This is a guest post by Kathryn Aragon
You’ve probably noticed it. Every now and then a city becomes a magnet to a particular industry or profession. Like Silicon Valley for techies, Paris for fashion and art, or New York for finance. In fact, there’s a word for it: Experts call these areas “clusters.”
Well, there’s a new cluster in the making. Austin, Texas, is now recognized as a cluster for conversion optimization experts. And it’s a big enough cluster that some are willing to go all out, calling it the Conversion Capital of the World.
What’s the big deal about Austin, you might ask?
Bryan Eisenberg once said that conversion = art + science. And since Austin = music + geeks, it’s possible the city is the perfect mix for conversion geeks.
Anyway, that’s what I wanted to explore. So I contacted a few of the Austin-based CRO experts to get their feedback.
What follows are 18 CRO experts who have made Austin their home—who they are, why they’re worth following, and why they picked Austin.
Take a look, and experience for yourself the pull of this magnetic city… not just because you’d get to hang out with this impressive crowd, but because Austin is, without question, the Conversion Capital of the World.
Austin CRO Experts You Need to Follow
Brian is the Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences and has the lab coat to prove it. He has a rare blend of technical talent and marketing vision and has built a reputation for solving complex problems.
Author of Your Customer Creation Equation, he’s also a renowned teacher of conversion optimization. In this book, he shares five website formats proven to get results, as well as when, where and how each format should be used, so you know which one is right for you—even if you’re not a conversion scientist, yourself.
“In Austin, we’ll test just about anything.” ~Brian MasseyBrian is best known for transforming websites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics, and testing.
Why Austin?
Website optimization is a fundamentally entrepreneurial endeavor. Austin has that entrepreneurial vibe, which provides rich soil to grow an agency.
The people here are bottom-line oriented, curious, and rigorously creative. It is a place we can live outside the box. A conference like SXSW combining music, movies and tech could only arise in Austin. Austin’s music scene had the Armadillo World Headquarters as ground zero for great artists in the 70s. The online scene has The Wizard Academy and Roy H. Williams to educate and inspire great business people. To paraphrase Roy, Austin is “our kind of crazy.”
Joel is Managing Partner and Chief Operations Scientist at Conversion Sciences and, like Brian, has the lab coat to prove it. His passion is using scientific analysis and testing techniques to grow profits for clients. Joel combines deep expertise in video for business, optimization testing, online operations, SEO and business development with unyielding passion and dedication to achieve extraordinary results.
Throughout his career, he’s overseen the production and the impact of over 30,000 e-commerce videos, has developed cutting edge universal SEO techniques, launched and monetized dozens of web sites and web products, built and led teams and has tightly managed a P&L every step of the way. His goal is the make Conversion Sciences THE most CFO Friendly Marketing Investment on the planet.
Why Austin?
Where else do creativity and execution blend so seamlessly? The city is teaming with brilliant people who use data to achieve extraordinary results. Oh, and there’s the taco factor. Everybody knows that tacos are conversion optimization fuel and nobody does Tacos better than Austin. :-)
Bryan is an internationally recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing, improving online conversion rates, persuasive content, and persona marketing. He and his brother Jeffrey founded the first agency focused exclusively on conversion rate optimization in 1998, after having been client side for a few years.
They published the first New York Times best-selling book on conversion optimization, Call to Action, in 2005. Their book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, and introduced their system to plan persuasive experiences.
Bryan has been awarded numerous accolades over the years, including being recognized by eConsultancy members as one of the Top 10 User Experience Gurus, being selected as one of the inaugural iMedia Top 25 Marketers, and a Marketing Edge Rising Star Award winner in 2010.
He is also the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Web Analytics Association (now the Digital Analytics Association). Bryan serves as an advisory board member of Search Engine Strategies, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and several venture capital backed startup companies.
Today he is a high demand as a keynote speaker in the US and abroad.
It will be two years since Bryan moved to Austin from Brooklyn, NY.
Why Austin?
Over the last 12 years or so of visiting, Austin has always been a great center of technology and innovation, the marriage of arts and hard sciences.
Aside from the fact that Austin has one of the most thriving tech startup scenes, it’s considered one of the best cities to raise a family (I have 3 kids) and, of course, a great value for the quality of life available.
Jeffrey, together with brother and partner Bryan Eisenberg, co-wrote marketing optimization books Call To Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?, both Wall Street Journal and New York Times’ list bestsellers.
Since 1998, they have trained and advised companies like HP, Google, GE Healthcare, Overstock, NBC Universal, Orvis and Edmunds, to implement accountable digital marketing strategies emphasizing optimization of revenue conversion rates for engagements, leads, subscriptions, and sales.
Jeffrey is a thought provoking marketing speaker who reads voraciously, travels extensively, loves dogs, and is also a foodie who speaks Spanish with native fluency.
Why Austin?
I really like Austin and I don’t miss the winters, hassles or expenses of New York City. But to be honest, I moved here for love.
Ed Wu is currently the marketing director of Dell.com, the world’s premier ecommerce (B2C and B2B) website. In his role, Ed manages all Dell.com experimentation, testing and optimization across all business units including B2C, B2B and Support sites globally.
Ed’s passion is to deliver a world-class online experience by building an innovation engine that enables constant and rapid changes through insightful analytics and best-in-class testing and optimization capability. He is a champion and evangelist of “test and learn” culture inside and outside Dell.
Under Ed’s leadership, Dell.com analytics and testing team have grown to one of the largest and best in global Fortune 500 enterprises. Not only highly recognized by Dell’s senior executives, the team won twelve gold/silver awards from WhichTestWon.com and was given the 2012 Practitioner of the Year, Award for Excellence by the Digital Analytics Association (DAA).
Ed is an active member in the digital analytics industry and has served two terms as the Board of Directors of DAA. He is also the first place winner of 2009 DAA Championship and one of the first Certified Web Analysts by DAA. He was 2010 keynote speaker for eMetrics marketing optimization summit and a huddle leader/presenter for Click Summit 2012 in New York.
Why Austin?
I came to Austin to work for Dell in 2004 and have been here ever since. Increasingly I found it is difficult to leave here for other places, even with higher compensation. Cost and quality of living here is a big factor for sure. But I also believe in the future of Austin will be even brighter.
There are a number of companies such as Dell, HP, OfficeDepot, RetailMeNot.com, etc., that already have sophisticated analytics/testing programs here in town and I believe, sooner or later, other companies will find Austin an ideal place to build their digital marketing hub. As that happens, professionals like us will have many more opportunities.
There is no reason that Austin can’t crown itself as “The Capital of Optimization” as long as we dream big and work hard.
Peep is the face of ConversionXL and is an entrepreneur and conversion optimization junkie who focuses on one thing: optimizing websites to deliver better user experiences and produce significantly more results (more leads, more sales, more pizazz).
