“I don’t know about you, but anytime I see or hear mention of a story about a dog or a cute panda sneezing or a hippo farting, I get excited and immediately need to read or see more.”
The kind of traffic that comes to a “Clickbait” headline is often not well qualified. People come because of the headline’s hook, not because they need a product or service.
Having said that, the psychology of these headlines can be used to draw a more qualified audience to a content piece or landing page. Many of the best-performing headlines we’ve tested are abrupt and unexpected. It’s something they have in common with clickbait headlines: 79% of the ones analyzed in the Venngage used the element of shock.
So I offer this little study of click bait headlines. It’s worth the read if only for the dog videos. (Plus it turns out the farting hippo thing is real.) Read more.
Kratz’s website might fall into both of those categories.
“If Ken Kratz had a child build his website without his awareness and did not make changes at the fear of hurting their feelings, then that would be a permissible excuse.”
Enough said. Read more.
“Overall, a lenient return policy did indeed correlate with more returns. But, crucially, it was even more strongly correlated with an increase in purchases. In other words, retailers are generally getting a clear sales benefit from giving customers the assurance of a return.”
It’s counterintuitive that sales increase when you give people more chances to return what they buy, but the data is there. Return policies are important: two thirds of eCommerce shoppers look at them, and these policies are a large part of how consumers choose where to buy what they want. Read more.
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Discover how top retailers hit 10% conversion rates by using these eCommerce optimization tips that increase trust and interest from customers.
The global average conversion rate for eCommerce stores is 2.32%. Some online stores, however, manage to get rates as high as 10%. Just how do they do it?
Some may attribute it to the quality of their products. Others might point to the quality of their traffic. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find that the world’s top retailers invest in creating an optimized experience for their customers.
For a store struggling to convert browsers into customers, there’s a lot to be learned from these eCommerce retailers. So in this post, I’ll show you how some of the world’s best performing stores use conversion rate optimization to get more customers.
1. Retail Conversion Tips: Reassure eCommerce Customers of their Financial Safety
Curious to find out how the world’s top retailers grow their conversion rates? A third of your customers hesitate to punch in their credit card details because of recent data breaches at major retailers. Reassuring customers that that their credit card information is safe at all times is a proven way to improve conversion rates.
For example, when you try to checkout on Alibaba.com, you see a bunch of badges assuring the buyer of the store’s security credentials:
Alibaba’s security credentials
On NewEgg.com, you’ll see similar badges on the site’s footer:
New Egg’s credentials
On ThinkGeek.com, there’s a separate section on its website detailing the site’s payment security protocols:
Think Geek’s payment security protocols
WalMart.com has a separate section on its website to educate customers about its privacy and security policies.
Some of your customers prefer to use their credit cards, some others like to use their existing Paypal balance. By limiting available payment options, you make it harder for customers to finish their purchase. In fact, one survey found that 56% of customers expect multiple payment options at checkout.
Take a look at the number of payment options Alibaba offers through Alipay:
Alibaba payment options
Note that Alipay also localizes the payment form. If you’re accessing the site from China, you’ll see methods that American customers don’t.
Note that Alipay also localizes the payment form. If you’re accessing the site from China, you’ll see different methods available to you than a US-based customer
Amazon isn’t far behind either. It also offers multiple payment options on its checkout page:
Amazon’s payment options
Most payment processors will let you accept payments via credit cards, debit cards and even bank transfers. You can also integrate Paypal on the checkout page to give customers another option to buy your products.
3. Great eCommerce Optimization Tips: Make Cart Contents Visible at all Times
“What items are in my cart right now?” This is a question your customers have likely asked themselves as they browse through your products.
To get an answer, they have to click on the ‘Cart’ icon and navigate away to another page. This halts the customer momentum and creates friction in the purchase process.
Remove this friction by making the contents of your visible at all times.
For example, once you add a product to your cart on Quiksilver.com, you can see the cart contents by simply moving your mouse over the cart button.
Hover view of shopping cart on Quicksilver
Macy’s does the same. After adding a product to the cart, the cart contents are shown by hovering the mouse over the shopping bag icon.
Hover view of Macy’s shopping cart
Customers easily see what all they’ve already added to their cart without navigating away from the page.
4. Enhance Trust by Emphasizing Awards, Testimonials and Certifications
With revenues of $2.6B, NewEgg is one of the largest private companies in America. Yet, NewEgg uses several trust markers on its site to assure customers of its legitimacy.
Scroll to the site’s footer and you’ll see a link to its awards and rankings. On this page, NewEgg offers a comprehensive list of all the recognition it has received:
NewEgg’s many awards and certifications
In an industry (computer parts sales) where authenticity is crucial, such external validation helps assure that customers of the retailer’s trust worthiness.
NorthernTool.com takes a different approach – it highlights how the business has been “family owned and operated” for 30 years in its footer:
Northern Tool offers assurance by stating how long it has been operating
Try creating a similar page on your site listing any public recognition you might have received. This can be a blurb from a prominent publisher, an award, or a testimonial.
5. Retail Conversion Tips: Use HTTPS/SSL to Enhance eCommerce Security
After the recent string of data breaches at major retailers, your customers are obviously nervous about data security.
Adding a SSL certificate to your site – particularly the checkout pages – can help restore some of their confidence.
This is particularly true for users on modern browsers like Chrome or Firefox which highlight SSL certificates in the address bar.
Take a look at the SSL certificate visible on NewEgg after you add a product to your cart:
New Egg’s SSL certificate
This is a quick, cheap way to give your store a much needed security boost.
6. Humanize your Company to Increase Trust
If you scroll down to the footer at Overstock.com, you’ll see something unique: a link to the CEO’s Twitter feed.
Overstock gives you an easy way to access its CEO
Remember: people like buying from other people, not faceless corporations. For large businesses like Overstock, this is a particularly big problem. Adding the CEO’s Twitter feed on the homepage shows that there are real people with real values behind the business.
That’s just one way to humanize your store. Another way is to tell customers your origin story, your mission and your key people on your About page.
Here’s how Zappos does it:
Zappos humanizes itself by proving it has a sense of humor
By calling its CEO/COO/VPs “monkeys”, Zappos tells the customer that it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Zappos takes this far beyond the About page. It also offers customers and other business owners tours of its offices, conducts Q&A sessions to help them understand Zappos’ culture, and shares its reading lists and core values with site visitors.
Sharing information about your company’s culture has a humanizing effect
You don’t have to go that far, of course. Even something simple as a company blog can go a long way in creating more trust.
For example, take a look at Patagonia’s employee blog: The Cleanest Line.
Patagonia’s employee blog shares their outdoor adventure experiences and insights; it doesn’t directly sell any Patagonia products
7. eCommerce Optimization Tips: Offer Unique Methods to Visualize or Test Products
Putting up high resolution imagery is old hat in conversion optimized design. To stand out from the competition, you have to find more compelling ways to help customers test or visualize your products.
MyHabit’s (an Amazon deals site) 360-degree videos are a great example of this. The video plays seamlessly when a customer hovers over the video button, showing off the product in rich detail.
360 degree views on My Habits
Not all products require a video or 360-degree images though. For stores with limited items, creating dedicated landing pages is a great idea as well.
See how Apple does it for all its products:
Apple uses clean and unusual shots to display its products
Of course, not all product presentations have to be visual in the traditional sense. Costco sells printers by mailing prospective customers a sample page from the printer.
A mailed test page is a clever way to show customers how the product performs without setting up a physical store
This is a clever way to show the customer how the product actually performs without actually setting up a physical store.
8. Assure Customers of Free Shipping at a Single Glance
In a survey of holiday shoppers, 93% of respondents said that free shipping drove them to take action. Free shipping also ranked as the second biggest factor in eCommerce purchases.
Telling customers front and center about your shipping policies is a good way retain visitors. Place this declaration in a highly visible area above the fold, preferably before customers have even had a chance to browse through your products.
For example, ASOS shows its shipping policies right below the navigation menu:
ASOS’s prominent shipping policies
This tells both local and international customers whether it’s actually worth spending time on your store.
JCPenney does something similar – you can see exactly how much you need to spend to get free shipping.
JCPenney’s shipping policy
This acts as an incentive as well. Customers who are unwilling to pay for shipping might bump up their order value to avail free shipping benefits.
Stores with physical locations can go a step beyond free shipping and highlight in-store pickup on their homepages as well.
For example, on Macy’s, you’ll see a big banner advertising its order-online, pickup in-store policy:
It’s also a good idea to highlight your return policy if you’re selling products customers are anxious buying online. For example, AutoZone gives customers assures customers that they can return their purchases in any store, no questions asked.
AutoZone’s shipping polices
9. Create Product Pages that Fit your Customer Personas
Your customers will use your store in different ways. Some will dig through technical specs, while others will browse through dozens of reviews before pulling the trigger.
Creating product pages that fit each of your customer personas is crucial for a high-converting eCommerce experience.
For example, NorthernTool.com gives visitors an option to print out reviews for the product:
Being able to print easily is important for Northern Tool’s personas
This is necessary since a lot of NorthernTool’s customers are older people who prefer to read on paper instead of a computer/smartphone screen.
In contrast, NewEgg’s customers are very tech savvy. To appeal to these users, NewEgg gives a detailed rundown of each product’s technical specifications:
Technical depth might overwhelm users on another site, but New Egg’s personas demand it in order to make a purchasing decision
Such technical depth might overwhelm users on another store, but for NewEgg’s savvy customers, this is a necessity for making a purchase decision.
10. eCommerce Optimization Tips: Help Customers Buy with Guides, Ideas and How-Tos
Creating content that helps customers choose products offers three benefits:
Helps your store get social shares and traffic.
Increases eCommerce conversion rates by helping customers choose a product that fits their requirements.
Increases average order value by recommending higher priced products to customers.
This strategy is particularly effective for stores that sell difficult-to-buy products such as DIY supplies, computer components, etc.
For example, Lowe’s creates a ton of content aimed at helping DIY enthusiasts. This content is displayed prominently on the nav bar under “Ideas & How-Tos”.
Lowe’s free how-to guides
eBay takes things one step further by letting users create guides of their own. Such user-generated content (UGC) helps eBay attract a massive amount of targeted search traffic.
User generated content UGC helps eBay attract a massive amount of targeted search traffic
Kate Spade ditches the buying guide in favor of a Tumblr blog. This blog curates styles, pictures and even quotes that help customers choose while also propagating the Kate Spade brand.
Kate Spade Tumblr
For a number of upcoming retailers, content is the foundation of their entire store. For example, men’s fashion retailer MrPorter was originally a blog that turned into a store. Even today, its online magazine is the central focus of the store.
MrPorter’s online magazine
Creating such helpful content can be a potent strategy for getting more traffic, more conversions and bigger orders.
10 eCommerce Conversion Optimization Tips from the World’s Top Retailers Summary
Globally, conversion rates for eCommerce stores vary considerably. While a few stores struggle to get 2-3% conversion rates, top retailers convert as many as 10 out of every 100 visitors.
