turns out, they are not very predictable at all. For any site, the audience is very different, even among sites in the same business.
Whenever we try to predict how people will behave, we are trying to predict the future. This is how we forecast outcomes and the potential revenue behind an idea or campaign. As a result, it’s vital to understand how this is done.
Here are four ways we tend to do this on the Web. (Note: not all of them are recommended!)
1. “What worked for others will work for us in the future.”
Predicting the future based on what your competitors is doing is like painting a room to match your neighbor’s furniture. Your site is different. Your audience is different.
And what others are doing may not be working for them. They may be just copying someone else.
There was a time when everyone used rotating images on their homepages. In our tests, we found that rotating header images rarely beat static images.
We see that all the time. A tactics that works for one website becomes a trend. Everyone follows without testing its effectiveness for their audience and their website.
2. “What I like is what everyone will like.”
Most of our sites suffer from what we call “selling to ourselves.” The major problem with this approach is that everyone on your team is a different self. The designer designs for herself, the writer writes for himself, and the marketing exec approves what they themselves approve of. The site will speak with many different voices, both visually and textually.
This approach only predicts the future for visitors who are like the members of this team, who have the skillsets that the members of this team take for granted.
3. “What we have today will continue to work for us.”
While things can change, this is one of the more reliable ways to predict the future. We say that, based on past experience and data, we can predict what will happen tomorrow.
This method predicts the status quo, but does not properly incorporate sales growth into the future vision.
4. “We must experiment to see what will work in the future.”
When we treat every idea as a hypothesis, we are able to ask much more specific questions about the future. Experimentation allows us to see the future in high definition.
When we say, for example, “Our competitors are using video, therefore we should use video,” we are stating a hypothesis.
When we test this hypothesis, we are finding out if our statement predicts the future. Then we can say, “Our test shows that video led more visitors to buy, so we can assume in the future that video will generate more sales.”
Likewise, saying, “I don’t like watching videos when I shop online, so visitors will not like video on our site,” can also be stated as a hypothesis, though the opposite of the one we stated above.
If we had already tested video, we would be able to predict if visitors like video or not based on the sales generated. We don’t need to guess because we have gained the ability to predict the future.
A Unified Fortune Telling Technology
Only the fourth option relies on the scientific process. With this approach, every idea becomes a hypothesis to be tested, and it becomes possible to tell the future with more accuracy.
We always test from where we are today, adding our hypothesis to the mix and testing it against the page as it is.
It makes sense to consider what others are doing and our personal taste when coming up with ideas. It is when we put those ideas in the context of the existing site and test them that we gain a future-seeing goggles.
Full funnel conversion optimization – or the Conversion Sciences Profit Funnel™ – provides the analysis and insights to help you prepare for the future and positively impact your business bottom line.
12 Design Best Practices for Landing Page Form Optimization
Lead GenerationGetting form optimization from your landing page templates goes beyond knowing the key components of a landing page form. It’s about creating a user journey that guides visitors toward an informed choice.
Let’s unravel the blueprint for landing page form optimization best practices that are not only user-friendly but are conversion-optimized powerhouses.
1. Keep it Simple
Everyone starts a form with a certain amount of cognitive energy. The more motivated they are to complete a form the bigger the bank of energy they have. However, if you deplete their cognitive energy before they complete the form they abandon.
When optimizing forms, make everything clear and easy for people to fill out. When forms are simple, users can quickly give the information needed without any stress. Here’s how to simplify web form optimization:
Make sure the form loads fast to keep people’s attention. Give easy-to-understand help messages if someone makes a mistake. Make it responsive on mobile phones, tablets and computers.
Is this asking too much information to simply register for a webinar?
2. Write Clear Field Labels for Optimizing Forms
Clear field labels are the road signs in the journey of filling out a form. They tell users where to go, ensuring they don’t take a wrong turn and abandon the process out of frustration. Follow these guidelines to craft a clear landing page template when optimizing forms:
It’s almost always unwise to place form labels below the fields.
3. Include a Visible, Contrasting Form CTA Button
Forms act as highly visible “conversion beacons” on landing pages, making it clear to the visitor that they are being asked to do something. However, a visible, contrasting call to action (CTA) button will reinforce the desired action.
A form CTA should grab the users’ attention, nudging them naturally and assertively toward making that click. It’s more than a button. It steers users in the right direction. The button should contain contrasting colors that draw the eyes and break visual monotony, creating a focal point that’s almost magnetic.