He also runs a unique conversion optimization marketing agency called Markitekt.
Peep shares actionable conversion rate optimization advice based on scientific research and in-depth industry knowledge. If that’s what you’re looking for, you don’t want to miss his book, How to Build Websites that Sell: The Scientific Approach to Websites, or the ConversionXL blog.
Why Austin?
Because of the women! No joke. I didn’t move to Austin because of great beer (512 Pecan Porter FTW), Rudy’s BBQ or cool people like Brian Massey (I discovered all of that later). I did it for love. My wife is from Austin, and she brought me here.
John has been measuring and optimizing online properties from startup to Fortune 100 since the early days of ecommerce. He currently serves as Director of Global Analytics Platforms for RetailMeNot, Inc., the world’s largest digital coupon marketplace.
Active in analytics and vendor-specific thought leadership groups, John’s focus is on measuring what matters. Tracking starts with business questions, not the question of which homegrown or customized off-the-shelf solution is best.
Essentially, he asks the question, Does the potential optimized revenue offset (at least) the cost of knowing? If not, move on. Cool don’t pay the bills.
Why Austin?
Austin is not new to the cutting edge. Companies such as Human Code were instrumental in marrying art and science in the Wild West days of multimedia and edutainment in the ’90s. Another Austin Ventures company, Garden.com, helped write the book on ecommerce.
Austin continues to attract “big city” talent, while maintaining a “small-town” feel for its digital community. There’s a rich tradition of storytelling here, and whether it’s through music or analytics doesn’t seem to matter much.
That facility with using data in making business decisions carries on in companies like RetailMeNot. And we’re cradled by a fertile crescent of the world’s best BBQ.
Charles is Director of AB Testing at RetailMeNot.com, the Internet’s largest coupon site, and is responsible for setting up and running the global optimization program. In the past, he was directly involved in putting together successful global optimization programs at OfficeDepot.com and Dell.com, the fifth and sixth largest eCommerce sites respectively.
Charles has a deep understanding of the retail industry and is a passionate advocate for the use of site optimization as a competitive edge in eCommerce.
Why Austin?
Is there any doubt that Austin is in a prime position for CRO? Austin has a young and highly educated population, low cost of living, a hip and progressive culture and—with so many successful online start-ups in the metro area such as RetailMeNot, uShip and HomeAway—top talents are flowing into the city every day from all over the world.
In the past few years, this field has gained so much importance that the local companies have been sponsoring Conversion conferences such as the DAA Symposium and The Live Event from WhichTestWon.com. On top of that, there are weekly Web Analytics Wednesdays for the local analytic geeks and optimization fanatics to gather and social.
I am walking proof of all this. I graduated from UT Austin and never wanted to leave the city. When I joined OfficeDepot.com, one of the criteria was not to move away from Austin. The combination of all these factors will make Austin the Conversion Capital of the World, if it isn’t already.
One more thing, the food here is awesome!
Ryan Deiss is founder of Idea Incubator LP and CEO of DigitalMarketer.com. He operates, invests in and consults with dozens of successful businesses both online and off-line.
An avid tester, Ryan has invested more than $15,000,000 on marketing tests, generated tens of millions of unique visitors, sent well over a BILLION emails, and run approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests, applying a process called Customer Value Optimization.
He runs the annual Traffic and Conversion Summit with over 2,000 attendees, writes for the Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle, and is one of the most sought after digital marketing consultants and speakers in the world.
For Ryan, Austin was the perfect location to start his business. Here’s how he states it:
Why Austin?
The motto of Austin, Texas is “Keep Austin Weird,” and weird is exactly what you’ll need to be if you want to succeed at digital marketing.
Conversion optimization is rarely intuitive. Stuff that should work often DOESN’T, and stuff that shouldn’t work sometimes does. We keep it weird down here in Austin… because that’s where the big breakthroughs come from.
Noah is founder and Chief Sumo at AppSumo.com and Monthly1k.com. He also runs OkDork, a personal blog focused on startups, marketing, self-exploration, and tacos. In previous lives, he was a cubicle monkey at Intel, #30 at Facebook and #4 at Mint.
At Chief Sumo, he works with other former Facebook, Mint and Curse employees to promote cool (and geeky) tools and content to help entrepreneurs succeed.
Noah states in his blog that his goal was, at one time, to own a company he could run from anywhere—even the beaches of Thailand or Argentina.
Why Austin?
I chose Austin for the tacos. After that everything else. Weather, cost of living, friendly people, central (literally) in the USA and great outdoors. The tech scene is small and doesn’t feel like the echo chamber of the Bay Area.
CEO of ApogeeResults.com, a McKinsey & Co. and Dell Computer veteran, Bill draws on a deep expertise in both business and marketing to help increase revenues for a wide range of clients. Bill has been driving provable revenues through Internet marketing techniques since the mid 1990s when, as part of the management team at Power Computing, he built the first company to sell $1 million of product over the Internet.
Bill has guided Apogee-branded marketing companies from inception to success, creating one of the largest independent online marketing agencies in North America and one of the fastest growing companies on the Inc. 500 list.
Apogee has been particularly instrumental in building dozens of “Internet Retailer 500,” “Software 500,” and VC-backed companies, growing more Inc. 500/5000 companies than anyone else in the industry, and serving top global brands like Whole Foods, IBM, SAP and Hewlett Packard.
Bill also serves as president of the Austin Interactive Marketing Association, and speaks frequently at national and international shows, including Search Marketing Expo, South by Southwest Interactive, Shop.org, Internet Retailer, Search Engine Strategies, DreamForce, and ad:tech.
In late 2012, Wiley Publishing issued Bill’s new book on integrated online marketing, Complete B2B Online Marketing with strong sales. Bill received an MBA with honors from the University of Texas at Austin and his BA from Yale University.
Why Austin?
Quite simply, it’s good for business. Here’s how Bill says it:
Austin is a great place to find whip-smart talent. My coastal competitors don’t get employees who scored over 1400 on the (old school) SATs…
If you’re in California, and are a top graduate, and comfortable with numbers and math, you don’t go to work for a marketing consultancy, you go to work in high tech.
If you’re on the East Coast, and a top graduate, and good with numbers, you go into high finance, not advertising/marketing/conversion.
If you’re most places in the middle of the country, other than Austin, once you graduate, you LEAVE your college town and find a destination city.
Austin is a destination city, and a place where I can engage, train, develop, and RETAIN top-tier talent. My coastal competitors struggle to attract anyone solid, and retention isn’t even an option after 1-2 years of training.
