I recently tested four different privacy policies

In this article I’ll show all four variations, run you through the test data, and give you concrete takeaways.

Privacy policy experiment 1:

Here’s a screen dump of the BettingExpert.com home page. As you can see, the control variant of the sign-up form does not feature a privacy policy, so I decided to test the impact that adding a privacy policy would have on conversions – in this case sign-ups.

In the first experiment I went for an informal, slightly cute privacy policy:

100% privacy – we will never spam you

I totally assumed that the treatment with the privacy policy would perform significantly better than the control. In fact, I only ran this test in order to document how much of a lift it would generate. So I was pretty taken aback by the test results.

The treatment with the privacy policy actually hurt conversions and reduced the number of sign-ups by a staggering 18.70%!

Test data: I ran the test for 9 days, reached a sample size of 16152 visits and 297 conversions, and the control variant outperformed the treatment throughout the entire test period. The statistical confidence level was 96%, and the standard error was 0%.

The development of experiment one over the 9-day test period.

Takeaways from experiment 1:

However counterintuitive it may seem, adding a privacy policy does not guarantee more sign-ups. In fact, it can seriously hurt conversions.

My hypothesis is that - although the messaging revolves around assuring prospects that they won’t be spammed – the word spam itself give rise to anxiety in the mind of the prospects. Therefore, the word should be avoided in close proximity to the form.

Privacy policy experiment 2:

In the second privacy policy test, I stayed clear of the word spam but stuck with the short and sweet 100% privacy from the first treatment:

100% privacy. We keep all your personal information secret

Test data: I ran this test for 12 days, and after 15675 visitors and 279 conversions, there really was no significant difference between the control variant and the treatment. The treatment started out performing better, but tanked as the sample size grew over the 12 day test period.

The treatment started out performing better, but tanked as the sample size grew over the 12-day test period.

Takeaways from experiment 2:

The treatment in experiment 2 performed way better than the treatment from experiment 1, but it still didn’t improve conversion.

It would seem that removing the word spam and focusing on the aspect of keeping information secret had a positive effect. Nevertheless, this is still a vague policy that doesn’t say a whole lot.

Privacy policy experiment 3:

Ok, so experiment 1 and 2 gave me some valuable insights and helped me develop an idea for yet another treatment. I was still pretty surprised by the results of the first two tests.

For the third treatment I decided to go for a more authoritative and solid policy with no “cuteness factor”. Moreover, I wanted this treatment to be much clearer than the two previous ones. With all this in mind, I came up with:

We guarantee 100% privacy. Your information will not be shared

Bingo – this treatment was a home run! It increased conversions significantly and gave us 19.47% more sign ups.

Test data: I ran the test for 12 days and reached a sample size of 20257 visitors and 380 conversions. The statistical confidence level was 96% and the standard error was 0%. From very early on in the test, the treatment outperformed the control variant.

The development of experiment 3 over the 12-day test period.

Takeaways from experiment 3: 

The most noticeable change in treatment 3 is the guarantee. In experiment 1 and 2, the policy only said, 100% privacy, whereas the policy in experiment 3 said, We guarantee 100% privacy.

Personally I find this wording much more credible. Moreover, the second part, Your information will not be shared, is way more clear and authoritative.

Credibility, clarity, and authority is really what you want in a privacy policy, and I believe that the combination of those three factors is what made this treatment perform so well.

Privacy policy experiment 4:

OK, so the first three experiments taught me a lot and helped me develop a few hypotheses – mainly that you need a guarantee on your privacy policy and that using the word spam can seriously backfire.

Now I was curious to see what would happen if I combined the “best” and “worst” from the previous experiments into one variant – which resulted in treatment 4:

We guarantee 100% privacy. We will never spam you!

Test data: I ran this test for 15 days and after 18959 visitors and 370 conversions, there was no significant difference between the control variant and the treatment policy. 

Takeaways from experiment 4:

Treatment 4 was a combination of the best performing variant, We guarantee 100% privacy, and the worst performing variant, We will never spam you.

As the test data revealed that there was no significant difference between the control and the treatment, it would seem that the “good” and the “bad” part parts cancelled each other out and therefore had no real impact on sign-ups.

The privacy policy you use on your signup form can have major impact on your sign-up rate. However, just sticking one on there doesn’t guarantee more conversions – in fact, if your not careful about choosing the right wording, you could seriously hurt your conversion rate.

But If you’re willing to put some time into researching what works on your specific form, a privacy policy can lead to a serious lift in conversions – talk a bout a major low-hanging fruit!

My research points to the fact that a credible, clear policy with a guarantee effectively assures prospects that it’s safe to fill out the form. Moreover, my data suggests that you should be careful with using the word spam – even if the intention is to guarantee against it – as it can backfire and create a higher level of anxiety.

The policy that did best in this series of tests was:

We guarantee 100% privacy. Your information will not be shared.

I’m currently testing it on my newsletter form here on ContentVerve.com, and at the moment the treatment with the policy is performing 6% better than the control – however, the data isn’t conclusive yet.

By the way – This wasn’t the first thing I tested on BettingExpert.com

I’ve done a bunch of other tests on BettingExpert.com. Among other things, I tested a few simple copy tweaks that resulted in an increase in sign-ups of of 31.54%.

Check out the full case study here >>

The post How Your Privacy Policy Affects Sign-Ups – Surprising Data From 4 Different A/B Tests appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

In order to help you out, I teamed up with SEO Extraordinaire, Henrik Bondtofte and put together this infographic with 10 tips for writing content that ranks in 2013.

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The post SEO Copywriting – 10 Tips for Writing Content that Ranks in 2013 (Infographic) appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

“How do I write web copy that converts?”

In this post I’ll give you 8 simple techniques that will help you get it right every time.

These techniques are based on what I’ve learned from 4 years of research and 300 copy-related A/B tests. 

1. Think of your web copy as a means to an end – but not an end in itself

If you want results, you need to start by setting goals. When your goals are set, you need to find out how to best achieve them.

I think we can all subscribe to the logic behind this statement. Well, the same logic applies to writing online copy that converts.

If you want to achieve results with your website copy, you need to start by defining the goal of the individual piece of copy. After that you need to find out how to write the best possible copy to achieve that specific goal.

If you’re writing copy for a sign-up form, you need to focus on the conversion goal of the form and the purpose of the copy: to get as many qualified leads as possible to fill out the form and sign up.

Therefore, it’s important that you can leave the ”artist” on the shelf for a while in favor of a more analytical/scientific approach that will help you focus on giving your potential customers what they need in order or make the right decision.

From an artistic or creative stance, the resulting copy may not be the most elaborate or inspired solution. But essentially that doesn’t matter – as long as the copy has the desired effect on the prospects.

Here’s an example from the real world

This is an example from a test I ran for one of my clients, Fitness World, a large Scandinavian chain of gyms. In this case I tested a headline variation on a PPC landing page that sells gym memberships.

I challenged the control headline, “You Work Out Smarter at Fitness World” (literal translation of the Danish original) with probably the most uncreative headline I’ve ever presented to a client, “Group Training & Fitness at Your Local Gym” (literal translation of the Danish original).

Most creative copywriters would probably laugh at my treatment and tell me to go back to marketing school. But the fact is that when we tested the two headlines against each other, my unimaginative treatment outperformed the control significantly and sold 38.46% more gym memberships.

My treatment clearly isn’t more creative, and that’s perfectly fine, because the goal wasn’t to write sexy, creative copy, the goal was to sell more gym memberships, and a 38.46% lift speaks for itself.

When I write web copy for conversion optimization purposes, I really try to remove my myself – and more importantly my ego – from the equation and aim for a scenario where the prospects don’t even realize that they are reading a piece of sales copy but rather just take it in as a natural part of their decision-making process.

I don’t get my satisfaction from people telling me that my copy sounds awesome - I get my satisfaction from seeing conversion rates go up… 

2. Focus on optimizing decisions – not web copy

In order to get more conversions, you need to get more potential customers to make the right decision and carry out a specific action on your website. Usually that action revolves around accepting an offer.

No matter what you want prospects to accept, the scenario is going to be more or less the same:

You offer your prospects something that represents a value to them. In order to get it, they have to give you something in return that represents a value to you.

This scenario will invariably start a process in the minds of your prospects where they have to assess and decide whether your offer is worth accepting. And there are really only two possible outcomes:

1. They can say, “Yes”

2. They can say, “No”

There will always be a number of factors that tip the decision towards “No”, and it is the value of your offer that has to tip the decision back towards “Yes”.

In order to get a conversion, the process has to end with your potential customers agreeing that what they will get in return is worth more than they have to part with.

The decision-making process takes place in the minds of your potential customers, and optimizing this process should be your primary focus. Essentially, the most effective way of optimizing this process is to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Here’s an example from the real world

I recently ran an A/B test on the newsletter sign-up form here on ContentVerve.com. The control featured a generic sign-up form that more or less just stated the obvious: that you can get fresh updates.

The treatment on the other hand promises a specific value in return by exemplifying what updates from ContentVerve.com consist of – thus answering the question, “What’s in it for me?”

