As 2016 approaches, and we prepare to bid adieu to 2015, we took the time to look back and reflect on everything we’ve learned and written about this past year.

2015 was filled with guides to AB Testing, UX Design, and Psychological triggers. We dug deeper into landing page optimization, ecommerce, mobile and b2b optimization, everything we learned throughout the years from working with our customers and running countless AB tests.

To summarize this year, lets take a look at the most read, shared and debated Conversioner posts we’ve had and take a look at the year to come. *drum roll please*

#1. 26 Pricing Page Examples and Best Practices

Pricing has been the top question on everybody’s mind this year. The pricing page is that one place where your visitor decides to take that next step and put their trust in you and decide whether to invest their time and money in your business. How do you design a pricing page that helps your customer achieve their goals and increases your sales?  This post observes the most important elements of a pricing page, from strategy to messaging, design and AB testing. Checkout the in-depth analysis of 26 different pricing pages and learn how to optimize yours or create a new one from scratch.If you are going through this process, this is the post for you. And if you already have a great pricing page, perhaps you can make it even better! See how it compares to this list and if there’s something you can optimize (trick question! there’s always something you can optimize!).

2. 10 Psychological Triggers to Boost Revenues

Well, by now, thanks to Dan Ariely and his peers,  we know that we’re completely irrational beings and that different triggers affect our decision making process. Check out these 10 psychological triggers you can start using on your site to increase your revenues.

3. Boost eCommerce Conversion Rate: 30 Best Practices and Tips

e-Commerce was all the rage in 2015, and we have a feeling it’ll just keep going through 2016 as well. In this post, you learn 30 great tips on how to increase your ecommerce conversion rate, including tips about color, where to optimize, call to actions, personalization, emotional targeting, and forms. So if you missed this post, enter the new year prepared and read up on the greatest tips and tricks to improve your ecommerce site.

4. A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding UX Design

Sometimes we get lost in all of these shortened acronyms, so here’s a reminder of what UX stands for – User Experience. When you’re working towards increasing conversions, you are focusing on the benefits of the user- and you are doing this with imagery, with the copy. But the overall design has to keep the user in mind as well – and that’s a whole field in and of itself. But we wrote a beginner’s guide with you to get you started. It includes sources and tools that can get you started on the road to creating a great user experience for your visitors.

5. Step-By-Step Guide to Creating a Marketing Persona

One point that comes up consistently throughout conversion optimization is -before matching your design, imagery, copy, and color to your customers – you have to know your target audience. And in order to really know and understand your target audience, you should build marketing personas. So here’s the play-by-play on how to go about doing that.

6. Speaking with Emotion: How to Increase Conversions with Words

The words we use have a powerful effect on the people around us. Online words are one of the main ways we communicate with our visitors. Check out this in-depth guide of words that can help you trigger the right emotions in your target audience.

7. 10 Landing Page Examples to Increase Sales

If you love landing pages like we love landing pages, you are going to love this post. It has some great examples on how to take your landing pages to the next level and increase sales. See what the best and worst companies are doing and how to apply these lessons to your landing page.

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8. 42 Mobile Landing Page Optimization Tips

I don’t know if you’ve heard but – Mobile is the new Desktop, and 2015 took mobile to the next level. Over 51% of internet browsing is now done on our mobile devices, and in 2015, statistics show that  2 billion smartphones have been purchased in the world! So it’s time to stop ignoring those small screens and start giving those mobile visitors more attention. In lieu of these findings, we wrote a detailed post filled with different tips on how to optimize your mobile landing page and increase conversions.

Banana-Splash

9. AB Test Checklist: Everything You Need to Check Before Launching

You can’t optimize without testing, but how do you know you’re testing what you wanted to test, and that you’re doing it the right way? With all the different tools and different changes you’ve made, how do you know it’s going to go well? Here’s an All-Inclusive Checklist to end all Checklists that you should go through before you hit that “Start Experiment” button.

