By Eric Hansen
Founder and CEO, SiteSpect

 

A common disappointment among companies deploying testing and optimization technology stems from tests that do not yield the radical improvements expected. Has this happened to you? Working with our customers, we’ve seen that sometimes even the most dramatic design changes produce no significant differences in their click-through or conversion rates. While that can be surprising, much of its concomitant disappointment can be eliminated by defining upfront what success or failure means to you.

For example, success in testing can be measured many different ways, depending on your goals and your organization. There is no one optimal way to measure testing success:

• For some, success is a dramatic increase in a revenue-based metric, knowing that most senior stakeholders will respond to incremental revenue;

• For others, success is a small increase in key visitor engagement metrics, knowing that a series of small gains eventually adds up;

• For still others, success is a reduction in the number of problems present throughout the site, knowing that reducing these barriers improves usability;

• For some, especially those with an increasingly dated site, success is simply being able to deploy a new look without negatively impacting existing key performance indicators.

And here’s where it gets interesting. Sometimes our customers think that because they have not experienced what they consider to be success, they have failed. But I don’t think that’s really the case, because testing powers a continual learning process about your visitors and customers.

For example, if a particular image fails to increase conversion rates, you have learned that your audience does not respond to that particular image. In this context, there is no such thing as a failure in testing, only a failure to achieve the specific defined objective.

We know that not every test can yield incremental millions of dollars in revenue for your business. Some tests will fail to produce the change desired; others will yield results but not for your key performance indicators; and still others will simply fail to produce statistically relevant differences.  Even so, there are no “failures” in testing other than a failure to carefully design your tests and a failure to carefully consider what you’ve learned. If you have learned what doesn’t work, congratulations – that’s considered a success when testing.

 

Measuring Testing

One way to measure your testing program is to integrate test data with your web analytics. There is a very natural relationship between testing platforms and analytics applications—one is designed to drive improvements on your site and the other is designed to help quantify the value of those improvements. The combination of testing and analytics should support both optimization and an incremental learning process about your visitors and customers.

The basic integration of testing and measurement systems involves exchanging data about test participation, either through an after-the-fact bulk data loading or through real-time tag transformation. The most fundamental and important data to pass is some kind of test identifier—whatever value your testing application is using to keep track of the test(s) in which your visitors are actively participating.

More importantly, you need to ensure that the data is flowing into the analytics application and can be used to create appropriate metrics and visitor segments necessary for deeper analysis of the test. Simply having an ID to indicate participation in “any test” is not enough. We recommend passing data that will allow identification of the visitor or session level for each test being run. Ideally, your analytics platform will allow you to load test metadata to increase the granularity against which analysis can be performed.

If you’re not able to get this level of granularity, not to worry; you will still be able to benefit from testing. But keep this practice in mind as you upgrade and evolve your measurement technology, and always look for opportunities to dig deeper into your test results through analytics.

Done well, this type of integration allows the measurement team to create segments, build key performance indicators, and drill down into the activity of individual visitors based on test participation. You’ll be able to evaluate your testing efforts over multiple criteria and be able to evaluate test participant behavior over multiple sessions – what better way to measure success or failure?

 

About the Author

Eric is the CEO and founder of SiteSpect, and the chief architect of the firm’s non-intrusive technology for multivariate testing, behavioral targeting and digital marketing optimization. He is a frequent speaker at conferences covering web analytics and optimization, and writes regularly on topics dealing with the intersection of marketing and technology.

Meet and Learn from Eric!

Eric will be sharing more practical insights on testing and analytics at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25th and 26th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Testing+Analytics: A Detailed Formula for Anticipating User Behavior.” See the full agenda and read more about this session. You can also follow Eric on Twitter for some pre-conference networking.

Save $100 when you register with Eric’s discount code CH12308. Take advantage of regular prices before they go up on June 22 – Register now!

Transcription:

Hi, I’m Arnie Kuenn, president of Vertical Measures, and I’m going to be presenting Powerful, Low Cost Video Marketing Strategies to Improve Your Conversions at this year Conversions Conference in Chicago, June 25th and 26th. Today’s Internet marketing strategy should enhance and support your businesses overall marketing objectives, including getting more leads and more business from every single website visitor.

So, why consider a video as part of your strategy? Well, according to Internet Retailer, customers who watch product videos are 85% more likely to buy, and one study indicates that websites with videos sell 45% more products and services. During my presentation, I’m going to show some real stats indicating how videos help with conversions – sometimes as much as 100%. And if you care at all about SEO and rankings and Google and Bing, videos are a great link attractor, adding overall authority to your entire website.

Creating video content that gets a visitor to act is critical to your online business. I’ll show you how to get started using videos as a part of your marketing strategy, and it’s not as hard as you think. For just a few hundred dollars and a few different attempts, you can be producing quality video that’s engaging for your customers.

In fact, I’ll show you a case study where one business, a niche business in Southern California, grew from doing a few hundred thousand dollars a year in business — and again in a very niche environment — to $24 million a year, with that same product, in less than 5 years. So join me at Conversion Con in Chicago, June 25th and 26th.  We will see you there!  

 

About the Speaker

 Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures, a search, social & content marketing company helping their clients get more traffic, more leads, and more business. Arnie has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. He is a frequent speaker and author of Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing available on Amazon.

See Arnie Live!

Arnie will be sharing top tips for video and content marketing at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25th and 26th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Powerful, Low Cost Video Marketing Strategies to Improve Your Conversions.” See the full agenda and read more about this session. You can also follow Arnie on Twitter for some pre-conference networking.

