Your call-to-action buttons represent the ultimate low-hanging fruit in CRO. In this part of the day Michael Aagaard gives an excellent talk and shares a few simple tweaks which could help you easily achieve lifts of 30 to 100 percent.
Later in the day David Gowans shows us ways to use CRO tools that you may not have considered…
How to Optimise Call-to-Action Buttons for Maximum Conversion by Michael Aagaard
Testing your CTA button is crucial. They tie the marketing funnel together and make if possible for prospects to move from one stage to another.
How to Optimise Call-to-Action Buttons for Maximum Conversion by Michael Aagaard
Design – colour, shape, size, attracts the user
Copy – text in the button, what you are asking people to do. Button answers they question “why should I click?”
Optimisation principles for button design:
- CTA button is a visual cue, make it easy to spot. Changing the design can create incredible lift.
- Visual hierarchy – make the button easy to spot.
- The concept of green being best and red being a no-no does not always stand up.
- Small visual effects can have significant impact on prospect decisions.
- Size matters but bigger isn’t always better.
Optimisation principles for button copy:
- In the last crucial moment, CTA copy is what makes the prospect click.
- The more value and relevance the copy conveys, the more clicks you will get.
- Focus on what the user is going to get by clicking on the CTA, rather than what they have to part with (eg. time, money etc).
- Relevance and urgency tailored to your site
- When you’re writing CTA button copy about your prospects motivation to click the button, what’s in it for them?
CTA placement:
A controversial subject matter!
- Sometimes top of the page is not always the way forward, especially with complex products, where does it suit the decision making point?
- Highly motivated users for free product? Top of the page is a good point. Complex products have a longer buying decision process so lower on the page may work better.
5 tips for your CTA:
- Diagnose your CTA – create a hypothesis of what is wrong
- Use optimisation principles to come up with possible treatments
- Assess whether copy changes, design changes, or both will have the biggest impact
- Simple a/b testing is recommended
- The click itself is an important conversion goal but remember to track the final goal conversion, sometimes CTA goes up but sign up etc goes down, or vice versa.
10 Alternative Uses for CRO Tools by David Gowans
1. Test the Fold
You can check with foldtester.com, but Dave recommends looking at fold map in google Analytics instead:
Will users scroll down on your site? Tools like CrazyEgg‘s scroll map can tell you whether you even need to worry about keeping content above the fold.
2. Form tracking
Use events in Analytics with simple java to pick up error messages to show when users are going wrong or intentionally not wanting to share certain bits of information.
3. Technical issues
Use Clicktale and Mouseflow etc to help find bugs from user behaviour. ClickTale provides a Most Errored Page Report to help you find which pages are generating the most JavaScript errors. In addition, ClickTale can show you when a visitor encounters an error and which line of your site’s code is generating the error.
4. Use call tracking tools
If your client relies on phone calls as well as online, it’s important to track them as lifts and drops may occur more in one area than another. Without recording these accurately data will be insufficient or incorrect, which may cause figures to appear artificially inflated or falsely disappointing.
5. Track offline conversions through split testing tool
Not all conversions happen online. Optimizely exposes a simple JavaScript API for tracking arbitrary conversion goals on your site, but what about events that occur off-line, or not in a browser? For events like this, event tracking calls may be sent directly to Optimizely’s logging servers.
6. Testing on mobile pages
There are many devices with many different displays, and testing them all can be time consuming. Dave recommends devicesanywhere.com which is has a free service. You can mobile test a huge number of smartphones, tablets and ther devices attached to servers, you can test in real time on real devices.
7. Qualitative data
Get results from your split testing. Qualaroo is recommended. One JavaScript line API added to it will tell you which version of the test the user was seeing. Integrating testing tools can give much deeper insight.
8. Solutions – personalise our site with a couple, of lines of JavaScript
ASOS was used as an example. On this clothes site, when male clothing is selected on the first visit, the men’s department comes up automatically on the return visit. The code to implement this is available on www.codetidy.com/6054
9. Delivery options
Delivery options and charges are a major consideration for users making buying decisions online. Try split test your options. For example, hide a shipping option. Create various options such as free next working day, high cost same day, courier, 2 day delivery etc in back end system the setup testing tool to hide them. Next, minimise options and see which combination performs best. This can make a huge difference to your conversion rate.
10. What can we learn from FarmVille?
Zynga’s online juggernaut, FarmVille, took Facebook gaming by storm, but how do they test to get such success? Dave share’s Zynga’s ‘ghetto testing’ plan…
1. Create a 5 word pitch for a new product or feature
2. Put it up on a high traffic webpage
3. If it gets clicks, collect the emails of interested customers and find out more from there.
Use these takeaways to gain greater insight into your site’s performance online, fix glitches, remove stumlbing blocks, and ultimately increase your conversions.