How we increased landing page conversion from 5% to 55%
quicksprints.com
quicksprints.com
http://quicksprints.com/post/32792397474/how-we-increased-la...
I know it's a chicken and egg problem, you want a large enough sample base to get users using the product but with vague messaging you are attracting people that wont use your product (people that you shouldn't target) and people that WILL use your product but don't understand the vague messaging. I would suggest taking all versions of the page and signup methods to test usability of the product. Optimizing on the initial signup is great, but if your users don't use the product after they signup bc it's so vague.. then you've just wasted all that optimization effort. Unless the goal is to create a huge list of signups.
Also, where is traffic coming from? Paid, organic search, social media, press release, tc, etc? That has a huge difference on your results. And what tools are you using to run the tests and what is the sample size? I think readers would love to hear those tidbits too
Thanks for sharing your findings.. good luck =)
For our landing page tests we use Google Analytics which now includes Google Website Optimizer. We track engagement by logging activity time stamps per user in Redis. We also track how many other friends a user invites as a means to measure our k-factor and we are definitely biased towards targeting users that are more likely to be engaged and bring other users to the site.
I think the results here speak more than any guesses we might make, but I'm just astounded with the results.
Side note: I was able to click "Sign In", and then from that page access the "About" page from the footer. That told me at least a little bit more about what the service is actually for.
All of our acquisition methods specifically target sports fans and are zero cost. For instance, we have partnerships with some sports content sites that run our ads for free. We also drive quite a bit of traffic by posting links to Sidelines in team fan forms.
The on-boarding process for Sidelines takes a few steps. One of the things we do, is as soon as you sign-up via the landing page we ask you to select your teams. This gives the user something to do and we find that 95% who sign up complete this step. In the sign up flow, we automatically subscribe new users to other users on the site who are active and follow the same teams, and this is explained clearly to the user in the sign up flow. Once the user completes the sign up flow, he lands on the feed, which shows interesting stuff the people he is following have shared about his teams. Since the feed is such a universally well-understood UI construct, users get it, and we see a good percentage of our first time users reshare an item or comment on an item on their first visit.
We also send out a welcome email (which we’ve been experimenting with) which explains more details about the site and how to get the most out of it. We’ve had fairly good success in bringing users back to the site with the welcome email.
We’re currently in the process of implementing a tour which will walk the new users through the features of the site, that should further drive engagement on the first visit.
1. Random photos are better than screenshots
Everything is better than straight screenshots. You didn't show what you were using before, but at a dismal 5% conversion I am guessing it was straight screenshots that weren't "posed" on a device or anything? Photos that have relevant content and even a minor emotional effect will say more than your screenshots ever will. I don't think I would call a football and baseball image "random" on a sports site, though. They are more relevant to a sports fan than a screenshot.
2. Large Background Photos Convert Really Well
That is not universally true. The two screenshots you have provided demonstrate the effect of focus in a design, not the effect of background images. You have used a background that is not only relevant, but is high-contrast colors and blurred, which creates a "foreground" out of your form. That will make the user's eyes go directly to the form rather than getting lost in your boring headlines, etc.
3. Inciting curiosity works better than clarity
It's interesting that you interpreted this as "curiosity" rather than benefits vs. features. Your original headline was a classic mistake. "A social network for sports fans" is a useless statement. No benefit, no motivation, no reason to click. "Follow sports together" is inherently more appealing because it describes the benefit of the service and has a social motivation built in. THAT is what you have done. Curiosity is not relevant.
4. Focus on the value proposition for brand new users, not advanced users
Duh. I don't want to be disrespectful, but this is a pure numbers rationale. In any market there will always be a small minority of advanced users compared to the vast majority of basic users. This will be true for every service, ever, unless the only people that could possibly understand the offer are advanced users.
5. Allowing users to sign up with their email increases FB/Twitter sign-ups
This was a good one. It is usually less effective to give people an ultimatum (register or leave) than to give them options to compare (would you rather register with FB or email?). Users will focus on the choice rather than the "yes or no" if you give them useful options to choose from. I once read an example test where more people were willing to pay for an a set of partially broken dishes if they were compared to an incomplete set than if they were sold alone. Same principle.
6. Figure out and optimize for the target demographics that convert the best
In the age of analytics, it is futile to define target audiences before statistics are available. It is much better to do as you have done: launch it and let your target audience identify itself. Good lesson.
1.)“ You didn't show what you were using before, but at a dismal 5% conversion I am guessing it was straight screenshots that weren't "posed" on a device or anything?“
I looked hard for a screenshot of our original landing page but couldn’t dig one up. The screenshots were of the parts of our site that were resonating the most with our most engaged users, and we got good feedback on both the screenshots themselves and the visual design. However, we found that the additional complexity for our average user in having to parse and understand a bunch of screenshots is not as effective as a sports-related photo with a simple, powerful tagline and explanation.
“I don't think I would call a football and baseball image "random" on a sports site, though.”
You’re right, random wasn’t the right word. We meant that we didn’t experiment much with the photo itself or ask for feedback from a wide list of sources.
2.)“Your original headline was a classic mistake.” We are not just talking about taglines or even comparing the two taglines we showed here. In fact, “A Social Network for Sports Fans” is almost as vague as “Follow Sports Together”. We experimented with a lot of other options for messaging and many which were more detailed and clear (3 bullet points on the key benefits of the site, for instance).
In these experiments, we consistently, we found that simple but curiosity-inciting messaging works better than more detailed and clearer messaging.
4.) This lesson is obvious to us now, but was not obvious from the start. By sharing our results we are hoping that others will avoid our mistakes, even the ones that may be obvious to you.
5.) That sounds like a cool study. I'd love to read about it even you can find the link.
6.) Thanks!
I think this is similar to what is described by Dan Ariely in his book, Predictably Irrational, as the Decoy Effect. Relevant excerpt from Wikipedia [1]:
"People not only compare things, but also compare things that are easily comparable. For example, if given the following options for a honeymoon - Paris (with free breakfast), Rome (with free breakfast), and Rome (no breakfast included), most people would probably choose Rome with the free breakfast. The rationale is that it is easier to compare the two options for Rome than it is to compare Paris and Rome. Ariely also explains the role of the decoy effect (or asymmetric dominance effect) in the decision process. The decoy effect is the phenomenon whereby consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option that is asymmetrically dominated. This effect is the "secret agent" in many decisions."
In your case the third choice - email - is the decoy or secret agent - making the other two options more attractive for ease of use.
[1] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational Edit: Wikipedia link
So you're saying providing details is bad and vagueness is good. Vagueness "incites curiosity" which increases signups.
Not sure if I like that. Feels a bit unethical. You are intentionally holding back information for the sole reason of increasing signups. If you showed the product, or listed the features, or provided more details, signups goes down? That's a sign you need to improve your product.
"So you're saying providing details is bad and vagueness is good. Vagueness "incites curiosity" which increases signups."
Not really, we're saying that for certain kinds of free consumer apps, curiosity can be a very strong motivator for someone to try a product. (This kind of tactic would never work for a paid product for instance or a product targeted at business users.)
Vagueness doesn't necessarily incite curiosity, but asking first time users to parse detailed messaging often kills it prematurely, and you've got to find the right balance that optimizes conversion. This is what worked well for us.
Finally, there are many other tactics that we're successfully using to turn the users who just signed up into active, engaged users and they are mentioned elsewhere on this thread.
How many of those new users continue to use the service one month later vs your previous engagement levels? Just curious.
Demographics and invitations Whose invitations are more accepted And so forth