gdp's Comments

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The psychological persuasiveness of Aylan Kurdi's tragic story

Sat, 19 Sep 2015 17:52:20 +0000

I can understand how you feel, Pablo. Aylan Kurdi’s death is tragic. And my point is that the thousands of deaths before him in similar situations are *also* tragic and were ignored. That should give us all pause to consider. I believe we can learn something from even tragic events, and use it to cause more good in the world. You've clearly been moved by his story, just as I and many others have. Now, we have the choice to let it move us to anger or to positive action. For example, because WiderFunnel is committed to learning from every circumstance, we are able to help NGO's like the International Rescue Committee (IRC) optimize their landing pages to increase donations. You can read the case study here: http://www.widerfunnel.com/proof/case-studies/irc The IRC is one of only four organizations Google selected for their refugee crisis donation matching campaign: https://onetoday.google.com/page/refugeerelief?c=... The business WiderFunnel promotes increases the good in the world and there is no shame in building it.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 23:01:17 +0000

Coming up with experiment hypotheses is equal parts data and inspiration. Ideas often come from a straight-line logical deduction, but also sometimes from a lateral thought based on unrelated experiences. That's why the best optimization strategists have broad curiosity that isn't specific to one subject. The most creative ideas come from the rich soil of varied interests.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 22:59:21 +0000

:) After "You Should Test That!", there are many books I recommend. Here are a few to start: Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug Web Design for ROI, Lance Loveday Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski Influence, Robert Cialdini Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 20:58:45 +0000

That's a great answer, Alhan. I'll also add that a major risk of multi-arm bandit is when the algorithm weights more traffic to a leading variation with too little data to be making that decision. It can cause variations to be relegated to losing status without giving them a chance due to early statistical clumping. To find out if it's really a losing variation, you may have to run your experiment for much longer to give it a fighting chance to get a more accurate conversion rate in the test. Or, even better, use an equal distribution testing tool for more accurate results.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 20:27:15 +0000

To answer your second question, this aversion to change problem is an inherent drag on A/B tests. Inertia and familiarity create built-in barriers to conversion rate lift for existing customers or previous visitors. This gives new challenger variations a larger hurdle to cross, and also implies that a statistically significant winner often may perform even better over time than the original control page. One way to suss out the effect of this drag is to segment your results by New vs. Returning visitors. If you find new visitors show a larger conversion rate lift than returning visitors, the familiarity drag is probably having an effect.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 20:22:00 +0000

There are a few questions in there, Beau. I'll start with the long-term branding effort. I believe a brand should be judged on its ability to generate business growth and should evolve to optimize that goal as well. See my article on the purpose of branding, here: http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimi... In the situation you mention of a fully funded non-profit or politician, however, perception optimization will need a different method than conversion tracking. This reminds me of a project for a WiderFunnel client several years ago where we needed to measure how to improve the educational perception of a product information area that did not have conversion tracking possible. In this case, we created a one-question survey to appear in a specific area of the page variations asking "Did this page help you [insert specific action]?" The answer revealed both the educating ability of the page and the user's action intent. You also mention awareness and perception as goals. Awareness can't be measured as a conversion goal, since everyone who's in an experiment must have been exposed to the brand, by definition of being in the experiment. But perception can be measured through a survey similar to the example above.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 19:48:40 +0000