Matt is the founder and CEO of Clearhead, a digital optimization agency that provides daring, entrepreneurial digital executives with the extra brains and brawn to fully utilize digital analytics and A/B testing practices and drive disruptive results, change and learning.
Previously, Matt was the founder of Insound.com and Drillteam Marketing. Launched in 1998, Insound.com is the oldest and most respected of music web-stores, catering to vinyl enthusiasts and other music obsessives. Drillteam was an early social marketing agency, servicing Toyota, Target, Nike and other elite brands.
Following the sale of Insound to Warner Music Group, in 2007 Matt was hired to design and lead WMG’s Direct to Consumer business. He holds degrees in Fine Art and Semiotics from Brown University and recently moved to Austin, Texas, with his wife and two daughters.
Why Austin?
People often ask me whether an analytical mind or a creative mind fares better at conversion optimization. Without fail, I answer “neither.”
To me, it’s a middle-brained thinker, somebody who understands the relationship between design, experience, product and data. That combination of creativity and appreciation for consumer data is a rare one, but a trait that seems to be disproportionately concentrated in Austin.
In some ways, this makes sense when you consider the fabric of Austin in 2014—a city of big, young brains, built on the music and tech start-ups that greatly define our local culture. To me, it makes perfect sense that Austin would have a lot of “middle-brained” people, skilled at data-driven optimization.
Ryan Pitylak, Unique Influence, Inc., @ryanpitylak
Ryan is CEO of Unique Influence, a digital customer acquisition consultancy that generates customers for high-velocity startups with a rigorous data-driven approach to identifying and solving the Conversion Gap.
Pitylak’s attention to detail and ability to adapt to the industry’s constant evolution have been key to his success in the internet marketing world. Given Ryan’s 14 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, he considers all potential advertising channels when developing strategy and execution plans.
Before Unique Influence, Ryan managed a team at ProfitFuel (Yodle) that provided SEO and PPC services to over 10,000 businesses. He has also helped some of the most successful consumer-based online businesses in Austin, including HomeAway.com.
Ryan received his BA in Philosophy and Economics and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Obviously he chose to stay.
Why Austin?
Austin has a thriving community of companies provide services and sell products on the Internet. As a digital advertising expert, it’s a fantastic place to be able to help a large number of companies be successful.
Austin is also seeing a lot of growth, especially in the realm of digital. I expect this growth to continue, which will make the future even brighter for consultancies like ours who help these companies grow.
Roger Dooley is an author, international keynote speaker, and consultant. He recently published Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley), which is all about smarter marketing. And he writes the popular blog Neuromarketing as well as Brainy Marketing at Forbes.com.
He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. The latter business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where Dooley served as VP Digital Marketing and continues in a consulting role.
He often applies neuroscience and psychology research to conversion optimization, and has been a keynote speaker at the Conversion Conference, Pubcon Masters Training, and ConversionSUMMIT (Frankfurt).
Why Austin?
When we decided to move from snowy, low-tech northern Indiana, we wanted a location with warmer weather and a great tech community. Austin had both, and offered a great lifestyle, too.
I knew about companies like Dell, AMD, and others with big operations here, but I was surprised at the size and diversity of the web marketing community. Meet-ups on topics like SEO, social media, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, and other specialty interests are well attended, often drawing over a hundred attendees. As a plus, when one weighs cost of living, state taxes, etc., Austin compares very favorably with the Bay Area and other hubs of tech activity.
Luke is the Strategy Director at StreetAuthority.com, where he drives digital marketing strategies from “click to renewal” for a portfolio of premium financial research products.
From optimizing landing pages, RPMs and conversion rates to managing site operations and web production, Luke specializes in content strategy, CRO, UX, SEO/SEM, and project and brand management.
An inexhaustible music scene and reputable MA program brought Luke to Austin, and the city’s entrepreneurial, liberal spirit kept his creativity comfortably nestled in the “512.” (For non-natives, 512 is Austin’s area code.)
When Luke isn’t crunching the data, he is digging through vinyl records, playing pub-league soccer, eating breakfast tacos and hanging out with his beautiful, pregnant wife (they are due during SXSW ’14).
Leslie claims title as the first person ever to have made a purchase on the Internet. Since then, she’s been obsessed with everything online and is a Certified HubSpot Inbound Marketer.
Her online marketing agency, Idea Pioneer Media, helps businesses pinpoint the right mix of online strategies, focusing on content and social media, and creates a highly trackable system that takes customer all the way through the buying process. Her mantra is creativity + accountability = conversions.
Leslie’s worked with everything from e-learning companies to well-funded startups and runs her own ecommerce business, HairChi. For someone who is an entrepreneur and future bestselling author of fiction, Austin provides the perfect mix of quirky, creativity, and start-up culture to call home and business hub.
Matt Gratt is a growth marketing professional, specializing in B2B startups.
He works at BuzzStream as a Senior Marketing Manager, growing the CRM for content promotion and link building. He also blogs for industry-recognized sites such as Moz, KISSMetrics, the Future Buzz, and more.
Previously he worked at a boutique digital agency, and was the first employee of AppCentral (acquired by Good Technology). He has a BA from UC Berkeley. In his free time, he enjoys drawing, chess, live music, and tacos.
Why Austin?
Austin has wonderful weather, affordable housing, a great lifestyle, and no state income tax. If you like tacos and live music as much as I do, it’s the perfect place to live.
Brett Tarr, The Tarr Group, @Brett_Tarr
Brett Tarr is an internet marketing consultant and president of The Tarr Group, a company focused on providing holistic, pragmatic, and innovative internet marketing consultation and services to high-tech B2B companies. He works primarily on private projects, taking on clients occasionally and providing advice freely in his spare time.
Why Austin?
Easy. It’s the people. But that’s too simple….
Specifically, there are a lot of great people in this city who really care about the work they do. They want to continually exceed their expectations and push themselves and their conversion rates higher and higher while fully enjoying the work they do.
Austin has the highest per capita of creatives, entrepreneurs, information marketers, persuasive copywriters, UI/UX designers, consultants and many others that make up this wide and diverse field of study we call CRO. But more importantly, it’s a city filled with southern hospitality, acceptance, integrity and people who are always willing to share what they’ve learned in order to help you, them and our practice grow.
Of course, these are only a few
Other big names that make up the Austin CRO community include:
- Nazli Yuzak, Dell
- Joel Wright, Hewlett-Packard
- Mike Dillard
- Sam Decker, Mass Relevance
- Roy H. Williams, who spawned and influenced quite a few CRO experts through his work at The Wizard Academy
I’m sure I’m missing others.
Please nominate your favorite online marketing pro in the comments.
Austin: The Conversion Capital of the World
Austin offers rich soil to companies that want to be successful online.
Whether it’s the tacos or the people, the music scene or the mandate to keep it weird, there’s no denying the magnetic pull of this city.
