7 Universal Conversion Optimization Principles

7 Universal Conversion
Optimization Principles
Based on 350 A/B Tests and 4 Years of Research
What you get for free:
Table of Contents:
26 pages packed with insights and experience from 4

years of research and more than 350 A/B tests
Optimization Principle 1:
7 tested and proven optimization principles you can apply

to your online marketing funnel and increase conversion
17 real world case studies with before-and-after examples

and results from real split tests performed for clients
The flexible template for a high-converting landing page
It's all about optimizing decisions - not web pages // Page 2
The biggest change on the page doesnt necessarily result in the biggest lift // Page 6
Value & relevance are king // Page 9
Clear outweighs creative // Page 13
Tips and tricks based on years of hands-on experience
Inspiration for your next conversion rate optimization project
Ask for the right action at the right time // Page 16
Less friction = more conversions // Page 19
Dont rely on your gut - Test whether your optimization efforts work // Page 24
About the Author

Page 25

Page 26
Share this e-book:
To get more conversions, you need to get more potential customers to make the right
decision and carry out a specific action on your website. Usually that action revolves
around accepting an offer.
It's all about optimizing decisions not web pages.
No matter what you want prospects to accept, the scenario is going to be more or less
the same:
If you want results, you need to start by setting goals. When your goals are set, you need
You offer your prospects something that represents a value to them. In order to get it,
to find out how to best achieve them.
they have to give you something in return that represents a value to you.
I think we can all agree on the logic behind this statement. And exactly the same logic
should be applied to conversion rate optimization.
This scenario will invariably start a process in the minds of your prospects where they
have to assess and decide whether your offer is worth accepting. And there are really
only two possible outcomes:
If you want to create a high-converting website or landing page, you need to start by
defining the conversion goal. After that, you need to build the best possible website or
landing page to achieve that specific goal.
1. They can say, Yes

2. They can say, No
A beautiful webpage can be a means to an end but it should not be an end in itself.
In order to get a conversion, the process has to end with your potential customers
agreeing that what they will get in return is worth more than they have to part with.
For this reason, its important that you can leave the artist on the shelf for a while, so you
can assume an analytical approach and focus on giving your potential customers what
they need in order to make the right decision.
The decision-making process takes place in the minds of your potential customers, and
optimizing this process should be the primary goal of any optimization effort - the web
page itself is simply a tool to help you achieve your conversion goals.
From a strictly aesthetic or artistic point of view, the result may not be the most creative
solution. But essentially this doesnt matter. What matters is that you get as many
potential customers as possible to make the right decision.
The goal of CRO is to get conversions not creative awards!
If the webpage itself is the main goal, you can easily end up designing something that
looks great but doesnt have any effect on the decisions of your potential customers. That
may get you a nomination for a creative award, but it wont get you more conversions.
Ive been in several situations where we designed an awesome landing page that
impressed the client only to set up a split test and find out that it had little or no positive
impact on conversions.
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 31.54% more conversions by tweaking the copy on

a sign-up Form
Heres an example of a very simple change that had major impact on the decisionmaking process of the prospects on BettingExpert.com - an international betting
community where tipsters can get betting tips from experts.
In this case, tweaking the form copy (headline & button text), led to an increase of
31.54% in membership sign-ups.
At first glance, the original form copy is pretty decent and does an okay job of clarifying
the purpose of the form. The header says, Join BettingExpert, and the button copy
says, Sign Up+.
However, the form copy doesnt convey any value whatsoever and does nothing to
answer the question, What will I get, if I fill out this form and give you my email?
Control:
Treatment:
When I created the treatment, I focused on increasing the relevance and value
communicated by the header and button copy. In other words I focused on giving the
prospects a good reason to fill out the form.
The main and most tangible benefit of becoming a member of BettingExpert.com is
that you can get free betting tips from top tipsters on a daily basis.
Based on experience from similar tests, I hypothesized that I could accelerate the
decision-making process of the prospects and increase sign-ups by focusing the form
copy on the main benefit. In my treatment, the header says, Get FREE Betting Tips,
and the button copy says, Sign Up & Get the Best Daily Tips.
In order to find out whether my hypothesis would hold water and increase conversions, I
set up a simple A/B test with the Control Variant (A) and my Treatment (B). The
Treatment increased signups by 31.54%.
31.54%'more'sign0ups
The treatment form copy wasnt more creative or inspired in fact, I think some would
even call it lame. But again the goal wasnt to write sexy copy, the goal was to get more
sign-ups, and a 31.54% lift speaks for itself.
Sta$s$cal(Condence(99%
Get the full case study here >>
Share this e-book:
Case Study: How a radical landing page redesign reduced