10. How to Consistently Grow Your Conversion Rates with Emotional Targeting

Last but definitely not least – how to grow conversion rates with emotional targeting. We wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t discuss emotional targeting, how to use it as a strategy, and how that, in turn, will increase your conversions. Read it here and learn how to take all those different posts on UX design, emotion-driving words, color psychology, marketing personas and A/B testing, to implement them into your strategy to create incredibly effective landing pages, pricing pages, and more.

We hope you’ve enjoyed and learned a lot from the posts over the last year – these 10 and many others – and are seeing your conversion rates grow. 2015 was a fantastic year for conversion optimization growth and development, as well as for mobile!  We are excited for what 2016 has in store! Prepare yourself for exciting and detailed posts on analytics, personalization technology advancement tools for both desktop and mobile, heatmaps and of course, more posts on emotional targeting!

As psychology researchers continue to learn about the human mind, as technology continues to advance, and as the interactions of humans with technology continue to change, we will continue to learn and update you with different ways to improve your conversion rates.

A New Year’s Gift From Us to You:

In honor of the new year, Banana Splash (our favorite mobile personalization tool) is offering all of our loyal Conversioner readers a 14 day free trial and a 20% discount for your first 3 months of membership! Just put in the code: conv20

 

When people venture into AB testing they have a set agenda, like increasing registrations or downloads for example. All efforts are dedicated to increasing that one KPI and running different AB tests to improve it.

For me, conversion optimization has always been about more than just optimizing that one KPI. It’s about running meaningful tests that can teach us more about our customers and using those insights to change entire processes within the business leading to higher profits and revenues across the board. In essence, imagine being able to truly understand your customer on an emotional level and translate that knowledge into relevant, optimized interactions.

Done correctly, conversion optimization can help us optimize customer service processes, sales methodologies, user journeys and entire products. All these changes can lead to higher revenues by simply running meaningful tests and following a strategy.

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CRO is about being able to truly understand customers and translate that knowledge into revenue
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The Gap

So how do you do conversion optimization the right way? how do you run meaningful tests you can learn from? To start off lets take a look at what people are doing today and define the key points that need optimizing.

The #1 Issue:

Not knowing what to test leads to meaningless tests which lead to insignificant results

• In 2014, 42% of marketers said the hardest part of CRO is analyzing the results.

• In Q1, 2015, 63% of marketers said they optimize their site based on intuition.

These two numbers are a direct result of the fact that the vast majority of tests ran these days by all marketers are solely behavioral targeting tests. Behavioral targeting means that the type of browser, geographical location, time on page and other behavioral metrics decide which type of variation of a landing page the visitor gets to see.

Image source: VWO

Then to optimize this process, AB tests are run on various elements of a landing page such as the color of a call to action button, a title of a page or an image. In the example below you can see what these sort of tests look like:

Basically marketers do not know what to test, so they look at the numbers, see patterns and guess what needs to be tested, then once the results come in, they’re not sure what they mean or what to optimize next. The reason for this is that behavioral targeting is a good start, but it isn’t enough.
Let’s take a look at the missing part.

The Missing Link

In order to test correctly and reach meaningful results, you need to have a strategy, and combine emotional targeting with behavioral to your testing methodology.

Emotional targeting is the missing link in most online marketing strategies and notably in conversion optimization. If behavioral elements such as time on page and type of device are what lead the behavioral targeting methodology, it is the emotional gain that leads the emotional targeting methodology.

The emotional targeting methodology derives from one of the most basic foundations of marketing and psychology: People are irrational beings and our decision making process is almost entirely emotional. Which is why, in order to sell you have to appeal to the emotional side of your customers.

Throughout the history of marketing, offline advertisers have always used emotion to derive sales and revenue. The offline advertising world focuses on the emotional value and not the features or pricing of a product like in the online world.

Take Sprite for example, their ads are meant to make us feel excited, alive and energized. There’s no text telling us that drinking Sprite will energize us or that it’s better than any other drink, by simply using colors, images and movement Sprite make us feel it.

When it comes to the online world the average person sees hundreds of messages and ads a day and has to somehow navigate through them all and make a decision. We tend to think that by highlighting our features or cost customers will choose our product when in fact, no matter what you are selling, what resonates with with your customer isn’t your product but the emotional gain.