And let’s face it, when you can rub shoulders with the likes of these CRO experts, enjoy the food and fun only available in Austin, you have to agree it honestly is the conversion capital of the world.
If you feel the pull to join them, don’t resist. This cluster is definitely worth exploring.
About the Author
Katharyn Aragon is the editor of The Daily Egg and publisher of the C4Report. She is committed to helping businesses communicate, connect, convert…and capture their market. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.
Still unsure whether Austin is the Conversion Capital of the World? Check this article out on SlideShare.
Sochi Mayor Denies Austin Claim of Conversion Capital
News & EventsFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov denies Austin’s declaration: “We are the Conversion Capital of the World”
Sochi, Russia. – February 7, 2014 – On the day of the opening ceremonies for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the mayor of Sochi, Russia, says there is no way that Austin, Texas is the Conversion Capital of the World.
The city of Austin sent shock-waves throughout the world on Wednesday, declaring themselves the “Conversion Capital of the World.” The response from Sochi, Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics was swift.
“I don’t know what they are converting, but I know that Sochi is better,” said Sochi mayor, Anatoly Pakhomov at a quickly assembled press conference.
“We are not even sure that Austin exists,” Pakhomov continued. His press office released a map of Texas in which Austin seems to have been erased.
“We have spared no expense preparing for the Olympics,” Pakhomov told the BBC in an interview that airs just a few days before the commencement of the 2014 Winter Olympics. “No city can claim to be above Sochi in anything until they have spent billions of rubles like us, especially a city that may not even exist.”
When pressed for evidence that Sochi had conversion rate optimization talent equivalent to Austin, Pakhomov abruptly ended the interview saying, “Don’t make me call Putin.”
Contact:
Vladimir Pudding
Sochi, Russia
###
What? There is a SlideShare too?
Writing Test Hypotheses that Make You Money [AUDIO]
Conversion OptimizationIn this edition of the Conversion Scientist Podcast, I discuss the genetics of conversion science, writing test hypotheses that will generate money, and how you can turn your team’s input into something that you can actually test.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In my latest article on Marketing Land, I share the steps necessary to help you get the results from your websites that you are looking for.
It is common for someone to come to you with ideas for improving the website. After listening to this podcast and reading my article, you will now have a hypothesis checklist to think through. Knowing how to create a valid split test hypothesis will increase your critical thinking power, help you prioritize your marketing tasks, and give you a way to talk others out of bad marketing ideas.
Subscribe to Podcast
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Austin: The Conversion Capital of the World
News & EventsYou’ve probably noticed it. Every now and then a city becomes a magnet to a particular industry or profession. Like Silicon Valley for techies, Paris for fashion and art, or New York for finance. In fact, there’s a word for it: Experts call these areas “clusters.”
Well, there’s a new cluster in the making. Austin, Texas, is now recognized as a cluster for conversion optimization experts. And it’s a big enough cluster that some are willing to go all out, calling it the Conversion Capital of the World.
What’s the big deal about Austin, you might ask?
Bryan Eisenberg once said that conversion = art + science. And since Austin = music + geeks, it’s possible the city is the perfect mix for conversion geeks.
Anyway, that’s what I wanted to explore. So I contacted a few of the Austin-based CRO experts to get their feedback.
What follows are 18 CRO experts who have made Austin their home—who they are, why they’re worth following, and why they picked Austin.
Take a look, and experience for yourself the pull of this magnetic city… not just because you’d get to hang out with this impressive crowd, but because Austin is, without question, the Conversion Capital of the World.
Austin CRO Experts You Need to Follow
Brian Massey, Conversion Sciences, @bmassey
Author of Your Customer Creation Equation, he’s also a renowned teacher of conversion optimization. In this book, he shares five website formats proven to get results, as well as when, where and how each format should be used, so you know which one is right for you—even if you’re not a conversion scientist, yourself.
“In Austin, we’ll test just about anything.” ~Brian Massey
Brian is best known for transforming websites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics, and testing.
Why Austin?
Website optimization is a fundamentally entrepreneurial endeavor. Austin has that entrepreneurial vibe, which provides rich soil to grow an agency.
The people here are bottom-line oriented, curious, and rigorously creative. It is a place we can live outside the box. A conference like SXSW combining music, movies and tech could only arise in Austin. Austin’s music scene had the Armadillo World Headquarters as ground zero for great artists in the 70s. The online scene has The Wizard Academy and Roy H. Williams to educate and inspire great business people. To paraphrase Roy, Austin is “our kind of crazy.”
Joel Harvey, Conversion Sciences, @joeljharvey
Joel is Managing Partner and Chief Operations Scientist at Conversion Sciences and, like Brian, has the lab coat to prove it. His passion is using scientific analysis and testing techniques to grow profits for clients. Joel combines deep expertise in video for business, optimization testing, online operations, SEO and business development with unyielding passion and dedication to achieve extraordinary results.
Throughout his career, he’s overseen the production and the impact of over 30,000 e-commerce videos, has developed cutting edge universal SEO techniques, launched and monetized dozens of web sites and web products, built and led teams and has tightly managed a P&L every step of the way. His goal is the make Conversion Sciences THE most CFO Friendly Marketing Investment on the planet.
Why Austin?
Where else do creativity and execution blend so seamlessly? The city is teaming with brilliant people who use data to achieve extraordinary results. Oh, and there’s the taco factor. Everybody knows that tacos are conversion optimization fuel and nobody does Tacos better than Austin. :-)
Bryan Eisenberg, Author, CRO Pioneer, Consultant, Speaker, @TheGrok
Bryan is an internationally recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing, improving online conversion rates, persuasive content, and persona marketing. He and his brother Jeffrey founded the first agency focused exclusively on conversion rate optimization in 1998, after having been client side for a few years.
They published the first New York Times best-selling book on conversion optimization, Call to Action, in 2005. Their book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, and introduced their system to plan persuasive experiences.
Bryan has been awarded numerous accolades over the years, including being recognized by eConsultancy members as one of the Top 10 User Experience Gurus, being selected as one of the inaugural iMedia Top 25 Marketers, and a Marketing Edge Rising Star Award winner in 2010.
He is also the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Web Analytics Association (now the Digital Analytics Association). Bryan serves as an advisory board member of Search Engine Strategies, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and several venture capital backed startup companies.
Today he is a high demand as a keynote speaker in the US and abroad.
It will be two years since Bryan moved to Austin from Brooklyn, NY.
Why Austin?
Over the last 12 years or so of visiting, Austin has always been a great center of technology and innovation, the marriage of arts and hard sciences.
Aside from the fact that Austin has one of the most thriving tech startup scenes, it’s considered one of the best cities to raise a family (I have 3 kids) and, of course, a great value for the quality of life available.
