1 Tom Leung Google Website Optimizer Business Product Manager Escaping the Dark Ages of Online Marketing Perhaps we should wear more armor…

What I’ll Cover  Clicks and Conversions  Controlled Online Conversion Experiments  What to Test  Case Studies 2

Driving Traffic is Just the Beginning… You invest marketing resources for 100% of your visitors. Your pages may lose more than half their visitors in seconds Most who stay choose not to convert. Visitors = Potential Conversions Bounced Visits Abandoned Non-Bouncing Visitors Conversions Why bother bringing more visitors to a site that converts poorly?

Landing Pages are the Low Hanging Fruit Ad Creatives Landing Pages Closing Pages seconds; 3% of pixels, no commitment 0-20 seconds, 100% of pixels, demonstrated commitment 2-3 minutes, 100% of pixels, significant commitment

How Have You Grown Sales? Big Spenders Marketing Superpowers Passive Marketers Closers 5 Traffic Growth Efficiency Gains Low High

The Multiplicative Effect 6 Do NothingRaise Spend 50% Raise Conversion Rate 50% Both Prospects 10,000 15,000 10,000 15,000 Conv Rate 2% 3% Customers Sales Impact 1.5X 2.3X What other ways can you increase sales by 2.3X with only a 50% increase in ad spend?

Virtuous Cycle of Performance Marketing 7 Drive the Right Traffic Monitor Performance Optimize Content

8 Evolve and Leapfrog Your Competition 1.Drive the right traffic to your site 2.Measure & analyze site activity 3.Test changes & implement winners 4.Repeat #1-3 until conversion rate = 100%

Optimize Content Without Experimentation? Developing pharmaceuticals by guessing Sending a national direct mail drop blind Changing your outside sales pitch without measuring sales 9

How Experimentation Works Test variations of the same page Customers Visit your Website 1/3 visitors 14% Make Purchase 20% Make Purchase 2% Make Purchase Customers Convert Original Combo 2 Combo 1 Winning Combo

11 A: Uses “Free”, Picture, Action Oriented

12 B: Cleaner, Button, Value Proposition B Page Increased Downloads by 30%!

Combination Report Shows the Customer Favorite Combination 11 is performing the best Bars represent relative improvement Original is highlighted here

You Don’t Need a Phd in Math

Some Pages Better Than Others Traffic Known Problems with Content Low High Landing Pages Home Pages Step 1 of Funnels Previously Optimized Pages Final Steps of Funnels Ancillary Detail Pages Terms of Use Pages Contact Us Pages

Best Practices in Marketing Experimentation Test a small number of variations Rule of thumb is ~100 conversions per combination Combinations = (# Variations in Section 1) * (# Variations in Section 2)… –Test big changes If you can’t see difference between two combos in 8 seconds, visitors probably won’t either –Consider early indicators if you don’t have enough conversions E.g. if you’re selling a $100k software package or a small business with modest volume, optimize for conversion indicators such as request info, view product details, remain on page features page >5 seconds. –Don’t jump to conclusions Less than 2 weeks is no good, focus on absolute conversion difference, don’t get too excited by sliver of green or red

Finding Your Customers’ Desired Balance 17 Info Rich Short n Sweet Left Layout Right Layout FactsAspirations LeadsSales ? ? ? ?

More Experimentation Ideas Conversion Cocktail: Headline / Image / Call to Action Layout Which testimonials? Copy Embedded video? Offline Coupons Telephone Inquiries Colors, fonts, sizes Sales incentives Pricing Form Fields

Building a Fact-Based Marketing Culture Do you measure KPI’s? Is your conversion rate one of them? Do you focus too much on CPA? Do you spend more time in meetings than testing? Do you know what your top 5 traffic pages are? Do you know what your worst converting pages are? Are you trying content ideas that scare you (a little)? 19

What is Google Website Optimizer? Benefits  Free Experimentation Tool  Easy to use  Backed by Google  Increases in ROI by >50% not uncommon  Discussion groups, tutorials, partner network Features  A/B Split Testing  Multivariate Testing  Follow Up Testing  Works with ALL traffic  Statistical Significance Analysis  Live reporting updated hourly  Quarterly feature updates 20 Google.com/WebsiteOptimizer

Reducing the Business Risks of a Website Redesign While Increasing Conversions by 270% for Safe Software

Background Experiment Objective Maximize downloads of FME 2007 trial software

Experiment #1: Home Page

Old Home Page SwapBox 1

Home Page Hypotheses To increase the trial software download conversion rate: Allow visitors to self–select based on their experience Allow visitors to self-select based on their needs Alternative layout variation with 2 column vertical content presentation Alternative layout variation with 3 column vertical content presentation

Page Variations We Created

Measurable Results Now they know which home page to use for their new site. And, they have a 125% increase in lead conversions!

Can You Guess the Winner?

Winning Page – 125% Conversion Lift!

Experiment #2: Evaluations Download Page

Evaluations Download Page Control SwapBox 1

Evaluations Download Page Hypotheses Hypotheses to increase the conversion rate: Simplify the main call-to-action Reinforce the value proposition

Evaluation Download Page Variations We Created

Evaluations Download Page Variations - Measurable Results

Can You Guess the Winner?

Winning Evaluation Download Page – 13.4% Conversion Lift!

Case Study: Request Form and Thank You Page Optimization for Tourism BC’s Ski Guide

HelloBC.com Thank You Page 2008 Ski Guide Order Form Tourism BC’s annual winter campaign to drive ski enthusiasts to BC ski resorts. HelloBC.com Ski Conversion Funnel TV Mail Online

Experiment #1: Guide Order Form

HelloBC.com Ski Guide Order Form Objectives: 1.Increase Ski Guide order form completion rate 2.Increase post-order engagement with HelloBC content

HelloBC.com Ski Guide Order Form Hypotheses to increase the conversion rate Increase prominence of the “Ski Getaway” offer (over the guide) And Layout redesign of the Ski Guide order form page

HelloBC.com Ski Guide Order Form SwapBox 1

Can You Guess the Winner? A B

Experiment Results +8.96% %

Experiment #2: Thank You Page

HelloBC.com Ski Guide Thank You Page SwapBox 1

HelloBC.com Ski Guide Thank You Page Hypotheses to increase the engagement conversion rate: Increase the Clarity of the Headline, BC Resorts box, RSS link, and User Generated Content box Provide focused call-to-action

Can You Guess the Winner? Our Experiment Variation Original

Experiment Results Our Experiment Variation +21.7% Original

The Results on the Slopes Of visitors who request information from Tourism BC‘s landing pages… –30% will visit British Columbia A 9% lift in conversions represents significant tourism growth

Thanks! Questions? Free downloads available: Presentation slides from today Conversion Optimization ROI Calculators Case Studies