conversion by 30.27%
Heres an example from a case study where my business partner and I optimized
Control:
and redesigned a landing page for a Scandinavian client that specializes in energy
Treatment:
solutions. The control page was pretty boring and very heavy on copy.
In previous tests, I had achieved significant lifts exclusively by optimizing the copy
and stating the overall value proposition more clearly. So for the new treatment, our
main focus was optimizing the design and creating a more esthetically pleasing
variant.
We were very pleased with our new beautiful landing page design, and hopes
were high for the lift it was bound to generate. The test results started rolling
in, and from the beginning they were unmistakable our variant performed
significantly worse than the control page. In fact, our treatment decreased
conversion by 30.27%.
We were taken aback by these results. How could our new variant that looked
so much better perform so much worse? Moreover, how could a radical
redesign fail so miserably, when minor copy changes could generate
substantial lifts?
The copy changes were laser-focused on conveying the value of the offer and
giving potential customers what they needed in order to accept the offer. In
other words, I focused on optimizing the decisions of the potential customers
and not so much the page itself.
With the redesign, however, it was the other way around. We lost focus on the
goal of the page and made the mistake of assuming that optimizing the page
30.27% drop in conversion
itself would automatically result in more conversions.
The radical redesign reduced

conversion by 30.27%
Eventually we did come up with a redesign that worked, and we ended up

with a variant the generated a lift of 48.69%, get the full case study here >>
Share this e-book:
Case Study: How changing 1 word in the call-to-action

increased conversions on a B2B site by 14.79%
Chapter takeaways:
This is a test I conducted on MatchOffice.com an international commercial real estate

portal through which businesses can find offices for rent. Once a prospect finds a relevant
Conversion Rate Optimization is all about optimizing decisions and
office, they have to click to the main CTA in order to get more information on the office.
actions
By changing the button copy from Order Information and Prices to Get information and
The decision-making process takes place in the minds of your potential

customers, and optimizing this process should be the primary goal of
Prices, we increased conversions by 14.79%.

Changing this one word may seem like an insignificant change, but consider how much it
any optimization effort - the web page itself is simply a tool to help you
changes the message. The word order signifies that you have to go through a process
achieve your conversion goals
who knows, you might have to go through 8 steps to complete the order.
Get on the other hand is positive. It emphasizes what you will receive by clicking the button
and focuses on the benefit rather than the process you have to go through. I conducted the
same experiment in Danish on the Scandinavian sister website Lokalebasen.dk. Here it
The greater the impact on the decision-making
increased conversion by 38.26%. !
process, the higher probability of conversion
Control:
Treatment:
14.79%'more'conversions
Share this e-book:
31.03% increase in conversion on a payment page by tweaking

the button copy
The biggest change on the page doesnt

necessarily result in the biggest lift.
Heres an example from a test I ran on the payment page for WriteWork.com a
subscription-based education website for college and university students.
In this case, tweaking the button copy and adding the benefit Get started increased
conversion by 31.03%. This is the very last step in the conversion funnel, and every single
conversion means money in the bank.
While radical changes often have major impact on conversion, there is no direct correlation
between big changes and big lifts. In order for the change to impact conversion, it has to
have an impact in the mind of the prospect.
Customer analyses of WriteWorks target audience have shown that potential customers
most often sign up to WriteWork.com when they are in a hurry to get started with their
writing process. Previous tests I conducted on the website confirmed that adding a bit of
urgency to the CTAs increases CTR on this particular website.
Often relatively small but strategic changes to mission-critical elements can have major
impact on conversion. Lets look at a few examples from the real world.
Case Study: 90% increase in conversion by changing one word

in the CTA copy
Therefore the Get started part represents a tangible benefit to the potential customers.
Oli from Unbounce.com and I recently ran a split test on a click-through landing page that
pitches a free 30 day trial of the Unbounce.com landing page platform.
Control:
The only thing we did was to tweak one word in the copy we changed the possessive
pronoun You to My.
After running the test for three weeks, the treatment button copy, Start my free 30 day trial
had increased the click-through rate by 90%.
Control:
Treatment:
Treatment:
90% increase in CTR
31.47% more payments
During the campaign periode, the