3. Start by asking yourself, “Why”, “What”, and “How” – in that order…

It’s such a cliché that asking the right questions gets the right answers. But when it comes to writing web copy that converts, asking, “Why”, “What”, and “How” – in that order – is in fact a super effective way of getting it right.

I emphasize the order in which you ask these questions, because I see a lot of marketers jump to, “How” too soon. They go straight to asking questions like, “How can I make this copy better?” or “How do I write higher converting copy for this landing page?”

The problem is that if you ask, “How” questions too soon you can easily be misled and end up missing crucial steps and focusing on the wrong aspects. Again, the goal is not to write sexier copy – the goal is to get more conversions.

Why?

Asking, “Why” questions first forces you to take a few steps back and get specific about the essentials of your offer and the aspects you need to cover.

Start by asking yourself, “Why would my potential customers choose to say, “Yes” to my offer?”

Write down as many relevant answers to this question as possible and edit until you have a list of the top three to five reasons why your potential customers would say yes. This exercise will give you a clear idea of what you need to focus on when writing your copy.

Now ask yourself, “Why would my ideal prospects choose to say, “No” to my offer?”

Write down as many relevant answers to this question as possible and edit them into a list of the top three to five reasons that your potential customers would say, “No”.

This exercise will give you a clear idea of friction and anxiety issues you need to address in your copy in order to make prospects feel comfortable enough to say, “Yes”.

What?

Once you have answered all the why questions it’s time to move on to, “What”.

“What do my prospects need to know in order to say, “Yes”?”, “What should I focus on specifically to convey the value of my offer?”, “What should I focus on in order to overcome the main reasons my why prospects would say, “No”?”

This exercise will help you get you more specific about what you need to write in order to accelerate your potential customers’ decision-making process.

How?

The answers you came up with for the why and what questions will provide you with a solid basis for answering the big, “How” question:

“How do I write the best possible copy for this particular conversion scenario?”

4. Assume no one wants to do, what you want them to do

I spend a lot of time online reading web copy of all different kinds, but most of it falls into one of two categories:

1. Totally generic copy: BUY NOW, CLICK HERE, SIGN UP NOW!

2. Super salesy copy: Searching for the Ultimate XXX? Your Wait is Over!

In my experience, none of these approaches work well for conversion. The problem is that they do not convey any value and give no reasons why you should say, “Yes” – which is ultimately the goal of any piece of sales copy.

It seems as though such copy is based on the principle that prospects are dying to do whatever the marketer wants them to do. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is quite another.

People don’t lie awake at night all excited thinking of all the banners they are going to click the next day. And nobody gets up in the morning thinking, “I’m so excited – Today I’m going to sign up for at least two free newsletters!”

The trick is to assume that NO ONE wants to do what you tell them to do. That way you’ll force yourself to think long and hard about the value of the offer your conveying, and how you can present it the best way possible way to make even the most jaded and stubborn prospect go “Now that’s interesting!”

5. Use the word “Get” when drafting your web copy

One of the main things I’ve learned from all the testing I’ve done is that focusing on what your prospects are going to get out your offer is key to getting them to say, “Yes”

One dead simple technique for writing customer-centric copy is to use the word, get in your copywriting.

It’s not that, get has any persuasive super power. It’s just that get sends a clear signal that anything that comes after it revolves around something the reader can obtain. In other words, get implies that the question, “What’s in it for me” will be answered.

Here’s an example from the real world where simply changing the word, “Order” to, “Get” on a B2B site increased conversion by 14.79%

By the way, this isn’t a fluke test. I’ve tested in multiple times and in different languages. Here’s an example from a Danish sister website where exactly the same exercise resulted in a lift of 38.26%

Some of the headlines that have performed best in my tests have been, get headlines. But you don’t even have to use the word in your final copy. If you use it frequently while your writing drafts, you’ll automatically start focusing on what the prospects stand to gain by saying, “Yes”

6. Prioritize clarity over creativity

Web Copywriting is one of the most misunderstood areas of online optimization. One of the biggest misunderstandings is that you need to be a Don Draper-esque word wizard in order to write copy that sells.

My impression is that many marketers assume that the more creative or sexy messaging will by default be the best solution. But to be honest, I have never seen a split test where that assumption actually held water. And I have yet to see a creative message beat a clear, concrete value proposition in an A/B test.

Here’s an example from the real world:

I recently performed a headline experiment on a landing page for one of my clients – the Scandinavian gym chain I showed a case study from earlier in the article. The landing page was targeted at getting visitors from a January campaign to sign up for a gym membership.

The literal translation of the control headline is, “It’s Smart to Work Out at A Place with 100 Gyms” And the literal translation of my treatment headline is, “Keep Your New Year’s Resolution Easily and at Low Cost”

The sub-header was the same in both versions, and the literal translation is, “Workout throughout January for 100,-” (price stated in Danish Kroner).

The treatment outperformed the control variant by 26% (statistical confidence 100%, sample size 7868 visitors).

From a creative stance, my treatment sucks! It’s super boring and lame compared to the much more sexy control variant. Nevertheless, the test data speaks for itself, and the “boring” version performed significantly better than the “sexy” control variant. But why?

The control sounds good but it’s difficult to understand. I have to do a lot of thinking to translate the messaging into a benefit. “Why is it smart to work out at a place with 100 gyms? Oh yeah, it’s probably because I have a wide variety of gyms to choose from.”

The treatment on the other hand is both clear and relevant, and I don’t have to do a lot of thinking to understand the value. “It’s January, I feel fat, I made this New Year’s resolution to get fit, I really want to keep it, what should I do? Oh yeah let me take advantage of this January discount and get cracking on my New Year’s resolution!”

I’m not saying that you should never use creative copy – I’m saying you shouldn’t do it by default. As the case study above illustrates, being creative just for the sake of being creative can seriously hurt conversion.

7. Write clear and relevant copy – Don’t waste your prospects’ time

Your potential customers will often go through the entire decision-making process in a few seconds, and lack of clarity and relevance is a major conversion killer.

The more time your potential customers have to spend in order to figure out what your offer is all about, the more likely they are to leave your website and move on to one of your competitors. The more clearly you express the value of your offer and why it’s relevant to your prospects, the more likely they’ll be to choose it.

So don’t waste their time with hype, fluff, and over-creative marketese. Tell them clearly how they will benefit from accepting your offer, and give them a good reason to say, “Yes!”

Here’s an example from the real world

In this example, adding clarity and relevance generated a 99.4% lift in conversions on a PPC landing page for Denmark-based Saxo Bank. The landing page pitched a trial account for a Forex trading platform, and the conversion goal was to increase the number of trial account sign-ups.

If you compare the two versions, you’ll see the treatment is super focused on conveying the value of the offer, while the control is much more vague. Where the control asks the question “Why trade Forex with Forextrading.com?”, the treatment actually answers that question by giving prospects relevant information and solid, credible arguments why they should sign up for the trial.

What is more, the control copy didn’t follow up on the value promised in the PPC ads that actually did a great job of emphasizing the selling points and value of the Forex Trading demo: free, no risk, no obligations, $100,000 demo account.

In the treatment, I made sure to follow up on all the selling points, benefits and features mentioned in the PPC ads.

8. Answer your potential customers’ top questions

Although many marketers fail to realize it, answering questions is an essential part of marketing and sales. Your potential customers will always have a number of questions that you need to answer in order to make them feel comfortable enough to accept your offer.

Essentially, when they have asked enough questions and gotten enough relevant answers they be ready to buy. Any person who has experience selling face-to-face in the brick-and-mortar world will back this up. Well, selling online isn’t different – you need to provide your prospects with exactly as many answers via your web copy as you would verbally in a physical sales situation.

Common questions – that you probably recognize from your own buying behavior – include, “What does it cost?”, “Will it work?”, “Can I trust this website?”, “Does the product fit my needs?”

The questions your prospects are asking will of course vary depending on the product you are selling. So you need to find out precisely what these questions are, and there are a number of ways of doing that.

If you have regular contact with current and potential customers, simply listen to what they say and make a note of the questions they ask. If they’re asking about prices as the first thing, you probably need to provide price information on your website or landing pages.

If you don’t have direct contact with clients, approach customer support or sales. You’ll be amazed how much valuable information that can be retrieved by talking to the people who spend most of their days on the phone with clients and prospects.

Dig in your analytics data and find out what your visitors are using Site Search for. If they are using site search to find answers, it’s probably because you aren’t good enough at presenting that information up front.

A few useful resources:

When it comes to interviewing customers and getting them you give up priceless insights, Kristin Zhivago is the master. I did a podcast with here a while back where she goes though some of her unique techniques – Get Kristin’s tips here >>

Another marketer who has tremendous success answering questions from potential customers is Marcus Sheridan of TheSalesLion.com.

In this video interview I did with Marcus in 2011, he explains all about his technique. If you don’t know Marcus already, do yourself a favor ad watch the  video – this dude is on fire!

Bonus tip – Test, test, test your copy! 

Life would be easier if the one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach worked – so much easier! However, in my experience there is no such thing as a global solution that works every time.

All products, offers, websites, and companies are different, just like the motivations of your potential customers will be different. You need to find out what works on your specific target audience – and the only way to do this is through rigorous research and testing.