The button size should be substantial enough to be noticed but not so large that it overwhelms other content. Position it strategically, ideally in a central and prominent spot, where users’ eyes naturally drift. Pair it with compelling text that drives action — steer clear of generic phrases like “click here.”
The design of this form downplays the call to action.
4. Provide Visual Cues and Instructions
Visual cues and instructions help users move through a form intuitively, without feeling lost. When optimizing forms, consider these tips and strategies for implementing visual cues:
5. Use Smart Placeholder Text
When making a landing page with form layouts, it’s a good idea to use placeholder text. The placeholder text is the faint text you see in the boxes where the user will type information. It helps people know what they should put in each box.
Placeholder text shouldn’t replace the primary field labels that tell people what each box is for; it’s just there to give extra help.
Keep the placeholder text short and simple. Use everyday words that everyone can understand so people aren’t wondering what they should do. The text color should be lighter than the color people see when they start typing so they can see the difference between their words and your hints.
Test your form to make sure the placeholder text works well, and the layout looks good on different devices such as phones, tablets and computers. That way, visitors will have an easier time using your form, no matter what they use to view it.
6. Implement Progressive Profiling
Progressive profiling is a technique used in digital marketing to gradually collect information about a lead over time rather than asking for all the details at once. Progressive profiling reduces form length, eases the user’s experience and enriches the data profile of the user as they continue to engage with your site or offerings.
The perks? Users are more likely to complete shorter forms with a simpler layout. As they see value and build trust with your brand over time, they’ll be more inclined to share additional information, enabling you to fine-tune your marketing efforts.
Follow this step-by-step guide to implement progressive profiling for form optimization:
7. Aim for Mobile-Friendly Landing Page Form Optimization
In 2023, 59% of website traffic came from mobile phones, and that percentage is trending upward. Making your landing page mobile responsive ensures a positive user experience that’ll likely result in more completed forms.
To make a mobile-friendly landing page form, start with an uncluttered layout that’s easy to navigate on smaller screens. Make the text readable with buttons large enough to tap effortlessly. A good user experience occurs when the visitor doesn’t have to struggle to read tiny text or tap small buttons.
One of the best ways to improve the mobile form experience is to deliver the proper keyboard for each form field. Both iPhone and Android have special keyboards for:
Test the landing page template on different mobile phones and browsers to make sure it works flawlessly. Pay attention to load times. If the page or the form loads slowly, you’ll lose potential customers. Ensure that everything looks right and works correctly. Usability sets the stage for a seamless interaction with your potential customers.
8. Include Trust and Privacy Indicators
Building trust with users is a pivotal step. Certificates, privacy policies, and trust badges reassure users that their information is secure and will be handled properly. Here is how to effectively include trust and privacy indicators that give you credibility.
Displaying these elements prominently (but not intrusively) can strike the right balance between providing assurance and maintaining a clean design. Encouraging trust facilitates a smoother path to conversion.
9. Minimize Distractions
Creating a space free of clutter allows users to concentrate solely on the form and steer clear of any hindrances that might disrupt the flow. It retains the user’s attention and subtly nudges them to fill out the form, thereby improving conversion rates.
10. Consider Error Handling and Validation
User-friendly error handling and validation are keystones in landing page form optimization. They ensure users can easily correct mistakes. They also foster a smoother, frustration-free experience, which, in turn, amplifies conversion rates.
Here are the best techniques for handling errors and validation:
On mobile, beware of validation error messages that appear off-screen. It is recommended that error messages appear on or near the field that needs attention. Avoid posting error messages at the top of the form or the top of the page, as these may be off-screen for a mobile user.
11. Perform AB Testing and Form Optimization
A/B testing is a must-have in the digital landscape. It allows you to make informed decisions based on data and performance metrics. A/B testing and optimization includes refining and optimizing to ensure your landing page form is performing at optimum levels, which bolsters conversion rates. Here’s a step-by-step guide that helps you do it correctly:
Post A/B testing, continuous optimization comes into play. It’s about nurturing perpetual improvement, where insights gleaned from one test feed into the hypotheses for future tests.
12. Use Analytics and Tracking
Use analytics and tracking tools to understand user behavior and the overall performance of your form. These tools track a variety of metrics that give you the actionable insights you need to continually refine and optimize your form.