To get such high conversion rates, top retailers use a number of tactics. These range from mitigating customer risk to creating quality content that helps people choose the right products. By using similar tactics on your store, you can radically increase conversion rates and boost your revenue without a change in your traffic or product-line.
Key Takeaways
Use security badges, multiple payment options and third-party rankings, awards and certifications to underscore your store’s safety and trustworthiness.
Reduce friction in the buying process by making your cart visible at all times.
Tell customers about your shipping and return policies as soon as they land on your site.
Create product pages that address FUDs specific to your customer personas.
Create content that helps customers buy in order to get higher conversion rates and more traffic.
When we talk about “conversions” we’re usually talking that moment when someone buys something, completes a subscription form, or signs up for an online service. Everything is done online. For a locally-focused business with a physical location, a conversion is that moment when someone calls them or visits.
It’s not as easy to measure.
When someone searches for your local business, Google offers a “local three-pack,” three listings that best fit based on the keyword searcher enters and their location. As you might guess, these results are hugely important to your success.
Google local search results before and after introducing the 3-pack SERPs.
The local three-pack listing can actually list your Google reviews along with your business name and your overall rating. All of this is displayed right there in the SERPs (search engine results pages). If you have positive reviews, this can get your business chosen over competitors. But how often do people click on your listing, visit your website, or pick up the phone based on your reviews?
I recently analyzed over 22,000 Google local listings to see just how much power Google reviews have over search engine rankings. What I found surprised me.
Google reviews affect search engine visibility. Google reviews are displayed right there in the SERPs.
Consumers who perform local searches are ready to buy and act quickly.
Consumers who perform local searches are ready to buy and act quickly. Consumers put stock in online reviews.
Though we can’t prove exact causation without more data from Google, I think we can tell how Google reviews likely affect purchasing decisions for local businesses.
Local Search Conversions and Click Throughs
Before we get to the local search stats, I need to mention that the convergence of search rankings, conversion, and content has to be deliberate. If a potential customer finds you on Google, sees an appealing title and description for your location, they can’t be taken to a website that is thin on details or appears irrelevant to them. They’re not going to convert — to call, visit or buy.
Your content has to keep the promise your local search rankings make.
I liked this quote from Winston Burton in an article for Search Engine Land:
“Understanding and making sure you have the right content based on intent at all stages of the user journey can greatly improve your conversion rates. If you serve end users with something that they need in “the moment” — whether they are researching something, thinking about doing something or looking to purchase something — your chances of improving conversions will greatly increase.”
And, as it turns out, local searches are all about “in the moment.”
The last from-the-horse’s-mouth data we got from Google itself tells us
50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their phone visit a local business within 24 hours.
50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their phone visit a local business within 24 hours. 34% of consumers who performed the same search on their computer or tablet similarly, visited the business within a day.
Local search ranking has a direct effect on getting people on your website, through the door, or on the phone.
That same Google report stated that 18% of local mobile searches lead to an actual sale within one day.
We don’t have any newer data from Google itself, but we do have studies from other organizations.
Examples:
61% of searchers find local results more relevant than non-local search results, according to Resource.com
3 out of 5 consumers search for local businesses on their smartphone, according to ReachLocal
More than 2.6 billion local searches are performed every month, and the number is growing, according to SmallBusinessCommunity.com
Even if this widely-cited data is dubious, we have better sources that tell us just how big local searches are, and just how quickly local searchers act.
But do they click on the local three-pack that contains those aforementioned Google reviews?
Clicking on the Three-Pack
Since we don’t have any data that comes directly from Google, we have to use studies from other parties.
I came across two valuable studies in regards to Google’s local three-pack, which has still been around for less than a year.
Casey Meraz published his study at Moz, and Mike Ramsey published his study on his own website, Nifty Marketing. They both used relatively small sample sizes and heat map technology, and their findings weren’t exactly the same. There were some commonalities, however.
In the Moz study, Casey analyzed several different SERP layouts. I want to focus on his findings for “The Snack Pack with Organic Results Underneath,” as it’s the most relevant for many local business searches. That’s not to say your audience won’t find any other SERP layouts, and you can find the rest of Casey’s analysis in the linked post.
The research found:
44% of people clicked on the first listing in the local three-pack
8% chose to load “more local results”
29% clicked on the organic listings
19% clicked on the paid results
When there’s an organic listing above the three-pack (but under the paid search results), that CTR sees a dramatic decline. In the test that showed an organic result above the local three-pack, it received 68% of the clicks, while the local three-pack only garnered 8% of clicks.
He performed one more test, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Next, let’s dive into Mike Ramsey’s research results over at Nifty Marketing.
Mike also used heat maps to test click through rates. He studied the CTR results for ‘Boise Injury Lawyer’ and ‘Provo Storage Units’ on both mobile and desktop.
As you can see, there’s a clear difference between Mike’s study and Casey’s study, even though they were posted only seven days apart. The studies used different groups of people. Mike studied and recorded results for both desktop and mobile CTRs, where Casey just mentioned he recorded from “different devices”. Casey personally interviewed, tested, and recorded ten people selecting a bail bondsman from a Google search.
Because these were two different studies, each using a relatively small group of people, the actual numbers are different. You also have to keep in mind, the three-pack and its surrounding SERPs can appear vastly different for different searches, and on different devices.
These two studies do, however, have one thing in common: reviews.
From Casey: “However, another item of interest is that the listings with reviews got the clicks. The third listing, with no review stars, received zero clicks in the local 3-pack. Additionally, it’s worth nothing that most of the local-centric clicks land on the business name itself. These clicks no longer lead straight to your website or even your old Google+ page, where you still controlled the information to some extent. These now take you to a map page, where other businesses are displayed and where users can read your reviews.”
Casey’s referring to the third part of his study, which displayed the local three-pack with organic results underneath, but the key difference this time is that some listings featured reviews and some did not.
In those results:
40% of people clicked an organic search result
33% of people clicked a three-pack result
13% of people clicked a paid search result
Results with reviews got more clicks. In addition, he conducted several in-person click tests, where he gave participants a goal and observed their results. In each of his tests, reviews seemed to attract the most clicks.
Mike also found reviews seemed to be a big reason for clicks in the three-pack, especially on a desktop.
Image Credit: Mike Ramsey local listing study at Nifty Marketing
People are paying attention to those Google reviews, but how much do they actually care about reviews?
Consumers Trust Reviews
When it comes to consumers and online reviews, we thankfully have a wealth of information available.
The statistics from these studies show why people tend to click on the local listings with review stars, and why they might choose those listings over the organic results.
Since it’s both recent and reputable, I want to share some findings from Myles Anderson of BrightLocal, who published an eye-opening study last summer.
BrightLocal found:
33% of consumers regularly read online reviews for local businesses
59% of consumers occasionally read online reviews for local businesses
8% of consumers do not read any online reviews
In addition, BrightLocal found the number of consumers who read online reviews for local businesses is increasing.
They also found some pretty compelling statistics based on a local business’ overall rating:
13% of consumers will consider using a business that has a 1-2 star rating
87% of consumers won’t consider a business with a wealth of bad reviews
94% of consumers will consider using a business with a 4 star rating
It’s common sense, but it’s nice to put a number to it.
Additionally, they found 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal, word-of-mouth recommendations.
Last month, I conducted my own Google survey: 54% of the respondents read online reviews before buying from a local business.
That’s huge.
Luckily for you, your Google reviews are displayed right in the SERPs.
Reviews and Search Engine Visibility
Data used in local listing study
Before I read any of these studies, I knew reviews were a big deal for my own marketing clients. But I wanted to know more.
Remember that research I mentioned in the beginning of this article? I wanted to know how Google reviews might affect search engine visibility, so I personally analyzed 22,032 local listings. This is recent research that focuses on Google’s three-pack, as any research concerning the former seven-pack and 10-pack are no longer valid.
My methods weren’t complicated. I went from SERP to SERP, counting the number of reviews in the first and second three-packs in Google’s local listings. With the help of my two oldest sons, we put the findings in an endless spreadsheet. Then, I analyzed the data and shared my findings.
Frequency of reviews in search engine results
Here’s what I found:
The listings in the first three-pack have an average of 472% more reviews than the listings in the second three-pack.
The top three local listings have more reviews than the next three results, nearly twice as often.
63% of the time, Google’s local three-pack contains the listing with the most reviews.
A listing in the top three Google local results has an average of 7.62 reviews, compared to just 1.61 reviews in the second three-pack.
Google reviews seem to have a real effect on search rankings, and the listing with the most reviews seems to come out on top. The three-pack is thought to be an unpredictable landscape. It’s hard to optimize your site to appear in local listings.
Now that you know Google reviews matter for ranking in the three-pack, there’s much less guesswork involved. And, as a bonus, reviews are good for much more than just search results.
Key Takeaways
Google reviews matter for ranking in the local three-pack: The first three local results have 472% more reviews than results 4-6.
Consumers trust online reviews: 80% trust online reviews as much as personal, word-of-mouth recommendations.
Google reviews make a difference when it comes to local listing CTR: In both CTR studies presented in this article, the local listings with reviews outperformed the listings that did not feature reviews.
Consumers find local searches more valuable than non-local searches: 61% of searchers find local results more relevant than non-local search results.
Local searchers make quick purchasing decisions based off of their search results: 50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their phone, and 34% using a desktop computer, visit a local business within 24 hours.
We can’t claim causation here, but we can claim a strong correlation. Google reviews give local businesses a fighting chance in search. They matter for ranking in the local three-pack, and consumers tend to click on local listings with reviews.
Organic search isn’t going away anytime soon, and you’ll always need to optimize your content for conversions. Even if you have a plethora of great reviews and strong rankings in the local three-pack, you won’t convert many of your clicks without conversion rate optimized content.
Google reviews are huge for search engine visibility for several reasons, and search engine visibility is vital for getting potential customers to your website. Once they’re there, it’s your job to convert them.
I’m fond of saying that AB testing, or split testing, is the “Supreme Court” of data collection. An AB test gives us the most reliable information about a change to our site. It controls for a number of variables that can taint our data.
Things change over time. You might make a change to your site at the same time that a competitor runs a sale. Was it your change or the sale that was responsible for a drop in transactions on your site? AB tests eliminate such issues by serving variations over the same period of time.
Things change among visitors. Generally, visitors coming to your site from an email campaign are more likely to buy than visitors from search ads. For most businesses, mobile visitors convert worse than desktop visitors. An AB test can make sure that the “mix” of visitors is the same for the each change that is tested.
Plus, the AB test gathers data from real visitors and customers who are “voting” on our changes using their dollars, their contact information and their commitment to our offerings.
And our AB tests can lead us astray.
Testing Email: Open Rates & Click-Through Rates
When testing email, open rates and click-through rates don’t give you the true performance of your emails. They also don’t let your team take credit for keeping the accountants busy.
We recently did an analysis of one of our e-commerce client’s email campaigns. They had been testing how the “disclaimer” line in their emails was affecting purchase behavior.