Even on your own website slight copy variations can have major impact on conversion. And sometimes the results can be counterintuitive – to say the least.

Here’s an example where I thought I could increase conversion by adding a privacy policy to the sign-up form on a betting site. However when I tested it, it turned out that the privacy policy had a direct negative effect and decreased conversion by 18.70%! 

This case study is a perfect example of the importance of testing whether your optimization efforts are in fact optimizing the performance of your website.

The post How to Write Web Copy that Converts – 8 Simple Techniques Based on 4 Years of Research appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

Here are 10 examples from A/B tests I’ve conducted, where I’ve experimented with everything from copy and button design over to the placement of the button.

1. 90% increase in conversion by changing one word in the button copy

Oli from Unbounce.com and I recently ran a split test on a PPC landing page that pitches a free 30-day trial of the Unbounce.com landing page platform.

The only thing we did was to tweak one word in the copy – we changed the possessive determiner “You” to “My”. After running the test for three weeks, the treatment button copy, “Start my free 30 day trial” had increased the number of trial sign-ups by…. hold on now…. 90%.

The biggest change on the page doesn’t necessarily result in the biggest lift.

Conversion rate optimization really isn’t about optimizing web pages – it’s about optimizing decisions – and the page itself is a means to an end but not an end in itself.

Mission critical elements like call-to-action buttons represent a small change on the page, however, they have major impact on the decisions of your prospects.

So, when you approach a CRO project, try not to think of how to optimize the page itself – instead focus on the goal of the page and how to accelerate the decision-making process of the potential customers.

Bonus case study:

One might be inclined to label the above-mentioned test a fluke, because it seems so out of proportion that one word could have such a dramatic effect. But I’ve performed the same test on several other sites and consistently seen dramatic lifts by simply changing the possessive determiner “Your” to “My” in the CTA copy.

Here’s an example of how changing the possessive determiner from, “My” to, “Your” decreased conversion by 24.91% on a forum payment page.

2. 35.81% increase in conversion by changing button color on product landing pages

I’ve anonymized the client here, but we’re talking about a major European e-commerce site that sells hand-painted porcelain.

In this case, we were able to increase sales via product pages (not just CTR) by 35.81% by changing the color of the call-to-action button.

The color of your CTA button has major impact on your potential customers’ decisions – and thereby also your conversion rate.

Think of the button design/color as a visual cue that helps your prospects hone in on the button. In other words it answers the question, “Where should I click?”

The trick is to make your button stand out from the rest of the page in such a way that it’s easy to spot and identify as a clickable button.

Unfortunately, there are no set rules for which colors work, and rules like, “Never use red – it’s a stop color” or, “Green is always best – it’s a positive color” are plain stupid. I’ve seen plenty of tests were red buttons have performed well, and if you have a mostly green website, a green button is most likely going to be very difficult to spot.

It’s all about finding out what works on your specific website, and the only way of doing that is through rigorous testing.

3. 14.79% increase in conversion by adding value to the CTA copy

This is a test I recently conducted on MatchOffice.com – an international commercial real estate portal through which businesses can find offices for rent.

Once a prospect finds a relevant office, they have to click to the main CTA in order to get more information on the office via e-mail. This means that clicking the CTA is the main conversion goal, and every extra click potentially means money in the bank.

By changing the the button copy from, “Order Information and Prices” to, “Get information and Prices” we increased conversions by 14.79%.

The copy you use in your buttons has major impact on your prospects’ decisions. Button color and design are important visual cues that tell the prospect where to click. But in the last critical moment, the copy itself is what impacts the prospect’s final decision. In other words your CTA copy answers the question, “Why should I click this button?”

The more value you can convey via your button copy, the more conversions you’ll get. The word “Order” emphasizes what you have to do – instead of what you’re going to get. Whereas, “Get” conveys value as it emphasizes what you’re going to get – rather than what you have to do to get it.

CTAs that begin with “Buy”, “Order”, “Click”, “Sign-up”, etc. inherently focus on what you have to part with. Coming up with alternatives that start with, “Get” helps you focus on answering the prospects’ number one question, “What’s in it for me?”

Bonus case study:

Just in case you think this test is a fluke, here’s an example from a Danish sister website where exactly the same exercise resulted in a lift of 38.26%. Yes, this technique also works in other languages than English.

4. 213.16% increase in conversion by making the copy more relevant

The client here is Fitness World, a major chain of gyms in Scandinavia. The example here is taken from a PPC landing page, where the goal is to get potential customers to click through to the payment page where they can select a gym and sign up for a membership.

In this case changing the CTA copy from, “Get Membership” to, “Find Your Gym & Get Membership” increased click through to the payment page by 213.16%.

This is the litteral translation of the Danish CTA copy.

The control version is already pretty good because it conveys value and focuses on what you’re going to get – not what you have to do to get it. Nevertheless, it is very generic, “Get membership” could pretty much apply to any situation that has something to do with a membership.

I did a little research and found out that the location is a very important factor, when deciding on a membership. So, in this case I could make the call-to-action more relevant to the specific conversion scenario and increase conversions by adding “Find gym” (Step 1 in the checkout flow features a complete list of gym locations).

5. 18.01% decrease in conversion by tweaking the font color

This is an example from a test I ran on the home page of a Danish portal through which you can buy and sell used cell phones.

Here I hypothesized that I could make the button stand out more and increase CTR by changing the font color in a green button from black to yellow. What a backfire! Changing the font color actually decreased click through by 18.01%.

This simple case study illustrates that even minor tweaks to your button design can directly impact conversion. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of testing whether your optimization efforts are in fact optimizing the performance of your website.

6. 31.03% increase in conversion on a payment page by tweaking the button copy

Here’s an example from a test I ran on the payment page for WriteWork.com – a subscription-based education website for college and university students.

In this case tweaking the button copy and adding the benefit, “Get started”, increased conversion by 31.03%. This is the very last step in the conversion funnel, and every single conversion means money in the bank.

Adding a clear benefit to the call-to-action increases both the value and relevance conveyed by the copy.

Customer analyses of WriteWork’s target audience have shown that potential customers most often signup to WriteWork.com when they are in a hurry to get started with their writing process. And previous tests I’ve conducted on WriteWork.com have confirmed that adding a bit of urgency to the CTAs increase CTR on this particular website.

Therefor the, “Get started” part represents a tangible benefit to the potential customers (note that urgency doesn’t automatically have a positive impact).

7. 10.56% decrease in conversion by making the button bigger

Here’s another example from WriteWork.com. This is actually a follow-up experiment I conducted on the payment page right after the above-mentioned copy test.

The keen observer would have noticed that t adding the extra copy also increased the size of the button. So one might rightly hypothesize that the increase in size also had an effect on conversions going up.

In order to find out what effect the button size had, I ran a follow-up experiment with Treatment B where I increased button size but used the control copy in both variants.

I was quite surprised to find that Treatment B actually had a negative effect on conversions and reduced sales by 10.56%.

When it comes to button size, bigger isn’t automatically better…

8. 17.18% increase in conversion by adding a text link CTA to product overview pages

This example is taken from a Danish e-commerce site that sells car care products. The site features bundles consisting of a variety of different products.

The product overview pages showing the bundle packages only feature an, “Add To Basket” button. This means that potential customers are being asked to add to product to the basket before they really know what the offer consists of. 

Here adding a text link CTA with the copy, “View Bundle” increased conversion to sales by 17.18%.

Ask for the right action at the right time. It’s natural that prospects need to have a look at what the offer consists of, before they are ready to make the decision to add it to the basket.

Many website feature super aggressive, “BUY NOW OR DIE” CTA copy by default. In most cases however, it makes sense to find out where in the decision-making process the prospect and ask for an action that’s timely rather than pushy.

9. 12.29% decrease in conversion by removing a design detail

Here’s an example from a test I recently ran on a B2B website in order to isolate the effect of a green arrow on an orange button (as well as to end a heated discussion with a very emotion-driven designer).

In this case removing the green arrow detail from the orange button decreased conversion by 12.29%.

Small design details like a green arrow can help make your button stand out and draw your prospects’ attention to it thus increasing conversion.

10. How a variant with the CTA below the fold generated a conversion lift of 304%

So we all know the golden rule that your call-to-action should always be positioned above the fold. Well, let’s bust that myth right away with this example from a test I ran on a B2C landing page.

In this case, the a variant with the CTA placed way below the fold at the bottom of a very long landing page significantly outperformed a variant with the CTA at the top of the page above the fold. The increase was 304%.

There are several other things going on in the treatment. So the whole lift can’t be ascribed entirely to moving the CTA below the fold. However, the fact remains that the treatment with the CTA way below the fold outperformed the control variant – something that simply shouldn’t be possible if you subscribe to the best practice rule that the CTA should ALWAYS be above the fold in order to convert.

Above the fold is necessarily the best position for your call-to-action. You should place your CTA where it best compliments the decision-making process of your prospects.

I’ve seen many cases where the CTA has performed well above the fold, just like I’ve seen cases similar to this one, where having the CTA below the fold has gotten the best results. My general observation, from a wide range of landing page tests, is that there is a correlation between the complexity of the product/offer and the optimal placement of the CTA.