Last chance to save on your Conversion Conference pass.

Save as much as $600 when you register with Arnie’s discount code CH12311 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires on midnight of Friday, May 11th.

By Brian Massey,
Conversion Scientist, Conversion Sciences

 

The press release from July 19, 2010 announcing quarterly earnings for 1-800-PetMeds stated:

“Our focus in fiscal 2011 is conversion optimization, and the expansion of our product offerings into pet supplies.”

1-800-PetMeds was already one of the highest converting online retail websites according to Marketing Charts. A year later, 1-800-PetMeds announced that, while company performance overall had been hurt by pricing pressure, online sales had increased by 3.4%. Plus, 73% of their business came through the website, up from 70% the year prior.

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” This is the mantra of the modern business. Conversion optimization apparently made a difference to 1-800-PetMeds. Is conversion optimization a part of your growth strategy?

Find new customers

Finding new customers is the most expensive way to go to market for most businesses. It typically requires some outbound program, through advertising and marketing. Typically, when a business stops marketing and advertising, the flow of new customers stops as well.

Note that the cost of advertising is best measured as an acquisition cost: the total dollars spent divided by the number of new customers. Conversion optimization can decrease the acquisition cost of new customers, meaning a business can grow revenue more with the same advertising dollars.

If you’re expecting new customers to account for 10% of your growth this year, and you use conversion optimization to decrease acquisition costs by 10%, you can count on an eleven percent increase.

Sell more to existing customers

Existing customers are typically the best way to grow a business. Like new customers, existing customers require some sort of outreach, but the cost is often less than advertising since the business already has a relationship with them.

Your conversion optimization strategy will help more of your customers to buy again.

Many online businesses can’t depend on frequent repeat purchases. For example, people don’t buy dishwashers very often. For these businesses, every sale is critical, and an optimized site will bring revenue growth from these rare or occasional purchases.

Launch new products

In July of 2010, 1-800-PetMeds pledged to grow by introducing new products, including pet supplies. New products open doors to new grazing lands for prospects and provide more to sell to existing customers. Launching the wrong products can destroy the best laid growth plans.

Conversion optimization offers a way to ask your visitors if they think a new product will fly and at what price. Split testing is a tried and true tool of the conversion optimizer and a great way to test-launch new product ideas. Focus groups can mislead. Why not let the visitors to your website tell you with their dollars and actions?

Turn more prospects into customers

Perhaps the reason that this strategy isn’t listed on more “forward-looking” corporate earnings reports is that the statement elicits a great big “Duh” from most readers. Of course you want to turn more of your prospects into customers! Isn’t this what sales and marketing are all focused on?

Not really.

Most businesses are still focused on getting more eyeballs. It’s the advertising and marketing that gets the attention.

This is an opportunity for you. Next quarter, when you fire up PowerPoint to present your growth plan, add “Conversion Optimization” to the list of growth strategies. At the least it can hedge your bets should your new marketing campaigns underperform. At best it can add significantly to growth and to the bottom line.

About the Author
Brian Massey is the author of The Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Formulas of The Conversion Scientist™. He is the Conversion Scientist at Conversion Sciences and he has the lab coat to prove it. His rare combination of interests, experience and neuroses was developed over almost 20 years as a computer programmer, entrepreneur, corporate marketer, national speaker and writer.

Conversion Sciences was founded to fill the Web with helpful, engaging and entertaining online Web sites that convert visitors into leads and sales. The company has helped dozens of businesses transform their sites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics and testing. “There are places on the Web that make you feel like they were built just for you,” he says. “Is yours one of these? It could be.

See Brian Live!
Brian will be sharing mind-blowing tips for creating killer conversion copy at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25th and 26th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Killer Copy: Why Words Matter & How to Make Yours Work” and get the chance to own a copy of his book. See the full agenda and read more about this session. You can also follow Brian on Twitter for some pre-conference networking.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference pass? Save as much as $600 when you register with Brian’s discount code CH12321 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires Friday, May 11th.

Still having doubts on whether Conversion Conference Chicago is worth your time and money? To remind you that Early Bird promo rates end in six days, we’ve giving you six reasons to join us in the Windy City:

Learn the latest CRO strategies. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned digital marketing professional, you will pick up powerful techniques for increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns. Choose from over 20+ sessions based on your needs and interests. Yes, you can jump around tracks to customize your learning experience!

Get one-on-one advice from the experts. Aside from meeting our speakers, you also get to pick their brains during our roundtable lunches (sorry if that sounds a bit gross, we promise it isn’t like that at all).

You’ll be able to mingle with highly regarded website optimization personalities during after-session mixers.

 

Qualify for one of three FREE eyetracking studies. Want to know where users’ eyes are going the moment they land on your website? Then you don’t want to miss this opportunity to get an eyetracking study. It’s your chance to understand the process that goes into making usable, free-flowing web design so register and nominate your website now.

Discover the latest CRO and testing tools. Learn what hot new tools the coolest kids in your block are hiding in their CRO toolkits. Meet vendors and future partners at our large Data Driven Business Week shared expo hall. Who knows, you might find the remedy to your website optimization and digital marketing pain while exploring our expo hall!