The “disclaimer” is the first line in an email. It typically says something like “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.” The reason this line is important is that most email clients now show the subject line and the beginning of an email in the inbox view. Here’s an example from my Gmail promotions folder.
The first line of your email is as important as the subject line.
One assumes that, if these messages are working, they will be reflected in a better open rate. It turns out not to be true.
So, we tested different versions of this text over the course of 23 emails. The Open Rate predicted which would generate the most revenue in less than half of them.
As a predictor of revenue, click-through rate didn’t fare much better, calling the revenue winner in thirteen of the tests.
Revenue-Per-Recipient Puts Marketing In The Money
When we talk about monetizing a list, the metric we like is Revenue-per-Recipient.
It is calculated as:
It tells us how much spendable revenue we’re getting from each member of our list. To look at it another way, it’s an estimate of the value of each person on our list.
With proper analytics, we can measure this for the whole list, particular segments of the list (customers vs. new subscribers for instance), or for different treatments in a split test.
Measuring it requires some discipline and a bit of analytics work.
Getting To Revenue-Per-Recipient
The key to getting the Revenue-per-Recipient (RPR) number is tying email clicks to transactions. This may require some help from your friendly IT department.
Configure Your Analytics Package
Most e-commerce companies will be pumping the results of each transaction into their analytics software. If you’re generating leads for your business, your analytics system can track new prospects for you as well.
We talked last time about tracking phone calls generated by your site. Done right, you can track the number of calls made by email clickers.
Do the work necessary to get reliable reporting of sales or leads into your analytics package. Once this is done, you have what you need to calculate the impact of email on the bottom line.
Mark Your Email Traffic
This is where the discipline comes in. We need to be able to identify the traffic generated from each email drop. This is done typically by adding special parameters to the links in the emails that come back to our site.
What you add to you add to your URLs depends on your analytics package. Google Analytics has a set of standard parameters. An email link, properly tagged might change from:
When someone clicks on this link, Google Analytics will know that it was from the email talking about the Halloween Special, that it was sent to the Subscriber List, and that it was clicked from an email.
I have found that it’s important to add the date of the email drop as well, and this can be added to the campaign description. Here’s the format I use.
Many email service providers offer integrations with popular analytics packages, such as Google Analytics. They will add these tags automatically for you. The only down side is that the campaign names they choose may not be as easy to read. Mailchimp sends Google Analytics campaign names like “934f31ce51-Webinar_Follow_up_Email_10_31_2013.”
Readability is important.
We will want to be able to identify performance of individual emails when we’re testing or sending to specific segments. We will soon want to be able to marry our email service provider reports with our analytics reports. Readability will be key.
Power Reports
This process gives us the ability to see the revenue each email produces directly. Here’s a report taken from Google Analytics.
Track your emails to the dollars.
For any of the emails in this kind of report, we can pull the number of recipients from our email service provider. This gives us our Revenue per Recipient for each drop and an overall number.
Revenue per Recipient accounts for list size and revenue generated.
In this example, we got 37 cents for each member of our list. However, we can see that this number is skewed by the first one, delivering a whopping $1.20 per recipient.
Don’t be concerned that 37 cents sounds so small. RPR numbers are rarely exciting in their magnitude.
A Word For B2B Lead Generators
It may not seem that this will work for lead generators, especially those with long sales cycles. Nonsense.
As lead generators, we should know the value of a lead to our business. For our purposes, how we calculate it is less important than being consistent. Lead value is calculated by New Customer Revenue/New Leads.
We could calculate it once based on last year’s numbers and use it for all emails until you calculate it again.
We could calculate it every month by dividing the past month’s new revenue with all new leads from the past three months.
You should choose the method that you can justify, and that delivers a consistent RPR month over month.
Power Process Tip: If you can calculate the true value of a lead for your organization, you can calculate your value as a lead generator in terms everyone understands: dollars.
Optimizing Revenue-Per-Recipient
There are two ways to increase your Revenue per Recipient, both of which are best practices in email marketing.
Increase the revenue your list is generating. Duh.
Decrease the number of recipients. What?
Like trees in the winter, it’s important to prune and shape your list. Those who have never opened a single one of your emails should be dropped. In fact, many email marketers drop non-openers every 90 days or less.
It’s scary, but it’s good business.
Of course, we all want our lists to deliver steady revenue growth. This comes from understanding the offers, subject lines, email copy and landing pages that make the most money for the business.
It’s relatively easy to test emails. Just remember to test to the dollars using RPR.
A Final Word About Accuracy
This method doesn’t take into account the revenue generated when your emails create non-click demand. You don’t get credit when recipients see your email, but call, come to your store, or visit your site through other means. Nonetheless, RPR this is a valid measure of the dollar impact we are having on our businesses.
It’s time to stop boring people with how good your open rates and click-through rates are. Tell them what each and every person on your list is worth in dollars. When you track the results of your emails down to the dollar, you track your own value down to the dollar.
Portions of this article first appeared on Marketing Land.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
For many of our clients, a phone call is worth seven to ten times more than a form fill. This means that we want to maximize the number of calls, but don’t want to completely shut down the forms on these sites.
Why Phone Calls are So Valuable
Phone calls are typically most valuable to businesses selling high-dollar and high-consideration products.
The term “high-dollar” is subjective. It can mean anything from plastic surgery to mortgage loan applications.
“High-consideration” products and services are those for which the stakes are high, and the buyer will generally do more research before buying. Cars, appliances, and vacations are some examples of considered purchases.
Phone calls are also valuable in markets in which doing nothing is a real option. For example, addiction treatment centers will want to get a prospect on the phone knowing that they will want to delay treatment for their addiction.
For these businesses, a human being will often have more success moving a prospect to a close than the website alone.
Please Add Me To Your CRM
When someone completes a form on the site, you know where the information goes. Someone gets an email. A record is added to the customer relationship management (CRM) system. Lead counts are tallied for your weekly marketing report. Some get contacted. Some don’t. Some get the autoresponder they had hoped for. Most don’t.
Form leads too often wither in the CRM freezer. How can we thaw out our lead funnel and give sales what they need to generate revenue?
Phone Calls. Because phone calls don’t get cold.
Phone calls are answered and voice mails are returned. There is no CRM icebox where your contacts can be sent to chill while everyone updates their lead reports.
Even if you have highly sophisticated marketing automation campaigns that move people through the sales funnel, none of them is as efficient and successful as a human being — listening, answering questions, and handling objections.
In our experience,
a phone call is worth between 500% and 1,000% (that’s five to ten times) more in revenue than a completed form will generate
a phone call is worth between 500% and 1,000% (that’s five to ten times) more in revenue than a completed form will generate.
The business wants more calls. Your sales team wants more calls. However, marketing is rewarded for leads. This is the problem.
Making the Phone Ring
There are three kinds of people coming to your website who need to talk to someone. They won’t be satisfied by completing a form or reading a report.
Those who visit looking for a number to call. We want to make sure that they find the number they are looking for.
Those who would call if incentivized. We want to make it attractive for them to pick up the phone.
There is a group of those who just don’t want to talk to another human under any circumstances. We want these folks to complete the form.
When you say, “Let’s put a phone number on our site because someone might actually call,” you are thinking of the first group, those who will call. This is not going to be effective for the second group, those who might call. Embrace the phone, or they will go someplace else.
Evaluate the location of phone numbers on your site the same way you would evaluate call to action buttons. The phone number needs to be prominent, frequent, but not too pushy. Below we talk about where to place phone numbers.
You Can’t Take Credit For What You Don’t Measure
In order for this to work, dear marketer, you first need to get credit for these calls. Instead of slapping the company sales number on the website, you need to be able to measure calls sent from the site. Inexpensive services will give you a unique number. We use Grasshopper for our 800 number service. Google Voice is a source of local phone numbers. Counting calls will be largely done by hand.
To tie calls back into an analytics package, we’ve worked with a number of services, including Dialogtech, FiveNines, Five9, Convirza, and Invoca. This allows you to calculate a conversion rate with more accuracy.
Watch our phone leads webinar with Convirza.
The ways these packages work are different and beyond the scope of this column. Nonetheless, they let you take credit for real activity in sales.
Nail The Offer
We too often think that those who would prefer a call will think of calling. It ain’t true. Someone predisposed to call still needs to understand why they should call and what to expect. The only number that doesn’t need a call-to-action is 9-1-1.
Those who bother to write an invitation alongside their phone numbers resort to engaging messages such as, “Call,” “Call us,” “Call us today,” or the daring “Contact us.” None of these offers a why or tells you what to expect. Adding an exclamation point doesn’t help.
Home Instead Senior Care is really working hard to get visitors to pick up the phone.
There are four things that you can use to make your phone number more enticing to those who would call:
Alignment means that your “call-to-call” mirrors the need of the visitor. Often, it is sufficient to match the invitation in the ad or link what brought them to the page.
Adding Emotion shows that you relate to their real non-logical pain or desire.
In the example above, “Struggling with caring for a parent” would be aligned, but not emotional.
“Feeling guilty about caring for a parent?” definitely carries emotion. If you think that this kind of message is too bold, think again. We had a 43% increase in calls for an invitation that read, “Ready to stop lying to yourself? We can help. Call …”
Emotion is a powerful tool.
The visitor wants Clarity about what will happen if they call. Who will be on the end of the line? Will they be an expert? Will they try to sell me or educate me? Can I call on weekends? Be clear about what will happen on the call.
Finally, you must build the Value of the call. Like all good calls-to-action, the call-to-call must reek of WIIFM (“what’s in it for me”). It has to promise enough to the visitor that they would prefer to call you over any alternative. Lay it out there.
These four components — Alignment, Emotion, Clarity and Value — make for effective calls-to-call, and are great for other calls-to-action as well.
Put Things In The Right Place
Just sticking the number in the upper right corner isn’t going to get you those calls that make you powerful. The number should be there, as this is where callers look. But the other two places that make the phones ring are:
In the headline at the start of content.
About 75% down a page of content.
The following image shows a wireframe of a typical content page with proper placement of calls-to-call. We’ve tested them all over the page.
Smartphones Have Phones
On your small-screen mobile site — as opposed to your tablet-formatted website — click to call is an intuitive way to get more calls.
For our call-oriented customers, their mobile sites now out-convert their desktop sites.
For our call-oriented customers, their mobile sites now out-convert their desktop sites. How do we do it? Here are some steps.
Make the phone numbers click-to-call
Click to call is crucial for mobile conversion rates.
Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Write “Tel” links explicitly.
Keep Calls to Action Available in Sticky Header or Footer
This sticky header offers several ways to take action.
You never know when the visitor will have the information they need to take action. Plus, they may find it’s their turn in line and need to take action quickly. These are mobile devices, you know.
Reduce Forms
Completing forms on a mobile device is grueling, frustrating and could scare the children. Look for ways to take action that don’t require long forms to fill.
Ironically, this two-screen form is for a Webinar on mobile marketing.