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No matter what you’re selling, what customers care about isn’t the product but the emotional gain
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Good marketing leaves an impact which is focused on helping customers become better versions of themselves. Showing them the person they can be (who they dream to be) and how the product can help them become that person.

The online advertising world is almost completely behavioral, technical and product focused. It’s all about the features or the pricing of a product, using a lot of text to explain why it is better than another. For example: Skype.

Skype uses its headline to tell you what it does and a preloaded video showing you people using Skype. The most highlighted information on the page is the features such as “Call, message and Share” and so is the price (free).  

But what would an offline Skype ad look like? Would they promote themselves the same way? Apparently not.

While in the online world Skype is all about their product, their billboard is clearly appeals to the emotion of their customers and the people they want to hire – “Embrace your true calling”.
To me this makes no sense, though we know emotions sell, the offline world which cannot track its results solely uses emotion while the online world which allows for seamless tracking and analysis focuses on behavior only.

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Show customers how your product can turn them into the person they dream of becoming
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Putting Theory Into Practice

Let’s have a look at how applying emotional targeting can increase conversions dramatically and have an impact on entire business.

Working with WallMonkeys (a super cool print on demand service for decals and murals), our goal is to increase revenues and find a way to stand out from competitors.

Starting out we dug deep into the analytical data using heatmaps, Google Analytics and other tools to determine user behavior and the key points that needed optimizing within the funnel. We then ran our emotional triggers research and identified the triggers we wanted to start testing.

Two things became clear from the research, on the strategic side the target audience (mainly parents) needed to see how Wallmonkeys changes their entire home for the better. On the user behavior side we realized that the majority of customers started their purchase using the search bar.

The changes we made to the homepage were in structure, color, image and usability. Wallmonkeys is a fun, cool and exciting experience which had to stand out.

Using color psychology, we highlighted the fun, fresh and cool service that is WallMonkeys. The image was changed to reflect the target audience and the end result (brightening your home). In terms of usability, we enlarged the search bar and centered it. These changes lead to a 550% increase in revenue. By catering to the emotional needs of our visitors and emphasising the search bar in our test we increased the amount of searches on the site and also discovered that ‘search’ wasn’t producing relevant results at all times. This discovery allowed WallMonkeys to optimize search and as a result produce an even higher increase in revenues. By testing a strategy and making meaningful changes we were able to increase revenues and change important processes within the business.

Getting Started with Emotional Targeting

To get started with emotional targeting here are a few tips and steps you should follow:

#1 Getting to know your users

How well do you know your customers? Can you answer questions about their life, dreams and hobbies? There’s more to our customers than browser type and geographical location. Checkout this step-by-step guide to creating a marketing persona and dive deeper into successful emotional targeting.

#2 Show it don’t tell it

Show don’t tell is the art of conveying a message in a way that consumers can quickly comprehend and see what’s in it for them. Instead of telling visitors how amazing your product can be for them, show it to them by using images, colors and the right headlines.

A few facts about text vs. images and color:

• Almost 50% of our brain is involved in visual processing. (Human anatomy and psychology)

• It takes us only 150ms to process a symbol and only 100ms to attach a meaning to it

• On average users only read 28% of words per visit (more likely to read 20%). (Nielsen)

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On average users read just 28% of words per visit
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We suffer from an overload of information and the best way to convey a message quickly is by using visual and colorful aids. Which means: Show it, don’t tell it.

People do not read long texts or have time for them, make the most of the first 3 seconds a visitor lands on your page and show them without effort what’s in it for them.

Manpacks for instance could write on their landing page that they have an endless supply of condoms, underwear and socks. Then they could also explain about their fast delivery, the wide selections and how cool they are. Instead they use an image, well-known logos and one powerful headline to portray all of these values within seconds.

Which brings me to my next point:

#3 Value Over Features & Benefits

In Experian’s latest Digital Marketer Survey 49% of marketers said their top challenge is standing out against competitors.

When it comes to standing out against competitors, most online companies showcase their product, features and pricing when in fact using emotional targeting you could stand out in a crowd of features and bullet points.

