Secrets of Landing Page Testing [132] - Steffek

Secrets of Landing Page Testing: How to Optimize PPC and Other Landing Pages to Convert More Donors and Email Subscribers [132] Apr 09, 2010 @ 3:30 PM Session hash tag: #10ntc.test
Toby Smith – CARE
Jill Ammon – American Diabetes Assn
Deborah Johnson – NCPSSM
Robin Steffek – RedEngine Digital

Overview & Speaker Intros
Tips on Formulating Landing Page Tests
(Robin Steffek, RedEngine Digital)
CARE (Toby Smith)
American Diabetes Assn (Jill Ammon)
NCPSSM (Deborah Johnson)
Q&A

The Main Secret to Testing & Improving Conversions: Planning
Develop a test plan (stop guessing)
Implement the test
Measure and monitor
Learn from results
Optimize and re-test

Formulating Your Own Test: A Logical Progression of Planning Steps
What is your call-to-action (CTA)?
Campaign-based or site wide test?
Traffic volume
What is the target % goal for increasing conversions?
What metrics will you measure by?

Planning Steps: What to test
What are you testing to evaluate your goal?
Headline with or without CTA
Persuasive content supporting your CTA (benefits / value proposition/ appeal )
CTA buttons / CTA links
Images supporting the CTA (empathy /emotion)
What is your prediction or test hypothesis?

Planning Steps: Define the Type of Test
What type of test is best for evaluating your goal?

A / B page test
An A/B experiment allows you to test the performance of two (or more!) entirely different versions of a page
Multivariate test
Test multiple variables or sections of your landing page simultaneously (longer run times – use Google Website Optimizer (GWO) calculator)

Planning Steps: Using Testing Tools
Define the landing page and conversion page for test
What technical coding is needed to configure the test?
Set up, validate, and launch test
Measure and monitor results
Google Website Optimizer (GWO)
Google Analytics (GA)
Analyze results and metrics
Document key learnings & implement optimized version

Test Planning Traffic Source & Volume? Types of Search Intent? External News Impact? Organizational Campaigns/News Impact? Test Planning Desired Action? Persuasion Needed? Sitewide or Campaign Landing Page? Landing Page Elements/Sections to Test?

What Would Persuade Donors to Give MORE to Haiti Disaster Relief?

Goals
Maximize donation conversions & ROI
It’s all about $ and helping more people!

The Experiment Hypothesis
Leverage landing page best practices
Splash v donation form (PPC audience needs more)
Clear call to action, rich content (CARE’s field updates from Haiti), test new media
Trust elements, how does org spend money, prove how you stand out from the others
Existing Haiti creative with emotional appeal
Proven interest in Haiti photos (SEM/SEO research)
Embedded Photo Gallery Slide Show
Embedded Video
Donation Ask Buttons
Action button is outside the creative or test

Key Questions
How will PPC Visitor Engagement be impacted by creative elements?
How will PPC Visitor donation conversion rates be impacted by creative elements?

The Practicalities
Planning a Google Website Optimizer (GWO) A/B/C landing page test
Start & end date
Traffic volume
2 new donation forms with landing pages to test against “original”
Google Analytics (GA) & Google Website Optimizer integration and coding
PPC campaign tracking URLs
Experiment setup & launch

The Metrics
GWO Key Metrics
# of Visitors
# of Conversions by Landing Page Variation
GWO Charts
GA Web Usage Stats & GA Ecommerce Metrics
Landing Page Engagement
Bounce Rate
Donation Form Funnel & Abandonment Rate
Navigation Analysis
Donation $ by Landing Page
Donation $ by PPC Engine/Keyword
Secondary Goal(s) & Conversions

CARE Haiti Crisis PPC Campaign

The Creative Original/Control w/ Photo With Video With Photo Gallery

The Creative
Original/Control

The Creative
Video Version

The Creative
Photo Gallery Version

Haiti A/B/C GWO Data
Notes:
GWO declares Video page the winner with a 4.35% conversion rate vs. 2.61% for the original/control!
Experiment Run Dates: February 4 th thru February 11 th
4,297 visitors & 152 conversions (donations completed)

BUT…

Donation $ by Landing Page Creative from a GA Ecommerce Perspective
Photo gallery is the winner by 2.4X based on $ vs. video!

Creative Engagement
Both Video and Photo gallery forms had higher avg. time on page than control
Bounce rate in mid 70% range – much lower than past ~90% for std dform

High average $ donations from brand terms
And good average $ donations on Haiti terms even during competitive situation with telethons
Want to balance ROI with Spend—can lose your shirt
Need to optimize by keyword
Photo Gallery: Google PPC Keyword Performance Examples

PPC Campaign Secondary Goals: Email Signups

Summary & Results
The video resulted in an improved donation conversion rate of 66.7% -- almost double the number of donations attributed to the control form
The photo gallery slideshow resulted in an improved donation conversion rate of 40.4%
BUT, the photo gallery slideshow resulted in a 148% increase in donation dollars over the control landing page and a 141% increase in donation dollars over the video version!
ROI for entire Haiti campaign was over 200%!