treatment increased CTR by 90%.
Statistical Confidence 98%
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 18.70% drop in sign-ups by adding a privacy policy
Case Study: 19.47% lift in sign-ups by tweaking a privacy policy
The two next case studies perfectly illustrate how minor changes can have major impact on
conversion. Both cases revolve around a series of tests I performed on BettingExpert.com
where I experimented with the privacy policy on the sign-up form.
The findings and hypotheses from the first test led to a number of treatments where I tested
different variations of the privacy policy. The winning variation turned out to be We
guarantee, 100% privacy. Your information will not be shared, and it increased sign-ups by
19.47%.
The control variant of the sign-up form didnt feature a privacy policy, so I decided to test
the impact of adding this privacy policy 100% privacy we will never spam you.
Notice that this variant does not use the word, spam, and that it features a guarantee. In
earlier treatments the policy only said 100% privacy, whereas the policy here says We
guarantee 100% privacy.
I assumed that the treatment with the privacy policy would perform significantly better than
the control. So I was pretty taken aback by the test results.
Personally I find this wording much more credible. Moreover, the second part Your
information will not be shared is clearer and more authoritative.
The treatment with the privacy policy actually hurt conversion and reduced the number of
sign-ups by a staggering 18.70%!
Credibility, clarity and authority are really what you want in a privacy policy, and I believe
that the combination of those three factors is what made this treatment perform so well.
My hypothesis is that - although the message revolves around assuring prospects that they
wont be spammed - the word spam itself gives rise to anxiety in the minds of the
prospects. Therefore, the word should be avoided in close proximity to the form.
Treatment 2:
Treatment 1:
We guarantee 100% privacy. Your

information will not be shared.
100% privacy - we will never spam you
18.70%'less'sign0ups
19.47%'more'sign0ups
Share this e-book:
Chapter takeaways:
When do minor changes have major impact?

Weve looked at examples from case studies where changing a single word or adding a few
lines of copy have had major impact on conversion. But does that mean that small changes
always work? The answer is no, definitely not!
While radical changes often have major impact on conversion, there is

no direct correlation between big changes and big lifts
Small changes are most effective when applied to mission-critical elements. Call-to-action
buttons are a great example. While they may seem like an insignificant design element,
In order for the change to impact conversion, it has to have an impact in

the mind of the prospect
they play a decisive part in the conversion sequence and have direct impact on the
decisions and actions of your prospects.
Small changes to mission-critical elements that have direct impact on

the decisions of the prospect will often result in major lifts
When you ask someone to do something online, they have to go through your call-to-action
in order to do it regardless of whether youre asking them to download a PDF, fill out a
form, buy a product, or even just click through to another page.
The larger the impact in the mind of the prospect, the
This means that your CTA buttons represent the tipping point between bounce and
conversion. They tie every step in the conversion sequence together and make it possible
to move from one micro yes to the next, and all the way to the final macro yes.
higher probability of conversion
For more on optimizing buttons - check out this article with 10 call-to-action case studies.
Forms, headlines, and value propositions are examples of other mission-critical

elements that have direct impact on conversions, and where small changes can make
or break momentum on the path to conversion.
A lot of online marketers out there miss out on conversions and leave money on the
table because they fail to recognize the significance of the impact that minor changes
can have - if they are applied to the right elements. I think it has to do with the fact that
tweaking a button or adding a line of copy seems like an insignificant change on the
overall page.
Share this e-book:
Value & relevance are king.
Your potential customers will often go through the entire decision-making process in a few
seconds, and lack of value and relevance is a major conversion killer.
The more time your potential customers have to spend in order to figure out what your
offer is all about, the more likely they are to leave your website and move on to one of
your competitors.
The more clearly you express the value of your offer, and why its relevant to your
prospects, the more likely theyll be to choose it.
So dont waste their time with hype, fluff, and over-creative marketese. Tell them clearly
how they will benefit from accepting your offer, and give them a good reason to say
Yes!.
Case Study: 41.18% increase in conversion by conveying
more value and relevance in the headline
Control:
Passionate about betting? We are too
In this example from BettingExpert.com, a simple excercise in making the headline more
clear and relevant to the motivation of the prospects increased sign-ups by 41.14%.
The control headline asks a very broad question instead of providing prospects with a
clear reason to say Yes In fact it isnt really a headline, its more of a statement in the
form of an open-ended question to which there really is no answer.
Treatment:
Make More Money on Your Bets Get Free Daily Betting Tips
The treatment on the other hand is very concrete and provides the prospect with a clear
and relevant reason to say Yes.
41.14% more sign-ups

Share this e-book:
Case Study: 213.16% increase in click through by making
A simple excercise in adding value and relevance
the button copy more relevant
The client here is Fitness World, a major chain of gyms in Scandinavia. The example is
taken from a PPC landing page, where the goal is to get potential customers to click
through to the payment page where they can select a gym and sign up for a membership.
Lets use the button case study from FitnessWorld as an example.

