Tips to run effective Funnel, A/B, and Heatmap exp
Conversion Rate Optimisation data is the easiest way to avoid conflicts between varied opinions.
One bold statement from every conversion rate optimisation expert is — It (CRO) is data-driven.
But before you go about accessing the website data, you first need to equip your website fully for it. The initial steps of CRO are crucial for marketers to get precise Funnel, A/B test, and Heatmap results and to attain inexorable marketing success.
TL;WR — #TooLongWontRead
Breaking the conversion rate optimization test into the following 4 steps will give you better insights and gripping results.
- Step 1 — Collect Data
- Step 2 — Evaluate Key Metrics
- Step 3 — Go For What To Test
- Step 4 — Analyse Your Hypotheses
#ILoveReading
Step 1 — Collect Data
By performing the following analysis on every page that you want to make conversions from, you can get great insights.
- Nosy Analysis — Hunt down the obvious mistakes on your existing page — relevancy, clarity, friction and distractions.
- Scientific/Technical Analysis — Forage for any technical faults by running cross-browser and cross-device tests.
- Web Analytics Analysis — Run funnel and A/B tests to analyze where and how your visitors are leaving your website. Find out the holes in your conversion funnel.
- Qualitative Testing — Trigger on-page surveys or email surveys to get feedback from your users directly.
- User Testing — Invite some of your users, Invite your users to interact with your site and watch how they perceive/comprehend your features. Get real-time feedback from them.
Step 2 — Evaluate Key Metrics
The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are used to evaluate the success rate of the product at reaching the target audience. Choosing precise key performance indicators is the most crucial part in testing. As we know that choosing KPIs vary based on the industry we are in, here is a list of often used KPIs for CRO:
- Number of visits
- Number of views
- Average time on the website
- Average time on the page
- Bounce rate
- Exit rate
- Total conversions
- Conversion rate
- Revenue (ROI)
SYH? Sweet 🙂 Go on…
Step 3 — Go For What To Test
“For every X test you do, expect Y result from it.”
To know if your website is ready for the A/B test that you are about to run, ask yourself the following questions,
- What am I testing? (CTAs, Headlines, Header image et cetera.)
- Who am I testing for? (Organic traffic, potential leads, new customers et cetera.)
- Where am I testing? (On the landing page, product page, checkout page et cetera.)
There are multiple things you could test but here are some of the most prominent elements to start with:
- Test headlines
- Test Subject lines
- Test titles
Test The Short-Form vs Long-Form Copy
The general rule of thumb is, the more complicated your product/service is, the longer the copy needs to be. Each situation is unique and that’s why we perform CRO.
Long form content is, in general, more than 2000 words in length and there about making a more intense and insightful read.
For example e-books, whitepapers et cetera. There are a lot of reasons why we use long form content.
Other reasons to bring in long form items into your content strategy is to give away intense blog posts, educational webinars, informative white papers, in order to show expertise over the specific topic or industry.
Short form content owns the current marketing trend. Also, we know it is easy to send small grains of content through the reader’s brain cells than sending a big chunk of content. This would explain more like Vine (six seconds) videos, infographics and so on. These type of contents are easy to process.
Both, the long form and short form contents are necessary whereas short form contents are more inclined towards engaging and connecting with the audience, whereas long form content is intended to educate and inform.
Test Features vs Benefits
If we are asked to describe our product or service, the first instinct is to list out our product features. This might be logically right but it isn’t the ideal way for improving conversion rates. Instead, start testing different benefits that you can gain from those features.
Designing Your Page
How good your page looks is as important as what your page says to your visitors. Some of the significant design elements you must restyle and A/B test comprises of:
- Images replacing texts
- Colors and contrast
- Navigational cues
- Types of images
- Whitespace
- Font style and font size
Add Trust Elements
The more reliable your page is, the more it converts. People choose to buy or opt-in, from those they truly believe in. The poor conversion rate is usually attributed to your page not conveying a sense of trustworthiness. So think about testing the effect of elements like:
- Data and statistics to back claim
- Logos (in the NEWS, industry blogs)
- Text testimonials
- Video testimonials
- Security logos
- Guarantee and warranty information
Positioning CTAs
The CTAs on your page are crucial because they ask your users to take final steps. And the ultimate goal is, to send your visitors across the conversion funnel and finally convert them into your goals. Of course, none of us want to see our visitors reach the end of the funnel and leave because of a weak CTA.
- Positioning your CTAs (above or below the fold)
- CTAs color, shape and size
- CTAs message (Learn More…)
- Multiple CTAs on a single page
Step 4 — Analyse Your Hypotheses
Once you have fixed the design and other essentials of your page and have formed a hypothesis, it’s time to put it to the test. But before starting a test, create an outline to see if your test is viable.
Create A Wireframe
Apparently, the outline isn’t necessary if you have only made few tweaks on your website or the page. But if the changes are abundant and if it affects the layout of your page, it is great need to have a visual inspection before implementing it.
Some of the things to ask yourself before imposing a new design:
- Is the conversion path clear?
- Where are the visitors coming from?
- Are the CTAs easy to find?
- Do the design and message complement each other?
- How responsive is it on mobile devices?
And once you are sure that your new design is more compelling than the current one, go on and test it out.
Execute Your Test
Now that you have all the things ready to start A/B tests on your new design, set the statistical significance and the required sample size for it. Commence the test and don’t stop it until your design reaches two of the measures you had set.
A/B test calculator could be of great help to measure the appropriate sample size.
Review Your Result
After the tests are done, examine the results and implement the winning version. Make it your default version and target it to your audience.
When reviewing the results, ask yourself the following questions:
- How many hikes did your conversion rate get?
- How much did it affect your revenue?
- Did any of the KPIs see a noticeable increase?
From the answers, you get, either repeat the same test with an alternate version or move on to different tests.
Verdict: There is always room for improvement! Even the best version can always be tweaked to make it convert even better.
Just keep testing…