ReplaceDirect is one of the biggest parts and accessories retailers for notebooks and other mobile equipment in the Netherlands.
A Forrester study found out that shipping costs rank as the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment. ReplaceDirect decided to conduct A/B split testing on the checkout process to remove this barrier, and it slashed shopping cart abandonment by 25%.
ReplaceDirect tested their second step of the checkout procedure. It’s the page where customers are asked to fill out their personal information and shipping address. ReplaceDirect made several changes to the page, including adding an order overview, comprising the products, total costs and delivery date.
They also mention several benefits at this page that matched this step in the order process. Finally the page layout and form were redesigned with a cleaner look. Several fields, which were not absolutely necessary, were removed.
The new version performed significantly better, slashing shopping cart abandonments by 25%, and increasing sales by 14%.
The lesson learned is, in their own words, “Try to give the customers exactly the information they need at that particular page or section and leave out the redundant. Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes. This may not be easy so: test it!”
Are you continually testing your shopping cart to reduce its abandonment rate?
Full story at Visual Website Optimizer »
Right Vs. Left Aligned Ad in Post Body
Top Right Image Vs Text Ad
Image Vs Text Ad Under Posts
- The right aligned ad in post body got a 0.78% CTR and $1.41 eCPM, whilst the left aligned ad got a 1.30% CTR and $5.31 eCPM (276% improvement);
- The top image ads got a 0.35% CTR and $1.74 eCPM, whilst the text ads got a 0.33% CTR and $2.15 eCPM (23% improvement); and
- The image ads under posts got a 0.58% CTR and $1.86 eCPM, whilst the text ads got a 0.43% CTR and $2.27 eCPM (22% improvement).
Overall the site-wide eCPM from these three ads went up from $5.01 to $9.73 – a 94% improvement.
Are you split testing your Google AdSense ads?
Full story at ProBlogger »
Luke Wroblewski talks about how he came across an unconventional registration form that asked people the same questions found in typical sign-up forms, but in a narrative format. It presented input fields as blanks within sentences (Mad Libs-style, if you will).
The question was would people be more inclined to complete it because of the narrative format? Or would the unfamiliar presentation format confuse people?
Ron Kurti and his team at Vast.com ran some A/B testing online that compared the two styles of forms.
Here’s the result: Mad Libs style forms increased conversion across the board by 25-40%.
Have you tried narrative style forms on your website?
Full story at LukeW »
Visual Website Optimizer offer a case study of UsabilityWeb.nl, a Dutch blog/magazine, and how they increased click-through rates by 80% split-testing link text.
In the first test, UsabilityWeb changed the ‘Huur mij in’ (Hire me) navigation button to ‘Over mij’ (About me).
The first button generated a 2.8% click-through rate (CTR) from 5,712 visits, while the second button generated a 5.1% CTR from 5,096 visits – an increase of 80%.
In the second test, they changed a different text link from ‘Ik meld me aan voor het magazine’ (I want to subscribe to the magazine) to ‘Gratis aanmelden’ (Free subscription).
The first link generated a 6.7% CTR from 1,000 visits, while the second link produced a 9.8% CTR for 1,040 visits – an increase of 46%.
These results probably won’t come as a surprise to you. But it does illustrate how small changes can have a dramatic impact on conversion rates.
Have you split tested your website’s link text lately?
Full story at Visual Website Optimizer »
Text Buttons
Green Buttons
Orange Buttons
GSM.nl, one of the Netherlands’ largest eCommerce shops selling mobile phones, GSM plans and other mobile accessories, have ‘Buy Now’ buttons all over their website.
The challenge for this particular A/B test was that they had to vary all buttons on the site at once. A lot of pages contain multiple instances of the order button, one for each featured product.
They came up with a smart solution. All they did was create an alternative CSS stylesheet, and run the A/B test on the different stylesheets. The stylesheet defined how the ‘Buy Now’ buttons looked, so if they do a split test of stylesheet they will automatically split test all the buttons on the website.
So which button color won?
The test results showed that the orange buttons increased overall website engagement by 5%. Engagement is defined as click on any link on the page, so an increase in engagement means a reduction in bounce rate. Sales increased too, but due to the relatively short test period, did not yet prove statistically significant.
The case suggests that a bright button color catches attention, reduces bounce rate, and even helps increase sales.
Are you split testing your website’s ‘Buy Now’ button colors?
Full story at Visual Website Optimizer »
Multi-step checkout
Single page checkout
Create account after checkout
Elastic Path Software conducted A/B split testing on a multi-page checkout, against a single-page checkout with the option of creating an account after checkout.
So, which page do you think won?
After only 300 transactions the winner was clear and they stopped the experiment after 606 transactions. Google Website Optimizer concluded that the single-page checkout outperformed the out-of-the-box checkout by 21.8%.
Have you conducted A/B split testing on your checkout page?
Full story at Get Elastic blog »
Original
Test Ad #1
Test Ad #2
Test Ad #3
Test Ad #4
37Signals used Google Website Optimizer to randomly rotate five different headline and subhead combinations on the signup page.
They measured the number of clicks on any green “Sign Up” button. They ran the test for 4000 page views, because the numbers didn’t change much after about 3000 page views, so they stopped at 4000.
So which ad converted 30% better than the original?
The answer….
Test ad #1 performed 30% better than the original. Test ad #2 performed 27% better; test ad #3 performed #15% better; and test ad #4 performed 7% better than the original.
Are you split testing your sales letters? It is the quickest and cheapest way to increase sales and profits.
Full story at the 37Signals Signal vs. Noise blog »
ICoupon Blog did an A/B split test of a landing page with and without a security icon. And surprisingly the page without the security badge increased conversions by 400%.
What the ICoupon Blog tested was whether having a large ‘Secure’ icon in the sidebar would help with our conversion rate. They thought the icon would help because it would push down other (distracting) text in the sidebar.
In nutshell, in this particular case, it looks like the secure icon distracted the visitor from the main focus of the page.
Do you split test the security icons on your landing pages?
Full story at Website Visual Optimizer »
Which version of the pages above do you think got 39.3% more Add-to-Cart clicks from European 20- to 30-somethings interested in trendy street wear?
The versions were identical except for the background color (black vs. white), copy (“Outstanding.” vs. “Out of the Box.”), and shoe color (rich vs. dull).
Are you constantly trying to improve your website’s conversion rates?
Full results at Which Test Won? »
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