2. Agenda Why conversions matter Success Stories What We Have Learned The Toolkit Food for Thought Advanced Topics
3. Total EU online retail spend was €68bin 2009 rising to €114bby 2014 * Nearly half of Western European consumers will buy products online by 2014 * The typical online buyer will spend €601 per year online by 2014 * 50%of online shoppers who place their items in their shopping carts do not buy ** 0.4%growth in satisfaction with online shopping in last two years* 3 Sources: *Forrester Research Online Retail Forecast, 2009 **Core Metrics, 'Core Metrics Benchmark Industry Report' March 09 † Internet World Stats, Usage and Population statistics, June 2008
11. There Are No Simple Answers Q: “What should my conversion rate be?” A: It probably could be higher than what it is now.
12. There Are No Simple Answers Q: “What should my website look like?” A: If there was an answer, every site would look the same.
13. There Are No Simple Answers Q: “Where should I start improving my conversion rate?” Highest $Index Page Lowest $Index Page Products With Low Conversion Rates Top Exit Pages Highest Traffic Page High Bounce Rate Landing Pages Content Pages Product Pages Homepage Early Goal Funnel Exit Pages Late Goal Funnel Exit Pages A: Where you will get the highest ROI. Category Pages
16. Conversion Optimisation is in the Details Ignore the Forest Be wary of industry and vertical benchmarks Your site-wide conversion rate can be misleading It can be difficult to connect a change on a landing page to final conversion Focus on the Trees Segment your data and then segment some more Respect your various audiences Look at individual pieces of your site
24. Landing Pages Logical Connection to Traffic Source / Keyword / Audience Clear Call-To-Actions Relaying important information, but not over-weighting the page Reassure and dispense with any Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Electric DrillsBuy Electric Drills from just £89.99Free Next Day Deliverywww.Screwfix.com 20% reduction in bounce rate
25. The Home Page Balance of promotions and introductions Allow visitors to segment themselves quickly
26. Funnels and Processes Reasons forexit Missing information Usability Not ready to buy Life! 5% increase in conversion rate*
Always asked about benchmarksBenchmarks are outward looking, but should not be confused as insight into your performance.Beating the benchmark shouldn’t be the only goalTop converting sites have tend towards catalogues, commodities or high loyalty sites.Conversion rate is not an actionable metric by itself. Instead, you have to take into what portion of your visitors have any intention of buying“Opportunity Pie”
There are several books about usability design.Beware “one-size-fits all” explanations. – Test your design changesIf I had to recommend one book on usability design and what to think about when devising tests, it’s Don’t Make Me Think
No single place to start. Every Analyst has their favorites.My favorites:Products that people look at, but don’t buy (sort by profit): Aspirational (like a BugattiVeyron?), Priced wrong? Wrong messaging, images, sales pitch? Compare to other products!High Bounce Rate pages: Compared to other landing pages, sorted by traffic. Unclear pitch? FUD? No call to action? (Tax software that worked on a Mac, but didn’t say so on a landing page!)Late Goal Funnel exits: A shopping cart process (holiday website) after asking people for all of their information an payment, people would leave at the confirmation page!A good conversion optimization process works to identify as much as possible and then priortize based on ROIDifficulty / cost to implement test vs calculated potential upliftMust take into account the business objectives – don’t cut off your nose to spite your face – high margin products vs. loss leaders.[highlight bounce rate, funnel exit, make Answer stand out]
Pay a consultant to tell you that your site is ugly – costly and if you get a result, it might not be repeatable or provide insightAn electronics retailer that did this and got a response about changing the border color of some images. Later another test proved the exact opposite.Aristotle and Ibn Al-Haytham / AlhazenObserve, develop a hypothesis, test, prove or disprove hypothesis.
Have you web analyst or consultant compare across segments different metrics. Find pages that are broken. When you have pages that you think you can fix, prioritize based on potential uplift and ROI. Then investigate what is happening with that page Dutch Upright Bicycles: A landing page with a high bounce rate for a product that is high margin has more text and less images than other similar products with better bounce rates.Build a Hypothesis that states Variation, Metric and sounds sensible – Users like to see what colors this product is available in. By having images of the product in all available colors, they will be more likely to see a color that they like and thus more likely to click on to the next page.Run a Test: Explain MVT and A/B tests Create new versions of the page that have more pictures of bicycles. Maybe some with bigger pictures. Or more descriptive text. Or information about the bicycles.Wait a few weeks until there is enough traffic to each combination. Learn from the results. refine
Can’t see the forest FOR the treesOpportunity PieExplain Micro-conversions – test to optimize a metric close to what you are testing. Testing a landing page for final conversion… too much noise.Segment: People with different intentions, landing pages, traffic sources, geographies. Compare against each other. AJAX form on lead generation site: If 20% of your visitors use firefox but zero percent of FF convert, you have a problem.Respect: Don’t anger support seekers by pushing them down a purchase path.
90/10 rule needs brains
Surveys: ask users what they find wrong as a proactive or exit surveyIn-page analytics: watch where users click, how much of a form they fill in, whether they scroll down on a pageUser testing: alternative to expensive UX lab work: have users complete tasks from home while recording and speaking out loud.
Explain A/B vs. MVT testing
Several consultants that have experience across many sitesHave strong usability backgrounds and web analysisCan help guide and project manage a conversion project.
A simplified view of key components of a websiteFound on our conversions websiteTraffic sources covered by othersLanding pagesProcesses and funnelsConversion GoalsFacilitators like Site Search
Some of the most successful conversion optimizations that we have run have been around these:Dedicated landing pages / product pages for AdWords keywords: Checking that top landing pages match the keywords that are being driven to them.Testing of call-to-actions. What makes sense to your company might not be right for everyone. Difference between “Try for free” and “sign up now”.Every product requires a different mix of selling propositions, but having too much at once can be daunting.What do visitors worry about? Firefox download page began including details about what version for what platform.
Special landing pageDo users need to be introduced to your brand? Or do they look for deals?Explain below the fold – very few people will scroll on a home page.
New Information: Postage pricingMissing information: Member IDs
New Information: Postage pricingMissing information: Member IDs