Jeffrey Eisenberg, Author, CRO Pioneer, Consultant, Speaker, @JeffreyGroks
Jeffrey, together with brother and partner Bryan Eisenberg, co-wrote marketing optimization books Call To Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?, both Wall Street Journal and New York Times’ list bestsellers.
Since 1998, they have trained and advised companies like HP, Google, GE Healthcare, Overstock, NBC Universal, Orvis and Edmunds, to implement accountable digital marketing strategies emphasizing optimization of revenue conversion rates for engagements, leads, subscriptions, and sales.
Jeffrey is a thought provoking marketing speaker who reads voraciously, travels extensively, loves dogs, and is also a foodie who speaks Spanish with native fluency.
Why Austin?
I really like Austin and I don’t miss the winters, hassles or expenses of New York City. But to be honest, I moved here for love.
Ed Wu, Dell, @ed_wu
Ed Wu is currently the marketing director of Dell.com, the world’s premier ecommerce (B2C and B2B) website. In his role, Ed manages all Dell.com experimentation, testing and optimization across all business units including B2C, B2B and Support sites globally.
Ed’s passion is to deliver a world-class online experience by building an innovation engine that enables constant and rapid changes through insightful analytics and best-in-class testing and optimization capability. He is a champion and evangelist of “test and learn” culture inside and outside Dell.
Under Ed’s leadership, Dell.com analytics and testing team have grown to one of the largest and best in global Fortune 500 enterprises. Not only highly recognized by Dell’s senior executives, the team won twelve gold/silver awards from WhichTestWon.com and was given the 2012 Practitioner of the Year, Award for Excellence by the Digital Analytics Association (DAA).
Ed is an active member in the digital analytics industry and has served two terms as the Board of Directors of DAA. He is also the first place winner of 2009 DAA Championship and one of the first Certified Web Analysts by DAA. He was 2010 keynote speaker for eMetrics marketing optimization summit and a huddle leader/presenter for Click Summit 2012 in New York.
Why Austin?
I came to Austin to work for Dell in 2004 and have been here ever since. Increasingly I found it is difficult to leave here for other places, even with higher compensation. Cost and quality of living here is a big factor for sure. But I also believe in the future of Austin will be even brighter.
There are a number of companies such as Dell, HP, OfficeDepot, RetailMeNot.com, etc., that already have sophisticated analytics/testing programs here in town and I believe, sooner or later, other companies will find Austin an ideal place to build their digital marketing hub. As that happens, professionals like us will have many more opportunities.
There is no reason that Austin can’t crown itself as “The Capital of Optimization” as long as we dream big and work hard.
Peep Laja, ConversionXL,@peeplaja
Peep is the face of ConversionXL and is an entrepreneur and conversion optimization junkie who focuses on one thing: optimizing websites to deliver better user experiences and produce significantly more results (more leads, more sales, more pizazz).
He also runs a unique conversion optimization marketing agency called Markitekt.
Peep shares actionable conversion rate optimization advice based on scientific research and in-depth industry knowledge. If that’s what you’re looking for, you don’t want to miss his book, How to Build Websites that Sell: The Scientific Approach to Websites, or the ConversionXL blog.
Why Austin?
Because of the women! No joke. I didn’t move to Austin because of great beer (512 Pecan Porter FTW), Rudy’s BBQ or cool people like Brian Massey (I discovered all of that later). I did it for love. My wife is from Austin, and she brought me here.
John Stansbury, RetailMeNot, @jstansbury
John has been measuring and optimizing online properties from startup to Fortune 100 since the early days of ecommerce. He currently serves as Director of Global Analytics Platforms for RetailMeNot, Inc., the world’s largest digital coupon marketplace.
Active in analytics and vendor-specific thought leadership groups, John’s focus is on measuring what matters. Tracking starts with business questions, not the question of which homegrown or customized off-the-shelf solution is best.
Essentially, he asks the question, Does the potential optimized revenue offset (at least) the cost of knowing? If not, move on. Cool don’t pay the bills.
Why Austin?
Austin is not new to the cutting edge. Companies such as Human Code were instrumental in marrying art and science in the Wild West days of multimedia and edutainment in the ’90s. Another Austin Ventures company, Garden.com, helped write the book on ecommerce.
Austin continues to attract “big city” talent, while maintaining a “small-town” feel for its digital community. There’s a rich tradition of storytelling here, and whether it’s through music or analytics doesn’t seem to matter much.
That facility with using data in making business decisions carries on in companies like RetailMeNot. And we’re cradled by a fertile crescent of the world’s best BBQ.
Charles Hua, RetailMeNot.com, @charleschenhua
Charles has a deep understanding of the retail industry and is a passionate advocate for the use of site optimization as a competitive edge in eCommerce.
Why Austin?
Is there any doubt that Austin is in a prime position for CRO? Austin has a young and highly educated population, low cost of living, a hip and progressive culture and—with so many successful online start-ups in the metro area such as RetailMeNot, uShip and HomeAway—top talents are flowing into the city every day from all over the world.
In the past few years, this field has gained so much importance that the local companies have been sponsoring Conversion conferences such as the DAA Symposium and The Live Event from WhichTestWon.com. On top of that, there are weekly Web Analytics Wednesdays for the local analytic geeks and optimization fanatics to gather and social.
I am walking proof of all this. I graduated from UT Austin and never wanted to leave the city. When I joined OfficeDepot.com, one of the criteria was not to move away from Austin. The combination of all these factors will make Austin the Conversion Capital of the World, if it isn’t already.
One more thing, the food here is awesome!
Ryan Deiss, Digital Marketer, @ryandeiss
An avid tester, Ryan has invested more than $15,000,000 on marketing tests, generated tens of millions of unique visitors, sent well over a BILLION emails, and run approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests, applying a process called Customer Value Optimization.
He runs the annual Traffic and Conversion Summit with over 2,000 attendees, writes for the Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle, and is one of the most sought after digital marketing consultants and speakers in the world.
For Ryan, Austin was the perfect location to start his business. Here’s how he states it:
Why Austin?
The motto of Austin, Texas is “Keep Austin Weird,” and weird is exactly what you’ll need to be if you want to succeed at digital marketing.
Conversion optimization is rarely intuitive. Stuff that should work often DOESN’T, and stuff that shouldn’t work sometimes does. We keep it weird down here in Austin… because that’s where the big breakthroughs come from.
Noah Kagan, AppSumo, @noahkagan
Noah is founder and Chief Sumo at AppSumo.com and Monthly1k.com. He also runs OkDork, a personal blog focused on startups, marketing, self-exploration, and tacos. In previous lives, he was a cubicle monkey at Intel, #30 at Facebook and #4 at Mint.