If the product/offer is complex, and the prospect has to digest a lot of information in order to make an informed decision, positioning the CTA lower on the page generally works best.

Vice versa, if the product/offer is very simple, and the prospect hardly has to do any thinking in order to make an informed decision, positioning the CTA above the fold generally works best.

The post 10 Call-to-Action Case Studies w/ Takeaways & Examples from Real Button Tests appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

In this podcast Peep Laja of Conversionxl.com points out 10 mission critical elements on your e-commerce site and tells you how and why you should optimize them – right now!

Get Peep’s insights on:

• The role your unique value proposition plays on your e-commerce site
• Product images and videos – how should you use them?
• How to create a great checkout experience
• How to feature sales and special offers
• Pricing, free shipping, extra warranty, and many, many other challenging issues

Download from iTunes here >>

How to Build Websites that Sell – The Scientific Approach to Websites

When it comes to e-commerce optimization and CRO in general, few have more hands-on experience than Peep Laja. Check out his new book and get the full scoop on how to build websites that sell.

The post 10 Mission Critical Elements to Optimize on Your E-commerce Site – Right Now! Podcast w/ Peep Laja of Conversionxl.com appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

4 years of research and over 250 split A/B tests have taught me a lot about website copywriting.

In this article I’ll walk you through the four most common sources of friction related to website copy, and give you concrete tips for how to overcome them.

But first – What is friction?

The best definition of friction I’ve come across is the one MarketingExperiments offers. In their methodology, friction is defined as a psychological resistance to a given element in the sales or sign-up process. (Source MarketingExperiments.com)

Friction has a negative impact on the decision-making process of your prospects and will tip the decision towards, “No” The less friction the prospect encounters, the more likely he or she will be to accept your offer. So the more you can reduce friction, the more you’ll be able to tip the decision back towards, “Yes”.

In relation to website copy, the four most common sources of friction are:

1. The wrong amount of information – too much or too little information

2. Asking too much too soon

3. Lack of clarity and relevance

4. The visual presentation of your website copy

Let’s go over each of these four sources in greater detail and look at how to overcome them.

1. The wrong amount of information – too much or too little information

Online, we often associate this source of friction with too much copy or information. However, in many cases it’s actually lack of information that gives rise to friction.

Keeping your web copy super tight and to the point is essential, but remember the point is to give your potential customers a good reason to accept what you are offering them – and sometimes that takes quite a lot of information.

In all likelihood you’ve been in situations where your decision was tippet from, “Yes” to, “No” at the last moment, simply because the website didn’t present you with the information you needed in order to make your final buying decision.

On the other hand, you’ve probably also been in situations where the amount of content was so overwhelming that you simply couldn’t wrap your head around it and decided to leave instead.

The truth is that there really is no one-size-fits-all solution that works every time. It depends on what you’re offering, and what you want your potential customer to do.

In my experience short-form copy works well with:

Low-scrutiny offers with little commitment and perceived risk related to the conversion goal.

And long-form copy works well with:

High-scrutiny offers with a higher level of commitment and perceived risk related to the conversion goal.

Let me show you a few examples from real split tests

Here’s an example from a case study where a short page outperformed a longer variant:

This is a PPC landing page I did for a Scandinavian gym chain, and the goal is to get potential customers to buy a gym membership.

The gym chain is well known, and the offer is simple and inexpensive. So there’s a low level of commitment and perceived risk involved, and the shorter landing page got most conversions.

Here’s an example from a case study where a long landing page outperformed a shorter variant:

We’re looking at a PPC landing page of which the goal is to get potential customers to sign up for a home energy audit.

The company is not that known, and it’s a complex offer that could result in a large investment in insulation. So there’s a high level of commitment and perceived risk involved, and the longer page with more information got most conversions.

You don’t necessarily have to add twice as much copy in order to give your prospects enough information to make the right decision. In some cases, just adding a few more lines of copy is enough.

I recently ran an A/B test where I tested two different versions of my newsletter sign-up box. One version featured generic sign-up here copy. The other version featured three bullet points summarizing what updates from ConteVerve.com consist of, and what you can expect to receive in your inbox.

The variant with more information got 83.75% more sign-ups.

The correlation between scrutiny and copy length/amount of information

In my experience, the amount of copy/information needed to get the conversion is proportional to the level of scrutiny related to performing the conversion action. In other words: The higher the scrutiny level – the more information is needed to get the conversion, and the longer the copy should be.

My sign-up box is a good example. Since ContentVerve.com is rather unknown, there is a higher level of scrutiny involved with making the decision to sign up for content updates. Other more well established blogs might not see a significant difference in sign-ups if they tested two such variants – simply because people trust them more and therefore don’t have to apply the same level of scrutiny in making the decision.

How to overcome friction related to amount of copy/information:

Review your landing page/website copy and ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. “What do my potential customers need to know in order to accept my offer?

2. “Is there any important information I’ve left out?”

3. “Are there any anxiety issues that I need to address?”

The answers to these questions will help you find out whether your website content is aligned with the decision-making process of your prospects. If you have a lot of information, you might want to consider whether there is anything you can leave out. Vice versa – if you have a very little information, consider if there is anything you can leave out.

2. Asking too much too soon

Image source: Unbounce.com

Essentially, marketing and sales are about making it as easy and attractive as possible for your potential customers to accept your offer. However, as marketers and sales people we have a tendency to focus on that which is important to us right now – usually that’s getting more sales.

Unfortunately this also means that we have a tendency to overlook what’s important to the potential customers, and what they need to know in order to make a positive buying decision.

If you get too pushy and ask potential customers to accept your offer before they are ready for it, there is an imminent danger that they’ll bail on your offer completely.

I bet you’ve been in situations where you felt pressured to make a decision to “BUY NOW”, “SIGN UP” or “DOWNLOAD” before you even really understood what the offer was all about and how you would to benefit from accepting it.

I think this overeager sales approach partly has to do with the above-the-fold myth. So let’s bust that one right away.

Here’s an example from the real world

In this case study, a landing page treatment with the CTA placed way under the fold outperformed the control version (CTA above the fold) by 304%.

We’re looking at a PPC landing page that pitches a relatively expensive subscription service where busy families can get recipes and ingredients delivered to their doorstep 3-5 times a week. This is a fairly complex offer, and it turned out that the version that waited until the very bottom of the page to ask for the conversion got 3 times as many signups as the one that asked for the conversion straight away.

Read the full case study here >>

This is an example of a medium scrutiny product involving a relatively high level of commitment where the prospects need a fair amount of information in order to make a positive buying decision. In this case, I could reduce friction by placing the CTA lower on the page – in other words by waiting a little bit longer before asking for the conversion.

I know that this example is not strictly copy-related, but the point can be directly applied to copywriting.

Please note that I’m by no means saying that you should always place your CTA at the bottom of the page – on the contrary, I’m suggesting that you should place the CTA where it best matches the decision-making process of your prospects. 

So when should I ask for the conversion?

Just like I have observed a correlation between scrutiny level and copy length, I’ve observed a correlation between the level of commitment and how long you should wait before asking for the conversion.

If you’re dealing with a high scrutiny offer involving a high level of commitment where the prospect has to digest a lot of information in order to make an informed decision, I recommend waiting a little longer with asking for the conversion (or maybe even consider breaking the final conversion into smaller steps that involve less commitment).

Vice versa, if you’re dealing with an offer that involves little or no commitment, and the prospect hardly has to do any thinking in order to make an informed decision, I recommend asking for the conversion much sooner.

Asking too much too soon doesn’t just have to do with the primary conversion goal. I often get overwhelmed by emails that pitch a hard sale right off the bat in the subject line and hit me with a complete landing page when I open the email.

The same goes for landing pages that are packed with competing elements: newsletter signup, social sharing buttons, log in, related products, generic phone support lady, ads, etc.

In such cases I really wish that marketers would ask themselves, “What is my goal with this page? Do all these elements really support the conversion goal? Might there be a better place and time to ask all these things, e.g. after main conversion on the confirmation page where we know for a fact that people are interested?”

How to overcome friction related to asking too much too soon:

Review your landing page/website and ask yourself these 4 questions:

1. “Have I given my potential customers a good reason to say “Yes” before I ask them for the conversion?”

2. “Have I given my potential customers grounds to trust me before I ask for the conversion?”

3. “If I were my own ideal customer, would I be ready to say yes at this point?”

4. “Is this really the right place to ask for this particular conversion action?”

If your answer is, “No” or “Well kind of…” you probably need to rethink the steps in your conversion funnel and consider whether your calls-to-action are placed on the right steps in the path to conversion.

3. Lack of clarity and relevance

Your potential customers will often go through the entire decision-making process in a few seconds, and lack of clarity and relevance is a major conversion killer.

The more time your potential customers have to spend in order to figure out what your offer is all about, the more likely they are to leave your website and move on to one of your competitors. The more clearly you express the value of your offer and why it’s relevant to your prospects, the more likely they’ll be to choose it.

So don’t waste their time with hype, fluff, and over-creative messaging. Tell them clearly how they will benefit from accepting your offer, and give them a good reason to say “Yes!”

