conversion optimization

Video Optimization AB Test

June 6, 2014 By sean

Video is a great way to promote your business or services. There are numerous places on the web to share your video, but where do you place it on your site?

Well, that depends upon what your goal is.

We recently ran a video optimization AB test for video placement for Canadian marketing firm The Mezzanine Group (TMG). In October of 2013 we launched a website redesign for TMG which included a large fullwidth slider featuring a picture of the firms employees. Although the site only included one slide the client wanted the future option to easily add additional slides, plus the same option for every page on the site. The slider we chose was LayerSlider which has a host of options and is a pretty slick slider.

Fast forward six months and TMG asked us to test placement of their new B2B marketing video in the slider area and in the home page side bar.

Test Design
The design for this test was a simple AB split traffic test. Once launched 50% of site visitors would see the original home page with the video in the home page sidebar, and 50% would see a version with the video in the slider position. For testing purposes we used Visual Website Optimizer to control the traffic.

Tracking Video
The largest hurdle in the test was determining the best option to track video results. Our initial options included:

Wistia embedded video in LayerSlider with Google Analytics Event tracking
YouTube embedded video in LayerSlider with Google Analytics Event tracking
Vimeo embedded video in LayerSlider with Google Analytics Event tracking

Each of these options had pros and cons, as well as some technical hurdles implementing the solution in the existing LayerSlider.

Our first choice was to use Wisteria as they have a great set of tracking metrics including loads, play rate, # of plays, video engagement, average engagement. Unfortunately LayerSlider doesn’t work well with Wistia and we had trouble with getting the video to be mobile responsive.

Next we moved on to YouTube. With YouTube you are limited to three options for your static image pulled from 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 of your video. There is an option for a custom image if your account qualifies (you have to have 15 videos in your account), but the TMG account did not qualify.

We also tried an option where we would display a static image to mimic the video that would open into a pop up box that auto played. With this option we ran into an issue where the site audio would immediately start playing on any page load in the site.

Finally, we briefly looked at Vimeo but for business use you have to have a paid account. For this project we did not want our client to have to pay for an additional video account simply to conduct the test.

Back to the Drawing Board

“I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.”

– Thomas Edison

Like Edison we treated our failures as simply learning exercises and decided it was time to eliminate obstacles. Wistia, which was our first choice to embed the video, was not responsive in LayerSlider, so we took LayerSlider out of the equation. We created a new page template that mimicked the TMG home page and a new header file that replaced the slider with a background image.

The end result was that we were able to use Wistia and its reporting features, create a responsive home page alternative featuring the video in the slider area, and move forward with the test.

The Results

Video in Sidebar

Play Rate: 5%
# of Plays: 27
Engagement Rate: 76%

Video in Banner

Play Rate: 12%
# of Plays: 38
Engagement Rate: 81%

Its clear from this test that a larger video in a prominent position outperforms a smaller video in a sidebar. Its exactly the results we expected, but now we have numbers that prove the concept verses simply making an educated guess.

So was the test successful? Yes. Even if the results were reversed the test would be a success. Like Edison, every test is a learning experience and learning what doesn’t work has value. More importantly is that if your marketing relies on educated guesses, best practices, or what you’ve seen work for someone else or some other industry, you really don’t know if your efforts are successful. Or at least as successful as they could be.

Testing provides the opportunity to optimize your marketing results, driving more sales, more conversions, and higher ROI.

Surge Labs is a conversion optimization company helping companies improve conversions by 20% or more. Our latest video optimization AB test is an example of how we help our client’s increase conversions. If you have questions or need help contact us at 678-951-9506, via email at info at surgelabs.com, or complete our FastForm.

Usability Testing Replaces the Educated Guess

September 19, 2013 By sean

Usability testing is a great tool to eliminate a common problem in website design and functionality …the educated guess. We’ve all been doing our jobs for a long time and surely we’ve gained the wisdom and experience to predict what will and will not work. In the end, though, without valid data your educated guess is still only a guess. Usability testing provides valuable information, which when absent contributes to many website failing or at a minimum, underperforming.

What is Usability Testing

Usability testing is simply the process of evaluating product usage by testing it on users. The result is that issues are discovered from a real world perspective verses the more theoretical perspective of your design allowing you to discover areas in need of improvement. For websites this usability testing involves assigning a list of tasks to an online visitor to complete, recording their audio and screen as they work through the tasks, and then reviewing the video capture of the entire event. A set of follow up questions allows the tester to provide additional feedback on what they experienced and their thoughts relative to the level of difficulty in completing the assigned tasks.