At Chief Sumo, he works with other former Facebook, Mint and Curse employees to promote cool (and geeky) tools and content to help entrepreneurs succeed.
Noah states in his blog that his goal was, at one time, to own a company he could run from anywhere—even the beaches of Thailand or Argentina.
Why Austin?
I chose Austin for the tacos. After that everything else. Weather, cost of living, friendly people, central (literally) in the USA and great outdoors. The tech scene is small and doesn’t feel like the echo chamber of the Bay Area.
Bill Leake, Apogee Results, @Marketing_Bill
Bill has guided Apogee-branded marketing companies from inception to success, creating one of the largest independent online marketing agencies in North America and one of the fastest growing companies on the Inc. 500 list.
Apogee has been particularly instrumental in building dozens of “Internet Retailer 500,” “Software 500,” and VC-backed companies, growing more Inc. 500/5000 companies than anyone else in the industry, and serving top global brands like Whole Foods, IBM, SAP and Hewlett Packard.
Bill also serves as president of the Austin Interactive Marketing Association, and speaks frequently at national and international shows, including Search Marketing Expo, South by Southwest Interactive, Shop.org, Internet Retailer, Search Engine Strategies, DreamForce, and ad:tech.
In late 2012, Wiley Publishing issued Bill’s new book on integrated online marketing, Complete B2B Online Marketing with strong sales. Bill received an MBA with honors from the University of Texas at Austin and his BA from Yale University.
Why Austin?
Quite simply, it’s good for business. Here’s how Bill says it:
Austin is a great place to find whip-smart talent. My coastal competitors don’t get employees who scored over 1400 on the (old school) SATs…
If you’re in California, and are a top graduate, and comfortable with numbers and math, you don’t go to work for a marketing consultancy, you go to work in high tech.
If you’re on the East Coast, and a top graduate, and good with numbers, you go into high finance, not advertising/marketing/conversion.
If you’re most places in the middle of the country, other than Austin, once you graduate, you LEAVE your college town and find a destination city.
Austin is a destination city, and a place where I can engage, train, develop, and RETAIN top-tier talent. My coastal competitors struggle to attract anyone solid, and retention isn’t even an option after 1-2 years of training.
Matt Wishnow, Clearhead.me, @clearheadme
Matt is the founder and CEO of Clearhead, a digital optimization agency that provides daring, entrepreneurial digital executives with the extra brains and brawn to fully utilize digital analytics and A/B testing practices and drive disruptive results, change and learning.
Previously, Matt was the founder of Insound.com and Drillteam Marketing. Launched in 1998, Insound.com is the oldest and most respected of music web-stores, catering to vinyl enthusiasts and other music obsessives. Drillteam was an early social marketing agency, servicing Toyota, Target, Nike and other elite brands.
Following the sale of Insound to Warner Music Group, in 2007 Matt was hired to design and lead WMG’s Direct to Consumer business. He holds degrees in Fine Art and Semiotics from Brown University and recently moved to Austin, Texas, with his wife and two daughters.
Why Austin?
People often ask me whether an analytical mind or a creative mind fares better at conversion optimization. Without fail, I answer “neither.”
To me, it’s a middle-brained thinker, somebody who understands the relationship between design, experience, product and data. That combination of creativity and appreciation for consumer data is a rare one, but a trait that seems to be disproportionately concentrated in Austin.
In some ways, this makes sense when you consider the fabric of Austin in 2014—a city of big, young brains, built on the music and tech start-ups that greatly define our local culture. To me, it makes perfect sense that Austin would have a lot of “middle-brained” people, skilled at data-driven optimization.
Ryan Pitylak, Unique Influence, Inc., @ryanpitylak
Pitylak’s attention to detail and ability to adapt to the industry’s constant evolution have been key to his success in the internet marketing world. Given Ryan’s 14 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, he considers all potential advertising channels when developing strategy and execution plans.
Before Unique Influence, Ryan managed a team at ProfitFuel (Yodle) that provided SEO and PPC services to over 10,000 businesses. He has also helped some of the most successful consumer-based online businesses in Austin, including HomeAway.com.
Ryan received his BA in Philosophy and Economics and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Obviously he chose to stay.
Why Austin?
Austin has a thriving community of companies provide services and sell products on the Internet. As a digital advertising expert, it’s a fantastic place to be able to help a large number of companies be successful.
Austin is also seeing a lot of growth, especially in the realm of digital. I expect this growth to continue, which will make the future even brighter for consultancies like ours who help these companies grow.
Roger Dooley, Neuromarketing and Brainy Marketing, @rogerdooley
He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. The latter business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where Dooley served as VP Digital Marketing and continues in a consulting role.
He often applies neuroscience and psychology research to conversion optimization, and has been a keynote speaker at the Conversion Conference, Pubcon Masters Training, and ConversionSUMMIT (Frankfurt).
Why Austin?
When we decided to move from snowy, low-tech northern Indiana, we wanted a location with warmer weather and a great tech community. Austin had both, and offered a great lifestyle, too.
I knew about companies like Dell, AMD, and others with big operations here, but I was surprised at the size and diversity of the web marketing community. Meet-ups on topics like SEO, social media, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, and other specialty interests are well attended, often drawing over a hundred attendees. As a plus, when one weighs cost of living, state taxes, etc., Austin compares very favorably with the Bay Area and other hubs of tech activity.
Ethan Luke Stenis, Street Authority, @elstenis
From optimizing landing pages, RPMs and conversion rates to managing site operations and web production, Luke specializes in content strategy, CRO, UX, SEO/SEM, and project and brand management.
An inexhaustible music scene and reputable MA program brought Luke to Austin, and the city’s entrepreneurial, liberal spirit kept his creativity comfortably nestled in the “512.” (For non-natives, 512 is Austin’s area code.)
When Luke isn’t crunching the data, he is digging through vinyl records, playing pub-league soccer, eating breakfast tacos and hanging out with his beautiful, pregnant wife (they are due during SXSW ’14).
Leslie Mock, Idea Pioneer Media, @lesliemock
Leslie claims title as the first person ever to have made a purchase on the Internet. Since then, she’s been obsessed with everything online and is a Certified HubSpot Inbound Marketer.
Her online marketing agency, Idea Pioneer Media, helps businesses pinpoint the right mix of online strategies, focusing on content and social media, and creates a highly trackable system that takes customer all the way through the buying process. Her mantra is creativity + accountability = conversions.
Leslie’s worked with everything from e-learning companies to well-funded startups and runs her own ecommerce business, HairChi. For someone who is an entrepreneur and future bestselling author of fiction, Austin provides the perfect mix of quirky, creativity, and start-up culture to call home and business hub.