The button copy could have said Buy Membership - a very common piece of copy that
you can find on tons of websites across the web. The problem with Buy Membership,
however, is that its negative in the sense that it focuses on what you have to part with,
when you click the button, not what you are going to get.
In this case changing the CTA copy from Get Membership to Find Your Gym & Get
Membership increased click through to the payment page by 213.16%.
The control version is already pretty good because it conveys value and focuses on what
youre going to get not what you have to do to get it. Nevertheless, it is very generic
Get membership could pretty much apply to any situation that has something to do with
a membership.
I did a little research and found out that the location is a very important factor, when
By changing the copy to Get Your Membership, we can add value to the button copy
and give it a positive angle. Now we are focusing on what you will get, when you click the
button - not what you have to part with.
deciding on a membership. So, in this case I could make the call-to-action more relevant
to the specific conversion scenario and increase conversions by adding Find gym (Step
1 in the checkout flow features a complete list of gym locations).
So weve gone from a negative message to a positive one by adding value to the CTA
copy. Now we need to add relevance in order to make it fit into to the specific conversion
scenario were dealing with and support the decision-making process of the prospects.
We can easily do that by adding Find Your Gym at the begining of the CTA copy.
Control:
Treatment:
213.16% higher CTR
And voil - we have a piece of CTA copy that conveys both value and relevance.
Design your own high-converting buttons for free with ButtonOptimizer.com
10
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 99.4% more conversions by clarifying value
and relevance
In this example, adding clarity and relevance generated a 99.4% lift in conversions on a
PPC landing page for Denmark-based Saxo Bank.
The landing page pitched a trial account for a Forex trading platform, and the conversion
goal was to increase the number of trial account sign-ups.
If you compare the two versions, youll see the treatment is super focused on conveying the
value of the offer, while the control is much more vague.
Where the control asks the question Why trade Forex with Forextrading.com?, the
treatment actually answers this question by giving prospects relevant information and
credible, solid arguments why they should sign up for the trial.
What is more, the control copy didnt follow up on the value promised in the PPC ads that
actually did a great job of emphasizing the selling points and value of the Forex Trading
demo: free, no risk, no obligations, $100,000 demo account.
In the treatment, I made sure to follow up on all the selling points, benefits and features
mentioned in the PPC ads.
Control:
Due to the format of this ebook, Ive only showed the different versions of the headline.
However, I did make a few other simple changes to the landing page. If you want to check
out all the changes - click the link below:
Why Trade Forex with Forextrading.com?
For a full run-down of the case study, read this post >>
Treatment:
Get Your Free, No Risk, No Obligation
$100,000 Forex Trading Demo Account
99.4% conversions
11
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 83.75% more sign-ups by clarifying value and
Chapter takeaways:
relevance
Heres an example from the newsletter sign-up form on ContentVerve.com, where I tested
two different versions of the copy.
Lack of value and relevance is a major conversion killer
The control version is completely generic and only states the obvious: that you can get
fresh updates. The treatment on the other hand promises a specific value in return by
exemplifying what updates from ContentVerve.com consist of thus answering the
The more time your potential customers have to spend in order to figure
out what your offer is all about, the more likely they are to leave your
website or landing page
question Whats in it for me?
The more clearly you express the value of your offer, and why its relevant
to your prospects, the more likely theyll be to choose it.
This simple exercise in clarifying value and relevance resulted in an 83.75% increase in
sign-ups.
Think about it this way: Youre asking your prospects to give you their personal information,
but what are you going to give them in return? Value or spam?
A transaction is taking place, and if your prospects arent sure that they will get something
valuable and relevant in return Free Updates just translates into Free Spam.
The clearer the value and relevance, the higher the

probability of conversion
Learn more about high-converting sign-up for copy here >>
Control:
Treatment:

12
Share this e-book:
Clear outweighs creative
In the more classic marketing and advertising world, there seems to be a consensus that
the most creative solution is automatically the best one.
While super creative might be the right approach for offline marketing, I have seen very little
data indicating that this assumption holds water in online marketing.
In fact, I have yet to see a creative message beat a clear and concrete value proposition in
an A/B test.
Lets go ahead and look at a few examples from the real world.
Case Study: How a concrete headline generated a 38.46%
lift over a creative variant
This is an example from a test I ran for one of my clients, Fitness World, a large
Control:
Scandinavian chain of gyms. In this case I tested a headline variation on a PPC landing
page that sells gym memberships.
YOU WORK OUT SMARTER