Metrics to keep an eye on include:
By looking at user behavior and form performance, you begin developing optimization strategies that can improve your form completion rates. You will craft a form that’s user-friendly and finely tuned to facilitate higher conversions. It’s about blending science with strategy to foster a landing page form that’s primed for success.
Better Form Optimization Leads to More Conversions
Effective form design is crucial for form optimization, enhancing user experience and increasing conversion rates. You can significantly improve conversion rates by adhering to best practices such as simplicity, clear CTAs, and intuitive layouts. Regular testing and refinement based on user feedback are essential for maintaining optimal form effectiveness.
Want more conversions? Conversion Science gives you the tools to create better leads that get more conversions. Contact us today to get started.
Designing Landing Page Forms That Convert
Lead GenerationIn digital marketing, landing page forms are essential for transforming casual browsers into engaged customers. Forms serve as a first handshake, introducing individuals to your brand while gathering vital information to personalize their experience.
When crafting these forms, the golden rule is efficiency. A well-structured form respects the user’s time and demonstrates a focused approach, asking for only what’s necessary to kick-start a relationship for you and a potential customer.
Below, we share valuable tips for landing page best practices and how to design and optimize your forms to convert more leads into loyal customers.
Contents
What Is a Conversion?
To put it simply:
A conversion occurs when someone visits your landing page and takes a desired action that aligns with your goal.
Some examples of landing page conversions include:
We divide conversions into two main types:
In either case, the goal of your landing form is to capture essential information from visitors, helping to transform them from casual browsers into qualified leads.
Why Use Landing Page Forms?
Forms are the backbone of any successful landing page strategy. They’re like friendly greeters at a store’s entrance, helping to introduce potential customers to what the business offers while gathering helpful information along the way. A successfully executed form also allows you to connect with, learn about, and encourage your visitors to act.
Connect With Your People
These forms are all about making connections. By encouraging visitors to share some information about themselves, you build relationships with people who are genuinely interested in your offering. We call it capturing leads.
Learn About Your People
Forms are a goldmine for gathering customer data. They help you gain insights to refine your approach and offer products, deals, or information more aligned with what your audience wants. It’s a smart way to keep people engaged and coming back for more.
Encourage Your People to Commit
Let’s not forget about sales! A well-designed form can smoothly guide a visitor from browsing your site to purchasing. It’s like having a helpful shop assistant who knows exactly when to step in and offer just the right suggestion to help a customer make their choice.
In this article, we focus on landing page form optimization, but as mentioned above, your form is part of a larger landing page strategy. Don’t forget to optimize your landing page for conversion as well. These landing page templates will help.
Key Components of a High-Converting Form
If you want your landing page forms to convert, have your endgame in mind. This ensures that every element of your form is strategically aligned to encourage users to complete the desired action.
Each field in the form reassures and motivates the user, helping them gain momentum and ultimately leading to a conversion. They provide a great user experience but also reduce submissions from unqualified prospects. The following elements help you achieve these goals.
Compelling Headline
A great headline is a firm handshake with the visitor; it grabs their attention and holds on tight. It should resonate with the potential customers and hint at the value they will receive.
Here are some pro techniques for writing winning headlines:
Keep it tight. The best headlines are no more than six to ten words. This makes it easier to read at a glance, and more importantly, to fit more easily on mobile devises.
Make it active: A good headline feels energetic. The best way to inject energy is to write the headline with an active verb, ideally in the present tense.
Omit the unnecessary: Strike articles (words like a, an, and the) whenever possible. And instead of conjunctions (think and or but), use commas.
Be specific: Vague is boring. Use specific numbers and details to capture attention.
Need some inspiration for your next compelling headline? Think of action phrases like:
These headlines are enticing, offering a promise of value and evoking a sense of exclusivity and advancement.
Clear Benefit Statement
A benefit statement goes hand in hand with the headline, offering a concise yet comprehensive overview of what users stand to gain if they take action. It could be phrased like any of these:
Crafting a potent benefit statement involves pinpoint precision and a firm focus on value. When drafting your statements, remember these three quick tips:
Highlight the benefits vividly, spotlighting the value of completing the form.
Clear and Concise Instructions
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a landing page form is to assume users understand what they need to do next. It’s important to clearly communicate the purpose of registration forms, how to fill them out, and what happens after they do.