Network with your peers. If you’re like some of us, you’re probably spending most of your time in front of three or more monitors almost 24/7. However you might enjoy being cloistered in that office and maintaining relationships virtually, deep down you still crave physical human connections. At ConvCon Chicago, you’ll be joining the best and the brightest of your peers in two days of awesome learning, forging bonds and relationships that are sure to benefit you and your company in the future.

Save up to $500 on your pass. We know, we know. These days, folks like you and me are expected to justify every cent of our marketing spend. All the more reason to take advantage of our Early Bird prices, which lets you save $500 on full 2-day conference passes.

These are the six things you’ll be missing out on if you don’t act and register by May 11^th. Well, you can still register after that but why pass up on the savings?

REGISTER NOW >>>

By Chris Pinkerton
Senior Account Director, Mediative

 

MarketingSherpa recently released research indicating that 41% of B2B firms have established buyer persona’s, while 47% of organizations do not.  This is not a shock.  I have found that in the digital space most marketers are so concerned with moving fast, just to keep up, that they lose sight of whom they are actually trying to engage.

The practice of persona creation is not new, although the behaviours and ways your audience engages with your brand are. This is a dynamic shift in the way that you understand an influencer, or buyer of your products.  Today, the consumer is in the driver’s seat, so in order to be considered for purchase you must first be found and then be relevant.

 

Facilitate Your Audience’s Natural Behaviour

It is important to realize that technology does not change people’s behaviour, it enables it.  For example, word of mouth is still a major influencer in a purchase decision, but this does not just happen at the water cooler or dinner table anymore.  Today, platforms like Bazaar Voice and Twitter have changed the way WOM inserts itself into a buying decision. Remember the last time you where looking at a new TV or tablet on BestBuy.com, and the rating of someone you have never met actually made you think twice about the brand you where thinking about purchasing – or it in fact validated your original thoughts which made you feel like you were making the right decision.

As a modern marketer or sales executive, you need to first understand how people buy, then ask yourself if you are actually helping to facilitate what your audience is naturally trying to do.  Or, are you missing key online pieces that make it harder to buy from you?  Perhaps a new competitor is doing a better job than you are.

 

Breaking News: Marketing Takes Sales For Lunch

MarketingSherpa’s study also showed what resources companies are using to gain insight when building a digital persona. As you can see, the people who have the most touch points with end users and buyers are the most valuable sources of information. There is also a blend of qualitative and quantitative analysis that helps validate the information. Marketing and sales are no longer separate disciplines – there is interplay between both much deeper into a sales cycle than ever before.

 

Digital Hand Holding

In going through the cathartic process of understanding how your audience buys and the role online plays in this process, it is important to also understand how your audience deals with digital.  In a recent book by Gord Hotchkiss his research team looked into how business buys from business in a digital marketplace.  Part of this process was identifying the differences between a Digital Immigrant (someone over 30, who had to adapt to digital) verses a Digital Native (someone under 30 who grew up in a digital world).  Mapping your audience’s behaviours, digital preferences, and buying process will enable you to start building your own modern digital personae – Making it easier for your audience to buy from you.

 

About the Author

Chris has extensive experience and insight into lead generation, buying cycles, targeted marketing tactics, and B2B digital marketing. At Mediative, he works with key accounts including Allstate, 3M, American Red Cross, Yellow Pages Group, and Deustche Telekom (T-mobile) to build strategies that drive measurable conversion actions. He leverages Mediative’s knowledge of search behaviour and thought leadership to present both concepts and solutions that will drive the on-line marketing efforts forward.

Chris is a contributor to the book The BuyerSphere Project – How Business Buys From Business in a Digital Marketplace. He is also a speaker with the Google Engage project, various industry and client events, and is a guest lecturer at the University of British Columbia.

See Chris Live!

Chris and his colleague Ian Everdell will be sharing more internet marketing strategies at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25^th and 26^th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Persona > Intent > Content > Action: The B2B Success Framework.” See the full agenda and read more about this session. You can also follow Chris on Twitter for some pre-conference networking.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference pass? Save as much as $600 when you register with Chris’ discount code CH12316 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires on May 11^th.

 

 

By Libardo Lambrano
Web Marketing Manager, Univision
As a manager of online marketing and analytics, the most important role I play in my company is to make sure we get the most out of our online marketing budget, maximizing:

• Allocation of resources in the most profitable markets and channels.
• Continuous optimization of our page and enrollment flow to ensure that the people we get through the door convert to paying customers.

The 4 practices I’ll discuss in this article helped us increase our conversion rates significantly. Before explaining what these practices are, let me give you a sense of my company and my specific role.

Univision is the largest hispanic media company in United States, owning three major TV stations: Univision, Telefutura and Galavision and dozens of radio stations. I’m a member of the Business Development team at Univision Enterprises. Our mission is to work collaboratively across Univision to assess, incubate and launch new and innovative businesses that enhance the loyalty and trust we have with the U.S. Hispanic consumers and deliver asset value to our sponsors/owners. I am primarily focused on the online marketing campaigns for all these new products.

The product and website I’ll discuss in this blog is the Univision Tarjeta Prepaid Card, which is a prepaid card for unbanked and underbanked hispanics in US, launched 3 years ago.  The product has been a success, exceeding our original goals quarter after quarter. Our current site is located at www.univisiontarjeta.com and it is basically a conversion-optimized site, separate from our major media site www.univision.com.

Here are some practices that helped us achieve outstanding results in our conversion rates, this is just part of the insights I will be sharing in my presentation at the Conversion Conference in Chicago later this year.