Car insurance for example is an extremely competitive industry and you have to really stand out in order to succeed. In the insurance industry one of the most important elements people check is pricing; people want cheap car insurance and every company promises to do so. Let’s take a look at two companies saying the same, but very differently:

InsuanceStep has a landing page that says it: “Save up to 70%”.

While Quotelab, makes you feel it:

Note how their funnel is exactly the same, yet the use of the right colors (blue for trust and stability), a strong image and trust icons make all the difference.

#4 Using Color Psychology

Color plays an important role in emotional targeting. In fact it has long been proven by psychological experiments that different colors have an effect on specific parts of our brain and can change our feelings. For years artists, designers and advertisers have used color to affect us emotionally and change our feelings towards specific brands, logos and pieces of art. A recent study showed that the color of a logo affects consumer emotion towards its brand. The following article will show you how to increase conversions using color psychology.

#5 AB Test your Concepts

Last but not least, start AB testing your concepts and strategies. Once you’ve profiled your users, created a strategy and designed your landing page (or any other part of the funnel), it’s time to test it and gain insights about your customers. This is how you run meaningful tests that lead to higher conversions and important insights. Don’t forget to checkout this AB test checklist before you launch.

I recently got back from speaking at Optimizely’s event Opticon in San Francisco which had some really interesting and valuable content going on and some really cool speakers (not referring to myself!). One thing that kept coming up on all sessions and appeared to be on everyone’s agenda was how to get ideas for tests. It seems that many companies now have great techniques for prioritizing their tests and for launching them, but not many know what to actually test. Once you’ve done all the research and found the right pain point to attack, you need to start planning what you’re actually going to change in the funnel and how will you measure its success.

Running another call to action button test is pointless as you’ve probably realized by now the results aren’t that interesting and hard to analyze. So what should you test?

Below is a list of 4 meaningful ab test ideas you can run on your landing pages and actually learn from.

1. Test image strategies: As 60% of our brain is geared towards visual context, the first thing we see on a landing page is the visual and according to the picture superiority effect, images are better remembered than words. The visual you use on your landing page will have a major impact on your visitor’s decision to stay or leave. One interesting test to run is visual strategy – test an “end result” image versus a “this is the product image”. While the majority of business have an image of their product on the landing page, the end result image will demonstrate the emotion and status a customer will feel once they’ve purchased your solution.

For instance on the latest webinar I did with Unbounce I compared landing pages of dating sites, on one hand you have Zoosk, showing their product on their landing page:

On the other, you have this dating site showing you the end result of using their product – a happy couple on the beach (why we designed the page this way).

To run an image strategy test, start by asking yourself – what do people want to feel once they’ve purchased our solution? how do we make their life better? then, project that with your image.

2. Test an exit pop – Your personal feelings about them don’t matter – exit pops (done the right way) work.

A while ago we added a newsletter signup pop up to the Conversioner site.

It was actually doing well, but our marketing team came up with the idea to put my picture on one of the pop ups and a video of me inviting readers to join our community. Needless to say, I was completely against it. I was not interested in having my face all over the website. But once the AB test card was pulled, I couldn’t continue arguing… To my dismay, the pop up tripled our newsletter registrations and we were now getting almost three times as much signups a day. I still dislike that pop up, but it still works better than anything else. Proving once again, that opinions don’t matter and what matters are the results.

A clean, intuitive and simple pop up can work magic, go test it.

3. Test Headline Strategies – I’ve probably said this countless times before; customers do not care about your achievements or your success, we care about what’s in it for us. This is where you take a step back and consider the value your customer receives by purchasing your solution. Most companies highlight their features: the characteristic of your solution that remain the same whether your customer buys it or not. Rather than the value, which is the outcome perceived and defined by your customer that will make a change in their life if they purchase your product or not.

To highlight the value focus on the emotional gain for the customer- a better version of themselves. Essentially this means highlighting how your customer’s life will change by purchasing your solution. Test one variation that highlights that value.