Here’s an example from the real world

I recently performed a headline experiment on a landing page for one of my clients – the Scandinavian gym chain I showed a case study from earlier in the article. The landing page was targeted at getting visitors from a January campaign to sign up for a gym membership.

The control headline was created by an advertising agency. The literal translation is:

 It’s Smart to Work Out at A Place with 100 Gyms

I created the treatment headline, and the literal translation is:

Keep Your New Year’s Resolution Easily and at Low Cost

The sub-header was the same in both versions, and the literal translation is:

Workout throughout January for 100,- (The price stated is in Danish Kroner).

The treatment outperformed the control variant by 26% (statistical confidence 100%, sample size 7868 visitors).

From a creative stance, my treatment sucks! It’s super boring and lame compared to the much more sexy control variant. Nevertheless, the test data speaks for itself, and the “boring” version performed significantly better than the “sexy” control variant. But why?

The control sounds good but it’s difficult to understand. I have to do a lot of thinking to translate the messaging into a benefit. “Why is it smart to work out at a place with 100 gyms? Oh yeah, it’s probably because I have a wide variety of gyms to choose from.”

The treatment on the other hand is both clear and relevant, and I don’t have to do a lot of thinking to understand the value. “It’s January, I feel fat, I made this New Year’s resolution to get fit, I really want to keep it, what should I do? Oh yeah let me take advantage of this January discount and get cracking on my New Year’s resolution!”

When I work with copywriting and conversion rate optimization, 99% of my time is spent reducing friction by making the messaging more clear and relevant.

My impression is that marketers assume that the more creative of sexy messaging will by default be the best solution. But I to be honest, I have never seen a split test where that assumption actually held water. All my research indicates that it’s better to be clear than creative if you want to convert prospects into customers.

How to overcome friction related to lack of clarity and relevance 

Review your landing page/website and ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. “How will my prospects benefit from what I’m offering them?”

2. “Have I given my prospects a good reason to accept my offer?”

3. “Have I summarized the strongest selling point/points in the title?”

Your prospects are busy, and they are not going to spend several minutes trying to figure out what your offer will do for them. Tell them right off what’s in it for them. Take the time to write all the features and benefits down and make a prioritized list based on what you know about your target audience. Then select key points to emphasize and form a solid, credible value proposition.

Read your copy and make sure that you’ve covered the most important selling points, features and benefits. If there’s anything critical you’ve left out – you know what you need to do!

Your headline is the most prominent part of your landing page. Moreover, it’s the one part of your copy you can be 99.9% sure your prospects will read. You can’t afford to lose any qualified leads at this point, so don’t try to be quirky, funny, or cute. Choose the safe way and tell your potential customers what they’ll get out of accepting your offer. That way, there’ll be no doubt in their minds that it’s worth the effort to invest time in reading the rest of your sales copy.

4. The visual presentation of your website copy

Your website copy will only have an effect, if your prospects actually read it. Design and copy go hand in hand, and the visual presentation has a huge impact on your copy and to which extent it will be read.

To illustrate this point, I’d like to show you a very simple example from a case study where we generated a lift of 9.02% in click through rate by simply adding a little more white space between subheads and paragraphs:

I’ve performed similar experiments on many other similar pages and websites, and I’ve consistently been able to reduce friction and increase conversions by dramatically doing so.

A classic mistake is too use a tiny font size:

Another classic mistake is to squeeze very long lines of tiny text into tightly packed paragraphs: 

Such a visual presentation doesn’t exactly increase readability – in fact I’d go as far as to say that it has a directly demotivating effect. Nevertheless, I often see websites where the copy is presented in this way.

I think it has to do with the fact that people are afraid of having too much copy on their pages. In an attempt to make the amount of copy seem smaller they reduce the font size and squeeze in as much copy as possible into as small an area as possible.

Needless to say, this strategy will backfire more often than not.

How to overcome friction related to the visual presentation of your website copy

Making your website copy easier to read is really all about formatting, and the changes you need to make are pretty logical. Here are a few tips for how to format your website copy to increase readability:

Font and size

Most importantly, use a font size that makes it easy to read the body copy – without squinting. For body copy I never go lower than 12 px.

I like to use simple fonts that are easy to read like Arial, Helvetica, and Lucida Sans. They may be boring but they are really great for readability and they work.

Fonts are one of the areas that can lead to heated discussions between emotion-driven designers and data-driven optimizers. Of course there has to be a balance, but I really don’t see the point in beautiful design just for the sake of beautiful design – In my world beautiful design only represents value if it supports your conversion goals. But hey – that’s subject matter another ling and heated discussion!

White space and paragraphs

I like to use a lot of white space in my website copy. As a rule of thumb I try to avoid paragraphs over 5 lines of copy. Moreover, I like to mix it up so one paragraph might consist of 3 lines, the next 4 lines, the next 2 lines, etc.

Bullet points

Mentioning bullet points may seem like a cliché – but they are great for making your copy scannable and easy to read. But more importantly, they are perfect for emphasizing the most powerful selling points and benefits and serving them in clear-cut, snack-size portions.

However, bullet points aren’t automatically awesome, and you can’t just hack your copy into bits and arrange them in a bulleted list. Think of your bullet points as small headlines, and give them the time and effort they deserve.

The goal is to optimize the decision-making process of your potential customers. So do your homework, find out what’s most important for them to know about the offer, and focus on giving them the information they need.

Short bullets are good because they are easy to scan. But remember, it’s all about communicating the value of the offer as specifically as possible. In some cases this means writing bullets that are 3 or 4 lines long.

The point is that it’s better to write long bullets that communicate a specific value to you prospects than it is to write short bullets that convey no value. You can experiment with different formats, but the length is generally determined by the complexity of the points you want to emphasize.

ONE LAST THING!

I’ve given you a number of insights and tips from my own experience working hands on with website copywriting and CRO. By following these principles you will in all likelihood be able to reduce a significant amount of friction on your website and increase your conversion rate.

However, in my experience there is no such thing as a global solution that works every time. You need to find out what works on your website and your specific target audience – and the only way to do this is through rigorous testing.

The post Website Copywriting – 4 Common Sources of Friction and How to Overcome Them appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

Here are the 5 main lessons I’ve learned from this extensive research.

Lesson 1. Your copy has direct and measurable impact on conversions

98% of the copy tests I conducted had a direct, measurable impact on conversions. The impact wasn’t always positive (far from it, I’ve often made copy changes that hurt conversions), but the fact remains that almost every test affected the decisions and actions of the prospects – regardless of whether the action revolved around a sign-up, download, purchase or even just a click through to another page.

Let’s start out with a few examples from the real world

I’m going to walk you through 2 different case studies – both consisting of 2 individual tests – where the initial test generated an impressive lift, and the follow-up experiment did the opposite and generated a significant drop in conversions.

Case study 1 – Test 1:

The first case study revolves around the sign-up form on a betting community. At first glance, the original form copy  is pretty decent and does an okay job of clarifying the purpose of the form. The header says, “Join BettingExpert”, and the button copy says, “Sign Up+”

However, the form copy doesn’t convey any value whatsoever and does nothing to answer the question, “Why should I fill out this form and give you my email?”

When I created the treatment, I focused on increasing the relevance and value communicated by the header and button copy. In other words – I focused on answering the question, “Why should I fill out this form?”

The main – and most tangible – benefit of becoming a member of BettingExpert.com is that you can get free betting tips from top tipsters on a daily basis.

Based on experience from similar tests, I hypothesized that I could accelerate the decision-making process of the prospects and increase signups by focusing the form copy on the main benefit.

In my treatment the header says, “Get FREE Betting Tips” and the button copy says, “Sign Up & Get the Best Daily Tips” In order to find out whether my hypothesis would hold water and increase conversions, I set up a simple A/B test with the Control Variant (A) and my Treatment (B). The Treatment increased signups by 31.54%. Read the full case study here >>

Case Study 1 – Test 2: 

Being the test fanatic that I am, I went ahead and did some more tests on the form copy. For the second experiment I decided to try a different benefit/value prop – the fact that BettingExpert.com helps you make better bets.

The treatment copy, ”Join BettingExpert & Make Better Bets – Sign Up & Start Making Better Bets”, reduced sign-ups by 12.45%.

So even though both experiments revolve around the same element and are based on the same hypothesis, the changes impacted conversions in very different ways – at both ends of the scale one might say.

Case study 2 – Test 1: 

The second case study revolves around the button copy on the payment page of a popular B2C website for students.

The control CTA copy, “Create My Account” is relevant, as it addresses the conversion scenario at hand and describes what will happen when you click the button. It conveys a certain level of value. As opposed to, “SUBMIT” or “Buy Subscription”, it emphasizes the positive aspect that you’re going to create an account, which has an implied value to the potential customer.

Nevertheless, I saw room for improvement and hypothesized that a few copy tweaks would lead to a lift in sales.

I knew from customer analyses and other tests I’ve conducted on the website that prospects most often sign up to WriteWork.com when they are in a hurry to get started on their writing process. Therefore, my test hypothesis was that adding urgency and a sense of immediate satisfaction to the button copy would give prospects the last “nudge in the right direction” and increase sign-ups.