 

1. Re-design

One major problem in business development units is that corporate funding and support can sometimes be limited, especially when the product is new and it is not yet a proof of concept. Ideally once you get enough funding and support the first thing you should do is to get the most qualified people for the job and re-design the website. When I started working at Univision, our analytics weren’t able to analyze any behavioral/statistical data. So we used best industry practices and user labs. In the coming months, we re-designed our website to address major issues such as:

1. Fix analytics for accurate traffic analysis and user behavior
2. Create a mobile version of the site
3. Simplify enrollment from a three step process to two
4. Optimize the toggle between Spanish and English versions of the site
5. Identify what potential customers wanted to see on the homepage and what information was more useful for them
6. Implement rotating hero messages and videos on the homepage.

Pictured above is  the site before and after for both desktop and mobile versions. It is interesting to note that rotating messages in the home page and prominent videos placed on strategic parts of the site turned out to be distracting and unnecessary. In user labs people expressed great interest in these items, but in reality when we launched the site, those items were barely used and didn’t help to increase conversions. The takeaway here is that sometimes what people say is not what people do. Further down on this blog I’ll give you some advice on how to overcome this issue.

 

2. Testing

When optimizing a site redesign is the place to start. Rely on data if you have it, and if not rely on the best industry practices and user labs. But never, and I mean NEVER stop there. Once your analytics are in place and the traffic to your site is growing it is the perfect time to move to the second optimization stage: testing.

Testing can help you identify major issues, while vetting your design, images, placement of different elements and copy. Nothing else can improve your conversions more than designing a good testing plan and then acting on it. At Univision we implemented an A/B/C testing for our homepage that helped us shape the way our website looks today. We were able to identify irrelevant elements, test images, messages and call to action items. Below the the A/B/C testing we performed. After testing all three options the winner was version C. Some of the contributing factors that helped this version perform better were:

1. Image of the card, call to action, hero image, and money back guarantee seal all placed above the fold
2. Recognizable image of Univision talent that helped us maintain the brand connection and the level of trust with our brand.
3. Removal of rotating messages, videos and other non-relevant items for conversions on the main page

 

3. Deep dive in analytics

As I’m sure many of you know Google analytics is a great tool and can provide you quality information about your site and your audience, but as you grow you will need more sophisticated and complementary tools that can help you optimize your site at the micro level. At certain point Google Analytics is not good enough to help you identify opportunities that can improve your conversions by 1% or 2%. The difference may seem small, but when you are talking about thousands of visitors per day, these micro improvements really count. The job of a good online marketing ninja is to squeeze that extra 1% to 2% of your conversions. Below I’ve included a list of tools we employed to identify these micro optimization opportunities.

• Clicktale: A tool that helps to fill in and respond to some weaknesses in Google analytics. The tool will allow you to see and analyze:

○     Heatmaps: To see where people are clicking, where they are moving their mouse or fixing their attention

○     Enrollment form performance: Unlike Google analytics, clicktale offers you this to users out of the box. Clicktale helps analyze how much time people are spending to fill out your form, and where they are dropping off. I have noticed some inconsistencies where radio buttons are present, otherwise clicktale does an excellent job analyzing enrollment forms.

○     Recording user sessions: Clicktale will allow you to record dozens of user sessions without users even realizing they are being recorded. This is an incredible tool that allows you to see real visitors to your site interacting with your content. This tool allows you to avoid data being skewed when the opinions of the most outspoken members in the session can influence the opinions of other participants.

Thanks to this tool we were able to identify small conversion optimization opportunities on our homepage and in our enrollment funnel, here are few of the things we were able to accomplish:

○     Removed menu navigation items from the enrollment form

○     Removed downloadable PDF enrollment form, from the web based enrollment form

Additional changes we are currently considering include:

○     Relocation of social media elements on the homepage.

○     Reorganization of FAQ on the homepage

○     Removal of login to “my account” at the middle right of the page

 

• Tableau: Tableau is a business intelligence tool that can help you visualize Google Analytics data in a totally different way. Most of the time the reports in Google Analytics are presented as raw data, and it is difficult to get any insight out of it. Information is divided into three layers: Raw Data, Staging Data (or data analysis) and Presentation Data (or dashboards). What Tableau offers you is the ability to browse that data and find the most relevant information quickly. In the image below you can see conversion rates by city on a map where highly populated hispanic areas are highlighted in purple. You can also see the conversion rate for the entire US. To compare conversion rates for each state vs overall conversion rate. The beauty of Tableau is that you can navigate month-by-month, and that all numbers update in real time.
• The tools Tableau offers helped us to identify that conversion rates for our product were much higher in Florida than on any other state in US.
• We were also able to see where our strongest markets were located, and as a consequence, we were able to focused our online marketing efforts in those areas.

 

• Custom In-House Solutions

○     Our product is a prepaid card where we make money where people start using the card. We profit from signature purchases, ATM usage, loads and monthly maintenance fee. So the ultimate metric for our business is CPL (Cost Per Load). Unfortunately, this was a metric that we were not able to track using Google Analytics or any other tool, so what we did was to develop an in-house solution that allowed us to track loads per each online marketing channel: Paid Search, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing,  Referrals and Direct/SEO traffic. The solution involved some custom programming on our site and at the backend of our merchant processing provider.

 

4. Continue testing and optimization at the micro level

Once your site is optimized and performing well, it is still no time to rest and think that your job is done. Trends change, competitors emerge, consumer behavior evolves, so it is very important that you continuously optimize at the micro level. While you won’t see vast improvement, but you will see improvements that matter.