Consider using auto-fill from a social network, like LinkedIn or Facebook.
Filling in forms on mobile is hard. Consider social login auto-fill.
Bonus: The Power Of A Long, “Nasty” Form
If you’ve read this far, I have a bonus for you. You may have noticed an item on the wireframe image above: “Long, ‘Nasty’ Form.”
To maximize the number of calls you get and cast fewer of your visitors into the frigid desert of the CRM, make your forms long, and ask for some personal info. Yes, this is the opposite of what we tell you to do when you want visitors to fill out a form.
This will cook your noodle. When trying to maximize the number of calls we get, a long, nasty form works better than no form at all. That’s right. No form generates fewer calls.
I think this highlights the way our visitors assign a price to their time and attention. On its own, a phone call may seem “expensive”. However, when a long, nasty form is on the page, it makes the cost of taking action by form more “expensive”. The call looks cheap by comparison.
This is a pricing exercise, but the cost isn’t money. It’s time and attention.
The power of a ringing phone gets noticed. If visitors to your site start calling your sales team, it will be noticed. You need to be able to measure the calls and toot your own horn as well. Unlike leads, calls have a power beyond a graph in a PowerPoint presentation. To become an indispensable marketer, make the phone ring.
These are the areas in which you make assumptions when you “go all in”. Many of your choices can increase performance. Many will not.
The Right Value Proposition
The Right Calls to Action
The Right Copy and Images
The Expected Look and Feel
Trust Builders
Proof
Risk Reversal
All Website Changes
The Kinds of Information We Use to Make Design Decisions
When making these decisions, too many of us rely on information from categories 1 through 3 of this list. The least reliable sources are listed first.
Informed Intuition (What I think works)
Self-reported Input (What others make up about what works)
Best Practices Experience (What works for other sites)
Qualitative Behavioral Data (What works for small numbers of visitors)
Quantitative Behavioral Data (What works for statistically valid groups of visitors)
I give examples of each of these and explain why they are or are not reliable.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
43 Pages with Examples
Assumptive Phrasing
"We" vs. "You"
Pattern Interrupts
The Power of Three
"*" indicates required fields
Metrics We Watch
When you launch your redesign, these metrics will tell you if your redesign was successful or not.
Returning Users: Are probably in the Consideration Phase or Action Phase
Lead Generation: Did we make it harder for visitors to take action?
Lead Quality
Lead Close Ratio
Lead Score
Lead Pipeline Stage
Conversion Rate
Average Order Value
Lead Value
Revenue per Visit
Conversion by Traffic Source
Compare these metrics before and after the launch. You should also compare the year-over-year results to eliminate seasonal effects.
Things to Test on Current Site
If you are going to test things on your existing site to inform your redesign, consider these “portable” solutions:
Value Proposition Language
Calls to Action
Risk Reversal
Trust Builders
Landing Pages
Form Length
Be Ready to Go Back
If possible, always be ready to roll back to your old site if the new one craters sales.
Summary
We often redesign for the wrong reasons.
Without data, redesigns are risky.
Without data, redesigns are risky. The “Going All In” is the most risky and most common. Collecting analytics data on the current site mitigates the risk. Testing assumptions on the current site further reduces risk. A side-by-side launch approach allows you to back out poor performing features. A stepwise approach eliminates risk while increasing performance immediately.
Do you need a conversion-centered redesign or an optimization program?
Conversion Sciences Redesign Lab™ delivers the data and test results for…
Redesigns that guarantee success.
Deliver increasing monthly revenues over 180 days.
Completely turnkey. We provide data scientists, designers and developers.
Contact us to schedule a call. We’ll discuss your goals and strategies for your site.
Here are several questions about applying conversion science to ecommerce sites. These questions came from the sponsors of the GP Ecommerce Summit in Bucharest, Romania.
Can we consider Conversion Rate Optimization a real science?
What defines a science? The Scientific Method.
Assume we know nothing about a problem
Research it
Develop hypotheses
Select the most likely hypothesis for testing
Design a test that isolates that hypothesis
Run the test using sound statistical methods
Evaluate with post-test analysis
Draw a conclusion
Use the new information to formulate new hypotheses
Repeat
I’ve just described our six month Conversion Catalyst process to you. We “science the sh*t” out of websites. Without the science, we make bad decisions, emotional decisions, decisions based on superstition and myth.
There is also a component of sport in conversion optimization. We are in this to win. While we must be objective, we like to find revenue and hate when our tests are inconclusive.
What are the first steps you have to take if you wish to increase your conversion rate on your e-commerce website?
My recommendation is that ecommerce sites focus on the value proposition their offering. This is a combination of your categories (what you sell), your shipping policy, your return policy and your brand.
Zappos built an amazing online brand by putting its value proposition front and center, “Free shipping both ways. 365 day return policy. Empowered customer support people.”
What is your value proposition? Fast delivery? Local manufacturing? Free installation? Donations to charity with every purchase? Emphasize it on your site, in your cart and throughout checkout.
How do you create a good landing page and what are the best ways to test it?
The best landing pages keep the promise of the ad, link or post that brought the visitor there. They make an offer that matches the promise as exactly as possible. They show the product, even if it is a service or a PDF or a video series. Good landing pages provide proof points that are specific and supported by fact. Good landing pages build trust by borrowing from customers and customers. Good landing pages make the call to action the most prominent thing on the page. And good landing pages don’t add any distractions, such as social media icons, links to other pages or corporate site navigation.
This is the chemical equation for landing pages: Offer + Form + Image + Proof + Trust = Landing Page
The chemistry of the landing page
Can persuasive writing help you sell more online or do you need more than that? For example, how do you test a good headline?
Most of our biggest wins come from copy changes, like headlines. We are even testing different kinds of testimonials on one site to see which build the most trust. The words are very important. This is related to the value proposition I discuss above. When you learn the emotional language that brings visitors into your site, you learn something about your audience. This insight can be used anywhere.
What is an important point you want to drive home?
There is a wave of ecommerce sites rushing to rebuild their sites using responsive web design (RWD). This is in part due to Google and Mobilegeddon, but few can ignore the growing influence of mobile devices on our revenue. This rush to RWD is a mistake for many businesses who will find themselves with a poorly performing mobile site and a lower conversion rate on their redesigned desktop site. Tragic.
You should embrace your mobile visitors, and there are alternatives to RWD. I’ve seen some redesign horror stories and some pretty amazing success stories. Mobile design is still too new for there to be best practices, but our testing tells us what successful mobile designs should begin to look like.
How do you remember the ecommerce market in the USA from 10 years ago?
Ten years ago, we didn’t have the data tools we have today. We relied much more on qualitative research. Most of my work was building out personas, making content recommendations and working with “best practices”. Google Analytics was young. We had been using server logs to get unreliable data on visitors. Only a few years before I had written my own web analytics package to get an idea of what was working on my sites.
Today, we have amazing qualitative and quantitative tools to uncover problems with our websites. We enjoy powerful testing tools to help us determine exactly what effect our changes will have on our businesses. We are creating revenue in the laboratory using science and creativity. We have moved from the tool-building phase into the human creativity phase. It’s a very exciting time to be an online business.
Here are six tips for getting your A/B testing right. These were captured at Affiliate Summit West 2016 and presented by Digital Marketer’s Justin Rondeau.
Focus on Process Not Hacks
Don’t just try what others say works. Have a process that allows you to know your MARKET.
Your A/B Testing effort should focus on process.
Measure Multiple Metrics that Matter
Measure the right metrics for the part of the funnel you’re testing
You’ll track different kinds of metrics depending on where your visitors are in the sales funnel.
Use Analytics to Identify Problems
Don’t just test anything. Use analytics to identify problem pages.
Take the Guesswork out of Testing
Fix What’s Broken. Only Test What’s Ambiguous
If it’s broke, don’t bother testing it. Just fix it.
Test Persuasive and intuitive issues. Sometimes test Usability. Otherwise just fix the problem.
Schedule a Finite Time to Stop
Don’t expect your tests to just run until they’re successful or lose. Testing has an opportunity cost.
Conversion Optimization is about meeting user expectations.
This instagraphic was captured live by Brian Massey of Conversion Sciences.
Applying Optimization Fundamentals Infodoodle from Justin Rondeau’s Affiliate Summit West 2016 presentation.
Video is powerful. It can work for our business or against it. Here’s why.
I want to talk a little bit about how the brain processes video information.
Where is video processed in the brain?
Our eyes are at the front of our skull. Strangely enough our brains process video information at the back of our skull. This is called the visual cortex. It’s interesting that the visual cortex lies at the back of the brain when you think about what happens.
When you see an image – a picture – what happens is your eyes take that information in. They actually cross over and then they deliver the information to the back of the brain. The visual cortex takes that image and pulls it apart. Part of it is sent to the part of the brain that can check for edges and angles. The part of the brain that understands faces will be sent facial information. If you think about it like this, every picture that comes in through your eyes is like smashing a bottle of information against the back of your head.
What happens when we think about repeated images like video? Imagine throwing 30 bottles a second against the back of your viewers skulls. That’s the kind of information that they’re processing, and a couple of things happen. Number one, they’re getting a lot of information, so you can really deliver rich messages using video. But they’re also filtering. They’re having to average things out, so subtle details will get lost.
Respect video
In this series, we’ve talked about using things like motion to keep viewers attention, to keep them focused so that there’s less of this filtering. But understand that when you’re using video, it’s a powerful tool both because it floods the brain with information and contexts. If the message that you’re sending has a negative angle to it, you could be doing more harm than good. Think about the kind of data that you’re sending to your viewers when you do your video, and make sure you’re sending the things that will not be averaged out, and that will not give them a negative impression.
Video is powerful. It can work for our business or against it. Here’s why.
Let’s talk a little bit about headlines, the words that go around your videos.
Headlines get people to read on.
In almost every medium that we work with online, the most important thing is going to be the headline or the equivalent to that. For email, the subject line is equivalent to the headline, and with today’s email clients, the first line of the email is often displayed along with it. The subject line is the most important thing, because it gets people to read the email.
On the landing page, the headline is the most important thing. It needs to tell the visitor they’re in the right place and give them a reason to keep reading – a reason that is important to them, not important to you.
Landing pages must invite visitors to watch the video.
On a video landing page, we have two pieces of information that are really important. Number one is the title above the video, and it has to tell the reader why they should watch the video. Number two, on a video landing page, the video is going to be pitching to a call to action. This is usually a button or a form that’s on that page, and above that form is the reason to take action. So, you have two pieces of information.
One, why you should watch the video, and two, why you should then take action if you found the information in the video persuasive. We’re going to spend hours filming and editing, writing scripts, reviewing our videos. So, how much time are we going to spend on the headline above the video that gets people to watch it? Well, typically very little.
I would recommend that you write 20, 30, 40 different headlines and choose from those, and focus on one thing. If there was one tip I would give you, it is, don’t describe the video. Describe why they should watch the video. That’s what the headline should do. Rather than tell them that this is a video about a new offering from your product, make headline say,
“Did you know that you could lose weight quickly?”
