9. Lame Excuses
• I know my conversion rate anyway
• I’m re-designing my site
• I’m B2B why do I need CRO?
• We’ve spent all our money on our
Pinterest page
• My traffic’s too low
• My digital agency has this covered
10. Bandwagons
OMNICHANNEL
TABLET SITE
GOOGLE +
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
M-COMMERCE
NATIVE ADVERTISING
GOOGLE HUMMINGBIRD
BIG DATA
NON-SPECIFIC PREMATURE ANXIETY ABOUT THE ‘INTERNET OF THINGS’
SOCIAL INFOGRAPHICS
18. ....And Remember
• Tools are the least of your worries
• The right people is critical
• Good CRO takes time and resources
• Build the AB team- you can’t do it all yourself
• Doesn’t have to be a permanent team-even a
virtual team of all the talents is good enough
33. And Remember!
• Page elements depend on each other to convey
meaning
• Text, graphics, photography all interact with
each other
• You should design for a visual journey across
the page
• Scrolling has to be encouraged- don’t assume
they’ll just go down there
41. ...And Remember
• You can manage global content centrally, but
make sure you use appropriate cultural
segmentations
• Colours and language are important- but also
think about photography and ethnicity
• A lot of culture is subconscious and more subtle-you
need to test everything
42. Closing Thoughts
• Conversion Optimisation is too important to be
bumped to the end of the digital marketing
queue
• Everything on the page can affect conversion- in
any environment.
• You are the real heroes
• You have superpowers- evidence
Good evening. I’m going to talk to you about something called Conversion Rate Optimisation.
Who has heard of Conversion Rate Optimisation? Can we have a quick show of hands.
Who has actually got tests running right now?
And although I’m talking about superheroes, just a quick disclaimer. I’m not a Nietzschean.
I’m not a follow of Ayn Rand.
I’m actually not particularly interested in comics.
But I am a conversion optimizer.
And if you’re a conversion optimiser, there is danger in the city.
Evil forces are at work. Evil forces that stop you doing your job. The conversion naysayers, brand nazis, obstinate web developers, fearful managers and bandwagon chasers.
We’ve all seen the excuses for putting off testing.
I know my conversion rate, I’m redesigning my site, we’ve spent all our money. And worst- we’ve got this covered.
And then there’s always a bandwagon to be clambering on. Last year it was Big Data, this year’s it’s, what do you reckon, Native Advertising?
Your CTO or CMO might try and clamber on board all of them.
Any excuse, in fact not to get testing.
Now I’m not saying that those topics aren’t interesting. All of these topics are worthy of your attention.
I’m just saying that it’s not an “either/or” option.
Because all the time you’re company is not doing Conversion Rate Optimisation- this is happening.
Losing more and more and more and more and more and more money.
So as conversion rate optimisers- it’s time to fight back.
CROers are the heroes of this story. Having to deal with lame excuses and band wagons, day after day.
I say. Let’s get the lame excuses out. Let’s put our cards on the table. And let’s see how ROI from Conversion Optimisations trumps excuses every time.
So over the next 10 minutes, I want to talk to you about the heroic people and techniques of conversion.
Conversion Optimisation is about coming up with ideas and testing them.
But mainly it’s about people.
Sympathetic web development who will help you with set up and apply winners
Acquisition expert- someone who understands customer behaviour and how you currently on board clients
Insight from the analytics team to highlight pages or funnels causing problems
A UX expert with the knowledge to understand how customers interact with your site
Tools are important. But tools are only as good as the people working them.
Having a tool is not having it covered. Marks and Spencers have tools. They went ahead with an untested design change. Revenue dropped 8%.
Testing day in and day out is.
Bad ideas make bad tests make bad results. A tool won’t help with that- no matter how cheap it is.
Conversion Optimisation isn’t about one person.
No-one can wear that many hats.
It’s a team game. It’s about building a team- even a virtual team of all the talents. Experts who know their job inside out.
And most of all conversion optimisation takes time.
Time to research tests. Time to understand the analytics.
Time to brainstorm design ideas.
Time to look into technical limitations.
You can’t do it all yourself. There isn’t the time.
How you design a page is too important to be left solely to creative. This is where the concept of Modality comes in.
Think of it as the harmony between the elements on the page.
Modality is the idea of using all the semantic clues in design to create meaning.
It’s a combination of text, images, symbols. Grids, white space.
See here the example of an eyetracking study for a company selling gadget insurance.
All the key parts of the message attract eye attention. With barely any text, you know which devices they ensure. They have a brand icon, a CTA and the payment offerings. Pretty much everything you need to make the decision to move to the next page.
So page composition is vital.
Now I like AB testing. But there are plenty of bad AB tests.