At Univision Tarjeta we continue to launch new homepage testings and remove additional items from the enrollment form that are distracting from conversion.

Last but certainly not least, don’t forget to optimize your website for mobile visitors, traffic from mobile visitors is growing at incredible speeds and can bring you great benefits going forward.

The conversion optimization process is a pyramid, and works exactly the opposite of funnels path in conversions. Conversion optimization usually begins at a broad level and then narrows as you complete every step of the process.

The four step process I described above helped us to increase our conversion percentage (Conversion / Start Conversion) by 28%. The more sophisticated you get the more refined the improvements you can achieve. Assuming that prospect visits to your site will grow over time, any small improvement in conversion will have more impact on the bottom line. Just follow these simple steps and I’m sure no matter what stage you are at, you will be able to achieve more.

 

About the Author

Libardo has over 10 years of online performance-based marketing experience working in both an agency and client environment for Fortune 1000 companies. As Manager of Web Marketing and Analytics for Univision, the largest Hispanic media company in US, he leads 360-degree campaign development for the organization’s financial services division.

 

See Libardo Live!

Libardo will be sharing more conversion optimization tips and creative techniques to get the most out of your retargeting campaigns in paid search at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25^th and 26^th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Innovative Retargeting Strategies for Converting More from Paid Campaigns.” See the full agenda and read more about this session.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference pass? Follow Libardo on Twitter for some pre-conference networking. Save as much as $600 when you register with Libardo’s discount code CH12312 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires on May 11^th.

 

 

By Keith Hagen
Revenue Engineer, ConversionIQ

 

Everyone knows the value of customer insights.   If you know your customer’s needs, wants, triggers etc, you will be able to design, develop, deliver and market a product or service that’s “spot on”.

There are so many ways to get insights into your online users today (many of these methods are NOT online themselves) that it can be overwhelming to figure out which ones you should use. The choice is complicated by:

       A. The limited time you have in your day

       B. How quickly you need the insight

       C. How much money you have to spend (see A for the real cost).

No matter who you are, the answer is probably “I need good insights that I can act on, and I need them now”.  This pretty much covers the three key factors you need to consider when deciding where to put your time and money to uncover insights:

           A. Quality of Insights

       B. Ability to Act on Insights

       C.Time to Insights

Quality of Insights is at the core, but in reality, the quality you get is constrained by the amount of time (or money) you have to spend on the effort, when you need results, and on your ability to act on the insights (developing a new feature which you’ve learned your customer needs doesn’t happen over night). 

See the theme?  TIME. 

Many of your problems would be solved if you could reduce the time it takes to gain insights.  So how do you reduce the time to insights? Keep reading to find out as we examine various methods in terms of Quality, Action-ability and Time.

A Conversion Analyst’s Ranking and Rating of Methods to Get Insights

Below I have listed the most common methods used by conversion analysts to gain and measure insights. These methods have been ranked according to their cumulative score when rated based on the three factors (Quality of Insights, Ability to Act on Insights, Time to Insights). The highest possible score on each factor is 10 points, which means that the highest rating possible for a method is 30 points.

 This is not the definitive list but it is a great place to start and I hope it helps.

#1. User Testing – 28 out of 30

Gone are the days of recruiting people off of craigslist with the lure of $50 to get them into your make-shift usability lab.  There are several services that offer you the ability to recruit users online and watch them use your website.  The hard part is still targeting the people you need.  There are audience recruiting engines in these cases, it just cost twice as much (still a bargain).

·         Quality of Insights: = 10 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 10 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 8 out of 10

 

#2. Website Analytics = 26 out 30

It does take significant skill and experience to get the most out of today’s analytics tools, and you may not be an expert, but the insights are there.  If your site analytics are set up well (the biggest barrier to insights) than a skilled person can read your site like you read the Sunday Post (yes, heavy lifting sometimes required).

·         Quality of Insights: = 9 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 10 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 7 out of 10

 

#3. Sales Person Interviews/Focus Groups = 26 out of 30

Yes, I know this is not online, but you have to get off the Herman-Miller chair and talk to the people who are closest to the customer!  You are trying to do on your website the same thing your sales people are trying to do: sell.   If you work in the B2B space, or have people answering sales calls from the site, you have a direct pipeline into infinite insights.

Yes, sales people are busy and focused on the sale so you have to sell them on the benefits of sharing their precious time with you (you may want to resort to free lunches, drinks and participation bonuses).  After a while, you’ll be sales’ best friend, getting invited to all their conferences, meeting key customers, etc., etc.  Because in the end, they want more and better quality leads).  The only downside is their insights may make you want to change too much, including things beyond your control.

·         Quality of Insights: = 10 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 7 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 9 out of 10

 

#4. Heat maps = 25 out of 30

Analytics will tell you what to people are doing between pages, but it will not do well at telling you what people are doing on a page.  What are they reading?  What are they not reading (more importantly)? With heat-maps you will learn where people click, where they mouse-over, and even how long they hover before clicking.  You can see this segmented by new users and return users (the most important segments you have to consider typically).  Some heat-maps bring all of it together (clicks, mouse-overs , hovers, scrolling) into one cool “Attention Heat-map” that tell you where people are paying attention.  It is these Attention heat-maps that will save you time!