In order to find out whether my hypothesis would stick, I set up a simple A/B test with the Control Variant (A) and my Treatment (B). The Treatment increased payments by 31.03%. Read the full case study here >>

Case study 2 – Test 2:

As a follow-up experiment, I decided to test the impact of different possessive determiners. So I set up an A/B test with the control “Create My Account” and the treatment “Create Your Account”. Based on previous experiments, I hypothesized that “Your” would convert better than “My”.

I expected to see a minor increase and was taken aback when the test clearly showed that the treatment copy hurt conversions and reduced the number of payments by 24%. Again the point is to illustrate how simple copy  changes to the same element can affect conversions in wildly different reactions from the prospects.

These case studies are perfect examples of how much of an impact copy has on conversions, and how little it sometimes takes to affect prospects actions significantly. In this light, it’s sad how little time and money most companies invest in testing and optimizing website copy (for other purposes than SEO).

For some reason it’s more legit to spend big budgets on design, ads, and campaigns than on the most essential part of online marketing – the copy itself.

Lesson 2. Your web copy is a means to an end – not an end in itself

If you want results, you need to start by setting goals. When your goals are set, you need to find out how to best achieve them.

I think we can all subscribe to the logic behind this statement. Well, the same logic applies to writing online copy that converts.

If you want to achieve results with your website copy, you need to start by defining the goal of the individual piece of copy. After that you need to find out how to write the best possible copy to achieve that specific goal.

If you’re writing copy for a sign-up form, you need to focus on the conversion goal of the form and the purpose of the copy: to get as many qualified leads as possible to fill out the form and sign up.

Therefore, it’s important that you can leave the ”artist” on the shelf for a while in favor of a more analytical/scientific approach that will help you focus on giving your potential customers what they need in order or make the right decision.

From an artistic or creative stance, the resulting copy may not be the most elaborate or inspired solution. But essentially that doesn’t matter – as long as the copy has the desired effect on the prospects.

In the example I showed you earlier in this article, the treatment form copy wasn’t more creative or inspired – in fact, I think some would even call it lame. But again the goal wasn’t to write sexy copy, the goal was to get more sign-ups, and a 31.54% lift speaks for itself.

I’m in no way saying that you should never write creative or sexy copy, I’m saying you should do it for a reason and if it is the solution that best supports the conversion goal.

The goal is conversions not creative awards

If your web copy becomes the goal in itself, you’re very likely to end up writing something that sounds sexy and works well linguistically, but doesn’t have any effect on your potential customers. Writing such copy might get you nominated for a creative award – but it won’t get you more conversions.

As a copywriter it can be very tempting to show off your superior linguistic skills and creative super powers. However, I have come to accept the fact that I get the best results when I think of copy as a means of achieving my conversion goals.

When I write online copy for conversion optimization purposes, I really try to remove myself – and more importantly my ego – from the equation and aim for a scenario where the prospects don’t even realize that they are reading a piece of sales copy but rather just take it in as a natural part of their decision-making process. I don’t get my satisfaction from people telling me that my copy sounds awesome - I get my satisfaction from seeing conversion rates go up… 

Lesson 3: It’s all about optimizing decision-making processes – not web pages

Essentially, the purpose of online marketing is to make it as easy and attractive as possible for your potential customers to accept what you are offering them. And no matter what you want them to accept, the scenario is going to be more or less the same:

You offer your prospects something that represents a value to them. In order to get it, they have to give you something in return that represents a value to you.

This scenario will invariably start a process in the minds of your prospects where they have to assess and decide whether your offer is worth accepting. And there are really only two possible outcomes:

1. They can say, “Yes”

2. They can say, “No”

There will always be a number of factors that tip the decision towards “No”, and it is the value of your offer that has to tip the decision back towards “Yes”.

In order to get a conversion, the process has to end with your potential customers agreeing that what they will get in return is worth more than they have to part with. The decision-making process takes place in the minds of your potential customers, and optimizing this process should be your primary focus.

Essentially, the most effective way of optimizing this process is to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

Here’s an example from the real world 

I recently ran an A/B test on the newsletter sign-up form here on ContentVerve.com. The control featured a generic sign-up form that more or less just stated the obvious: that you can get fresh updates.

The treatment on the other hand promises a specific value in return by exemplifying what updates from ContentVerve.com consist of – thus answering the question, “What’s in it for me?”

I’m sure that on more popular and well-known blogs simply putting a sign-up form on the page is enough to get tons of sign-ups. But ContentVerve.com is still new and not particularly well-known. Therefore clarifying what you get in return for giving me your e-mail is an essential step in the conversion funnel.

Lesson 4: Clarity and relevance are king

Your potential customers will often go through the entire decision-making process in a few seconds, and lack of clarity and relevance is a major conversion killer.

The more time your potential customers have to spend in order to figure out what your offer is all about, the more likely they are to leave your website and move on to one of your competitors. The more clearly you express the value of your offer and why it’s relevant to your prospects, the more likely they’ll be to choose it.

So don’t waste their time with hype, fluff, and over-creative marketese. Tell them clearly how they will benefit from accepting your offer, and give them a good reason to say “Yes!”

Here’s an example from the real world

In this example, adding clarity and relevance generated a 99.4% lift  in conversions on a PPC landing page for Denmark-based Saxo Bank. The landing page pitched a trial account for a Forex trading platform, and the conversion goal was to increase the number of trial account sign-ups. 

If you compare the two versions, you’ll see the treatment is super focused on conveying the value of the offer, while the control is much more vague. Where the control asks the question “Why trade Forex with Forextrading.com?”, the treatment actually answers that question by giving prospects relevant information and solid, credible arguments why they should sign up for the trial.

What is more, the control copy didn’t follow up on the value promised in the PPC ads that actually did a great job of emphasizing the selling points and value of the Forex Trading demo: free, no risk, no obligations, $100,000 demo account.

In the treatment, I made sure to follow up on all the selling points, benefits and features mentioned in the PPC ads. For a full run-down of the copy changes in this case study, read this post >>

One more example from the real world 

A great way of adding clarity and relevance to your copy from the get-go is by working on your headlines.

Here’s what happened on BettingExpert.com when I optimized both the form copy and the home page headline (as opposed to just the form copy) – we got an extra 3.65% increase in sign-ups.

Over the course of two treatments we went from something quite vague, ”Passionate about Betting? We are too – Join BettingExpert.com – Sign Up+” to something much more clear and relevant, ”Get Free Daily Betting Tips from Top Tipster – Get FREE Betting Tips – Sign Up & Get the Best Daily Tips”

Again, the control headline may sound better and more sexy than the treatment, but the treatment still got more potential members to sign up.

Lesson 5. There is no “secret formula” or “one-size-fits-all” – you need to test! 

Let’s start with another case study. Oli from Unbounce.com and I recently ran a split test on a PPC landing page that pitches a free 30-day trial of the Unbounce.com landing page platform.

The only thing we did was to tweak 1 word in the copy – we changed the possessive determiner “You” to “My”. After running the test for 3 weeks, the treatment button copy, “Start my free 30 day trial” had increased the number of trial sign-ups by…. hold on now…. 90%.

There’s no way we could have predicted that such a small tweak would have such a significant impact on the decisions of the prospects. We only became aware of this major low-hanging fruit because we performed an A/B test. I’ve conducted similar experiments on other sites and gained significant lifts – but I’ve also seen it backfire.

Life would be easier if the one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach worked – so much easier! However, in my experience there is no such thing as a global solution that works every time. All products, offers, websites, and companies are different, just like the motivations of your potential customers will be different. You need to find out what works on your specific target audience – and the only way to do this is through rigorous research and testing.

If you want to learn more about how to get into A/B testing – read this article >>

Join the conversation – ask questions or share your experience

If you have any copy/conversion-related questions, you’d like to ask me, or experience you’d like to share, please feel free to join the conversation on Google+ or simply leave a comment right here on ContentVerve.com.

The post Online Copywriting that Converts – 5 Lessons from 250 A/B Tests appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

Optimizing sign-up forms isn’t just about removing fields. The form copy itself has direct and measurable effect on your conversion rate, and even small tweaks can have significant impact on the decisions and actions of your potential customers.

This case study illustrates how a few simple form copy tweaks increased conversions on a betting forum by 31.54%.

Background Info:

Client: Bettingexpert.com – a free betting community where tipsters from all over the world can share betting tips, tools, data, and much more.

Page: Home Page Bettingexpert.com.

Optimization goal: Increase number of signups/new members.

Critique of the Original Form Copy

At first glance, the original from copy  is pretty decent and does an okay job of clarifying the purpose of the form. The header says: “Join BettingExpert” and the button copy says: “Sign Up+”

However, the form copy doesn’t convey any value what so ever and does nothing to answer the question: “Why should I fill out this form and give you my email?”

In other words, the form copy lacks both relevance and value – two of the main things to focus on if you want to write web copy that converts.

The Treatment 

When I created the treatment, I focused on increasing the relevance and value communicated by the header and button copy. In other words – I focused on answering the question “Why should I fill out this form?”

The main – and most tangible – benefit of becoming a member of BettingExpert.com is that you can get free betting tips from top tipsters on a daily basis.