Hike’s strategy is highlighting their size and capacity. Focusing on themselves as the largest chat application. To optimize this, they could explain why they’re the largest – showing the value customers see in using their app.

And here are a couple of landing pages that highlight your value as a customer:

Do promises better more productive meetings that will make you smile.

Wunderlist highlights the change you’ll see in your life.

Consider testing these different strategies- about the product vs. the outcome for your customer.

4. Test dedicated mobile landing pages – Mobile isn’t the next big thing, it already is. As you know, responsive design is better than having to pinch & zoom, but it takes a lot more than that to convert people on mobile. Test a dedicated mobile landing page and make sure you treat your mobile visitors properly:

• Short messages
• Large call to action button
• Utilize mobile capabilities like the “click to call” button and navigation or location based offers.

Mobile visitors have different expectations (60% of web users expect a site to load on their mobile phone in 3 secs or less), don’t let them down because they won’t return.

Let’s see what Wrike’s responsive design looks like (the desktop version):

 The mobile responsive version (compressing all desktop data to a mobile screen):

On the over hand this company has a desktop version for their landing page and a different mobile version for it:

Do you have any recommendations for quick meaningful test people could run?

Most  marketers spend the majority of their time and budget on driving users to their sites and landing pages, but very little thought is given to the experience the users have once they reach there. In fact, companies typically spend $92 to bring customers to their site, but only $1 to convert them (Eisenberg Holdings). This lack of attention and investment in landing page optimization is a huge missed opportunity for organizations.

Learning From Others

A great place to get started in optimizing your own pages is to look at common landing page examples and mistakes that many companies are making on a daily basis. In this article I’ll explore 15 landing pages’ major mistakes and offer different tests you can run to increase conversion:

6 Elements Addressed in Each Landing Page Design

1. Call To Action (CTA) – This is the most important part of the landing page as it is the end goal for what you want the action you want the user to perform. The CTA should be the first natural object a visitor sees. An effective landing page services on clear objective (e.g. sign up, leave their contact information, download a whitepaper, request a demo, or buy now). The call to action should represent the only action you can take on the landing page, which means removing any menus or links on the page. The CTA should also stand out from all other elements by using high contrast, bright colors, and strategic placement. Lastly, make it absolutely clear what the user will get when they click on it. For more information on CTA’s, check out this detailed article on Call to Action Buttons.

2. Messaging – An effective landing page talks about benefits, not features:
Putting the customer in the spotlight, not your product or service. Good messaging conveys the change a customer will experience in their daily lives with your product, not how amazing your product is. This message should also be conveyed in a matter of seconds, providing convincing information to allow a visitor to make a decision. Understanding the experience a visitor needs to go through is key to higher conversions.

3. Registration Forms – If the goal of your page is to capture leads or contact information, your landing page will have a registration form. Creating an effective, and high converting registration form involves several factors and there are a few ways to increase their conversion:

a. Minimize your request – ask for the minimum possible
b. Be precise- Explain the reason for signing up and be specific.
c. Call to action – make sure you have a clear call to action that indicates the next steps that need to be taken.
d. Guide the user – Help users understand where they are, and where they’re going. Use indicators, explanation fields and don’t surprise the user.
e. Consider social signups – Following the minimizing requests necessity, introduce social connect for easier signup.

There are many other elements to take into consideration, and we’ll discuss them when we dig deeper in to our landing page examples.

4. Page Structure– The look, feel, and overall structure of a landing page will have a large impact on how it performs, and ultimately conversion. Minimalist design tends to perform better, so be sure to maintain a clean landing page with clear navigation and little distraction. The most important content should be placed at the top of the page, or “above the fold.” This way a user does not have to scroll in order to get all of the necessary information to convert.

5. Images – I know, I’m probably like a broken record by now BUT: Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text. The image is IMPORTANT.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and having an image that captures your visitors’ attention or stirs emotion can make or break landing page performance. Some things to keep in mind:

a. Use imagery to add meaning: either to the brand, or to the content
b. Get more meaning from fewer graphics
c. Use images deliberately to support your message and communication goals
d. Remember the landing page’s goal and the users’ goals, and apply graphics in subtle proportions

6. Colors – Believe it or not, color has a powerful influence on our emotions and decision-making abilities. Colors are a great way to communicate emotions in a matter of seconds. Check out this extensive article on color psychology.

