You can divide SEO tactics into two general categories: the black hat and the white hat.
I believe we can do a similar classification with conversion optimization. If we had two categories worth distinction they would be:
Perhaps using the same concept of Black Hat and White Hat for conversion optimization is a step too far.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, right?
That’s the mentality of comparison shoppers. If they look hard and long enough, they will find a better value. If they don’t look around, they’ll miss out on greener grasses.
Today, the term “comparison shopper” describes the majority of consumers, especially those online. If you’re running an eCommerce or SaaS company, you absolutely must be optimizing for comparison shoppers.
Do a quick Google search for “A/B testing mistakes,” and you’ll find a good amount of articles.
Common on those lists is the oft-repeated advice that you should “not make more than one change per test.”
As it turns out, like much of the advice in the conversion optimization world, it’s not so simple.
It seems all technology is getting smaller and more efficient. It’s certainly true for computers, as smartphones are progressively overtaking their larger counterparts.
According to Dazeinfo research, there were about 1.13 billion smartphone users in 2012. This number increased by 27.1% in 2013 to 1.43 billion, and by 2017, nearly half of global mobile users are likely to own a smartphone.
Band-aiding a mobile experience is no longer a possible solution, as 70% of mobile searches lead to action on a website within 1 hour of searching.
It’s no big secret that video often improves conversion rates.
And with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all making recent upgrades to their video capabilities, it may almost seem like a no-brainer to blast your next marketing video everywhere you can.
Not so fast.
Every platform is different and therefore no single video is right for every platform. That’s not to say your business shouldn’t be using every platform, but let’s be smart about it.
William A. Foster once said, “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
Yet, we continue to see businesses pushing leads through doors, pushing customers through funnels… just hoping that they’ll create a high quality, engaged audience by accident.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. A high quality, engaged audience is anything but accidental. It requires that optimizers put in the effort to create user state models, dig into cohort analysis and correlative metrics, run experiments for different user states, etc.
It’s not the easy choice, but if you’re looking for long-term revenue growth, it’s the only choice.
When trying to boost conversions, whether it’s on a signup screen or a landing page, it’s a default for many optimizers to generate hypotheses based on best practices and what’s generally “known” to be a problem.
A landing page that doesn’t display well on mobile is a perfect example. Someone might shout “it’s not responsive” and then resize the page properly for mobile use.
But that won’t solve the real issue… because the truth about most low converting landing pages on mobile isn’t just that they don’t resize properly, but that they have been written, designed, built… with no mobile context in mind.
As a digital analyst or marketer, you know the importance of analytical decision making.
Go to any industry conference, blog, meet up, or even just read the popular press, and you will hear and see topics like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics everywhere.
Because many of us don’t come from a technical/statistical background, this can be both a little confusing and intimidating.
But don’t sweat it, in this post, I will try to clear up a some of this confusion by introducing a simple, yet powerful framework – the intelligent agent – which will help link these new ideas with familiar tools and concepts like A/B Testing and Optimization.
Fact: offering customers more choices kills conversion rates.
Fact: you can prime customers to behave in certain ways with certain phrases, images or ideas.
Researchers have shown it’s true.
Fact: if you give potential customers a small gift, you’ll create a debt that customers will eagerly repay.
Robert Cialdini wrote about that years ago in his popular book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
These ideas (and dozens of others) are so widely accepted that almost no one questions them.
But maybe we should.
Elite Camp is a 3-day traffic and (mainly) conversion event. It’s among the very best CRO events in the world, and of course in Europe. This year was already its 7th year – and the format has proven to be so successful that the event has been replicated in many other countries.
Elite Camp 2016 had an enviable line-up of heavy hitters and rock stars. Here are top insights from every speaker of this year’s event.