“You could manage your employees with less time?”
Whatever your value proposition is, tell them why they should watch the video, not what’s in the video. You want them to watch the video to get that. Likewise, you’re going to find a very similar thing when you look at writing the call to action.
The Call to Action
The call to action, ideally, is going to happen in the video, usually the end, but actually, you’re going to find significantly better performance if you find a way to have the call to action in the middle, and even hint at it in the beginning. And it’s also going to be on the page typically where there’s a form or a button that allows the visitor to take the next step.
Don’t leave visitors stranded in your video. After an awesome video, you don’t want to leave them going, “Oh, that was entertaining,” and not knowing what to do next. Always have something that they can do next.
This call to action, though, needs to do the same thing as the headline. Why should they take action next? You’ll want to work in, for instance, if this is a limited time offer, if there’s a special discount, if there’s a bonus. And explain to them very clearly what’s going to happen when they fill out that form.
Are they going to receive a lot of spam?
Are they going to get a call from somebody?
Are they going to have an informative phone conversation or a sales call?
Set Expectations
Make sure that they know what’s going to happen so that all expectations are set, and you should have a high-performing page. You’ve got a nice headline that tells them why to watch the video. You got a great video that lays out the value proposition that you’re trying to communicate and then has them do a call to action. You have a call to action that is focused on them and what they want to accomplish, and viola – a complete landing page with video.
Your Ecommerce Return Policy, Farting Hippos, Poor Web Design
Conversion OptimizationThe Conversion Scientists are reading some good stuff at the moment. Do you have any to add?
From Venngage – “7 Reasons Why Clicking This Title Will Prove Why You Clicked This Title”
“I don’t know about you, but anytime I see or hear mention of a story about a dog or a cute panda sneezing or a hippo farting, I get excited and immediately need to read or see more.”
The kind of traffic that comes to a “Clickbait” headline is often not well qualified. People come because of the headline’s hook, not because they need a product or service.
Having said that, the psychology of these headlines can be used to draw a more qualified audience to a content piece or landing page. Many of the best-performing headlines we’ve tested are abrupt and unexpected. It’s something they have in common with clickbait headlines: 79% of the ones analyzed in the Venngage used the element of shock.
So I offer this little study of click bait headlines. It’s worth the read if only for the dog videos. (Plus it turns out the farting hippo thing is real.)
Read more.
From Medium – “Making a Murderer: 7 Hilarious Things Wrong with Ken Kratz’s Website”
We don’t normally advocate for website redesigns. In fact, we think there are only two good reasons to do them:
Kratz’s website might fall into both of those categories.
“If Ken Kratz had a child build his website without his awareness and did not make changes at the fear of hurting their feelings, then that would be a permissible excuse.”
Enough said.
Read more.
From The Washington Post – “The surprising psychology of shoppers and return policies”
“Overall, a lenient return policy did indeed correlate with more returns. But, crucially, it was even more strongly correlated with an increase in purchases. In other words, retailers are generally getting a clear sales benefit from giving customers the assurance of a return.”
It’s counterintuitive that sales increase when you give people more chances to return what they buy, but the data is there. Return policies are important: two thirds of eCommerce shoppers look at them, and these policies are a large part of how consumers choose where to buy what they want.
Read more.
[forfurtherstudy]
10 eCommerce Conversion Optimization Tips from the World’s Top Retailers
Ecommerce CROThe global average conversion rate for eCommerce stores is 2.32%. Some online stores, however, manage to get rates as high as 10%. Just how do they do it?
Some may attribute it to the quality of their products. Others might point to the quality of their traffic. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find that the world’s top retailers invest in creating an optimized experience for their customers.
For a store struggling to convert browsers into customers, there’s a lot to be learned from these eCommerce retailers. So in this post, I’ll show you how some of the world’s best performing stores use conversion rate optimization to get more customers.
1. Retail Conversion Tips: Reassure eCommerce Customers of their Financial Safety
Curious to find out how the world’s top retailers grow their conversion rates? A third of your customers hesitate to punch in their credit card details because of recent data breaches at major retailers. Reassuring customers that that their credit card information is safe at all times is a proven way to improve conversion rates.
For example, when you try to checkout on Alibaba.com, you see a bunch of badges assuring the buyer of the store’s security credentials:
Alibaba’s security credentials
On NewEgg.com, you’ll see similar badges on the site’s footer:
New Egg’s credentials
On ThinkGeek.com, there’s a separate section on its website detailing the site’s payment security protocols:
Think Geek’s payment security protocols
WalMart.com has a separate section on its website to educate customers about its privacy and security policies.
Walmart’s page devoted to online security
2. eCommerce Optimization Tips: Offer Multiple Payment Options
Some of your customers prefer to use their credit cards, some others like to use their existing Paypal balance. By limiting available payment options, you make it harder for customers to finish their purchase. In fact, one survey found that 56% of customers expect multiple payment options at checkout.
Take a look at the number of payment options Alibaba offers through Alipay:
Alibaba payment options
Note that Alipay also localizes the payment form. If you’re accessing the site from China, you’ll see methods that American customers don’t.
Note that Alipay also localizes the payment form. If you’re accessing the site from China, you’ll see different methods available to you than a US-based customer
Amazon isn’t far behind either. It also offers multiple payment options on its checkout page:
Amazon’s payment options
Most payment processors will let you accept payments via credit cards, debit cards and even bank transfers. You can also integrate Paypal on the checkout page to give customers another option to buy your products.
3. Great eCommerce Optimization Tips: Make Cart Contents Visible at all Times
“What items are in my cart right now?” This is a question your customers have likely asked themselves as they browse through your products.
To get an answer, they have to click on the ‘Cart’ icon and navigate away to another page. This halts the customer momentum and creates friction in the purchase process.
For example, once you add a product to your cart on Quiksilver.com, you can see the cart contents by simply moving your mouse over the cart button.
Hover view of shopping cart on Quicksilver
Macy’s does the same. After adding a product to the cart, the cart contents are shown by hovering the mouse over the shopping bag icon.
Hover view of Macy’s shopping cart
Customers easily see what all they’ve already added to their cart without navigating away from the page.
4. Enhance Trust by Emphasizing Awards, Testimonials and Certifications
With revenues of $2.6B, NewEgg is one of the largest private companies in America. Yet, NewEgg uses several trust markers on its site to assure customers of its legitimacy.
Scroll to the site’s footer and you’ll see a link to its awards and rankings. On this page, NewEgg offers a comprehensive list of all the recognition it has received:
NewEgg’s many awards and certifications
NorthernTool.com takes a different approach – it highlights how the business has been “family owned and operated” for 30 years in its footer:
Northern Tool offers assurance by stating how long it has been operating
Try creating a similar page on your site listing any public recognition you might have received. This can be a blurb from a prominent publisher, an award, or a testimonial.
5. Retail Conversion Tips: Use HTTPS/SSL to Enhance eCommerce Security
After the recent string of data breaches at major retailers, your customers are obviously nervous about data security.
Adding a SSL certificate to your site – particularly the checkout pages – can help restore some of their confidence.
This is particularly true for users on modern browsers like Chrome or Firefox which highlight SSL certificates in the address bar.
Take a look at the SSL certificate visible on NewEgg after you add a product to your cart:
New Egg’s SSL certificate
This is a quick, cheap way to give your store a much needed security boost.
6. Humanize your Company to Increase Trust
If you scroll down to the footer at Overstock.com, you’ll see something unique: a link to the CEO’s Twitter feed.
Overstock gives you an easy way to access its CEO
Remember: people like buying from other people, not faceless corporations. For large businesses like Overstock, this is a particularly big problem. Adding the CEO’s Twitter feed on the homepage shows that there are real people with real values behind the business.
That’s just one way to humanize your store. Another way is to tell customers your origin story, your mission and your key people on your About page.
Here’s how Zappos does it:
Zappos humanizes itself by proving it has a sense of humor
By calling its CEO/COO/VPs “monkeys”, Zappos tells the customer that it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Zappos takes this far beyond the About page. It also offers customers and other business owners tours of its offices, conducts Q&A sessions to help them understand Zappos’ culture, and shares its reading lists and core values with site visitors.
Sharing information about your company’s culture has a humanizing effect
You don’t have to go that far, of course. Even something simple as a company blog can go a long way in creating more trust.
For example, take a look at Patagonia’s employee blog: The Cleanest Line.
Patagonia’s employee blog shares their outdoor adventure experiences and insights; it doesn’t directly sell any Patagonia products
7. eCommerce Optimization Tips: Offer Unique Methods to Visualize or Test Products
Putting up high resolution imagery is old hat in conversion optimized design. To stand out from the competition, you have to find more compelling ways to help customers test or visualize your products.
MyHabit’s (an Amazon deals site) 360-degree videos are a great example of this. The video plays seamlessly when a customer hovers over the video button, showing off the product in rich detail.
360 degree views on My Habits
Not all products require a video or 360-degree images though. For stores with limited items, creating dedicated landing pages is a great idea as well.
See how Apple does it for all its products:
Apple uses clean and unusual shots to display its products
Of course, not all product presentations have to be visual in the traditional sense. Costco sells printers by mailing prospective customers a sample page from the printer.
A mailed test page is a clever way to show customers how the product performs without setting up a physical store
This is a clever way to show the customer how the product actually performs without actually setting up a physical store.
8. Assure Customers of Free Shipping at a Single Glance
In a survey of holiday shoppers, 93% of respondents said that free shipping drove them to take action. Free shipping also ranked as the second biggest factor in eCommerce purchases.
Telling customers front and center about your shipping policies is a good way retain visitors. Place this declaration in a highly visible area above the fold, preferably before customers have even had a chance to browse through your products.
For example, ASOS shows its shipping policies right below the navigation menu:
ASOS’s prominent shipping policies
This tells both local and international customers whether it’s actually worth spending time on your store.
JCPenney does something similar – you can see exactly how much you need to spend to get free shipping.
JCPenney’s shipping policy
This acts as an incentive as well. Customers who are unwilling to pay for shipping might bump up their order value to avail free shipping benefits.
Stores with physical locations can go a step beyond free shipping and highlight in-store pickup on their homepages as well.
For example, on Macy’s, you’ll see a big banner advertising its order-online, pickup in-store policy:
Macy has a unique return policy, so they’ve made it very easy to find.
It’s also a good idea to highlight your return policy if you’re selling products customers are anxious buying online. For example, AutoZone gives customers assures customers that they can return their purchases in any store, no questions asked.
AutoZone’s shipping polices
9. Create Product Pages that Fit your Customer Personas
Your customers will use your store in different ways. Some will dig through technical specs, while others will browse through dozens of reviews before pulling the trigger.
Creating product pages that fit each of your customer personas is crucial for a high-converting eCommerce experience.
For example, NorthernTool.com gives visitors an option to print out reviews for the product:
Being able to print easily is important for Northern Tool’s personas
This is necessary since a lot of NorthernTool’s customers are older people who prefer to read on paper instead of a computer/smartphone screen.