AT FITNESS WORLD
I challenged the control headline You Work Out Smarter at Fitness World (literal
translation of the Danish original) with probably the most uncreative headline Ive ever
Treatment:
GROUP TRAINING & FITNESS

AT YOUR LOCAL GYM
presented to a client Group Training & Fitness at Your Local Gym (literal translation).
Most creative copywriters would probably laugh at my treatment and tell me to go back to
38.46% memberships sold
marketing school. But the fact is that when we tested the two headlines against each other,
During the campaign, the treatment

sold 38.46% more memberships
my boring treatment outperformed the sexy version and sold 38.46% more memberships.
From a creative or aesthetic perspective, my variant sucks! But that doesnt really matter,
because the goal wasnt to write sexy copy - it was to sell more memberships.
13
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 10.94% lift in conversion by making the button
The problem with being too creative
Heres an example from a button test I ran on Freemake.coms YouTube MP3 Converter
As we established in the first chapter, conversion rate optimization is all about optimizing
decisions and actions, and the goal is to get conversions not creative awards.
design less creative

landing page.
Being creative is a powerful tool that can help you find the right solution for the individual
optimization project you are working on. However, if creating art becomes the goal, you will
in all likelihood do more harm than good to your online business.
As you can see, the control version of the call-to-action button was very nicely designed
and represented a creative take on a regular old button.
However, I hypothesized that the design made it dificult to decipher as a clickable button,
In online marketing, the more creative solutions have a tendency to backfire because they
often become so clever or advanced that regular people have difficulty understanding and
interacting with them.
and that plainer button design with relevant copy would convert better.
I set up an A/B test and found out that my hypothesis held water - the treament increased
the number of downloads by 10.94%. As a follow-up experiment, I tested several other
As the case studies in this chapter illustrate, being creative just for the sake of being
creative can seriously hurt conversion.
plain button variations, and they all outperformed the control variant.
Im not saying that you should never go down the creative route Im saying you shouldnt
do it by default. If data from tests and customer research tells you that the best solution is
the creative one, then by all means - go for it!
As I mentioned in chapter one, its important that you can leave the artist on the shelf for
a while, so you can assume an analytical approach and focus on giving your potential
customers what they need in order to make the right decision.
Control:
Treatment:
10.94% memberships sold

14
Share this e-book:
Chapter takeaways:
In online marketing, clear has greater positive impact on conversion than
creative
The goal is to get conversions - not creative awards
Being creative is a powerful tool that can help you find the right solution
for the individual optimization project you are working on. However,
creating art should not be the primary goal
Clear outweighs creative
Creative
Clear
15
Share this e-book:
Ask for the right action at the right time.
Essentially, marketing is about making it as easy and attractive as possible for your
potential customers to accept your offer. However, as marketers and sales people we have
a tendency to focus on what is important to us right now usually thats getting more sales.
Unfortunately this also means that we have a tendency to overlook whats important to the
potential customers, and what they need to know in order to make an informed decision.
If you get too pushy and ask potential customers to accept your offer before they are ready
for it, there is an imminent danger that theyll bail on your offer completely.
Control:
I bet youve been in situations where you felt pressured to make a decision to BUY NOW,
SIGN UP or DOWNLOAD before you even really understood what the offer was about.
Treatment:
Case Study: 17.18% increase in conversion by adding a text
link CTA to product overview pages
This example is taken from a Danish e-commerce site that sells car care products. The
site features bundles consisting of a variety of different products.
The product overview pages showing the bundle packages only feature an Add To
Basket button. This means that potential customers are being asked to add the
product to the basket before they really know what the offer consists of.
Here adding a text link CTA with the copy View Bundle increased conversion to sales by
17.18%.
Its natural that prospects need to have a look at what the offer consists of, before they
are ready to make the decision to add it to the basket.
17.18% more sales
Many websites feature super aggressive BUY NOW OR DIE CTA copy by default. In
most cases, however, it makes sense to find out where in the decision-making process
the prospect is and ask for an action thats timely rather than pushy.
16
Share this e-book:
Case Study: How a variant with the CTA below the fold
generated a conversion lift of 304%
Control:
Treatment:
So we all know the golden rule that your call-to-action should always be positioned
above the fold. Well, lets bust that myth right away with this example from a test I ran
on a B2C landing page.
In this case, the a variant with the CTA placed way below the fold at the bottom of a very
long landing page significantly outperformed a variant with the CTA at the top of the
page above the fold. The increase was 304%.
There are several other things going on in the treatment. So the whole lift cant be
ascribed entirely to moving the CTA below the fold. However, the fact remains that the
treatment with the CTA way below the fold outperformed the control variant something
that simply shouldnt be possible if you subscribe to the best practice rule that the CTA
should ALWAYS be above the fold in order to convert.
Above the fold is not necessarily the best position for your call-to-action. You should
place your CTA where it best compliments the decision-making process of your
prospects.
Ive seen many cases where the CTA has performed well above the fold, just like Ive
seen cases similar to this one, where having the CTA below the fold has gotten the best
results. My general observation, from a wide range of landing page tests, is that there is
a correlation between the complexity of the product/offer and the optimal placement of
the CTA.
If the product/offer is complex, and the prospect has to digest a lot of information in
304% higher CTR
order to make an informed decision, positioning the CTA lower on the page generally
works best.Vice versa, if the product/offer is very simple, and the prospect hardly has to
do any thinking in order to make an informed decision, positioning the CTA above the
fold generally works best.
17
Share this e-book:
Chapter takeaways:
The button case study from Fitness World is another good example of asking too much
too soon.
As the test data showed, the potential customers clearly werent ready to get their
membership right off the bat - they had to find a gym at a location close by before they
could make the decision to buy a membership.
To get a conversion you need to ask for the right action at the right time
If you get too pushy and ask potential customers to accept your offer
before they are ready for it, there is an imminent danger that theyll bail
on your offer completely
By adding Find Your Gym to the call-to-action copy, we effectively asked for the right
thing at the right time, and click through went up by 213.16%.
Find out where in the decision-making process the prospect is and ask
for an action thats timely rather than pushy
The higher the level of alignment between prospect

