Case Study: Improve Website Conversion Rates with Talking Avatars Conversion Matters As a small business trying to increase the revenue from the site, individuals are faced with investing a significant portion of their budget on advertising to drive site traffic. Whether you are looking at time or money, it is too expensive to let visitors walk away without trying to engage them to become your customers That’s where conversion rate comes in. The conversion rate of your website is the percentage of website visitors that take a desirable action while visiting, such as signing up for an e-mail newsletter or making a purchase. The higher your conversion rate is, the more efficient your website is and so is your marketing spend. If you are not paying much attention to your website conversion rate, you are leaving the money on the table.

1. Case Study: Improve Website Conversion Rates with Talking Avatars
Conversion Matters
As a small business trying to increase the revenue from the site, individuals are faced
with investing a significant portion of their budget on advertising to drive site traffic.
Whether you are looking at time or money, it is too expensive to let visitors walk away
without trying to engage them to become your customers That’s where conversion rate
comes in. The conversion rate of your website is the percentage of website visitors that
take a desirable action while visiting, such as signing up for an e-mail newsletter or
making a purchase. The higher your conversion rate is, the more efficient your website is
and so is your marketing spend. If you are not paying much attention to your website
conversion rate, you are leaving the money on the table.
A case study – A Talking Avatar increased the site conversion by 144% in an AB test
However, raising your site conversion rate is not as easy as it sounds. There are many
tools out there, but some of them are too expensive or complicated for a small business.
Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends.com and a renowned small business
exports, says that a use of talking character (avatar) can be a great solution.
Anita Campbell recently conducted an AB test on her website to see the effectiveness of
a talking avatar on the site conversion rate. She had heard about some buzz about avatars
for site conversions, but she was not fully convinced and wanted to test it herself.
Small Business Trends.com is a website that provides content and other insightful
information of interest to the small business community, and Anita wanted to increase the
rate of sign-ups to its e-mail newsletter, as that is where 90% of lead generation for their
consulting services originated. As the website and its service was around the persona of
Anita, she had been using a still photograph of herself on the homepage to add
authenticity and personalization to the site.
A 50/50 test was conducted as follows: half of the people visiting Small Business Trends
were shown the main page with Anita’s still photograph and a graphic call to action
button called “Subscribe to Newsletters” next to it. The other 50% were shown the same
version of the page but with a speaking character of Anita instead of a still photograph.
Anita used SitePal to make her speaking character. Google Optimizer, a tool that
measures landing page conversion rates, was used to track the newsletter sign ups from
both pages. With a statistically significant sample size of over 11,000 people, the results
were clear: the website version with the talking avatar saw a 144% higher conversion rate
than the version without it. In other words, the SitePal talking avatar helped to drive more
than double the newsletter sign ups.
“The avatar focused the attention of visitors on the newsletter and was successful in
convincing visitors to take the extra steps to subscribe. The SitePal avatar exceeded my
expectations,” Ms. Campbell says.

2. Tips from Anita Campbell
After seeing such great results from the use of a SitePal talking avatar, Anita Campbell
provided some best practices for making the most out of speaking character. They follow.
1) Use Persuasive and Brief Messages to Drive Conversions: By using a persuasive
and brief message with your talking avatar, including a call to action, visitors are
directed to specific sections of your webpage where they can act and respond to
your call to action, whether it be the purchase of a product or signing up for a
newsletter.
2) Personalization is Important: The test showed that people view talking avatars as
more personal than a photograph. This helps to create a rapport with website
visitors, keeping your site at the top of their minds. Including the tip of using
one’s own voice.
3) Differentiation is Key: You must find a way to stand out in the overcrowded
world that is the Internet. With websites being built every single day, it is
important to create a lasting impression in your visitor’s mind. Interactive
features, especially speaking avatars, are very helpful in giving visitors something
unique to remember about your site. They are also a great way to present potential
customers with a distinctive call to action.
To see the full case study, visit www.SitePal.com