Based on experience from similar tests, I hypothesized that I could accelerate the decision-making process of the prospects and increase signups by focusing the form copy on the main benefit.

In my treatment the header says: “Get FREE Betting Tips” and the button copy says: “Sign Up & Get the Best Daily Tips”

Test and Results

In order to find out whether my hypothesis would hold water and increase conversions, I set up a simple A/B test with the Control Variant (A) and my Treatment (B). The Treatment increased signups by 31.54%. 

I ran the test for 9 days and reached a sample size of 13.560 visitors, and 291 conversions. The standard error was 0%, and the statistical confidence was 99%. From the beginning to the end, the treatment outperformed the control variant – at no point did the control take the lead.

If you want to know more about how to determine the statistical significance of an A/B test - Check out this video >>

The copy you use in sign-up forms has direct and measurable effect on your conversion rate. As this case study clearly illustrates, even small tweaks can have major impact on the decisions and actions of your prospects.

The tweaks described in this article may seem insignificant from a usability or design point of view, nevertheless, they generated a serious lift in conversions. How can that be? Here’s the answer:

Asking prospects to do something will automatically start an internal dialogue in their heads. They need to assess whether the potential benefits of what your offering them outweigh what they have to do – or part with – in order to get it.

In connection with mission critical elements like sign-up forms, it’s important to clarify the value of your proposition so you can give your prospects a good reason to carry out the conversion goal.

The control copy is completely generic and conveys no value or benefits whatsoever. It’s just a plain order: “Join BettingExpert – Sign Up+”

The treatment copy on the other hand “Get FREE Betting Tips – Sign Up & Get the Best the Best Daily Tips” features a clear value proposition and promises the prospect specific value in return for filling out the form.

What you should do now 

If you have a mission critical form on your website, go over the copy and see if it’s a generic order like “Sign Up Now” or “Join XXX.com”. If so, take a step back and consider how to best answer the question “Why should I fill out this form?” 

Usually answering that question entails clarifying value and focusing on what the prospect will get – instead of what he or she has to do in order to get it.

Last but definitely not least - remember to test your new form copy! Even small copy changes can have a significant impact – so you want to make sure you’ve made the right changes. New to testing? Learn how to set up a split test in 3 minutes here >>

The post Case Study – 31.54% More Conversions by Tweaking the Copy on a Sign-Up Form appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

Why do we need to test? What should we test? How do we get started? How do we set up an A/B split test? When can we stop the test? 

Those are the top 5 questions I got in 2012 when I talked to new clients or spoke at summits on the subject of conversation optimization and A/B testing. In this article, I’ll answer each of these questions one at a time and provide you with lots of tips, case studies, examples, videos, and useful links.

1. Why do we need to test?

I love answering this question! The only problem is that there are so many great answers that I could easily go off on a tangent and talk about it all night. So for your sake, I’ll try to keep it simple and stick to the best answer I know: “You need to test because relying on guesswork and gut feeling is a dangerous business strategy.” Now let me expand on that answer and explain what I mean in more detail.

Marketing is not an exact science. All products, services, offers, and websites are different, just like the motivations of your potential customers are different. We’re dealing with real people and real decisions. And frustrating as it may be, the truth is that people don’t always act the way marketers want them to.

If you don’t test whether your optimization efforts are in fact optimizing the performance of your website – you are really relying on guesswork and gut feeling.

Even with hundreds of A/B tests under my belt, test results surprise me on a regular basis. Sometimes positively – other times not quite so positively. Here’s an example from a case study where all my experience (as well as all logic) told me that my bad ass landing page treatment would surely knock the socks off the control page. However, the test results showed that my variant actually performed significantly worse than the control page.

Had I not insisted on putting my work to the test, and instead blindly trusted in my experience and intuition, the client would have spent money on getting a new a landing page that actually hurt conversions. Moreover, I would have been in trouble, when the client at some point would come to realize that conversions went down after they hired me.

The interesting thing about the above mentioned case is that, even though the first test had a negative test result, it wasn’t a bad test. It revealed a number of findings that lead to a final treatment that outperformed the original control page by 48.69%. The beauty of testing is that, as long as you conduct experiments that make you wiser and give you insight, even negative test results can lead to positive lifts. Check out the full case study here >>

Useful Links:

This article by Peep from ConversionXL.com is a great read for beginners as it highlight some of the hard truths about A/B testing. Read the article here >>

Neil Patel wrote this awesome article summing up what he learned from spending $252,000 On Conversion Rate Optimization. Check out the article here >>

2. How do we get started?

One of the main things keeping businesses from getting into A/B testing is the fear of having to invest in a huge elaborate technical platform, involving tons of coding and IT assistance. Add to this the common misconception of A/B testing being extremely costly and complex, and it’s no wonder that most businesses never get started.

I can’t count the times I’ve been approached by employees from marketing departments who are desperately interested in A/B testing and CRO but can’t get the company buy-in to actually get started on a serious program.

My best advice is “Start small and simple and get your footing.”

You don’t need to invest in a ridiculously expensive technical setup, and you don’t have to do a complete redesign of your website right off the bat.

If you use a tool like Visual Website Optimizer, you can get started in no time for as little as $50 a month. VWO is easy to use, and you can perform a large range of tests with little or no knowledge of code. Moreover, you’ll only need to involve IT to the extent that they have to implement a bit of Javascript on the website (Watch the video under question 4 for a tutorial on how to set up an A/B test in 3 minutes with VWO).

Once the technical setup is in place, you can start thinking about setting up your first split test. Here my advice is “Start simple but use your energy where it counts.”

Start with a simple test that is likely to yield results. You could pick the newsletter signup form, the call-to-action on the home page, or the headline and sales copy on the main landing page.

If use your energy where it counts and pick mission critical pages that get a lot of traffic, small changes can give big results. Here’s an example from a case study where changing one word on the call-to-action increased conversions by 38.26%. Read the full case study here >>

Once you have a few tests with positive results, it will be much easier to get the buy-in from coworkers as well as management. I like to use the argument “Look at what we did with a minimum investment of time and money – imagine what we could do if we kick it up a notch!”

Once you get started, it’s worthwhile to “strike while the iron is hot” and take advantage of the momentum that the initial excitement generates. I’ve seen several great CRO initiatives drown in bureaucracy and overplanning despite the best intentions.

Useful links:   

I wrote a guest post for Unbounce.com on how to sell A/B testing to a skeptical client. The methods described in the article can easily be applied internally in an organization or company. Check out the article here >>

I highly recommend MarketingExperiments’ online certification course The Fundamentals of Online Testing. Th course pretty much covers everything you need to know in order to get off to a flying start. Check out the course here >> 

3. What should we test?

There are really two steps involved with finding out what to test. First you need to find out where on the website to start testing (what page), then you need to find out what to experiment with on the page.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, it’s a good idea to start simple but to focus your efforts where it counts. What that translates into in this context is that you should pick mission critical pages that get a lot of traffic for your initial experiements.

Your most important landing pages are a great place to start. They usually get a high traffic volume and are directed at getting potential clients to carry out one specific goal – which makes for a clean and focused test design.

Moreover, landing pages are a great place to experiment, because they are like a little secluded test environment where to can test different hypotheses without affecting the rest of the website. Later on you can implement the things that worked globally on your website.

Some of the most successful redesigns I’ve been involved with have been based on findings from an initial phase of landing page optimization and testing.

Of course your analytics data is an obvious source for locating pages and steps in your funnel that could do with a bit of work.

Once you know which pages are worth testing, you need to find out what to test on the page itself. Again I recommend keeping it simple but focusing on elements that are most likely to impact the decisions of your potential customers.

Call-to-action buttons and call-to-action copy are low-hanging fruits that have high impact on conversions. Also form copy on lead generation pages, headers, and copy in general represent critical elements that are easy to tweak and that impact conversions directly.

Global mission critical elements like a site-wide contact form or call-to-action button are also a great place to focus your initial testing efforts. Such elements get a lot of traffic because they are featured across the website – at the same time they represent crucial steps in the conversion funnel.

Begin with the end in mind

A lot of beginners make the mistake of just testing random elements and variations without having a clear idea about why they’re doing it, and what they want to achieve. If you want to learn from your tests, you need a clear test hypothesis that defines why you are making the change what you hope to achieve by making that change.

If you don’t have a clear hypothesis, it’s likely that you’ll end being more confused than you were before you began testing – and that pretty much defeats the purpose of testing in the first place.

Useful links:

I wrote an extensive guest post for Unbounce.com on how to find out what to test on your landing pages and how to establish a real test hypothesis. Check out the article here >>

I also wrote a guest post for KISSmetrics highlighting 3 obvious but overlooked elements to test on your landing pages. Read the article here >>

In another guest post for KISSmetrics, I presented 8 questions that lead to perfect landing page copy. Reading that article should give you a clear idea of how to approach copy optimization. Check out the article here >>

You can learn how to write call-to-action copy that converts by watching this short how-to video on CTA copy >>

Here are a few case studies I’ve posted on ContentVerve.com. They are all pretty simple and should give you inspiration for a number of experiments that you can conduct on your own website:

How Changing 1 Word in the Call-to-action Generated a 38.26% Lift in Conversions

99.4% Lift in Conversions by Tweaking 4 Basic Elements on a B2C Landing Page

31.03% Increase in Sales by Tweaking the Call-to-action Copy on a Payment Page

4. How do we set up an A/B split test?

As I mentioned earlier in this article, if you choose the right testing tool setting up a split test is pretty easy – even if you’re not a code nerd.