Matthew Gratt, BuzzStream, @MattGratt
He works at BuzzStream as a Senior Marketing Manager, growing the CRM for content promotion and link building. He also blogs for industry-recognized sites such as Moz, KISSMetrics, the Future Buzz, and more.
Previously he worked at a boutique digital agency, and was the first employee of AppCentral (acquired by Good Technology). He has a BA from UC Berkeley. In his free time, he enjoys drawing, chess, live music, and tacos.
Why Austin?
Austin has wonderful weather, affordable housing, a great lifestyle, and no state income tax. If you like tacos and live music as much as I do, it’s the perfect place to live.
Brett Tarr, The Tarr Group, @Brett_Tarr
Why Austin?
Easy. It’s the people. But that’s too simple….
Specifically, there are a lot of great people in this city who really care about the work they do. They want to continually exceed their expectations and push themselves and their conversion rates higher and higher while fully enjoying the work they do.
Austin has the highest per capita of creatives, entrepreneurs, information marketers, persuasive copywriters, UI/UX designers, consultants and many others that make up this wide and diverse field of study we call CRO. But more importantly, it’s a city filled with southern hospitality, acceptance, integrity and people who are always willing to share what they’ve learned in order to help you, them and our practice grow.
Of course, these are only a few
Other big names that make up the Austin CRO community include:
I’m sure I’m missing others.
Please nominate your favorite online marketing pro in the comments.
Austin: The Conversion Capital of the World
Austin offers rich soil to companies that want to be successful online.
Whether it’s the tacos or the people, the music scene or the mandate to keep it weird, there’s no denying the magnetic pull of this city.
And let’s face it, when you can rub shoulders with the likes of these CRO experts, enjoy the food and fun only available in Austin, you have to agree it honestly is the conversion capital of the world.
If you feel the pull to join them, don’t resist. This cluster is definitely worth exploring.
About the Author
Katharyn Aragon is the editor of The Daily Egg and publisher of the C4Report. She is committed to helping businesses communicate, connect, convert…and capture their market. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.
Still unsure whether Austin is the Conversion Capital of the World? Check this article out on SlideShare.
Sales Revenue Optimization – A Yes Brainer
Ecommerce CROThis is a guest post by Alexander Richter
How to get a new sports car when you run an e-commerce company?
Revenue/Visit – nice Things will happen
In most cases the conversion on an e-commerce website is a sale. The measure of how many people bought is vital since you can not only evaluate the success of your advertising efforts, but the effectiveness of your webshop.
Unfortunately that’s only half the truth because a conversion as a boolean value does not tell you how profitable the order was or how much value it had for you. As an e-tailer it is primarily not just about the count of the disposal, it is about the profit (or better, the gross profit!). That is what you pay the sports car from. Optimizing the proportion of revenue per visit brings great results to surface. Suddenly you as an e-tailer can spend more money on advertising since a average visit has more value now a conversion can be more expensive. On this point you can clap your heels together three times and wish something: Do you want more profit based on the number of visits you have (who wants that?) or “buy” more conversions (by increasing the number of visitors by SEA/SEO/Affiliate etc. activities) for the same price? Either way a single visit has an higher value for you!
How come Revenue Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization is not always one Thing?
The conversion rate (CR) and the revenue/visit (RPV) are the two key performance indicators (KPIs) which are not connected fixedly. In many cases an improvement of the CR means an increase of the RPV. But there is optimization that can go wrong without knowing it and just having an eye on the conversion rate.
We are getting a little negative first
An example, starting with a negative view: An ecommerce site implements an overview of the top sellers directly on the homepage. A splittestingtool is setup to quantify the success of this action. Yay! The conversion rate is higher now, likely the customers can find the most bought stuff easier now.
What have not been seen? The actual revenue per customer is regressive. Maybe because of the easier way it was no longer necessary for the customer to have a closer look on the rest of the line of goods in the category listings etc. Cross selling by exploring did not take place any longer.
Nevertheless this action could have a positive effect on both metrics. It is just important to test and keep in mind that your web-shop has one primary mission: Getting as much gain per visitor as possible. That is what makes a website sexy for the etailer.
A positive Example
An example, but no rocket science, how you can increase the revenue/visit is the implementation of a free shippingthreshold. If your customer passes a certain purchase total the shipping is free. Here it is important to choose the threshold wisely. It is not unusual that the CR will not change or will even get worse. Visitors find the article they looked for, but the total is too less for the threshold. This could be frustrating, they got the feeling of getting it cheaper somewhere else and will leave. Here comes the big BUT: Customers with a cart value close to the threshold feel encouraged to crack the threshold by putting some more (mostly peanuts) in their carts. The average order value is rising. As a consequence the CR is maybe going down a little, but the RPV looks better now. Cool one step closer to your (not necessarily imaginary) sports car!
Get real
On the following chart you can see the trend of an A/Bsplit test where two thresholds have been implemented:
Comparing the challenger (here named “before”) and the competitor (here “after”) you can see that there was two (quite flat) accumulations before. With the competitor they were shifted to the right (higher order value) and become more acute (more orders of that order value). In average there was a higher order value per visit.
In Numbers:
Dr. Flint McGlaughlin and the “magnitude of the change”
I like Dr. Flint McGlaughlin especially one very true quote of him: It’s not the magnitude of the change on the page that impacts conversion. It’s the magnitude of the change in the mind.
Takeaways
● The metrics conversion rate and revenue/visit are akin, but not the same
● Don’t just optimize the usability optimize the motivation of the visitor to buy (more)
About the author:
Alexander Richter works for the ReBOOM GmbH in Germany. My everyday work is just one thing: Optimizing commerce sites.
Landing Page Optimization with Tim Ash
Landing Page OptimizationTim Ash and Joel Harvey talk testing screw-ups and “with and without” tests. Find out if there is a lab at Conversion Sciences called the “QA-tion Station” and how many Igloos Joel has built in the latest installment of Landing Page Optimization on Webmaster Radio.
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Marketers’ Helpful Little Monsters-Marketing Automation
Lead GenerationAs marketers, we need some little monsters handling the details or we will drown in the effort. Marketo just launched a Demand Generation Success Center that shows marketers how to become digital Dr. Frankensteins.
From Drip to Drive
The Marketo resource center provides advice on how to automate the many things that marketers must get done. They don’t just toe the party line.
For example, I believe that marketers should move from “drip” campaigns that “nurture” prospects, to high-impact educational campaigns that drive prospects to engage with you. The new resource center has some brilliant recommendations from me.
This is all easier said than done, and exactly that’s why you need to install little monsters like Marketo.
Visit the Demand Generation Success Center. Extend your reach, turn up your frequency, and still have time to develop killer cascading content.