·         Quality of Insights: = 8 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 9 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 8 out of 10

 

#5 Site Polls (not Surveys) = 25 out of 30

If you ask the right question at the right time, you will gain insights.  Polls are perfect for this, but just make sure the poll is easy to respond to and is unobtrusive.   The down side is for Time to Insights, with it taking time to collect responses (typically still a lot faster than surveys).

 

·         Quality of Insights: = 9 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 7 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 9 out of 10

 

#6 Form Analytics = 25 out of 30

If you have users filling out a form, then you want to know what fields people are not filling out before submitting, or which ones are taking forever to get filled out (Quick, tell me your VIN # lol).  If you do analysis on your forms, you will discover how to optimize them.  Easy insights. 

·         Quality of Insights: = 9 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 7 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 9 out of 10

 

#7 Using your own site = 23 out of 30

Need I say more?

·         Quality of Insights: = 5 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 8 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 9 out of 10

 

#8 Feedback Forms = 21 out of 30

Are you listening?  Your site users will tell you what is wrong if you give them an avenue.  True, much of it will be mis-directed about customer service type stuff, and you want to mitigate that, but in there are insights like “Need to know the length of the contract” (And this was for a company that was the only one not requiring a 6 month contract, talk about missing a selling opportunity!).

·         Quality of Insights = 10 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 8 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 3 out of 10

 

#9 Product Review = 21 out of 30

Wow, people are talking about the products you sell, using their own words!  Sweet.  Copywriting just got a lot easier.

·         Quality of Insights: = 7 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 7 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 7 out of 10

 

·#10 Audience Panels = 21 out of 30

Online User panels are new.  But, in a matter of a few days you can find your target market, recruit people, and have them carry on a research panel over a few days on any topic you wish.  By the way, NO ONE (outside of Fortune 1000) seems to do this.  What a competitive advantage.

·         Quality of Insights: = 10 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 7 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 3 out of 10

 

·#11 Forums = 19 out of 30

If I told you about a place where experts were talking passionately about your industry/business, training others, sharing solutions and best practices and venting frustrations, you’d be willing to fly to Chicago, stay at the Drake and attend for $2,300/attendee.   Well, there might be a forum that does all that for you.  If so, engage now, but give it time, lots of time to become part of the community.

·         Quality of Insights: = 9 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 8 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 2 out of 10

 

·#12 Site Surveys = 14 out 30

Surveys are hard to pull off, not because the questions might be bad, or there are too many of them, or the way they are presented to POP – IN YOUR FACE (ok, these are all reasons!), but mainly surveys score low on our survey list because people don’t like to commit their time online, leaving you with the narrow segment of people who don’t mind.  Sure you can incentivize people, and now you have 2 segments (people with nothing better to do, and people looking for freebies, nice.)  Surveys also take time to set up  properly and analyze (especially if you have them hooked into analytics or screen recording technology). Surveys also tend  to take a long time to gather results.  Do yourself a favor and stick to polls (#5 on this list).

·         Quality of Insights: = 4 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 8 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 2 out of 10

 

·#13 Screen Recordings/Captures = 12 out of 30

It is great to look over someone’s shoulder like a fly on the wall, and see what someone is doing on your website.  Unfortunately, flies are a lot better than screen recordings.  Flies can see if you have your credit card out, if you are pulling out your hair, and if you are making frustrated looking faces.  In other words, the fly has context to your visit, screen recordings don’t.  Without context, you can’t interpret what you are seeing.    If you don’t get mislead by the samples you watch, you may need a razor before you gain any true insights.

·         Quality of Insights: = 3 out of 10

·         Ability to Act on Insights = 8 out of 10

·         Time to Insights = 1 out of 10

Hope this helps you allocate your time better and gain the insights where and when you most need them! 

If you would like to learn how to take your insights and use them to get the most out of testing, then come and see me speak on “Testing What Matters” at ConversionConference!

 

About the Author

Keith gains insight into what is and isn’t working with a website, and provides companies with continuous recommendations to improve it. Through these continuous improvements, clients get websites and apps that function and sell a lot more stuff.

Following his post-graduate studies, Keith moved from his native Nova Scotia, Canada to Colorado to work as a Internet programmer, and then onto the business side of online. In the corporate world, Keith drove the improvements of over 30 websites (eCommerce & B2B) before co-founding ConversionIQ and leading its website conversion optimization programs.

 

See Keith Live!

Keith will be talking more about gaining quality insights from testing at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25^th and 26^th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “Moving the Needle: Test What Matters.” See the full agenda and read more about this session. Follow Keith on Twitterto say hello and do some pre-conference networking.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference pass? Save as much as $600 when you register with Keith’s discount code CH12307 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires on May 11^th.

 

By Ben Hunt
Owner, Ben Hunt Limited

 

A few years ago pay-per-click gave marketers a revolution for generating profits. It provided an easy way to push traffic to sales pages, measure the results. Then we could optimize the landing pages to boost conversions.

Today, PPC has lost its appeal for most of us. The market for clicks is now saturated, so the biggest spenders can gain an advantage over smaller businesses.

A really useful barometer for traffic generation ROI is to see what Affiliate marketers are doing. Ask a top affiliate where they got their traffic 3 years ago, and they would have said PPC with its on-demand traffic and easy monitoring. Ask them today, and they’ll show you a much broader traffic-generation portfolio.

The bottom line is, even for short-term profits, PPC is no longer viable in many markets, particularly for smaller businesses.

But, as everyone knows, content generation is expensive and difficult. And link building is even more so. Right?