So, lets take a look at these landing page critiques and learn as much as possible from them. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the landing pages. If you’d like to have your landing page critiqued next, send a quick email to contact@conversioner.com.

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GolfLinked

I know I’m not the targeted audience, BUT:

What’s in it for me? So this is the BEST app for connecting golfers. Great, but how is it going to change my life? Circling back to messaging –> it should be about the customer not the app. What’s in it for the user?

Let’s talk about the image –the image is one of the most dominating elements on your landing page and can be used not only to convey a message but to direct users attention to other important elements. The image shows a golf player with his back to us (which makes it impersonal) but furthermore, the image is distracting. In fact the first thing a visitor notices on the page is the iPhone and not the call to action, which is what we want them to notice.

The Call to action is placed on his butt. Enough said. No one wants to click on anyone’s butt.

Stop emphasizing your logo and, even worse, making it clickable. Companies do this all the time. It’s attention grabbing. If you’re not Apple or another huge brand, there’s no need to highlight your logo. Move it out of the spotlight.

The use of colors – Green is a great color for creating a fresh, clean and new feeling.  Green also serves as a good natural color that is easy on the eyes.

What to test:

• Have your image facing/pointing at the call to action button – it will focus the visitor’s attention in the right direction. Finding an image that works for golf isn’t easy at all, we ran a similar test last year.

 

HookFeed

The headline is really vague. My customers are my business? What do you do? Why should I use this product? It doesn’t give me enough of an insight to how this will make my life much easier. I’m not sure how segmented are the visitors arriving on this page, but it lacks a more in-depth explanation.

Great use of social proof quotes, especially from Stripe’s co-founder. People love to feel others like them are using the same products and services as they are.

Nice call to action, contrasted from the rest of the page, stands out and it is the first natural elements my eyes focus on.

Extremely Confusing Funnel – The call to action button opens a confusing list of options. You have just gotten people to try out your free trial but instead you’re confusing people and asking them for too much.

2 Elements You Can Test:

• Before showing them a list of prices, start by collecting their email details. That way, you can follow up on them if they leave.
• Once they’ve entered their email address, send them to the product and have your list of offers in a layer above it. This way, customers will feel they’re just a step away from reaching the product and will complete the funnel.

 

Present

The image of the girl conveys a great feeling of excitement and adventure. For an app that wants to get you excited about capturing your life in video, it does a great job. One comment: Flip her! Get her to look the other direction.

The messaging is great – “A social Video Diary, capturing your life’s journey.” I know what this is, I know how it will improve my life and I can get this in less than 5 seconds.

What do you want a visitor to do? Find out more, download the app or subscribe? All 3 buttons on the page have the same weight and it’s not clear what the target is.

What To Test:

• Flipping the girls image to look at the CTA
• Try using the “Win an iPhone 6″ competition as an exit pop, so that when people come to leave they have a last minute proposition.
• If you want to subscribe Android users to a mailing list, you can do that with a simple link under the “Download App” button asking: “Android user?” a click on that can open a subscribe window.

 

StampReady

What is your call to action? Are you trying to get people to watch the video? Or register?

Everything’s grey. You need to use your design and colors to point the visitor in the natural direction of the call to action.

Nice work on the signup form, it’s short and to the point. I would however change the color of “Register account” to something different than grey, more actionable and I would think about changing the messaging on the call to action to something more exciting.

The messaging doesn’t tell me anything. What are you offering? Why is StampReady better for me? How is it going to simplify my life? I’m also not sure about having the name of your company in the headline. The headline is meant to give you the big picture in under 3 seconds, and unless you’re a well known brand, that won’t work.

What to Test:

• The image/video in the background says nothing about the service. As you’re already showing a video as your main call to action, I would have a static image in the background that would give more of a feeling of what StampReady is for its customers.
• Add a clear call to action
• Change the messaging
• Add color to page

 

PeekCalendar

What’s the CTA? “Watch the video” or “Get it”? Choose.

