1. The Conversion Funnel:
Get That Money.
Danielle Gatsos
Digital Psychology - MCDM
7/20/10

2. analysis as to how to proceed with the least amount
of risk and highest benefit.
More often than not our reactions are greatly
influenced by previous experiences. For example, if
you embarrassed yourself by approaching a stranger
in the past, you are not as likely to approach the
person at the mall this time. The same is true in the
cop car example. If you mistakenly assumed a police
car was a taxi (the vehicles look similar) and received
a ticket, you are a lot less likely to make the same
assumption again. But, if you got away, you may be
more apt to assume you can speed again. When a
signal is correctly identified in SDT it is referred to as
a hit. When the identification is incorrect it is referred
to as a false alarm.
In SDT when the signals become too similar the error
rate increases and the threshold decreases. In the
digital world, this theory applies directly to the
consumption or rejection of email, newsletters, and/or
spam.
The Conversion Funnel: Get That Money.
The Conversion Funnel refers to the process in which a
web user goes through before making an online
purchase. You may notice when you visit sites like

3. Signal Detection Theory and Email
VistaPrint is a site that is typically successful at sending out content with subject lines that users want to
read. Knowing that their audience typically consists of people looking for marketing materials their emails
are short and simple, highlighting the discounts they offer.
Here is a recent email marketing example from VistaPrint. This e-mail is not necessarily
the BEST headline they have ever had, but since I have opened such emails in the past I
made an evaluation by detecting the signal provided on the subject line that this email was
worth opening to see what kind of print deals I can get. The consistency of their offers has
likely benefited their click rate-especially in my circumstance.

4. Signal Detection Theory and Email
While VistaPrint normally sends emails that draw my marketing interest, every once in a while I receive an
email with a subject line that contains my name, along with some sort of phrase about me winning. I
ALWAYS delete these. While I understand that they may be offering some kind of discount, the fact that
they try to sell it by using my name and telling me I’m an “exclusive winner” when I know they used the
autofill feature for their mass email list annoys me. Early on in my email career I made the mistake of
opening emails that contained my name thinking they were from people I knew or for things that would
directly interest me. I learned quickly that those types of emails were spam, and now my signal detection
tells me that the keywords “Danielle” and “Winner” are only going to be used in SPAM subject lines.
ADVICE:
-Don’t try to fool your reader, we’re smarter than you think.
-Keep the headline simple - tell me what the discount or product is, because if I don’t
know what you’re emailing about, my signal detection is going to tell me it’s SPAM.
Danielle, You’re an exclusive winner!