In contrast, NewEgg’s customers are very tech savvy. To appeal to these users, NewEgg gives a detailed rundown of each product’s technical specifications:
Technical depth might overwhelm users on another site, but New Egg’s personas demand it in order to make a purchasing decision
Such technical depth might overwhelm users on another store, but for NewEgg’s savvy customers, this is a necessity for making a purchase decision.
10. eCommerce Optimization Tips: Help Customers Buy with Guides, Ideas and How-Tos
Creating content that helps customers choose products offers three benefits:
This strategy is particularly effective for stores that sell difficult-to-buy products such as DIY supplies, computer components, etc.
For example, Lowe’s creates a ton of content aimed at helping DIY enthusiasts. This content is displayed prominently on the nav bar under “Ideas & How-Tos”.
Lowe’s free how-to guides
eBay takes things one step further by letting users create guides of their own. Such user-generated content (UGC) helps eBay attract a massive amount of targeted search traffic.
User generated content UGC helps eBay attract a massive amount of targeted search traffic
Kate Spade ditches the buying guide in favor of a Tumblr blog. This blog curates styles, pictures and even quotes that help customers choose while also propagating the Kate Spade brand.
Kate Spade Tumblr
For a number of upcoming retailers, content is the foundation of their entire store. For example, men’s fashion retailer MrPorter was originally a blog that turned into a store. Even today, its online magazine is the central focus of the store.
MrPorter’s online magazine
Creating such helpful content can be a potent strategy for getting more traffic, more conversions and bigger orders.
10 eCommerce Conversion Optimization Tips from the World’s Top Retailers Summary
Globally, conversion rates for eCommerce stores vary considerably. While a few stores struggle to get 2-3% conversion rates, top retailers convert as many as 10 out of every 100 visitors.
To get such high conversion rates, top retailers use a number of tactics. These range from mitigating customer risk to creating quality content that helps people choose the right products. By using similar tactics on your store, you can radically increase conversion rates and boost your revenue without a change in your traffic or product-line.
Key Takeaways
How Google Reviews Drive Conversions for Local Businesses
Conversion Marketing StrategyWhen we talk about “conversions” we’re usually talking that moment when someone buys something, completes a subscription form, or signs up for an online service. Everything is done online. For a locally-focused business with a physical location, a conversion is that moment when someone calls them or visits.
It’s not as easy to measure.
When someone searches for your local business, Google offers a “local three-pack,” three listings that best fit based on the keyword searcher enters and their location. As you might guess, these results are hugely important to your success.
Google local search results before and after introducing the 3-pack SERPs.
The local three-pack listing can actually list your Google reviews along with your business name and your overall rating. All of this is displayed right there in the SERPs (search engine results pages). If you have positive reviews, this can get your business chosen over competitors. But how often do people click on your listing, visit your website, or pick up the phone based on your reviews?
I recently analyzed over 22,000 Google local listings to see just how much power Google reviews have over search engine rankings. What I found surprised me.
Google reviews affect search engine visibility. Google reviews are displayed right there in the SERPs.
Consumers who perform local searches are ready to buy and act quickly. Consumers put stock in online reviews.Though we can’t prove exact causation without more data from Google, I think we can tell how Google reviews likely affect purchasing decisions for local businesses.
Local Search Conversions and Click Throughs
Before we get to the local search stats, I need to mention that the convergence of search rankings, conversion, and content has to be deliberate. If a potential customer finds you on Google, sees an appealing title and description for your location, they can’t be taken to a website that is thin on details or appears irrelevant to them. They’re not going to convert — to call, visit or buy.
Your content has to keep the promise your local search rankings make.
I liked this quote from Winston Burton in an article for Search Engine Land:
“Understanding and making sure you have the right content based on intent at all stages of the user journey can greatly improve your conversion rates. If you serve end users with something that they need in “the moment” — whether they are researching something, thinking about doing something or looking to purchase something — your chances of improving conversions will greatly increase.”
And, as it turns out, local searches are all about “in the moment.”
The last from-the-horse’s-mouth data we got from Google itself tells us
50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their phone visit a local business within 24 hours. 34% of consumers who performed the same search on their computer or tablet similarly, visited the business within a day.Local search ranking has a direct effect on getting people on your website, through the door, or on the phone.
That same Google report stated that 18% of local mobile searches lead to an actual sale within one day.
We don’t have any newer data from Google itself, but we do have studies from other organizations.
Examples:
Even if this widely-cited data is dubious, we have better sources that tell us just how big local searches are, and just how quickly local searchers act.
But do they click on the local three-pack that contains those aforementioned Google reviews?
Clicking on the Three-Pack
Since we don’t have any data that comes directly from Google, we have to use studies from other parties.
I came across two valuable studies in regards to Google’s local three-pack, which has still been around for less than a year.
Casey Meraz published his study at Moz, and Mike Ramsey published his study on his own website, Nifty Marketing. They both used relatively small sample sizes and heat map technology, and their findings weren’t exactly the same. There were some commonalities, however.
Image Credit: Casey Meraz local listing study at Moz
In the Moz study, Casey analyzed several different SERP layouts. I want to focus on his findings for “The Snack Pack with Organic Results Underneath,” as it’s the most relevant for many local business searches. That’s not to say your audience won’t find any other SERP layouts, and you can find the rest of Casey’s analysis in the linked post.
The research found:
When there’s an organic listing above the three-pack (but under the paid search results), that CTR sees a dramatic decline. In the test that showed an organic result above the local three-pack, it received 68% of the clicks, while the local three-pack only garnered 8% of clicks.
He performed one more test, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Next, let’s dive into Mike Ramsey’s research results over at Nifty Marketing.
Mike also used heat maps to test click through rates. He studied the CTR results for ‘Boise Injury Lawyer’ and ‘Provo Storage Units’ on both mobile and desktop.
Image Credit: Mike Ramsey local listing study at Nifty Marketing
In each of his results, organic came out on top.
Desktop:
Mobile:
As you can see, there’s a clear difference between Mike’s study and Casey’s study, even though they were posted only seven days apart. The studies used different groups of people. Mike studied and recorded results for both desktop and mobile CTRs, where Casey just mentioned he recorded from “different devices”. Casey personally interviewed, tested, and recorded ten people selecting a bail bondsman from a Google search.
Because these were two different studies, each using a relatively small group of people, the actual numbers are different. You also have to keep in mind, the three-pack and its surrounding SERPs can appear vastly different for different searches, and on different devices.
These two studies do, however, have one thing in common: reviews.
From Casey:
“However, another item of interest is that the listings with reviews got the clicks. The third listing, with no review stars, received zero clicks in the local 3-pack. Additionally, it’s worth nothing that most of the local-centric clicks land on the business name itself. These clicks no longer lead straight to your website or even your old Google+ page, where you still controlled the information to some extent. These now take you to a map page, where other businesses are displayed and where users can read your reviews.”
Image Credit: Casey Meraz local listing study at Moz
Casey’s referring to the third part of his study, which displayed the local three-pack with organic results underneath, but the key difference this time is that some listings featured reviews and some did not.
In those results:
Results with reviews got more clicks. In addition, he conducted several in-person click tests, where he gave participants a goal and observed their results. In each of his tests, reviews seemed to attract the most clicks.
Mike also found reviews seemed to be a big reason for clicks in the three-pack, especially on a desktop.
Image Credit: Mike Ramsey local listing study at Nifty Marketing
People are paying attention to those Google reviews, but how much do they actually care about reviews?
Consumers Trust Reviews
When it comes to consumers and online reviews, we thankfully have a wealth of information available.
The statistics from these studies show why people tend to click on the local listings with review stars, and why they might choose those listings over the organic results.
Since it’s both recent and reputable, I want to share some findings from Myles Anderson of BrightLocal, who published an eye-opening study last summer.
BrightLocal found:
In addition, BrightLocal found the number of consumers who read online reviews for local businesses is increasing.
They also found some pretty compelling statistics based on a local business’ overall rating:
It’s common sense, but it’s nice to put a number to it.
Additionally, they found 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal, word-of-mouth recommendations.
Last month, I conducted my own Google survey: 54% of the respondents read online reviews before buying from a local business.
That’s huge.
Luckily for you, your Google reviews are displayed right in the SERPs.
Reviews and Search Engine Visibility
Data used in local listing study
Before I read any of these studies, I knew reviews were a big deal for my own marketing clients. But I wanted to know more.
Remember that research I mentioned in the beginning of this article? I wanted to know how Google reviews might affect search engine visibility, so I personally analyzed 22,032 local listings. This is recent research that focuses on Google’s three-pack, as any research concerning the former seven-pack and 10-pack are no longer valid.
My methods weren’t complicated. I went from SERP to SERP, counting the number of reviews in the first and second three-packs in Google’s local listings. With the help of my two oldest sons, we put the findings in an endless spreadsheet. Then, I analyzed the data and shared my findings.
Frequency of reviews in search engine results
Here’s what I found:
Google reviews seem to have a real effect on search rankings, and the listing with the most reviews seems to come out on top. The three-pack is thought to be an unpredictable landscape. It’s hard to optimize your site to appear in local listings.
Now that you know Google reviews matter for ranking in the three-pack, there’s much less guesswork involved. And, as a bonus, reviews are good for much more than just search results.
Key Takeaways
We can’t claim causation here, but we can claim a strong correlation. Google reviews give local businesses a fighting chance in search. They matter for ranking in the local three-pack, and consumers tend to click on local listings with reviews.
Organic search isn’t going away anytime soon, and you’ll always need to optimize your content for conversions. Even if you have a plethora of great reviews and strong rankings in the local three-pack, you won’t convert many of your clicks without conversion rate optimized content.
Google reviews are huge for search engine visibility for several reasons, and search engine visibility is vital for getting potential customers to your website. Once they’re there, it’s your job to convert them.
Testing Email Can Be Misleading (How to Avoid Bad Decisions)
Conversion Marketing StrategyI’m fond of saying that AB testing, or split testing, is the “Supreme Court” of data collection. An AB test gives us the most reliable information about a change to our site. It controls for a number of variables that can taint our data.
Things change over time. You might make a change to your site at the same time that a competitor runs a sale. Was it your change or the sale that was responsible for a drop in transactions on your site? AB tests eliminate such issues by serving variations over the same period of time.
Things change among visitors. Generally, visitors coming to your site from an email campaign are more likely to buy than visitors from search ads. For most businesses, mobile visitors convert worse than desktop visitors. An AB test can make sure that the “mix” of visitors is the same for the each change that is tested.
Plus, the AB test gathers data from real visitors and customers who are “voting” on our changes using their dollars, their contact information and their commitment to our offerings.
And our AB tests can lead us astray.
Testing Email: Open Rates & Click-Through Rates
When testing email, open rates and click-through rates don’t give you the true performance of your emails. They also don’t let your team take credit for keeping the accountants busy.