Ideation is an inherently messy process, Ryan. Ideas can come from anywhere and you need to have rich sources of data to keep hypotheses flowing. Here are some ways we do that at WiderFunnel: Reading – have you read all the books on e-commerce, behavioural economics, psychology, conversion optimization, persuasion, web design, copywriting, and user experience? Post-purchase surveys - They can be an important source of ideas. We often get amazing insights from NPS surveys. Customer interviews - Have you talked with your customers? Do you know why they bought from you vs. your competitors? Have you asked why they almost didn't buy? User testing – Online and in-person user testing can be expensive and time consuming, but is useful especially for finding UX problems or website errors. Real users will rarely use your website how you'd expect them to. (Also, here are some caveats to keep in mind for qualitative testing: http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimi... Click heatmap analysis – Click heatmaps show click clouds and reveal where most visitors pay attention. You may be surprised what some users think should be clickable. Web analytics – Analytics patterns can reveal confusion and show you how different segments are consuming information. A high cart abandonment rate, for example, my not mean there's a problem in the cart, but that there's information missing on your product detail pages or other areas. They may be desperately going to the cart to see if the information, such as shipping and returns details, will appear there. Or, 'pogosticking', where users will go back and forth between product pages and site search results or category pages, may imply your filtering and search isn't bringing up the products they're really looking for. Competitive analysis – Often competitors are the first place marketers will look for ideas. But, if they're evolving and testing too, there may be fresh ideas there. Non-competitive analysis – More importantly, look outside of your competitive set for good ideas in different industries. Previous experiment insights – If you've structured your tests properly, they should be revealing potential insights about your customers in addition to delivering revenue lift. Can you re-confirm that insight in different ways? What other questions do you have to build on those insights? Other company's tests – At WiderFunnel, we run thousands of tests across many websites in all kinds of industries. We feel fortunate to be able to find patterns in user behaviour across all those websites to build and refine the best optimization frameworks. Plus, we can pull ideas directly from our test database to try on every new client that engages with us. If you don't have that luxury, however, you can look for public A/B testing case studies to get ideas from, like these: http://www.widerfunnel.com/case-studies . Don't worry if they're not exactly in your industry. You may find tactics that apply to you too. Team input – All of WiderFunnel's optimization team meets weekly to review our upcoming experiment plans and offer critiques and new ideas. Different perspectives and experiences from experts brings a winning combination of friendly competition and team support. Since we started doing this a couple years ago, our experiment plans and test results have continued to get even better.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 19:39:25 +0000

Awesome answer, MSL! I’ll also add a overarching goals concept to keep in mind, Nancy. That is that there are two types of goals to track: exploration and validation. Exploration goals are all your interactions you track in your web analytics tool. They’re important for understanding a complete picture of how visitors are interacting with your page. Validation goals are the actions that drive revenue. Those are the only ones you should use to determine your experiment winning variations.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Ask your questions here for the optimization Ask Me Anything

Fri, 4 Sep 2015 15:49:43 +0000

We love when new clients who have rotating home page banners begin working with WiderFunnel. Firstly, because we know we'll have a nearly-guaranteed winning test to start the engagement, but also because it's a clear indicator that they haven't done much proper testing and we'll be able to do a lot of good, easily. In other words, rotating images are bad for conversion rates. Except when they're not. There are some circumstances when rotating images are the ideal solution. For artists, designers, and architects showing a portfolio of their work, for example. They're great for giving an impression, setting a mood, hinting at possibilities... but not at presenting options for visitors to click on. For more on this topic, check out the original post that started the industry discussion: http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimi...

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Design your A/B Tests to get consistently better results

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:14:35 +0000

Testing only one variable at a time is theoretically best, but is impractical. One of the most important jobs our Optimization Strategists have is to prioritize which variables are most important to isolate for learning, and which should be clustered to get faster lift. That's why we are continuously refining our DOE models to maximized for: (a) revenue lift and (b) insights.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The Most Effective Website Redesign Strategy

Wed, 5 Aug 2015 19:01:48 +0000

Your question highlights one of the reasons that ESR planning takes a different form than traditional redesigns, Paul. Our optimization designers need to plan the desired endpoint as well as the steps along the way to achieve it. In some cases, testing new functionality with the original look & feel is the right approach. More often, similar elements can be grouped together and batch tested. On the other hand, in many cases, dramatic redesigns aren't as necessary as designers might hope. A lot of new design and functionality approaches are implemented regardless of whether they help users or the company, but simply so designers and developers can have fun trying new technical abilities. Redesigning too dramatically can also disorient repeat visitors and add confusion without any sales benefit. Perhaps, if the new design components are so incongruous with the current design, they may be too far from visitors expectations too. ESR keeps you focused on the real reason for a potential redesign -- improving business results -- and not on the fun, new, whiz-bang functionality. It can be difficult to give up the idea of the "fresh, new look" that comes with a redesign, but if it doesn't provide fresh, new revenue lift, it shouldn't be implemented.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Test Being Different To Make Massive Gains

Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:09:57 +0000

Awesome! Thanks for stopping by, Paul!