Wrong.

 

Organic Search = Massive ROI

I’m a great champion of white-hat SEO. I believe that PPC cannot get near organic SEO for long-term returns, and I can prove it.

Here’s the traffic to my most popular landing page over the last 24 months.

This page has had 316,034 landings since May 1st, 2010.

What is that traffic worth? Well, the most popular search term for that page is “best designed websites”. Google AdWords tells me the current estimated cost per click for that phrase is £2.27 ($3.62). Assuming that the typical advertiser is going to make at least that amount from each click, let’s take that as the market value of each visit.

So, with 20,162 landings last month, my page attracted $72,986.44 worth of traffic – in a month (or $1.14 million over the past 2 years). Of course, I then have to convert that traffic into business, which is another story.

How much work did it take to tap into that great traffic? Writing and publishing the post took me about four hours in total.

Four hours’ work for $72,000 worth of traffic per month! That’s a great return on investment.

Here’s the down side. I wrote that post about 5 years ago, so there can be a lead time with organic. It’s like the old Chinese proverb:

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

Long-term, I suggest that organic is unbeatable for ROI. We just need to be committed to long-term organic farming, instead of being hunters chasing the short-term gains of PPC.

So organic search traffic can be great. But somehow it doesn’t fit quite as neatly into the conversion optimization model.

PPC (and CRO) tend to focus at the hot end of the conversion path – where prospects have declared what they need, identifying themselves as ready to buy. These conversion paths are pretty short and direct.

It is much harder to visualize how we can manage, track, and optimize organic traffic, particularly down in the depths of prospects’ minds as they start to brew a conscious need, where there is scant commercial intent.

Content websites can seem like a soup. We see traffic entering, mostly through thousands of long-tail search phrases. Maybe we can increase the amount of traffic. But, once they’re in, visitors have an access-all-areas pass. They follow their noses from article to article. We can try to interrupt them with ads along the way, and we can even split-test those promotions in the attempt to squeeze some value out of the chaos.

This is not the way it has to be. I believe content websites can be made into highly effective conversion funnels.

 

Optimizing Soup

Most of us don’t know how to do organic right. How can we organize, monitor and optimize this organic chaos into something that makes sense?

Is it possible to stop building soupy websites? Yes, absolutely.

I spent a year devising a really simple, complete model for building a great organic platform…  one that grows in value over time, which uses the full power of Google to get you more traffic.

Plus, it’s a model that makes it really easy to track and optimize conversions.

The key is to break down the path that’s common to every conversion, which enables you to create a comprehensive content strategy and action plan.

The answer lies in those mysterious depths – at the inception of the conversion path.

After studying Eugene Schwartz’s “Breakthrough Advertising”, I broke the conversion path into six distinct steps of awareness. These steps form a common sequence that everyone must complete – in sequence – whenever we make any form of commitment. I call it the Awareness Ladder.

 

The Awareness Ladder

Step 0 = No problem. (Note: You can’t address this market through organic search, because they are not searching for anything.)

Step 1 =  Aware of the problem, but not aware of solutions. People at this step are searching for “problem” phrases like “Help with…” or “How can I..?” or simply stating the problem.

Step 2 = Aware of some alternative solutions, but still looking. You can also identify prospects at this point by their search phrases, such as “Alternatives to…” or “What is the best..?”

Step 3 = Aware of your solution

Step 4 = Aware of the benefits of your solution to them

Step 5 = Convinced and ready to commit
Here are a few insights from the Awareness Ladder:

In the vast majority of markets, the most of prospects are down at Steps 0, 1, and 2. However, most marketing effort focuses on people who already know what they want to buy (Step 3), e.g. “Rolex watches” or “Emergency plumber Newport”.

Most websites do not bother to create content for people at Step 1 and 2, because the conversion path seems too long and flaky.

Wherever anyone is on the Awareness Ladder, they only thing they need is to get the next step of awareness. That dramatically simplifies the publisher’s goal.

We can arrange content consciously around the steps of the Awareness Ladder. Each piece of content needs to achieve just a few simple things, then link to the next logical step.

It then becomes easy to optimize the click-through from each step to the next step.

The non-commercial content at the early steps is perfect for organic SEO, providing generous, helpful content that is great for attracting links.

However commercial your proposition, I believe this organic model is the power-up you need to get better search rankings, maximum traffic, and a neat conversion funnel.

If you’re going to Conversion Conference Chicago, sign up for my session (2.15 on Monday June 25th), where I’ll give you the complete model and show you how it all fits together to deliver massive ROI.

 

About the Author

Ben Hunt has designed websites since 1994. He has designed websites and web-based applications for ISPs, start-ups and government agencies. He was one of the pioneering web designers who first applied direct marketing techniques to web design. Ben now teaches web designers and marketers how to craft websites that SELL.

Ben’s first book “Save the Pixel” has sold over 9000 copies since 2008 and is acknowledged the bible of simple web design. His second book “Convert!” (published by Wiley in 2011) has been described as “One of the most profound books on design and web marketing ever written.” In this ground-breaking handbook, Ben deconstructs the classic web site architecture and reveals a far more effective inverted approach, based on two key insights: “The Awareness Ladder” and “Multiplicity”.

See Ben Live!

Ben will be talking more about designing websites that attract traffic and deliver massive conversions at Conversion Conference 2012 on June 25^th and 26^th in Chicago. Join him in his session on “End-to-End Conversion: From Acquisition to Repeat Customer.” See the full agenda and read more about this session. Follow Ben on Twitter to say hello and do some pre-conference networking.

