Conversion Rate Experts was founded when a real-life rocket scientist teamed up with an internet marketing specialist. Its clients include firms like Apple, Google and Sony.
I've been asking CEO Ben Jesson and Chairman Dr Karl Blanks (the rocket scientist) about their approach to conversion rate optimsation, common conversion killers, and the most valuable tools for the job.
I also asked Ben and Karl how they would improve the Ling's Cars website...
Can you tell us a little about Conversion Rate Experts and some of your clients?
We focus on just one thing: we analyse our clients' websites, then redesign their pages to increase their conversion rate and profits.
We're unusual in that we put our necks on the line by insisting that the changes are split tested, so we know for definite whether or not our recommendations significantly increase the profits.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, we tend to attract companies that are already sophisticated with conversion and UX: companies like Apple, Google, Sony and Vodafone who are looking for ways to increase their performance even further.
What are the most useful tools for your job?
We typically use one tool from each of the following categories. We're vendor neutral, so we use whatever tool the client already uses (some have developed tools in-house), or we recommend one that is best for their situation:
- Web analytics (e.g., Site Catalyst, Google Analytics, KISSmetrics).
- Phone tracking (e.g., Infinity Tracking).
- Clickmapping (e.g., Crazy Egg).
- On-page analytics (e.g., TeaLeaf and Clicktale).
- Survey tools (e.g., Survey Gizmo, Survey Monkey).
- On-site survey tools (e.g., Live Person).
- Exit survey tools (e.g., 4Q, KISSinsights, ForeSee).
- On-page feedback tools (e.g., Kampyle and KISSinsights).
- Usability testing (either remotely or in person. Ethnio is great for recruiting usability testers from your website).
- Eyetracking (either via a company like THiNK Eye Tracking or automatically using GazeHawk).
- Speaking with customers, speaking with customer support staff and salespeople.
- Multivariate testing (e.g., Test&Target, Visual Website Optimizer, Google Website Optimizer) See an unbiased overview at WhichMVT.com and in Econsultancy's Multivariate Testing Buyer's Guide.
Full disclosure: We've been recommending KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg for years, but they've recently become clients of ours.
What are the common mistakes you find on clients' sites?
The most common mistake, and it's very common, is to follow best practices blindly. Unfortunately, breakthrough results require hard work.
Do you ever have any challenges persuading clients to take action on recommendations?
Our process generates many ideas, which we rate (on a scale of 1–10) according to "How easy is it to implement?" and "How likely is it to generate a huge increase in profit?"
We multiply these two figures together to give an overall score of importance. We then start at the top of the list, testing the ideas that everyone agrees are likely to give the biggest return on effort expended.
What are the challenges for the client in implementing CRO?
Growing the business requires iteratively changing the website. The rate at which a client can implement changes is an extremely strong indicator of how successful they'll be.
Fortunately, some of the software tools make this easier than ever.
What are the most common issues that damage conversion rates?
Here are some of the most common conversion killers:
- Making changes without testing.
- Testing small insignificant changes.
- Attempting to make a one-step sale when a multi-step sale would be more effective.
- Having an unclear value proposition.
- Failing to engender trust.
- Boring the visitor.
- Failing to address product-specific objections.
- Failing to capture the visitor's contact details early enough in the process.
- Not substantiating claims with proof.
- Failing to reduce the perceived risk.
- Not communicating urgency.
- Sending the visitor to a merchant's site that underperforms.
- Failing to win ongoing sales.
One of our first jobs is to diagnose which of these problems is currently killing a client's conversions. Then we focus on fixing it.
As e-commerce sites (generally speaking) become more user friendly, are you finding it harder to identify areas for improvement?
Quite the opposite (fortunately). As businesses grow, so does the number of opportunities available to them. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Expedia, Google and Apple have more opportunities now than ever.
Take a look at Ling's Cars, which has many good points, but a 'quirky' design. How would you go about improving it?
Haha. We've been following, and admiring Ling's success for years. Here's what we'd do:
We'd begin by understanding the economics of each product line and establishing the long-term strategy for growing the business. Ling has a strong, unique brand, so the challenge would be to increase the website's effectiveness without losing all of the things that made it successful in the first place.
Then we'd set KPIs and agree how success will be measured. A balanced scorecard approach could help Ling's Cars to focus on hard goals (like conversion, profit and lifetime customer value) and soft goals (like staying likeable, entertaining, honest and batshit crazy).
We'd analyse the flow of traffic (and profit)through the site, and identify what we call the blocked arteries and the missing links.
The blocked arteries are those pages that are important in terms of profit and are underperforming. The missing links are important pages or user flows that haven't been created yet.
As an off-the-cuff guess, we suspect that the user flows would benefit from being simplified and clarified. We'd look for proof elements that the site is currently failing to communicate; for example, Ling's is a strong business with strong values, and that's not immediately apparent.
We'd than use the tools mentioned above to understand the factors that are driving customers through the site, and the factors that are holding them back.
Then, based on all the user research we'd carried out, and on our wealth of experience of "what works",we'd design challenger pages to beat the control. These pages would need to be better than the controls at converting and entertaining (if that's possible).
We'd then improve the challengers via an iterative process of usability testing with new prospects and existing customers.
We'd only begin a split test once we were reasonably confident that we had a winner on our hands.
The above process isn't as daunting as it may sound, for the following reason: After each success, we ask ourselves the following two questions:
- What were the vital few activities that were most fruitful during that project?
- If we had to repeat the entire project in an hour, what activities would we carry out?
Our methodology is thus constantly evolving; the activities that are less fruitful are whittled away in a "survival of the fittest" manner.
Conversion Rate Experts is sponsoring Econsultancy's Digital Cream event, which takes place at the Emirates Stadium on March 15.
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