motivation and call-to-action, the higher the
Control:
Treatment:
213.16% higher CTR

18
Share this e-book:
Less friction = more conversions.
A simple example of friction and how to overcome it
4 years of research and hundreds of split tests have taught me a lot about conversion
Lets use the case study from from the ContentVerve.com newsletter sign-up form that we
optimization. One of the most important lessons is that friction kills conversion.
looked at in chapter three.
The good news is that reducing friction is one of the most effective ways of increasing
conversion. The bad news is that it can be difficult to spot sources of friction if you dont
know what to look for.
The lack of specificity in the control version represented a strong element of friction in the
sense that it failed to give propspects a good reason to sign up.
In this chapter, well look at different examples of friction and how to overcome them. But
first we need to establish what friction is.
what updates from ContenVervecom constist of, and what you get in return for giving up
your personal information.
In this particular case, friction could be overcome by including a few bullet points to clarify
The best definition of friction Ive come across is the one MarketingExperiments offers. In
their methodology, friction is defined as a psychological resistance to a given element in
the sales or sign-up process (Source: MarketingExperiments.com).
Control:
Treatment:
Friction has a negative impact on the decision-making process of your prospects and will
tip the decision towards No. The less friction the prospect encounters, the more likely he
or she will be to accept your offer.
So the more you can reduce friction, the more youll be able to tip the decision back
towards Yes.

19
Share this e-book:
Case Study: 63% more conversions by reducing friction related to

landing page length
Control:
Treatment:
A very common source of friction has to do with the length of the web page i.e. the amount
of content/information you present to the prospect.
Friction in this form arises when you have too little or too much content on your page. You
can effectively reduce friction by finding the right amount of content for your specific offer.
Marketers seem to be divided into two groups: those who swear to long-form, and those
who swear to short-form.
But the truth is that there really is no one-size-fits-all solution that works every time. It
depends on what youre offering, and what you want your potential customer to do.
In my experience, short landing pages work well with low-scrutiny offers where there is
little commitment and perceived risk related to the conversion goal. Long landing pages on
the other hand work well with high-scrutiny offers where there is a higher level of
commitment and perceived risk related to the conversion goal.
Heres an example from a case study where a long landing page outperformed a shorter
variant. Were looking at a PPC landing page of which the goal is to get potential
customers to sign up for a home energy audit.
The company is not that known, and its a complex offer that could result in a large
investment in insulation. So theres a high level of commitment and perceived risk involved
which gives rise to friction in the form of anxiety and credibility issues.
In this case, the longer landing page got most conversions as it did the best job at
mitigating anxiety and reducing friction.
Ive performed many tests where short landing pages have outperformed long ones - its
all about the scrutiny-level of your offer. As a rule of thumb, the higher the scrutiny level the higher the friction.
63% more conversions