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Nine Strategies for Becoming the Marketing Optimization Champion Your Company Can't Live Without

Tue, 4 Mar 2014 15:55:04 +0000

That's great feedback, Bethany. I'm glad to hear you're in a more supportive position now!

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : How to Prioritize Conversion Rate Optimization Tests Using PIE

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 22:11:39 +0000

The art of conversion strategy is involved there, Ole. Our strategists consider many qualitative and quantitative factors to come up with the initial opportunity list, as well as dipping into our test results database for similar websites. That's a part of the creativity and experience we bring to the table for our clients.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The Truth Behind the Yin and Yang of Conversion Rate Optimization

Tue, 25 Feb 2014 19:25:45 +0000

Yes, for most of our clients, the website is different now than when we published each of the case studies. Your logic is off, though. Why would you assume that suggests a problem? To clarify, here are some other things to consider: ▪The designs in our case studies are not “designs we suggested.” They are designs we created, tested, and proved through A/B testing to be winners at the time. We don’t ever “suggest” a new design. We test and optimize the design, content, layout, messaging, etc. ▪The screenshots in those case studies are snapshots in time, and not the forever final result. We usually show them in the case study to illustrate an insight, result or strategy. They’re by no means comprehensive of all the work we’re doing for them. ▪For example, we often perform site-wide tests that dramatically redesign our clients’ websites but the case studies may have been published before the most dramatic of the tests. ▪The strategy we use is called Kaizen, which means “continuous improvement." By definition, they shouldn't be the same today. In fact, it would be more of a problem if the site was exactly the same today! ▪We’re often training a client’s teams to do conversion optimization by “looking over our shoulders” and they take over at some point. That’s totally fine with us. ▪The improvements are sometimes achieved through reducing content, sometimes increasing content, and sometimes not touching content. It’s sufficient if and only if it lifts business results. (e.g. Profitable Sales) ▪We focus precisely on the clients’ highest priority and spend considerable effort ensuring we’re doing so at the beginning of an engagement. ▪However, organizations don’t always follow the best strategies either. Politics are involved and some people’s incentives aren’t aligned with their own company’s. They’re the minority, but I certainly won’t argue that all organizational behaviour is logical, optimal or unbiased.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The Truth Behind the Yin and Yang of Conversion Rate Optimization

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 21:31:32 +0000

Thanks, Elena!

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The Truth Behind the Yin and Yang of Conversion Rate Optimization

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 21:31:01 +0000

Awesome. Thanks!

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : The Truth Behind the Yin and Yang of Conversion Rate Optimization

Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:25:44 +0000

Here's a good starting point, Michael: http://www.youshouldtestthat.com You should read that!

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Conversion Optimization for Responsive Web Design

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 00:03:30 +0000

Yes, we often do test on desktop-only or mobile-only and then validate learning across other devices.

WiderFunnel Marketing Conversion Optimization : Don't try to lower your bounce rate

Thu, 6 Feb 2014 19:24:17 +0000

Oops. I missed this question earlier, Niels! 1. Yes, many of our clients have multi-channel strategies and we need to create a balanced approach to their goals. (In fact, we've recently identified that "complex" businesses are a speciality of WiderFunnel's, where we see a lot of success.) "As close to revenue as possible" sometimes means generating a lead, phone call, or even a location search. Those goals might not mean direct revenue, but we can associate some business goal value to them and use that as a proxy for conversion optimization. The goals waterfall concept helps with this: http://www.widerfunnel.com/strategy/what-should-y... 2. Task completion rate can mean many different things. If the task is a revenue-driver then, yes, it could be a CRO goal. A common problem with usability testing is that task completion rates measure artificial scenarios. Asking someone to complete a task and measuring if they can misses the point that they may not care about that task at all! Here's more on the uses and dangers of qualitative research: http://www.widerfunnel.com/conversion-rate-optimi...