We recently did an analysis of one of our e-commerce client’s email campaigns. They had been testing how the “disclaimer” line in their emails was affecting purchase behavior.
The “disclaimer” is the first line in an email. It typically says something like “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here.” The reason this line is important is that most email clients now show the subject line and the beginning of an email in the inbox view. Here’s an example from my Gmail promotions folder.
The first line of your email is as important as the subject line.
One assumes that, if these messages are working, they will be reflected in a better open rate. It turns out not to be true.
So, we tested different versions of this text over the course of 23 emails. The Open Rate predicted which would generate the most revenue in less than half of them.
As a predictor of revenue, click-through rate didn’t fare much better, calling the revenue winner in thirteen of the tests.
Revenue-Per-Recipient Puts Marketing In The Money
When we talk about monetizing a list, the metric we like is Revenue-per-Recipient.
It is calculated as:
It tells us how much spendable revenue we’re getting from each member of our list. To look at it another way, it’s an estimate of the value of each person on our list.
With proper analytics, we can measure this for the whole list, particular segments of the list (customers vs. new subscribers for instance), or for different treatments in a split test.
Measuring it requires some discipline and a bit of analytics work.
Getting To Revenue-Per-Recipient
The key to getting the Revenue-per-Recipient (RPR) number is tying email clicks to transactions. This may require some help from your friendly IT department.
Configure Your Analytics Package
Most e-commerce companies will be pumping the results of each transaction into their analytics software. If you’re generating leads for your business, your analytics system can track new prospects for you as well.
We talked last time about tracking phone calls generated by your site. Done right, you can track the number of calls made by email clickers.
Do the work necessary to get reliable reporting of sales or leads into your analytics package. Once this is done, you have what you need to calculate the impact of email on the bottom line.
Mark Your Email Traffic
This is where the discipline comes in. We need to be able to identify the traffic generated from each email drop. This is done typically by adding special parameters to the links in the emails that come back to our site.
What you add to you add to your URLs depends on your analytics package. Google Analytics has a set of standard parameters. An email link, properly tagged might change from:
http://buyschtuff.com/halloween
to
When someone clicks on this link, Google Analytics will know that it was from the email talking about the Halloween Special, that it was sent to the Subscriber List, and that it was clicked from an email.
I have found that it’s important to add the date of the email drop as well, and this can be added to the campaign description. Here’s the format I use.
Many email service providers offer integrations with popular analytics packages, such as Google Analytics. They will add these tags automatically for you. The only down side is that the campaign names they choose may not be as easy to read. Mailchimp sends Google Analytics campaign names like “934f31ce51-Webinar_Follow_up_Email_10_31_2013.”
Readability is important.
We will want to be able to identify performance of individual emails when we’re testing or sending to specific segments. We will soon want to be able to marry our email service provider reports with our analytics reports. Readability will be key.
Power Reports
This process gives us the ability to see the revenue each email produces directly. Here’s a report taken from Google Analytics.
Track your emails to the dollars.
For any of the emails in this kind of report, we can pull the number of recipients from our email service provider. This gives us our Revenue per Recipient for each drop and an overall number.
Revenue per Recipient accounts for list size and revenue generated.
In this example, we got 37 cents for each member of our list. However, we can see that this number is skewed by the first one, delivering a whopping $1.20 per recipient.
Don’t be concerned that 37 cents sounds so small. RPR numbers are rarely exciting in their magnitude.
A Word For B2B Lead Generators
It may not seem that this will work for lead generators, especially those with long sales cycles. Nonsense.
As lead generators, we should know the value of a lead to our business. For our purposes, how we calculate it is less important than being consistent. Lead value is calculated by New Customer Revenue/New Leads.
We could calculate it once based on last year’s numbers and use it for all emails until you calculate it again.
We could calculate it every month by dividing the past month’s new revenue with all new leads from the past three months.
You should choose the method that you can justify, and that delivers a consistent RPR month over month.
Power Process Tip: If you can calculate the true value of a lead for your organization, you can calculate your value as a lead generator in terms everyone understands: dollars.
Optimizing Revenue-Per-Recipient
There are two ways to increase your Revenue per Recipient, both of which are best practices in email marketing.
Like trees in the winter, it’s important to prune and shape your list. Those who have never opened a single one of your emails should be dropped. In fact, many email marketers drop non-openers every 90 days or less.
It’s scary, but it’s good business.
Of course, we all want our lists to deliver steady revenue growth. This comes from understanding the offers, subject lines, email copy and landing pages that make the most money for the business.
It’s relatively easy to test emails. Just remember to test to the dollars using RPR.
A Final Word About Accuracy
This method doesn’t take into account the revenue generated when your emails create non-click demand. You don’t get credit when recipients see your email, but call, come to your store, or visit your site through other means. Nonetheless, RPR this is a valid measure of the dollar impact we are having on our businesses.
It’s time to stop boring people with how good your open rates and click-through rates are. Tell them what each and every person on your list is worth in dollars. When you track the results of your emails down to the dollar, you track your own value down to the dollar.
Portions of this article first appeared on Marketing Land.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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Generating Phone Leads from the Web
Lead GenerationFor many of our clients, a phone call is worth seven to ten times more than a form fill. This means that we want to maximize the number of calls, but don’t want to completely shut down the forms on these sites.
Why Phone Calls are So Valuable
Phone calls are typically most valuable to businesses selling high-dollar and high-consideration products.
The term “high-dollar” is subjective. It can mean anything from plastic surgery to mortgage loan applications.
“High-consideration” products and services are those for which the stakes are high, and the buyer will generally do more research before buying. Cars, appliances, and vacations are some examples of considered purchases.
Phone calls are also valuable in markets in which doing nothing is a real option. For example, addiction treatment centers will want to get a prospect on the phone knowing that they will want to delay treatment for their addiction.
For these businesses, a human being will often have more success moving a prospect to a close than the website alone.
Please Add Me To Your CRM
When someone completes a form on the site, you know where the information goes. Someone gets an email. A record is added to the customer relationship management (CRM) system. Lead counts are tallied for your weekly marketing report. Some get contacted. Some don’t. Some get the autoresponder they had hoped for. Most don’t.
a phone call is worth between 500% and 1,000% (that’s five to ten times) more in revenue than a completed form will generate.Form leads too often wither in the CRM freezer. How can we thaw out our lead funnel and give sales what they need to generate revenue?
Phone Calls. Because phone calls don’t get cold.
Phone calls are answered and voice mails are returned. There is no CRM icebox where your contacts can be sent to chill while everyone updates their lead reports.
Even if you have highly sophisticated marketing automation campaigns that move people through the sales funnel, none of them is as efficient and successful as a human being — listening, answering questions, and handling objections.
In our experience,
The business wants more calls. Your sales team wants more calls. However, marketing is rewarded for leads. This is the problem.
Making the Phone Ring
There are three kinds of people coming to your website who need to talk to someone. They won’t be satisfied by completing a form or reading a report.
There is a group of those who just don’t want to talk to another human under any circumstances. We want these folks to complete the form.
When you say, “Let’s put a phone number on our site because someone might actually call,” you are thinking of the first group, those who will call. This is not going to be effective for the second group, those who might call.
Embrace the phone, or they will go someplace else.
Evaluate the location of phone numbers on your site the same way you would evaluate call to action buttons. The phone number needs to be prominent, frequent, but not too pushy. Below we talk about where to place phone numbers.
You Can’t Take Credit For What You Don’t Measure
In order for this to work, dear marketer, you first need to get credit for these calls. Instead of slapping the company sales number on the website, you need to be able to measure calls sent from the site. Inexpensive services will give you a unique number. We use Grasshopper for our 800 number service. Google Voice is a source of local phone numbers. Counting calls will be largely done by hand.
To tie calls back into an analytics package, we’ve worked with a number of services, including Dialogtech, FiveNines, Five9, Convirza, and Invoca. This allows you to calculate a conversion rate with more accuracy.
Watch our phone leads webinar with Convirza.
The ways these packages work are different and beyond the scope of this column. Nonetheless, they let you take credit for real activity in sales.
Nail The Offer
We too often think that those who would prefer a call will think of calling. It ain’t true. Someone predisposed to call still needs to understand why they should call and what to expect. The only number that doesn’t need a call-to-action is 9-1-1.
Those who bother to write an invitation alongside their phone numbers resort to engaging messages such as, “Call,” “Call us,” “Call us today,” or the daring “Contact us.” None of these offers a why or tells you what to expect. Adding an exclamation point doesn’t help.
Home Instead Senior Care is really working hard to get visitors to pick up the phone.
There are four things that you can use to make your phone number more enticing to those who would call:
In the example above, “Struggling with caring for a parent” would be aligned, but not emotional.
“Feeling guilty about caring for a parent?” definitely carries emotion. If you think that this kind of message is too bold, think again. We had a 43% increase in calls for an invitation that read, “Ready to stop lying to yourself? We can help. Call …”
Emotion is a powerful tool.
These four components — Alignment, Emotion, Clarity and Value — make for effective calls-to-call, and are great for other calls-to-action as well.
Put Things In The Right Place
Just sticking the number in the upper right corner isn’t going to get you those calls that make you powerful. The number should be there, as this is where callers look. But the other two places that make the phones ring are:
The following image shows a wireframe of a typical content page with proper placement of calls-to-call. We’ve tested them all over the page.
Smartphones Have Phones
On your small-screen mobile site — as opposed to your tablet-formatted website — click to call is an intuitive way to get more calls.
For our call-oriented customers, their mobile sites now out-convert their desktop sites. How do we do it? Here are some steps.Make the phone numbers click-to-call
Click to call is crucial for mobile conversion rates.
Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Write “Tel” links explicitly.
Keep Calls to Action Available in Sticky Header or Footer
This sticky header offers several ways to take action.
You never know when the visitor will have the information they need to take action. Plus, they may find it’s their turn in line and need to take action quickly. These are mobile devices, you know.
Reduce Forms
Completing forms on a mobile device is grueling, frustrating and could scare the children. Look for ways to take action that don’t require long forms to fill.
Ironically, this two-screen form is for a Webinar on mobile marketing.
Consider using auto-fill from a social network, like LinkedIn or Facebook.
Filling in forms on mobile is hard. Consider social login auto-fill.
Bonus: The Power Of A Long, “Nasty” Form
If you’ve read this far, I have a bonus for you. You may have noticed an item on the wireframe image above: “Long, ‘Nasty’ Form.”
To maximize the number of calls you get and cast fewer of your visitors into the frigid desert of the CRM, make your forms long, and ask for some personal info. Yes, this is the opposite of what we tell you to do when you want visitors to fill out a form.
This will cook your noodle. When trying to maximize the number of calls we get, a long, nasty form works better than no form at all. That’s right. No form generates fewer calls.
I think this highlights the way our visitors assign a price to their time and attention. On its own, a phone call may seem “expensive”. However, when a long, nasty form is on the page, it makes the cost of taking action by form more “expensive”. The call looks cheap by comparison.
This is a pricing exercise, but the cost isn’t money. It’s time and attention.