What Can You Test

With online usability testing you can pretty much test anything on your site. Some items might include:

The intuitiveness of your sites navigation – Can the visitor easily navigate throughout your site?
Clarity of message – Is the visitor getting what you’re trying to convey?
Organizational hierarchy of your site – Can the visitor easily find what they are looking for?
Level of credibility – Does your site convey trust?
Level of ease or difficulty in creating a task – How easy is it for the tester to complete a specific assigned task (s)?

The list could go on. Some tests will be page specific and other will be website wide. In many cases usability testing will uncover issues you have not contemplated.

Usability Testing Case Study

We recently worked with wellness foods company that sells nutritional bars and snacks. We ran a usability test on the site to see what testers remembered after viewing the home page for 7 seconds and assigned a couple of tasks to purchase products. The testing identified the following:

Confusion in shipping costs
Perception of high shipping costs
Confusing field in checkout form
Shopping cart security concerns
Desire for more product nutritional details
Nutritional details presentation needs improvement
Value of a competitive product comparison chart
Would like to see celebrity testimonials – more credibility
“Buy It” button confusion on category pages
Small site font causing eye strain
Wide text areas with grey font on white background is hard to read
Addition of company name to all product names makes it harder to see flavors

These are just some of the issues discovered from our testers. Each of these items introduces friction into the conversion process, thereby reducing conversions.

Usability testing is a great tool to use before beginning a conversion optimization testing process. It will help remove stumbling blocks that introduce friction into the conversion path, allowing your tests to focus more on the persuasive elements of conversion such as messaging, clarity, priority, etc.

We include a usability study in most of our conversion optimization plans. For more information on how we increase conversion rates call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

New Subscribe Messaging Generates 133.33% More Visitors To Checkout Page

August 15, 2013 By sean

We recently ran a conversion optimization multivariate test for eNotes.com, challenging current subscribe messaging against multiple subscribe text variations created by Surge Labs. The end result was a 133.33% increase in visitors clicking over to the checkout page.

The Client

eNotes.com is a membership-based, online resource that helps students with homework and studying.

The Business Objective

The main business objective of this project was to help get more visitors clicking to the checkout page from the teaser study guide pages.

The Challenges

The main challenge for this project was to effectively and efficiently communicate the benefits of the membership to prospects so they are encouraged to click to the checkout page.

The Hypothesis

We believed that testing multiple benefit oriented variations of the headline, text and button text, we could determine the best messaging to increase conversions.

The Test

We setup a multivariate test to test multiple variations of the subscribe messaging headline, body text and button text. The original subscribe messaging is shown below.

We tested the following text variations against each other in multiple combinations to find the highest performer:

Headline Variations

Body Text Variations

Button Text Variations

We tested 27 multiple variations against each other to find the winner.

The Results – 133.33% Increase in Visitors Going to the Checkout Page

After running the 27 variations against each other over a series of several days a winning combination became apparent (with 95% confidence level). The winning combination is shown below:

Testing each and every element within your site is key to increasing the number of customers your site generates. This test shows how important it is to test different variations of every element on pages within your purchase funnel.

Because of this test eNotes.com now gets 133.33% more visitors going to their checkout page from their teaser study guide pages.

For more information on how we increase conversion rates call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

New PPC Landing Page Generates 73% More Customers

June 14, 2013 By sean

We recently ran a conversion optimization split URL test for TechInsurance.com, challenging a current PPC landing page design against a new PPC landing page designed by Surge Labs. The end result was a 73% increase in visitors signing up for their insurance service.

The Client

TechInsurance.com is an online insurance provider that specializes in reselling insurance policies for the technical industry. Their entire business is generated from their website and each and every additional percentage in conversions increase their bottom line.

The Business Objective

TechInsurance.com has a fairly large monthly spend on Google Adwords and other PPC providers, and was looking for a way to increase the ROI coming from their monthly spend. but was sending their paid traffic to the TechInsurance.com home page.

The Challenges

The online insurance provider industry is highly competitive and getting visitors to stay on a landing page and to move through their quote engine is difficult.

The Hypothesis

Because TechInsurance.com was currently sending their visitors to their home page and not to a landing page designed specifically for PPC traffic, we knew there was plenty of conversion opportunity. We felt that a PPC landing page would keep visitors focused on converting and not distracting them with all the other things offered on their website.

The Test

We created a new PPC landing page that was much cleaner and had only one main call-to-action – to get the visitor to go into the quote engine.