20
Share this e-book:
Friction related to poor layout and organization

Page layout and organization have direct impact on the decisions and actions of your
potential customers. If you want a high-converting landing page, you need to organize the
page in such a way that it supports the decision-making process and guides the prospect
naturally through the content from headline to call-to-action.
Good layout creates forward momentum that builds up as the prospect moves through the
different parts of the page towards the conversion goal.
Poor layout is confusing and interferes with the prospects ability to follow the purpose of
the page. It slows down the decision-making process and usually results in a bounce
rather that a conversion.
Poor layout and organization are major and extremely common sources of friction that you
will find on most any website you visit.
An eye-path that forces the prospect to zigzag through the content is really bad for
conversion. So is a page where mission-critical elements are given a low priority or hidden
away.

Ive experimented with lots of different page templates and layouts, and while I cant give
you one definitive ultimate version, I can give you the template that I usually turn to as my
starting point when I start working on a new landing page.
This template helps you organize your landing pages in a logical manner with a clear eye
path that is easy to follow.
The template is flexible enough to work for a number of different purposes and should go
a long way in helping you build pages with a minimum of layout-related friction.
21
Share this e-book:
Case Study: The flexible template for a high-converting landing in action

Heres an example of the landing page template in action. This is a landing page I optimized for a major Scandinavian company that sells satelite tv.
The landing page pitches an offer targeted at private home owners who want satelite tv in their vacation homes. The page has two conversion goals selling the product and generating leads for the sales department. In this case we generated a 90.90% lift in sales and a 83.92% lift in leads by
adjusting the layout to fit my landing page template and tweaking the copy a little.
Control:
Treatment:
90.90% increase in sales

83.92% increase in leads
22
Share this e-book:
Other common sources of friction
Chapter takeaways:
Apart from the examples Ive shown you in this chapter, there are a number of different
kinds of friction that are widespread across the web. Heres a list of common sources of
friction that, in most cases, can be dealt with quite easily:
Friction kills conversion

Friction has a negative impact on the decision-making process of your
prospects and will tip the decision towards No
- Complex/lengthy checkout processes

- Forms with excessive number of fields
The more you can reduce friction, the more youll be able to tip the
decision back towards Yes.
- Too many choices

- Multiple converging calls-to-action
- Slow loading pages
- Placing mission-critical elements in sidebar
The lower the level of friction, the higher the
- 3-column landing page design
- Tiny product images

- Poor visual hierarchy
- Inappropriate cross-sells
- Complicated navigation
- Lack of credibilty and trust
23
Share this e-book:
Dont rely on your gut - Test whether your
optimization efforts work.
A lot of people ask me why testing is such an important part of CRO. My short answer is:
You need to test because relying blindly on guesswork and gut feeling is a
dangerous business strategy.
Now let me expand on that answer and explain what I mean in greater detail.
Marketing is not an exact science. All products, services, offers, and websites are
different, just like the motivations of your potential customers are different. Were dealing
with real people and real decisions. And frustrating as it may be, the truth is that people
dont always act the way marketers want them to.
If you dont test whether your optimization efforts are in fact optimizing the performance of
your website you are really relying on guesswork and gut feeling.
18.70%'less'signups
19.47%'more'signups
Even with hundreds of A/B tests under my belt, test results surprise me on a regular basis.
Sometimes positively other times not quite so positively.
If you are new to A/B testing, I recommend spending a little time getting the basics down
A good example is the case study I showed you in chapter two with the privacy policy on
BettingExpert.com.
article that I wrote for beginners where I answer the top 5 questions about A/B testing.
before you get cracking on your first CRO project. A good place to start would be this
It gives you a solid introduction and also deals with more advanced stuff like how to
validate whether your test results are reliable - which is paramount to your success
because the only thing thats worse than not testing is to rely on bad data.
All logic would suggest that adding a privacy policy to a sign-up form would increase
conversions. Nevertheless, counterintuitive as it may seem, adding the privacy policy
actually reduced the number of sign-ups by 18.70%!
As far as software goes I recommend a simple tool like VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com. Its