The power of a ringing phone gets noticed. If visitors to your site start calling your sales team, it will be noticed. You need to be able to measure the calls and toot your own horn as well. Unlike leads, calls have a power beyond a graph in a PowerPoint presentation. To become an indispensable marketer, make the phone ring.
This article first appeared on Marketing Land.
Conversion-Centered Redesign: Slash the Risk and Guarantee Results
Conversion-Centered DesignBrian Massey presents five design case studies and how to use conversion-centered redesign to reduce risk and deliver revenue growth quickly.
What You’ll Learn
What JJ Knows
JJ Abrams has successfully rebooted three marquee movie franchises in his career: Mission Impossible, Star Trek and now Star Wars.
He seems to know something that we need to understand when we redesign our websites: what to keep in his reboots and what create from scratch.
Watch the Webinar Now
Highlights
Why Redesigns Fail
Typical (Bad) Reasons to Redesign
Good Reasons to Redesign
There are only two good reasons for a website redesign:
Five Redesign Strategies to Choose From
Read the full conversion–centered redesign case study.
Place Your Bets
These are the areas in which you make assumptions when you “go all in”. Many of your choices can increase performance. Many will not.
The Kinds of Information We Use to Make Design Decisions
When making these decisions, too many of us rely on information from categories 1 through 3 of this list. The least reliable sources are listed first.
I give examples of each of these and explain why they are or are not reliable.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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Metrics We Watch
When you launch your redesign, these metrics will tell you if your redesign was successful or not.
Compare these metrics before and after the launch. You should also compare the year-over-year results to eliminate seasonal effects.
Things to Test on Current Site
If you are going to test things on your existing site to inform your redesign, consider these “portable” solutions:
Be Ready to Go Back
If possible, always be ready to roll back to your old site if the new one craters sales.
Summary
We often redesign for the wrong reasons.
Without data, redesigns are risky. The “Going All In” is the most risky and most common. Collecting analytics data on the current site mitigates the risk. Testing assumptions on the current site further reduces risk. A side-by-side launch approach allows you to back out poor performing features. A stepwise approach eliminates risk while increasing performance immediately.Do you need a conversion-centered redesign or an optimization program?
Conversion Sciences Redesign Lab™ delivers the data and test results for…
Contact us to schedule a call. We’ll discuss your goals and strategies for your site.
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/39804614253@N01/1761955352/ (cc)
Ecommerce: Applying Conversion Science Q&A
Ecommerce CROHere are several questions about applying conversion science to ecommerce sites. These questions came from the sponsors of the GP Ecommerce Summit in Bucharest, Romania.
Can we consider Conversion Rate Optimization a real science?
What defines a science? The Scientific Method.
I’ve just described our six month Conversion Catalyst process to you. We “science the sh*t” out of websites. Without the science, we make bad decisions, emotional decisions, decisions based on superstition and myth.
There is also a component of sport in conversion optimization. We are in this to win. While we must be objective, we like to find revenue and hate when our tests are inconclusive.
What are the first steps you have to take if you wish to increase your conversion rate on your e-commerce website?
My recommendation is that ecommerce sites focus on the value proposition their offering. This is a combination of your categories (what you sell), your shipping policy, your return policy and your brand.
Zappos built an amazing online brand by putting its value proposition front and center, “Free shipping both ways. 365 day return policy. Empowered customer support people.”
What is your value proposition? Fast delivery? Local manufacturing? Free installation? Donations to charity with every purchase? Emphasize it on your site, in your cart and throughout checkout.
How do you create a good landing page and what are the best ways to test it?
The best landing pages keep the promise of the ad, link or post that brought the visitor there. They make an offer that matches the promise as exactly as possible. They show the product, even if it is a service or a PDF or a video series. Good landing pages provide proof points that are specific and supported by fact. Good landing pages build trust by borrowing from customers and customers. Good landing pages make the call to action the most prominent thing on the page. And good landing pages don’t add any distractions, such as social media icons, links to other pages or corporate site navigation.
This is the chemical equation for landing pages: Offer + Form + Image + Proof + Trust = Landing Page
The chemistry of the landing page
Can persuasive writing help you sell more online or do you need more than that? For example, how do you test a good headline?
Most of our biggest wins come from copy changes, like headlines. We are even testing different kinds of testimonials on one site to see which build the most trust. The words are very important. This is related to the value proposition I discuss above. When you learn the emotional language that brings visitors into your site, you learn something about your audience. This insight can be used anywhere.
What is an important point you want to drive home?
There is a wave of ecommerce sites rushing to rebuild their sites using responsive web design (RWD). This is in part due to Google and Mobilegeddon, but few can ignore the growing influence of mobile devices on our revenue. This rush to RWD is a mistake for many businesses who will find themselves with a poorly performing mobile site and a lower conversion rate on their redesigned desktop site. Tragic.
You should embrace your mobile visitors, and there are alternatives to RWD. I’ve seen some redesign horror stories and some pretty amazing success stories. Mobile design is still too new for there to be best practices, but our testing tells us what successful mobile designs should begin to look like.
How do you remember the ecommerce market in the USA from 10 years ago?
Ten years ago, we didn’t have the data tools we have today. We relied much more on qualitative research. Most of my work was building out personas, making content recommendations and working with “best practices”. Google Analytics was young. We had been using server logs to get unreliable data on visitors. Only a few years before I had written my own web analytics package to get an idea of what was working on my sites.
Today, we have amazing qualitative and quantitative tools to uncover problems with our websites. We enjoy powerful testing tools to help us determine exactly what effect our changes will have on our businesses. We are creating revenue in the laboratory using science and creativity. We have moved from the tool-building phase into the human creativity phase. It’s a very exciting time to be an online business.
A/B Testing Fundamentals Infographic
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingHere are six tips for getting your A/B testing right. These were captured at Affiliate Summit West 2016 and presented by Digital Marketer’s Justin Rondeau.
Focus on Process Not Hacks
Don’t just try what others say works. Have a process that allows you to know your MARKET.
Your A/B Testing effort should focus on process.
Measure Multiple Metrics that Matter
Measure the right metrics for the part of the funnel you’re testing
You’ll track different kinds of metrics depending on where your visitors are in the sales funnel.
Use Analytics to Identify Problems
Don’t just test anything. Use analytics to identify problem pages.
Take the Guesswork out of Testing
Fix What’s Broken. Only Test What’s Ambiguous
If it’s broke, don’t bother testing it. Just fix it.
Test Persuasive and intuitive issues. Sometimes test Usability. Otherwise just fix the problem.
Schedule a Finite Time to Stop
Don’t expect your tests to just run until they’re successful or lose. Testing has an opportunity cost.
Conversion Optimization is about meeting user expectations.
This instagraphic was captured live by Brian Massey of Conversion Sciences.
Applying Optimization Fundamentals Infodoodle from Justin Rondeau’s Affiliate Summit West 2016 presentation.
Video that Converts: How the Brain Processes Video
Conversion Marketing StrategyVideo is powerful. It can work for our business or against it. Here’s why.
I want to talk a little bit about how the brain processes video information.
Where is video processed in the brain?
Our eyes are at the front of our skull. Strangely enough our brains process video information at the back of our skull. This is called the visual cortex. It’s interesting that the visual cortex lies at the back of the brain when you think about what happens.
When you see an image – a picture – what happens is your eyes take that information in. They actually cross over and then they deliver the information to the back of the brain. The visual cortex takes that image and pulls it apart. Part of it is sent to the part of the brain that can check for edges and angles. The part of the brain that understands faces will be sent facial information. If you think about it like this, every picture that comes in through your eyes is like smashing a bottle of information against the back of your head.
How the brain deals with video images.
What happens when we think about repeated images like video? Imagine throwing 30 bottles a second against the back of your viewers skulls. That’s the kind of information that they’re processing, and a couple of things happen. Number one, they’re getting a lot of information, so you can really deliver rich messages using video. But they’re also filtering. They’re having to average things out, so subtle details will get lost.
Respect video
In this series, we’ve talked about using things like motion to keep viewers attention, to keep them focused so that there’s less of this filtering. But understand that when you’re using video, it’s a powerful tool both because it floods the brain with information and contexts. If the message that you’re sending has a negative angle to it, you could be doing more harm than good. Think about the kind of data that you’re sending to your viewers when you do your video, and make sure you’re sending the things that will not be averaged out, and that will not give them a negative impression.
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Video Mini Course
Video Headlines that Get Visitors to Click Play
Conversion-Centered DesignVideo is powerful. It can work for our business or against it. Here’s why.
Let’s talk a little bit about headlines, the words that go around your videos.
Headlines get people to read on.
In almost every medium that we work with online, the most important thing is going to be the headline or the equivalent to that. For email, the subject line is equivalent to the headline, and with today’s email clients, the first line of the email is often displayed along with it. The subject line is the most important thing, because it gets people to read the email.
On the landing page, the headline is the most important thing. It needs to tell the visitor they’re in the right place and give them a reason to keep reading – a reason that is important to them, not important to you.
Landing pages must invite visitors to watch the video.
On a video landing page, we have two pieces of information that are really important. Number one is the title above the video, and it has to tell the reader why they should watch the video. Number two, on a video landing page, the video is going to be pitching to a call to action. This is usually a button or a form that’s on that page, and above that form is the reason to take action. So, you have two pieces of information.
One, why you should watch the video, and two, why you should then take action if you found the information in the video persuasive. We’re going to spend hours filming and editing, writing scripts, reviewing our videos. So, how much time are we going to spend on the headline above the video that gets people to watch it? Well, typically very little.
I would recommend that you write 20, 30, 40 different headlines and choose from those, and focus on one thing. If there was one tip I would give you, it is, don’t describe the video. Describe why they should watch the video. That’s what the headline should do. Rather than tell them that this is a video about a new offering from your product, make headline say,
Whatever your value proposition is, tell them why they should watch the video, not what’s in the video. You want them to watch the video to get that. Likewise, you’re going to find a very similar thing when you look at writing the call to action.
The Call to Action
The call to action, ideally, is going to happen in the video, usually the end, but actually, you’re going to find significantly better performance if you find a way to have the call to action in the middle, and even hint at it in the beginning. And it’s also going to be on the page typically where there’s a form or a button that allows the visitor to take the next step.
Don’t leave visitors stranded in your video. After an awesome video, you don’t want to leave them going, “Oh, that was entertaining,” and not knowing what to do next. Always have something that they can do next.
This call to action, though, needs to do the same thing as the headline. Why should they take action next? You’ll want to work in, for instance, if this is a limited time offer, if there’s a special discount, if there’s a bonus. And explain to them very clearly what’s going to happen when they fill out that form.
Set Expectations
Make sure that they know what’s going to happen so that all expectations are set, and you should have a high-performing page. You’ve got a nice headline that tells them why to watch the video. You got a great video that lays out the value proposition that you’re trying to communicate and then has them do a call to action. You have a call to action that is focused on them and what they want to accomplish, and viola – a complete landing page with video.
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