We Are Now in Control of Your Eyes [AUDIO]
Conversion-Centered DesignI did a little experiment using images and copy in my Marketing Land column Take Control of Your Visitors’ Eyes. Instead of using my superior powers of page design to highlight an important piece of information, I used them to hide that information.
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I purposefully did some things you may be doing accidentally, to the detriment of your site and your visitors.
When looking at web and landing page copy, I often find the important information buried, or designed in such a way as to look unimportant.
Value propositions, phone numbers, guarantees, and special offers are some of the things that are important to visitors, but don’t look important.
Images, captions and more
Read the column or listen to the podcast to find out how I obscured an important fact, and how I highlighted another, less relevant fact using:
It’s a show and tell column, Take Control of Your Visitors’ Eyes.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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The Importance of Good Distribution Within E-commerce
Ecommerce CROThis is a guest post written by Melissa Sawyer
The internet has revolutionized many aspects of modern life, from the way we work, to the way we shop. E-commerce is an industry built entirely around the internet. Purchases in e-commerce occur solely within an online environment eliminating the elements of physical interaction that using a traditional brick and mortar store brings.
For it to be viable for customers to shop online instead of at a brick and mortar store, the online experience needs to be convenient and practical – more so than using the physical store. In many cases, this will manifest in the form of cheaper products and a wider variety of stock than a small store could offer.
However, the strength of a brick and mortar store will always be that the customer leaves with the stock then and there. The item is theirs immediately, without any further delay. Shoppers are willing to wait for their items only if the online shopping experience is easy and free of complications.
Excellent service and efficient delivery are just as important as a well designed site
Many online shoppers are simply there to browse. They place items in their basket, but ultimately pull out of the transaction at the end. This is what is known as shopping cart ‘abandonment’. Since online shoppers can easily comparison shop, it is important that the experience is of the highest standard. This extends beyond just how a site functions, and is applicable right up until the product has been successfully delivered to the customer.
Photo credit: quijonido via creative commons
Internet shoppers will always be influenced by the aesthetics of an online store. If it works well and looks good, customers will be happy to give you their money. Businesses know this and spend large amounts of money on web development. However, a flashy site but poor customer service is a sure fire way to alienate customers and ensure that they won’t return.
One of the biggest criticisms online retailers face is poor delivery of purchased items. Goods arriving late, damaged, or failing to arrive altogether are common issues with online retail. The New York Times recently ran a piece that highlights the some of the issues online retail face, particularly shipping mistakes.
Certain hiccups are bound to happen from time to time, but if those issues are resolved well, then the customer is more likely to return. If missing or damaged items are dealt with professionally, and swiftly, then a customer will be more likely to give their businesses in the future. However, if a customer is left waiting a long time for an inadequate resolution, then you can forget it.
Steps can be taken to prevent delivery mishaps
It seems painfully obvious, but a well placed ‘fragile’ sticker on a package can work wonders. People will tend to be more careful if they know the item will be easily damaged. Packing orders well is another must. If orders from your e-commerce site keep arriving broken, then your packaging may be to blame just as much as an heavy handed courier or delivery staff.
Selecting a reputable company to carry out your deliveries is essential. As always in the world of business, reputation is everything. Choose someone you know has a good track record of quick, safe deliveries. It is even better to use a company that offers recorded delivery, especially if real-time tracking of shipments is offered. This offers peace of mind to online stores who dispatched the order, and customers who eagerly await the goods that they have paid for. After all, if any complications arise, it will be your job to explain this to the customer. This is a small detail that is often overlooked and can be extremely damaging to customer relations.
Many online retailers opt to do as money.co.uk suggest and protect their items during the delivery stage through the use of ‘goods in transit’ insurance. This means if items are lost or damaged while it is being delivered, then they are covered and costs can be recuperated.
If your store operates locally, and runs its own local delivery service, then it may be an idea to fit delivery vehicles with a vehicle tracking system. This allows you to see the driving habits of delivery staff, with some systems being so advanced that they can analyze the sharpness of turns and harshness of braking. These can be valuable tools for stamping out any aggressive driving that may be responsible for damaging products in transit.
Ultimately, e-commerce is built upon trust
Online shoppers put their trust into online stores to a greater extent than in physical shops. There is a massive degree of faith involved. Online shoppers cannot inspect the items themselves, so are trusting online retailers that the products they order bare resemblance to what is presented on screen, but also that they will be delivered within the time frame stated.
People flock to online shopping due to its ease and flexibility. The majority of time, this will prove to be a smooth experience, but even small errors cost businesses money. It is important to remember, just because an order has been placed and the products have been shipped, it does not signify the end of an online retailer’s relationship with a customer.
Website Optimization Lessons from a Christmas Card
Landing Page OptimizationDon’t toss out those holiday cards you’re getting! There are lessons to be learned in those colorful envelops.
We wanted to pick the right Christmas Card to send to clients and friends, and decided to analyze four different options.
What we learned was often applicable to a successful website.
Website Optimization Lessons from a Christmas Card Video
http://conversionsciences.wistia.com/medias/gcj49vw3jx?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=501
What You Can Learn About Website Optimization from Christmas Cards
We sought to maximize the Open Rate of the card as well as a new metric, Pins (to the office wall) per Recipient, or PPR. Our thinking is that, f the card is effective, it will be displayed for others to enjoy.
Consider it our Christmas card to you.
Playing E-commerce Product Page Roulette [AUDIO]
Ecommerce CROWhat’s the worst and the best thing that could happen to your e-commerce site?
The answer is that a Conversion Scientist tried to buy something from you.
It’s good because, we are very likely to write about our experience. It’s bad because we are going to point out what you’re doing wrong.
We recently tried to buy some stand-up desks for some of the team here at Conversion Sciences. Like so many shoppers, we found ourselves paralyzed by choice.
In true Conversion Scientist form, we decided to collect some data to help us with our choice. We compared desks at National Business Furniture, Rakuten and World Market. However, our decision to buy was based on how their product pages performed, not on price and features.
We invented the game Product Page Roulette.
Find out which site won our dollars (and probably the dollars of many other visitors) in my Marketing Land column An Expensive E-commerce Game: Product Page Roulette.
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Why the @WorldMarket site is winning the ecommerce game.
Tweet: Roulette is a game of chance. Your product pages shouldn’t be a game of chance. http://ctt.ec/0Kv4R+ @bmassey via @MarketingLand
Tweet: The job of the product page is to provide what the visitor needs to decide to “Add to Cart.” http://ctt.ec/bN7e1+ @bmassey
Tweet: Eye-tracking simulators estimate what an eye-tracking study would tell us without the expense. http://ctt.ec/n5EGO+ @bmassey
Tweet: When your marketplace offers a spectrum of prices and features visitors are paralyzed by choice. http://ctt.ec/96a3c+ @bmassey