I use Visual Website Optimizer and would recommend it to anyone interested in getting into CRO and testing. VWO let’s you do anything from super simple copy and layout tests to multivariate tests and advanced site wide experiments that involve code alterations.

But for the moment, let’s focus on simple tests. The beautiful thing about tools like VWO is that you can easily setup test variants directly via the dashboard without making any permanent changes to the website itself.

Here’s an example from ContentVerve.com where I changed the title and post image, and even rearranged the position of the boxes in the right column by using the built in features of VWO.

I made this step-by-step video tutorial to show how easy it is to set up a simple A/B split test with VWO.

Another tool I’m a big fan of is Unbounce.com. Unbounce makes it incredibly easy to create landing pages from scratch, and because the system features built-in A/B testing software, setting up tests is also extremely easy. So if you decide to start by experimenting with your landing pages, Unbounce.com is an excellent choice. Try it free for 30 days >>

5. When should we stop the test?

The only thing that’s worse than not testing is to rely on bad data. The whole point of performing an A/B test is to get answers, so you can base your decisions on data instead of guesswork and gut feeling. And if you can’t rely on your data, there’s really no point in performing the split test in the first place…

So, the simple answer to this question is “You should stop the test, when your data is reliable.” That however raises another question “How do we know when our data is reliable?” Well, that’s where test validation and statistics come into the picture.

Although these subjects aren’t particularly sexy, they are ridiculously important if you want to run valid experiments that provide true and lasting value to your online business.

The 3 most important factors, when it comes to determining the validity of an A/B split test, are: Statistical Confidence, Conversion Range, and Sample Size.  In this 10-minute video, I’ll go over these 3 factors and give you a basic introduction to finding out how reliable your test data is:

How much of a risk are you willing to take?

There’s no law against running inconclusive tests or stopping a test before you reach statistical significance. But the less you focus on test validation, the greater the risk will be that your data is off, and – as a consequence – that you’re basing your decisions on random observations not solid statistics that give you a reliable picture of how your treatments will perform in the long term.

If you stop a test at e.g. 85% statistical confidence with a standard error of 8% and a sample size of 45 visitors – you must be willing to accept that there is a high risk that your numbers are off and that the test results will look completely different if you let the test run until you reached 99% statistical confidence with a standard error of 1%, and a sample size of 5.000 visitors.

So, for your own sake, I strongly recommend that you run experiments long enough that you have sufficient data to reach statistically significant conclusion.

Useful links: 

Here’s a guest post on sample size that Siddharth Deswal from Wingify wrote for me. Check out the article here >>

Back to you!

Do you have more questions about A/B testing? Leave a comment and let me know what you’re struggling with or wondering about, and I’ll in all likelihood write an article about it here in 2013.

The post A/B Testing – Answers to the Top 5 Questions of 2012 (with case studies, videos & links) appeared first on ContentVerve.com.

When can I stop my split test? How much traffic do I need for my A/B test? Can I trust my test data?

The only thing that’s worse than not testing, is relying on bad data. In order to conduct experiments that provide real value, you have to be familiar with the basics factors: Statistical Confidence, Conversion Range, and Sample Size.

In this 10-minute video, I’ll give you a basic introduction to finding out how reliable your test data is. 

Video Transcript:

Hello I’m Michael Aagaard – thank you for watching this short video on how to determine the statistical significance of an A/B split test.

Today I’m going to go over 3 basic factors that are essential to establishing the reliability of your test results. These 3 factors are:

1. Confidence Level

2. Conversion range

3. Sample size

Test validation and statistics are some the less sexy aspects of testing – nevertheless, they are extremely important because there really is no point in testing, if you can’t rely on your tests results.

The big problem for most marketers is that they either pay no attention to these 3 factors, or focus only on 1 of these factors.

But you really need to be aware of all three factors in order to perform valid experiments that provide true and lasting value to your online business.

The point of performing an A/B split test is to get answers so you can base your decisions on data rather than gut feeling and guesswork. So if you can’t rely on your data – then it really defeats the purpose of performing the in the first place.

What test validation is all about is finding out whether the tendencies you are seeing are a reliable representation of how the variant will perform – or whether the tendencies are simply random. That’s where the three basic factors I mentioned before come into the picture.

They help you determine the likelihood that e.g. A is in fact better than B.

A statistically significant test result is one that in all possible likelihood indicates that we have an actual winner.

Ok – so let’s look at the 3 factors one by one. We’ll start with looking at confidence level.

Statistical confidence measures how many times out of 100 that test results can be expected to be within a specified range. A confidence level of 99% means that that the results will probably meet expectations 99 times out of 100.

In other words – a 99% confidence level means that there is 1% chance that numbers are off. And a confidence level of let’s say 60% means that there is 40% chance that numbers are off. So, if you stop a test at e.g. 60% you willing accept a 40% risk that numbers are off.   

Confidence level is by far the most commonly used and known factor. It is an extremely important factor, but is in no way enough to guarantee reliable results. You need to look at the two other factors standard error and sample size as well.

Let’s move on to conversion range

Conversion Range shows you the range within which the actual conversion rate may lie.

You’ll find the conversion rate for each variant here.

The small +- sign and the number represent the standard error.

In this case, the standard error is 1% and means that the conversion range for the control variation is 7.95% plus minus 1%. Which again means that the actual conversion rate is somewhere between 6.95% to 8.95%.

For variation 1 the conversion range is 11.08% plus minus 1%.

So, the conversion range can be described as the margin of error you’re willing to accept. The smaller the conversion range – the more accurate your results will be. As a rule of thumb – if the 2 conversion ranges overlap, you’ll need to keep testing in order to get a valid result. In this case, if we add the standard error (1%) to the lowest conversion rate (that of the control) and subtract 1% from the highest conversion rate (that of variation 1) we’ll see that the two ranges don’t overlap. So this is a good sign that variation 1 will in fact perform better than the control.

Ok let’s move on to sample size.

Sample size represents the number of visitors that have been part of your test and how many conversions they have performed.

The reliability of your data increases as you increase the number of data points. In other words – the larger the sample size, the more reliable your results will be. It is pretty much common sense that the more people you include in a test – the more representative the results will be. There’s a correlation between sample size and conversion range. And as your sample size increases, your conversion range will decrease.

Here’s an example of a test with a small sample size of 73 visits and 8 conversions. Here you’ll see that the conversion range for the control is 5.88% plus minus 5% and 15.38% plus minus 7% for variation 1. This means that the actual conversion rate for the control is somewhere between 0.88% and 10.88% – for variation 1 it is somewhere between 8.38% and 22.38%.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that these ranges overlap quite a bit and that you would need a larger sample size in order to get reliable results, and therefore concluding anything at this point involves quite a risk. But what often happens is that marketers get overexcited about results like these and jump to conclusions and assume that they have a winner. When in fact all they have is a 91% chance that the conversion ranges for the individual variations are accurate.

So – how large a sample do you need in order to achieve significance? Well, in theory you can’t define that number. It depends completely on the individual test. But as a rule of thumb, you can say that the bigger the difference in performance is between the 2 variations – the smaller a sample size you will need in order to a reliable result. And vice versa. So with a dramatic difference in performance, you’ll need a smaller sample, and with a minor difference in performance, you’ll need a larger sample.

In my experience, a lot can happen within the first 100 conversions. So my rule of thumb is to get at least 100 conversions – conversions not visits – before I conclude anything.

Also, a great tip when your trying to validate your test results is to look at graph that graphically depicts the development of the test. If you see a lot of fluctuations or diamonds shapes where the variations cross each other – that’s a sign that you need a larger sample (or that there might not be a significant difference between the variants).

On the other hand, if you see a nice clear tendency that one variant is outperforming the other, that’s a great indication that your results are reliable and that you’ll find and actual winner.

Be aware that fluctuations are natural in the beginning of a test period. When the sample size is small – small changes will have large impact.

Ok so let’s do a quick summary and get some guidelines here.

- Get as close to 99% statistical significance as possible

- Sample size of at least 100 conversions

- Conversion Range of <±1%

- Look for fluctuations (diamond shapes)

If you are aware of these factors and use these guidelines, you will with certainty get more reliable and valuable tests results.

But the best tip I can give is: “Don’t jump the gun” and get excited over premature tests results

I hear marketers complain that their testing tools are off or don’t work, but in most cases is not the testing tool that’s the problem – it’s the person interpreting the test data. Like with so many other things – the tool is only as good as the person using it.

Ok cool – now that you are familiar with the 3 basic elements and how to determine the statistical significance of your test results, it’s time to get cracking on some more experiments.

Thanks for watching and see you next time!

The post How to Determine the Statistical Significance of an A/B test – Basic Introduction appeared first on ContentVerve.com.