To test the “old” verses “new” page we ran a split URL test through Google Adwords. We split the traffic going to each of the pages.

The Results – 73% Increase in Signed Up New Customers

The new PPC landing page design generated 73% more customers that signed up for their insurance policies over the current PPC landing page design.

This is proof that a well designed PPC landing page will help keep visitors focused on the main call-to-action and won’t get them distracted by all the other items on a home page.

For more information about our conversion optimization and PPC Optimization services call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

Conversion Optimization Generates 205% More Leads for Matchmaker!

May 14, 2013 By sean

Surge Labs recently ran a conversion optimization split test with a current ad landing page vs. an ad landing page designed by Surge Labs and increased landing page conversion rates by a whopping 205%!

The Test

We tested a new landing page that we designed against their current landing page design. This was run as a split test – sending roughly 50% of the visitors to the “control” landing page, and 50% to the new “variation” landing page.

Control Landing Page – This was the landing page that Single Atlanta was currently sending its ads to, with the exception that we added the free guide download messaging and graphics to this page as well per the client.

Variation Landing Page – This was the landing page that Surge Labs designed for Single Atlanta. This new landing page design was more focused on communicating the Single Atlanta brand as a personalized matchmaker. We did this by using a photo of an older couple happily drinking champagne, photo of the two owners of Single Atlanta to build trust and credibility, new headline and text to support the personalized service, and text/graphics to get prospects to download the free guide.

The Results – 205% Increase in Leads

After 25 days of running the test the new landing page design generated 205% more leads with a 97% confidence level for Single Atlanta.

Single Atlanta now gets 205% more leads from the same traffic generated by this advertising campaign by using our conversion optimization methodology.

Needless to say Single Atlanta is extremely happy with these results and will continue testing with Surge Labs.

Read more detail about this test on the Single Atlanta Case Study page.

For more information on conversion optimization call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

Split Test vs. AB Test: Is there a difference?

April 24, 2013 By sean

As conversion optimization (or sometimes called conversion rate optimization or CRO) has started becoming more commonplace in the online marketing industry, I’ve noticed that the terms “split test” and “AB test” seem to be interchangeable. However, the way I see it, this is not the case. Each of these terms has unique meanings. So, I thought I would take a moment to clarify each of these terms.

To start, here are some definitions from Wikipedia:

Split Test – A split test is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates.
AB Test (or A/B Test) – An A/B test is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates.

Wait a minute, these are exactly the same definitions. So, what’s the problem here?

OK, so here’s how I would change these definitions:

Split Test – A split test is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a completely different variation of the same sample in order to improve response rates.
AB Test (or A/B Test) – An A/B test is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable tests performed on the same sample in order to improve response rates.

Split Test Example

To help clarify this, here’s an example:


Control Ad	Variation Ad

To split test a landing page I would send 50% of the traffic to one landing page design (“Control Ad” above) and the remaining 50% of the traffic to different landing page design (“Variation Ad” above). Both of these landing pages would have the same conversion goal (fill out a form, click a button, or whatever). However, the landing pages could have different text, different headlines, different photos, different buttons and more importantly a unique URL.

Then I would take the winner of the split test and use it as the control sample in an A/B test.

A/B Test Example

For an A/B test I would test the winning control sample against one variable change made to the sample (for example, change the color of a button from orange to green).


Control Ad	Control Ad with variable change (a green button)

From there, we would move on to the more complicated multivariate test.

Multivariate Test

Here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

Multivariate Test – A multivariate test is a process by which more than one component of a website may be tested in a live environment. It can be thought of in simple terms as numerous A/B tests performed on one page at the same time.

For example, using the control sample we could test multiple variables (such as button colors, headline text, number of form fields, photos, color schemes, and more) all at the same time. Now, testing several variables at the same time requires quite a bit of traffic to the page being tested. The more variables you want to test simultaneously the more traffic you will need.

So, I would like to recommend the following testing steps:

1) Split Test – Use a split test to find out if one design direction is better than another.

2) A/B Test – Use an A/B test to test one variation of a variable on a single page.

3) Multivariate Test – Use a multivariate test to test multiple variations of multiple variables on a single page.

The bottom line for any of these conversion optimization testing methods is to increase the conversion rates of your landing pages. Conversion optimization testing is not a one-time thing, it’s a process that requires continuous improvement.

Test everything and anything, and test often.

For more information on how we increase conversion rates call us at 678-951-9506, email us at info at surgelabs.com or complete our FastForm.

Video Optimization AB Test