Your goal is to design a smooth user experience. Imagine that you’re having a direct conversation with your potential customers. Guide them in a friendly yet assured manner.
Make field labels clear and concise. This reduces guesswork and increases the likelihood that users will accurately complete every field. It can help to use some basic copywriting techniques:
It may be necessary to write simple instruction, complete with checkboxes, bullet points, or numbers to guide the user through their next steps.
However you approach it, make sure you use a simple, less-is-more layout to reduce confusion. Good form design includes easy-to-read field labels, a clean layout, and responsive feedback that acknowledges correct user input. It also adopts a layout that looks good on phones and tablets since 45% of form data is submitted on mobile devices.
Proper Use of Form Fields
Form design studies have found that unnecessary form fields create friction and reduce conversion rates. The statistics are sobering:
To avoid form abandonment, it’s important to reduce complication. Think “less is more.”
Your form layout should include only as many fields as you need.
Are you offering a report or whitepaper? Users know you only need their email address to send them the information they’re requesting. They may be willing to share their name and phone number, but it’s unlikely they’ll answer a dozen fields asking for details about their job or their business.
Are they filling out a demo-request form? Users understand that you need more information to put together a demo. You can ask about their job role and business but you should avoid asking penetrating questions that can be asked face-to-face.
A smart strategy in form design is to leverage “stop fields,” fields that ask too much of your visitors when compared to the perceived value of the offer.
These fields tend to cause form abandonment — but keep in mind, there is bad form abandonment and good form abandonment.
Bad form abandonment occurs when a qualified prospect was unwilling to complete the form. Good form abandonment occurs when you discourage unqualified prospects from completing the form. And that’s where stop fields come into play. Used strategically, they can reduce conversion while increasing the quality of your leads.
Stop fields may include:
Dropdowns or checkboxes that do not include the “right” answer for a visitor will cause abandonment.
Form optimization is key. When designing your form, for every field in your form, ask two questions:
Determining what information to ask for involves a careful consideration of your goals. Are you aiming to nurture leads, sign users up for a newsletter, or perhaps register them for a webinar? The nature of your offering should dictate the kind of information you require.
Remember to keep your field labels as simple as possible, so they don’t reduce trust or increase abandonment rates.
Progress Indicators for Multi-Step Forms
Progress indicators offer a roadmap on longer or multi-step forms, letting users know where they are in the process and how much further they have to go. They enhance the user experience by providing a sense of accomplishment with each completed step and encouraging users to proceed to the next step.
Here are some guidelines for effectively using progress indicators in quiz-style or multi-step landing page forms:
Also, use colors strategically, such as using a distinct color to denote completed steps and create a visual differentiation. Consider providing incentives for completing different stages, encouraging users to reach the end of the process.
Thank You Page or Confirmation Message
A well-crafted thank you page or confirmation message is a golden opportunity to further engage with users and create a lasting impression. It provides a satisfying closure to the form submission process, reassuring users that their effort was successful while enhancing their overall experience.
The thank you page also creates an “Endowment Effect.” This is the afterglow that kicks in once someone has decided to take action on your landing page. It “endows” your business with a heightened trust. This is an ideal time to ask users to do something more.
An effective thank you page or confirmation message can include a variety of elements, such as:
Here are some examples of effective thank you pages or confirmation messages:
Content Download Thank You Page:
Webinar Registration Thank You Page:
Strong Call to Action (CTA)
A strong and clear call to action (CTA) isn’t just a button or a small part of your landing page forms. It’s essentially the crescendo of your user’s journey on your page. It’s the final nudge that encourages the user to take the desired action, steering them from being a visitor to a potential lead or customer.
A well-crafted CTA can significantly boost conversions and play a pivotal role in a successful landing page. Here are a handful of examples of successful CTAs:
Notice how these CTAs use enthusiastic and encouraging language, coupled with a value proposition, to make the action more enticing.
Use these simple techniques for crafting persuasive CTAs:
Better Forms Lead to More Conversions
We’ve dissected the pivotal role forms play in digital marketing, emphasizing the elements that can boost conversion rates. From understanding the essence of conversions to identifying ways to improve form design and so much more, we gave you the inside scoop on creating compelling landing page forms that take potential customers across the finish line.
Want more customers? Conversion Science gives you the tools you need to create better leads that get more conversions. Contact us today to get started.