very user-friendly, and you can set up tests with little or no knowledge of code. You can
Had I blindly relied on my experiece and gut feeling, I would have seriously messed up the
clients conversion rate - when they were paying me to do the opposite!
set up an account for free and run tests on up to 1.000 visitors.
Testing not only helped me to avoid what could have been an unfortunate outcome (to say
the least), it also spurred me on to a series of tests that led to the discovery of a privacy
policy that did in fact work really well. As I showed you in chapter two, the winning policy
increased sign-ups by 19.47%.
Another tool Im a big fan of is Unbounce.com. Unbounce makes it incredibly easy to

create landing pages from scratch, and because the system features built-in A/B testing
software, setting up tests is also extremely easy.
24
Share this e-book:
-book:
About the Author:
Get in touch:
Hi, Im Michael Aagaard - a self-employed, self-
Need help optimizing your website? Want to book me for as a speaker? Interested in a
confessed split test junkie, and copywriting fanatic
CRO consultation via Skype? Just want to say, Whats up Mike!?
whos obsessed with finding out what really works in

online marketing. Im Danish, and I hail from the
The easiest way to get in touch is to shoot me an email: michael@contentverve.com
wonderful city of Copenhagen, Denmark.

For new case studies, insights, and CRO tips, follow me on:
I have an agency background but opted for a solo career
in order to dedicate as much time as possible to
Twitter.com/ContentVerve
conversion rate optimization.

Facebook.com/ContentVerve
For the last four years, Ive spent about 60 hours a week
testing and optimizing websites and landing pages.
GooglePlus
Im a full-time copywriter and CRO consultant, and when Im not helping clients
increase conversion rates, I write about content, copy and conversion on my blog
ContentVerve.com.
My work has also been featured on websites like MarketingSherpa.com,
MarketingExperiments.com, Copyblogger.com, KISSmetrics.com, Unbounce.com, and
CrazyEgg.com.
I spend a lot of my time teaching and preaching about CRO at events and summits all
over the world. Ive spoken at MarketingSherpas Optimization Summit in 2012 and
2013, MarketingSherpas Email Summit 2013, Eliitlager in Estonia, iLive Conference in
Latvia, and countless events in Denmark. I will be speaking at the 2013 Conversion
Summit in Frankfurt and the 2013 Conversion Conference in London.
25
26

7 Universal Conversion Optimization Principles

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

7 Universal Conversion Optimization Principles

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

7 Universal Conversion

What you get for free:

26 pages packed with insights and experience from 4

7 tested and proven optimization principles you can apply

17 real world case studies with before-and-after examples

The flexible template for a high-converting landing page

It's all about optimizing decisions - not web pages // Page 2

Value & relevance are king // Page 9

Clear outweighs creative // Page 13

Tips and tricks based on years of hands-on experience

Inspiration for your next conversion rate optimization project

Ask for the right action at the right time // Page 16

About the Author

The flexible template for a high-converting landing page

Share this e-book:

It's all about optimizing decisions not web pages.

to find out how to best achieve them.

1. They can say, Yes

Share this e-book:

Case Study: 31.54% more conversions by tweaking the copy on

Get the full case study here >>

Share this e-book:

Case Study: How a radical landing page redesign reduced

30.27% drop in conversion

itself would automatically result in more conversions.

The radical redesign reduced

Eventually we did come up with a redesign that worked, and we ended up

Share this e-book:

Case Study: How changing 1 word in the call-to-action

This is a test I conducted on MatchOffice.com an international commercial real estate

Conversion Rate Optimization is all about optimizing decisions and

The decision-making process takes place in the minds of your potential

Prices, we increased conversions by 14.79%.

achieve your conversion goals

The greater the impact on the decision-making

increased conversion by 38.26%. !

process, the higher probability of conversion

Share this e-book:

31.03% increase in conversion on a payment page by tweaking

The biggest change on the page doesnt

Case Study: 90% increase in conversion by changing one word

90% increase in CTR

31.47% more payments

During the campaign periode, the

Statistical Confidence 98%

Share this e-book:

Case Study: 18.70% drop in sign-ups by adding a privacy policy

Case Study: 19.47% lift in sign-ups by tweaking a privacy policy

Get the full case study here >>

We guarantee 100% privacy. Your

100% privacy - we will never spam you

Share this e-book:

When do minor changes have major impact?

While radical changes often have major impact on conversion, there is

In order for the change to impact conversion, it has to have an impact in

Small changes to mission-critical elements that have direct impact on

The larger the impact in the mind of the prospect, the

higher probability of conversion

Forms, headlines, and value propositions are examples of other mission-critical

Share this e-book:

Case Study: 41.18% increase in conversion by conveying

more value and relevance in the headline

41.14% more sign-ups

Share this e-book: