THE CONVERSION ROAD TRIP NOTES - BOSTON - MONDAY, JUNE 8

5:00 - 5:30 PM

ASK US ALL THE THINGS - THE BEST Q&A YOU’VE EVER SEEN

Any tips for resolving the clarity problem when you're selling a complex product or service? Think consulting, really new product, etc.?

• Instead of just testing your main headline, put a scroll map to see how far down they are moving.
• Segmentation, where people can pick where they want to do and see the info they need
• Talk with your customers and find out what they really don't understand so you can make it clear.
• Have your customers describe your product in one line, which might help clarify.

For Larry- how do you create a sense of urgency in your ads if you're a B2B SaaS product?

• Find the customer pain point or stress point. Work to figure out what those are
• Look on social media around your industry or niche
• Also look into creating curiosity instead of urgency.

Ellie, given that multiple CTA's are gonna happen in a newsletter, is it better to emphasize one article vs giving them all equal treatment?

• If you can't offer something of value, you have a bigger problem.
• Don't need to give a discount, take a step back and ask how can I help solve their problems.
• Something you can create of value for that person.
• If you can't offer anything of value to them, are they really a prospect?

Do I need to update my privacy policy's when using things like Mixpanel or Kissmetric?

• Be careful where you are at, UK is stricter than US.
• Create a readable terms of service and privacy policy
• Maybe create a jeans and t-shirt type and a legal kind

4:30 - 5:00 PM

RIDICULOUS RETURNS: A/B TESTING THROUGHOUT YOUR ENTIRE SALES FUNNEL

John Bonini, Marketing Director IMPACT

What's the point of A/B testing

• Improve the experience for the user, so you can ask them to buy from you

A/B is a lot like sex in high school. "Everyone is talking about it but very few are doing it."  John says he wants to add, they are also doing it wrong.

More impression means that you can test a small difference.

• 100 impressions means you need to see a 20% difference
• 100,000 you only need 0.063% difference

So what if I'm not driving enough traffic?

• Focus on a growth strategy instead
• For the rest of us, what are we doing wrong?

• We are not thinking about the person post-click
• We are taking statistical shortcuts

Wrong Treatment/wrong conclusions

• Most of the time you are not the target audience
• Opinions mean "Shit" in A/B testing

Book Recommendation:

Hooked: How to build habit-forming product

Use book reviews and quora for places to find new languages for your landing pages.

Statistical Shortcuts

Once exposed to specifics, we tend to lose focus of the bigger picture

You lose sight of the bigger picture, within your target audience

Other things hurting us

• Sample size
• CTR, CVR
• Confidence level
• Length of run

Doing A/B tests blindly can lead to a large number of unqualified leads and hid the fact that you are not increase the number of qualified leads.

Optimize for your customers, NOT your visitors.

Create more content that is actually driving paying customers not just more visitors.

Appeal to thousands of conversions by speaking to one.

Don't celebrate vanity metrics internally as it will lead to more dependence on vanity metrics.

Find that one growth metric and that is what you should celebrate internally!

Conversion rate optimization is really just heart rate optimization

• Behind everyone conversion is a person, optimize for that.

4:00 - 4:30 PM

INCREASING YOUR CONVERSION RATE WITH VIDEO: HOW TO TURN VIEWERS INTO CUSTOMERS

Chris Savage, CEO Wistia

Does video increase conversion?

• Yes, it does! Making engaging video will help your conversion rate but test it.

What is the goal of the video?

• Before starting a video, come up with a set of goals
• After someone watches this video, I want them to _________.

Video Measurement Basics

1. Time on site
2. Play rate
3. Engagement
4. In-video conversion
5. Conversion on site

Time on site

• Average time on blog - 4:00
• Average time with video blog posts - 12:30

Play rate

• % of people that load the page and click play
• Poor play rate, means people are not getting your message from video

Engagement

• How much of the video was watched and rewatched
• Can show where people don't understand your message when they rewatch that area
• Represents viewing momentum, if they make it to the end of

In-video conversion

• Measure the success of things within your video

Increasing Play Rate

• 80,000 pages with video
• Broke webpages into zones each with 250 pixels
• Videos above the fold have much higher play rate than below the fold. Play rate drops 50% when below the fold
• Videos width and height also make a difference, videos around 400 to 600 pixels are the right size.
• Videos need to have context to get people engage with video.
• Changing the play button color on your video will help play rate 19%

• Making it more interesting will help people to click

• Thumbnails can also help increase playrate, have seen it up to 35%

Increasing Engagement

• Places where people rewatch can show when they are delighted or confused
• If there is a large dropoff, it can show people are uninterested or confused.
• Parts of the video

• Nose - The first 2% of the video

• You need to hook people here
• Jump right in, hook people with the content
• Impress quickly
• Longer videos you will loose more people

• Body - The middle 96%

• If you do a good job with the nose of the video

• Most people will stay watching the body
• Split into parts if too long
• Change location and people
• Use Music for momentum

• Tail - The last 2% of the video

• Lose 20 or 40% on longer videos.
• Don't "Wrap up"
• Keep logo/titles super short
• Beware ending music

• You will lose people

• Drive action from the video

• Annotations - appear over the video and link to additional content

• Align annotations to rewatching, driving them to another related post.

• Fullscreen CTA

• Drive people to additional post at the end

• Email Capture (Turnstile)

• Place anywhere within your video to collect email
• Analyzed turnstile location of 1.2 million videos

• 25% at the beginning

• 16% conversion rate

• 26% in the middle

• 24% conversion rate

• 49% at the end

• 3.4% conversion rate of those who saw it

• Email capture at within first 10% of video yielded a 40% conversion rate.

• Let people taste the video, then ask for email

• Small differences in placement make a huge impact

• Get people to play, keep people watching, drive contextual actions

Bonus Op:

• Paid landing pages
• 100,000 keyword, 375,000 landing pages
• Looking for video embeds to see how people are using video on landing pages.
• Less than 0.25% are using video.
• We are early in using video to drive conversion

http://wistia.com/libaray for free resources

http://wistia.com/community for a community of video folks

3:00 - 3:40 PM

FULL-STACK COPYWRITING PANEL: WRITING AND TESTING COPY THAT DEMANDS ACTION

Beth Dunn, Roberta Rosenberg, Michael Aagaard & Ryan Engley

Beth:

• Most common obstacle of landing page is a lack of focus.
• Needs of users and marketers are often not aligned even though we may think it.
• People don't stay up late at night because they need more e-books or webinars, they need a solution to the problem.
• Look at your pronouns. Don't use our, we or I

• Use you or your

Roberta:

• Again not about us as marketers, it's all about your prospect.
• We need to prove that we have a solution to their pain
• Writing to be clever, rather than clear, is not a good solution
• Big Yawn Copywriting

• "Visualize your business opportunity" - What does this headline mean? This doesn't help your prospect understand what you do.

• "Schedule your demo" - No reason why this is the next action for your prospect. Prospect still confused about what you do.
• CLARITY RULES!

• Use clear and conversational language
• Use strong simple words

Michael

• Form copy, we often don't think of form copy as part of the optimization process.
• Forms need to make sense on their own, it's a landing page within a landing page.
• Form labels - alignment is important it's not navigation.

http://offers.hubspot.com/ultimate-career-kit

• Remove exclamation mark, use words instead
• Asking questions can lead people in a deep hole

• Remove "So, you want to work in marketing?" questions.

• Change CTA, "Get my ebook"
• Tighten up the first sentence in the first paragraph. We already know who this page is for.
• Line length is a little long and too many bullets. People read 50% slower on the web.

http://ww1.lionbrdige.com/definitive-guide-website-translation/

• How do we know it's the most comprehensive resource? Be careful with puff pieces.
• Focus on what you do differently
• "Download my free ebook" and "Get my free ebook" don't convey what the value is of the ebook
• Privacy policies should be focused on the user not you the business.

http://freetrial.inlightehr.com/pomr-wp/

• Headline is problematic, focus on what the solution is, not the problem.
• Don't use abbreviation, some people might not know what EHRs are.
• Phone number is pushing it for a white paper.

http://singup.splender.com/join1

• Lack of clarity in headline, but subline makes more sense.
• Juicey copy seemed below the fold and the copy on the top was much worse than below.

2:30 - 3:00 PM

BACK TO THE BASICS: CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION PROCESS

Dan McGaw, Effin Amazing

Where do you start?

• How to track data?
• How to setup A/B test

1. The CRO Mindset

1. Failing is part of the game
2. Follow the data - get nerdy and extract insights

2. Start with a plane

1. Don't just test to test
2. Create a backlog for testing, using something like Trello

3. Quantitative Data

1. Use this data to determine what you are going to work on next.
2. Most people use Google Analytics, but it doesn't always give you individual identities

1. Allows you to track people over time
2. Kissmetrics or Mixpanel

3. Most are directly integrated into most AB testing tools
4. Experiments might have great effects on the front, but could hurt metrics down the line.

1. Measure numbers throughout the funnel to make sure you don't hurt other numbers

4. Qualitative Data

1. Qualaroo will allow you to collect Qualitative data on a page.
2. Ask questions at funnel drop off points
3. Heat Maps can show how your visitors are interacting with the page.

1. Most people gravitate towards peoples faces

5. Start Testing

1. Dan walked through an example using Optimizely
2. What do you want to dest first?

1. Start with pages that have the most amount of traffic
2. Test buttons
3. More advanced, test images
4. Dan feels images have a powerful impact

6. Don't screw up!

1. Stay focused, only change one element at a time
2. Low traffic? Stick to A/B, not A/B/C tests
3. Multi-variant testing is amazing but you need tons of traffic
4. Calling tests too early

1. A/B Significance Test
2. Wait for tests to run out before calling it.

2:00 - 2:30 PM

HOW TO WRITE COPY THAT CONVERTS: ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS FROM 6 YEARS OF TESTING

Michael Aagaard, Founder Content Verve

WYSIATI (What you see is all there is)

• Most people won't take time to look into the unknowns, they will make snap judgements.

This happens both online and in person.

"14 day cancellation policy" test

• 9% increase in CTR with no cancelation policy.

Two types of thinking, System 1 (Intuitive Thinking), System 2 (Analytical thinking)

System 1 is fast, automatics, and most used

System 1 is machine for jumping to conclusions while System 2 is viewed as the lazy controller.

Noah's Ark example

• How many of each animal did Moses bring on the ark.
• The answer was 0, not 2 because it was Noah.
• We do this more than we think

Customers can speak one language and marketers can speak another. It can be a cause of WYSIATI.

Cognitive Ease

System 1 - Easy, "ahhhh" experience

System 2 - Strained, "Arghh" experience

Asking things like "Why are you asking me for this info?" on signup pages can lead people in the opposite direction that you want.

Don't add too many words when just a few can get the job done.

Create a conversion experience that facilitates cognitive ease

What you see is NOT all there is!!! Marketers need to see the big picture, we need to make sure the customer doesn't need to worry about the big picture.

Build a step chart to see where in your funnel you have a problem.

Make sure you do your homework:

• Analysis in GA
• Funnel analysis
• Interviews with Sales
• Session playback
• Feedback pools
• Form analytics
• User testing
• Surveys

Analytical process vs Creative process

• Need a bit of both, that's the sweet spot

Recap

1. Be aware of  WYSIATI & System 1 & 2 relation, Keep people in system 1 if possible

2. Realize "What you see is NOT all there is"

3. Do your homework

4. Create a conversion experience that facilitates cognitive ease

1:10 - 1:40 PM

BIG WINS FROM THE INBOX: EMAIL STRATEGIES TO GET MORE CONVERSIONS

Ellie Mirman, VP Marketing Toast

Email marketing is the old digital marketing strategy

• Many people think email marketing is dead
• Reality is, it's not close to being dead.

• Still a top tactic to acquire customers

Old tactics of buying lists and sending to everyone is dead.

1. The simple things that make a big difference.

1. Make it clear where you want people to click on. Color choice can make things obvious.
2. Make a single CTA and make it clear
3. Email with single call to action increased click 371% and sales 1617%
4. Keep your segmentation simple

1. 
2. Simple can be good and effective. Don't need to go crazy with segmentations.

5. Widen the funnel & Replenish your list

1. List are expiring at 25% / year

6. Focus on value - WIIFM?
7. 60% average landing page conversion rate for Hubspot
8. Build an Opt-In list

1. Open rates with a larger number of purchased email lists
2. So do SPAM complaints

9. Run big and varied tests

1. Not subjects lines but message, CTA, time, date, hundred of things to test.

10. Choose simple but critical metrics

1. What are you trying to get out of that campaign?
2. Testing content? Measure CTR or download rate
3. Launching a nurture stream? Measure the impact on close rate

1. Use one channel to build the other

1. Use email to protome webinar on social channels
2. Use Linkedin to build your email list.

2. Use TOFU for MOFU, MOFU for TOFU

1. Solve for top of the funnel for middle of the funnel
2. Think about ways to share your content with your power users and encourage them to share as well.

3. Test best practices

1. Just because people say subject lines should be a certain length, test it because things don't move that much.
2. Often take the opposite advice, because everyone will be emailing at the same time. Think outside of the box

3. The complementary things that can matter even more

1. Complement email with other channels

1. Retargeting
2. Socail
3. Website
4. Events
5. Phone

2. Matching website banner to email increased revenue per campaign by 10%
3. Experiment with other emails types

1. Dedicated offer emails
2. Thank You / Confirmation
3. Abandonment nurturing
4. Comarketings & Social updates

12:40 - 1:10 PM

5 PPC MARKETING INNOVATIONS THAT INCREASE CONVERSIONS BY 3-5X

Larry Kim, Co-Founder Wordstream

Larry is a ping pong champion, do not play him

Slides for download

bit.ly/boston-cro

Why conventional A/B testing wisdom is sometimes silly

What's a good conversion rate?

Reviewing the top 10% of High converting offers

Five ridiculously powerful CRO hacks for 3-5x gains

The classic A/B test is a fairy tail

• We changed some simple design features and things went up 5%
• That's a fairy tail….
• Many test leader end up not being the leader after time.

Most marketing departments suffer from pre-mature "optimizitus" syndrome

• New offer you did last month isn't new anymore
• Most of these gains don't persist forever.
• Small changes usually result in small changes
• Superficial design changes won't lead to big changes.

What is a a good conversion rate?

• Is difficult to see the forest through the trees
• Median: 2.35%
• Top 25%: 5.31%
• Top 10%: 11.45%
• Donkeys vs Dragons

• Donkeys are not remarkable
• Dragons are rare beast and remarkable

• 
• Aim for 3-5x increases, not 3-5%!!!!

5 incredible CRO hacks

• Rethinking the marketing funnel, eliminate parts of the funnel.

1. Eliminate your landing pages using new PPC ad formats

1. Click-to-call is total game changer
2. 3% average conversion rate for landing pages

1. With click to call it eliminates leaky landing page.

3. Users are 9x more likely to place a call from mobile SERP than a desktop.
4. New call-only campaigns in AdWords

1. Move from PPC to Pay Per Lead

5. Facebook & Twitter both have lead capture ad formats, allowing you to skip landing pages

2. Pre-qualify site visitors to make them more likely to convert

1. Huge leverage in changing the "website visitors" part of the equation by sending more qualified traffic. How?

1. Google shopping ads is a great example

1. Image, description, price are displayed before someone clicks on the ad.
2. Person is pre-qualified for the product.
3. Shopping ads are 3-5x than text ads.

2. New automotive ad formats more likely to inspire actions

1. Image carousel with detailed info

1. More details about car etc.

2. "Dodge dealers" on mobile with options for directions or call dealership
3. Hotels also have these options
4. Shopping as well, changes frequently.
5. Rich mobile experience will be available for all top verticals in 2015, Larry thinks

2. Create urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO)

1. Seen conversions going up by 3x with FOMO

3. Upload your customer list and find "similar audiences"

1. Works to figure out the common denominator and find similar prospects.

3. Convert Abandoners with Remarketing

1. Use remarketing as a CRO tool
2. 96% of people who visit a website leave without completing the actions marketers want them to take.
3. Huge reach on Google Display Network
4. Conversion rate increase with more ad impressions

1. More than 2x likely to convert

4. Change Signup Flow

1. Change signup flow by letting users choose their direction.
2.  1 big step or break it down into multiple steps

5. Introduce more friction

1. People who pay are +3x more likely to buy something else
2. Scrasific quantity for quality.

Key Takeaway #1

Bigger changes produce bigger changes

• Need to change big things in order to get big results

Key Takeaway #2

Don't settle for the average - be remarkable

• Focus on the basic but then do some of the bigger things talked about in this presentation.

12:10 - 12:40 PM

THE 12-STEP LANDING PAGE REHAB PROGRAM 

Oli Gardner, Co-Founder Unbounce

Oli loves landing pages, he clicks on just about everything.

Let's review local East coast landing pages.

- Oli showed landing pages that lead to pages that didn't work at all.

Nsamcwadlp

- Never start a marketing campaign without a dedicated landing page

Give the gift of simplicity to those who visit your landing page.

1. Attention Ratio

• The ratio of the number of things you can do on a page to the number of things you should be doing.
• Reduction in the attention ratio, leads to increase in click-through rate
• It's a dedicated experience to your query
• Stakeholders often just want to add one more link…

• Adding one more link, 14% less people clicked on main action

2. Understand the role design plays in your recovery

• Direction
• Encapsulation
• Proximity
• Grouping

• Group similar things together

3. Information Hierarchy

• Copy informs design, not the other way round

4. Get your story in order before you tell it!

• Sub head shouldn't have more clarity than the main headline

Example:

Uber:

Give rides, get cash

Know your way around the city? Make money helping our community of riders travel safely and easily. Pick them up, get going, get paid. It's that simple.

5. What hte F#ck are you talking about?

• How do you know if you have a clarity problem

• Do a usability test, quick way to do a gut check.

6. Recovery starts with building a solid foundation

• Form-First Design

• Design as the form is the only things on the page.
• Send the form to people to see if they understand what the page is about.

7. Create search intent page for e-commerce

• Bid on your company's unique benefits and design specific experience for each.

8. Don't bet your shirt on what others tell you

• Explain the time involved, to reduce "effort" anxiety.
• Test to see if it makes a difference

9. Fields are for farmers not forms

• 40,000 active landing pages, looking at # of fields to conversion rate
• 2 form fields seems better than 1, 33% increase with 2
• Don't be afraid to put a little more in peoples ways when testing

10. Design for your "ideal" customer

11. If they're about to buy, keep your f#@&ing mouth shut!

• Be care with the copy you put close to your CTAs
• Removed works like "gimmicks" by cta increase conversion by 25%

12. Make amends by being a delightful marketer

Recap!!!

nsamcwadlp

Never start a marketing campaign without a dedicated landing page