Lessons Learned
GWO alone does not tell the whole story in declaring a “winner”
Embedded photo gallery and video on a “splash” page for a donation form increases donation $ in a crisis fundraising campaign
PPC CARE brand terms yield higher average donations for photo gallery – CARE “on the ground” images & stories
Crisis news and events drive donation $

Case Study Transition Slide The Challenges of Catching Donors in a Sea of Engagement: A Multivariate Test

Diabetes.org PPC Campaign Goals
Increase donations thru 3 primary diabetes.org donation forms & maximize ROI
Provide diabetes.org PPC visitors (new & returning) with engagement experience alternatives that encourage visitor loyalty based on their interests

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
GWO Key Metrics
# of Visitors
# of Conversions by Landing Page Section and Combinations
GWO Charts
GA Web Usage Stats & GA Ecommerce
Bounce Rate
Navigation Analysis
Donation form completions by type
Donation form completions by PPC Engine/Keyword

Our Landing Page Hypothesis
Appeal to diabetes health challenges
Leverage research statistics & American Diabetes Association’s role in funding research
Personalize the donation options (more than a button)
Test Elements
Sub-headline
Graphics impact on “donation buttons”

Key Questions
Will Target Donation Form Conversion Rates be improved by changing the sub-headline and/or donation ask graphics sections on the landing page?
Will Visitor Engagement be positively or negatively impacted by the sub-headline & donation ask graphics testing on the landing page?

Planning for a Multivariate Test
Three main donation form options to increase conversion odds
Three possible donation options = one goal conversion
GA & GWO integration and coding
Start date
End date
PPC traffic volume

Best Times to Catch Donors? Diabetes.org Engagement Calendar
Organizational Campaign Activities
Tour de Cure (Jan to Sept 2010)
Stop Diabetes (Nov 09 to Current)
Diabetes Alert Day (March 23, 2010)
Step Out 2010 (March 10, 2010)

March PPC Fundraising Campaign

Landing Page

Landing Page Test Sections #1 #2

Landing Page Section Variants #2 #1

Combos #1 and #4 show 2% conversion rates compared to 1.68% for control
Early GWO Experiment Results March 1 to March 5, 2010

GWO Winning Combos March 1 to March 5, 2010 Combo #1 Combo #4

Donation form conversion rates hit an inflection point on March 10 th and drops to ~1.3%
Control version appears to take over as winner
Shift in combo performance after 3/10 correlates with Step Out campaign push & ~ 30 % increase to diabetes.org visits for later part of March
GWO Experiment Results March 1 to March 18, 2010 Mar 10th

PPC Landing Page Engagement % Exit Rate & Bounce Rate Increased for Landing Page Post March 10th

Secondary conversions via other donation forms were a positive, but not expected
Primary vs. Secondary Conversions

Summary
Early in March before the “sea of engagement” for diabetes.org PPC visitors changed , the GWO test combos #1 and #4 (both using the research + ADA sub-head) yielded an improved donation conversion rate of ~20%
Early March 2010 winning combo PPC donation form conversion rates were 2% vs. 1.4% in March 2009
Thru limited landing page testing, March 2010 PPC campaign ROI increased by over 30% compared to March 2009
March 2010 PPC campaign visitors involved in GWO test engaged in both primary and secondary conversions – Engagement Not Limited!

Case Study Transition Slide Engaging Seniors Online: A Multivariate Test

Goals
Maximize email newsletter sign-ups
PDF downloads
Joins
ROI

How We’re Reaching Them
Competitive landscape

Informing the Hypothesis
PPC prior landing page test
Older audience!
External news impact
High volume searching– they want information

Try “Ask the Expert”
Leverage popular web site content
FAQs and content value add approach
Test premium PDF download
Test Elements
Photo impact on “Ask Expert”
Enews sign-up ask button – colors, text vs. graphic

Key Questions
Will an FAQ approach to conveying information distract from or encourage email signups?
Will the presence of a photo get more PPC visitors to convert?
Will the look/color of a CTA button for email sign-up get more PPC visitors to convert?

Planning for a Multivariate Test
Create microsite w/ premium for action
Enough to whet their appetite and want more
GA & GWO integration and coding
Start date
End date
PPC traffic volume

Microsite Landing Page & Elements

Tweaking the Conversion Experience
Test launch (3 days) – low conversion
Removed outgoing links to SS and Medicare sites
Added email call to action throughout content and on sub-pages.

The Metrics
GWO Key Metrics
# of Visitors
# of Conversions by Landing Page Section and Combinations
GWO Charts
GA Web Usage Stats & GA Goal Funnels
Bounce Rate
Enews Sign-up Form Funnel & Abandonment Rate
Navigation Analysis
Enews Sign-ups by Landing Page Combination
Enews Sign-ups by PPC Engine/Keyword

GWO Experiment Results
Combo 5 (no photo + CTA text link) shows an improved enews signup conversion rate of >48%
Combo 5 conversion rate of 1.86% in GWO experiment is 27% higher than the rate observed in prior content microsite test
March 15 – April 9, 2010

Microsite Landing Page Performance by GWO Test “Section”
Test had 2 sections (multivariate test)
Section #1 – headline with or without photo
Section #2 – CTA E-news sidebar with buttons or text link

Microsite Landing Page Performance From a PPC Engine Perspective
Google PPC yields more than 2X the traffic as compared to Yahoo PPC
Google PPC visitors were slightly more engaged than Yahoo PPC visitors

Enews Sign-up Goal Funnel Completions & Navigation Data More FAQs Pg

Summary of Test Results
To date, no photo in headline section has resulted in a greater than 29% improvement in email capture.
Comparing the 6 combinations of creative elements:
The no photo + text link combo has led to a 48.2% improvement in email signups vs. the control. (Who would have thought!)
Combo of no photo + blue button is close behind in the test ( 34.4% improvement vs. control)

Summary of Test Results
Visitors appear to be cautious about engaging at first – not completing on first visit, but coming back to sign up (repeat visitors).
Based on best-performing combo, the cost to acquire an email decreased by more than 3% .

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Thank You!
Contact Info:
Robin Steffek
RedEngine Digital
[email_address]
703-556-6954

Secrets of Landing Page Testing [132] - Steffek

by Robin Steffek on Apr 12, 2010

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