But one of the flaws is that you’re not looking at the content with that level of granularity, with how on page elements interact with EACH other.
Multivariate does this better.
Here’s an example of two test variations. Bristol Zoo want people to buy tickets. People want to look at the scary dinosaurs.
We theorised that part of the problem is that users who look at the dinosaurs don’t buy tickets.
So we take the dinosaurs away.
They sell more tickets.
However, they sell more low priced tickets as users read all the small print now, and uncheck the box that says “add optional donation”.
You take one thing away- it affects something else.
Design can be used in persuasion techniques. People like people. People like faces.
This is a site called Site Tuners. We’re big mates with them. They’re a conversion optimisation agency based in San Diego.
Their CEO is a guy called Tim Ash. Tim runs a conference called Conversion Conference and wrote this book here.
Tim has worked out that if he puts a photo of himself on the website, people will look at it.
However, Tim doesn’t really want you to look at him.
He wants you to notice the bloody great call to action button next to him.
So people like people. But people LOVE babies.
This is part of an eyetracking lab study undertaken by a guy called James Breeze looking at interaction with faces on adverts. James Breeze is another conversion optimiser based in Australia.
In the original version you can see all the interaction is with the face.
However, in the alternative version, the primary interaction is still with the face, but there is secondary interaction with the content. You follow the eye of the baby. What’s he looking at?
Now, here’s another interesting study about faces and bodies.
This study was undertaken globally by a company called Miratech. They looked at samples from 7 countries and showed them this picture.
The study was called “Men are pervs, women are gold-diggers”.
Both sexes looked at the face.
Men look at the chest.
Women look at the ring.
So even human subjects in design create context and meaning
I’ve included this to demonstrate the logical end point of using human subjects in web design.
This is ULTRA EXTREME XXXX call to action button. The guys literally on top of the CTA, cuddling it. He’s looking at. He’s pointing at it. He’s telling you where to bloody click.
Personally I love it and wish I’d thought of it.
This is the ultimate CTA.
And two more examples using shoes. This are a couple of footwear retailers in Germany.
Shoe points left users focus left.
Shoe points right- the eye follows the foot and highlights the main action block. The main call to action and the price. Most of all the user notices the colour alternatives for the shoes.
So remember- a page is not just a series of divs and placeholders. It’s an organic thing- page elements depend on each other to add context and convey meaning.
You should design for a visual journey, encouraging users to look where you want them to look and to consume on page elements in the order you want.
And if you want users to scroll- tell them. Make it easy for them.
My final heroine is the lady who understands international markets Senorina Marvel
Increasingly the digital opportunity is global.
But in going international, your site is at risk of not converting if you don’t understand culture
The easiest thing when you are launching into a new territory is just copy it. A global template-what could be easier.
The problem with this is it presents a one size fits all face to your international clients and you’re at risk of not catering for international sensibilities.
So what do you need to localise.
Colours, for sure. And language. The concept of adding to basket appears to be more or less universal for call to action buttons- however, some colours mean different things in different markets. Red means danger in the West, good luck in China, beauty in Russia. Green means go in the UK, thievery in France and Islam in Saudi Arabia.
Luckily there is a lot of research into the impact of culture. The best known model is that built by Geert Hofstede, a dutch anthropologist and sociologist. His life’s work is scoring societies based on culture.
He came up with the 5 dimensions theory- I’mjust going to talk about one. Uncertainty Avoidance.
Uncertainty Avoidance is the degree to which a society shuns ambiguity. Take the example in the picture. 2 web pages from the same company.
This is the national skills and education portal for Sweden. On the left is the Swedish design- three apparently unconnected images. User are left to read and decode the association.
For China, this is unambiguously about skills and education. A prominent picture of a student- the use of the national colours. Too sites, the same objective, different design.
In Germany, you’re at risk of losing business if you don’t present the right payment options. According to DIBS, 51% of German users wouldn’t return to a store that didn’t have their preferred payment option. Which isn’t credit cards. Only 10% of Germans use credit cards for online payments.
In Japan, the concept of colour is different. Green and blue are considered the same colour. So green traffic lights in Japan, are in fact- blue.
So remember- you can manage global content centrally, but this is where segmentation comes in. Test localised content to international segments. It’s easy to do via IP targeting.
So I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at three heroess of conversion and found it thought provoking.
Conversion Optimisation is too important to be bumped to the end of the digital marketing queue.
Everything on the page affects conversion- even the white space- in any environment. B2B, B2C, it’s all rock n roll. Learn how page elements fit together and improve.
You guys are the heroes- it’s up to you to shout about what you do and get all the naysayers on board.
You have one thing on your side. Evidence. You’ve tested it. You’ve proved it’s better. And no amount of pages of brand guidelines can do that.