Want to save on your Conversion Conference pass?  Save as much as $600 when you register with Ben’s discount code CH12310 and our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, Early Bird promo expires on May 11^th.

With the first ever Conversion Conference in Chicago only a few months away, we thought we’d write a short post on the Windy City’s awesomeness so you know why we’re excited to be there. Granted, Chicago has been the center of much media attention lately so some of these things may not be new to you. But if your memory of Chicago is as one of America’s industrial epicentre, then read on and discover how the city has been impacted by the winds of [internet] change.

“High Tech Heaven”

In an article last year, ABC News Reporter Peter Dizikes called Chicago the “high tech heaven,” citing the rapid growth of the city’s high tech industry. The prominence of Chicago’s tech start-up community has also compelled many writers to portray the city as a Silicon Valley contender. But don’t be quick to dismiss claims about Chicago’s tech industry as hot air: the Windy City has been enjoying surges in tech and internet-related jobs and investments recently, which are bolstering not only the city’s economy but also its status as a tech hotspot in the country. Unsurprisingly, startups such as Groupon and GrubHub have emerged as the poster children of Chicago’s successes in the tech economy (although Groupon’s difficulties with its IPO filings in the SEC are inspiring some folks to search for another, less embattled poster child) .

“Midwestern Practicality”

Despite the media hype surrounding Chicago’s ascent in the high tech and internet world, entrepreneurs and employees alike attest to the persistence of traditional or more conservative corporate values in Chicago-based companies. For instance, Lightbank venture capitalist Paul Lee observes that “CEOs in Chicago tend to focus closely on their business plan (unlike Silicon Valley CEOs, who tend to focus on honing their product and user experience).” Whereas failure is seen in Silicon Valley as an acceptable part of the business cycle, Chicago-based companies may not dismiss failure as easily and may in fact be disheartened in their ventures. However, the dominance of old-school values also influence companies to exhibit more loyalty to their vendors and customers.

Don’t get us wrong, Chicago’s conservative values don’t necessarily equate to it being a boring, gloomy place. On the contrary, it is home to a really vibrant startup community – one that has thrived precisely because of the practical-minded nature of its citizens.

Outside the Tech World

The tech industry is not the end-all and be-all of existence in the Windy City. Chicago also boasts of a flourishing music and arts scene. If you’re looking for something to see or do before or after Conversion Conference, you won’t have a hard time finding festivals, art exhibits, and music concerts especially since Chicago is celebrating its 175^th birthday.

Yes, Chicago rocks! Join us as we bring conversion optimization best practices from around the world to Chicago and also learn some home-grown CRO techniques from the best and the brightest minds in the Windy City.

What other awesome things about Chicago do you like? Feel free to add them to our list!

P.S. Register for Conversion Conference Chicago 2012 and save up to $500 through our Early Bird Rates. Hurry, this offer is good till May 11^th only.

We’re back after an awesome and fun-filled week!

We are happy to report that Conversion Conference West 2012 was a huge success with more attendees than our two previous San Francisco conferences. We were thrilled to have met first-timers and to reconnect with Conversion Conference veterans – thank you, folks, for joining us and making the conference an amazing event.

Unsurprisingly, among the most exciting parts of the conference were the keynote presentations by BJ Fogg, Jared Spool, Steve Krug, and Roger Dooley. Each keynote was packed with relevant yet simple information which could be applied by anyone serious enough to implement usability, user experience, and conversion improvements. Case in point: Roger Dooley tells attendees to use simple fonts and language in order to decrease the perceived effort required for accomplishing certain tasks. Or how about Steve Krug’s advice to implement user testing since website owners and designers are the worst judges when it comes to the usability of their own websites?

Most of the session rooms were jampacked, too, as speakers delivered practical insights to an engaged audience. Here are some of the attendees’ reactions to the speakers’ live presentations at Conversion Conference West 2012 (via twitter):

@NextJenComms: Note: @bmassey took 7 mins to explain something that took my Johns Hopkins prof 1.5 hours. AND he was funnier. #convcon

Enjoying great ideas from @ArnieK on 9 Content Ideas to Grow Your Business during #ConvCon. Stats show why these ideas work!

@ion_poodle: Big ideas from Big Giant Conversions: Simple, Iterative & Fast landing page creation and testing. #ConvCon

And who can forget the Live Website Critiques where Tim Ash, Chris Goward, and Sandra Niehaus picked apart participating websites and gave their honest view of the conversion potential of specific landing pages? Check out video clips of the powerhouse trio while they scrutinize GoDaddy.com, SurveyMonkey.com, and other websites!

If you missed Conversion Conference West in San Francisco, you can check out some of these resources for takeaways and tips:

Lessons from the Conversion Conference – Day 1 by Mark Courtland

Lessons from the Conversion Conference – Day 2 by Mark Courtland

Top 4 takeaways from Conversion Conference San Francisco by John Ekman

BJ Fogg on Understanding Behaviors at Conversion Conference by Brian Massey

Live tweets from attendees and speakers during the conference

You can also check out pictures of Conversion Conference West 2012 on our facebook page – and tag yourself while you’re at it

We know it’s probably too early for most of you, but if you’re planning to join us at Chicago for Conversion Conference East 2012 on June 25-26, then register before Friday, March 16 to grab a SUPER EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT. You’re going anyway, so why not score some savings along the way?