What do you want me to look at? This is similar to the previous comment. There’s so much going on with colors, images, text, screenshots, and buttons – I have no idea what the flow is, what I’m suppose to do or what your app does.

I’d definitely test one main image, or if you’re set on having 2 then less colors, more focus. Also, note how you can barely read the “watch the video” text.  It almost blends in with the background…

Where’s the emotion? Where’s the “This is the answer to all your scheduling turmoils?” (and there are soooo many!!) A pair of hands holding an iPhone with a calendar that looks just like any other isn’t the answer.

Love the title! Calendars are extremely hard to manage (like email) and I like the reference to it being humanized for actual people to use.

Things to test:

Find the right image

• Test using a screenshot from the app that shows the actual difference and value you bring
• If you can’t, then test using an image that conveys emotion. No screenshots or iPhones. Just an image that says “This is how you will look like/feel once you use our app.”

 

Munchery

The use of images could be optimized. A great way to direct users’ attention to the call to action button is using the images themselves as indicators. For example, instead of having the corn facing outwards, have it facing the call to action button. Basically all elements on the landing page should point to the call to action.

I’d definitely look into focusing the user on a single message that explains the service more quickly.

Actionable call to action messaging: “View Menu” – I know exactly where I’m heading with it and it gives a safe feeling.

Great use of colors to provoke emotion, arouse the taste buds and basically make people hungry.

What to Test:

• The Messaging doesn’t explain the product.  In fact, you have to read the fine print to really understand what Munchery do. ‘Wholesome Meals In a Snap’ could be a site with recipes… There’s too much text and it’s hard to take in. Try reducing the text to “Order expertly…” and see if you can use it as your headline.

 

Frank & Oak

The messaging is completely vague. Why should I discover Frank & Oak? Similar to the case of StampReady, putting your brand’s name in the headline is like answering a question with a question. You’re basically asking people to read more and investigate. People don’t have time for that.

Too many ‘Call to Action’ buttons. Both their colors are in complete contrast to each other and the background and I don’t understand what you prefer I’d do: Signup with facebook or my email? It’s extremely important to have one call to action, if you want to give people another way of signing up, offer it under the large call to action button in the way of a link.

What to test:

• The image is a controversy. On one hand it’s doing great use in pointing towards the call to action. On the other hand, he has his head pointing down and he looks sad. Depending on culture, an image of a person staring at the user is too intrusive, but no eye contact whatsoever creates the sense of detachment, depression and seclusion. I’d test a different image, still pointing at the CTA but something more cheerful.

 

Mixioapp

To understand Mixioapp I had to do some scrolling, downloading and watching.

The messaging isn’t clear enough to understand how this works or when. The amount of text under the main headline is basically telling visitors “Don’t read this!”

The call to action button almost doesn’t exist. Located on the far top right corner in the same white color that all other elements on the page are in, it’s hard to see how people even notice it.

To play fair, I checked the page on my mobile device and was surprised to find that although it is a downloadable app, there was absolutely no call to action to be found. Basically, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to be told how to use this app. Not to mention to be told what this app is…

The use of color on the landing page is important. Mixioapp’s messaging is all about taking pictures while on an adventure or just on a daily basis when magical things happen. Green represents fresh, new and growth, which is just what their targeted audience needs.

 

One Hour Translation

It’s easy to get what you do, but the first thing that appears on this landing page is clutter. The amount of colors and things going on this page is overwhelming.

The amount of call to action buttons is distracting and hard to comprehend. There’s no room to breathe. Do you want people to fill in the form? Or do you want people to click on ”Get an instant quote”? The page can benefit from some cleaning up and redefining the goals of the landing page.

The amount of text is also an issue. All the text is on the right of the page and as a result you get is headline attached to a subtitle the additional text, the form and the security icons. Keep in mind that people may need all this info in bullets and the text needs more spacing.

I cannot say this enough: Marketing isn’t about the product or service. It’s about the change you make in a consumers life. Being the world’s fastest translation agency is fantastic but it’s about you, not the customer. I’d definitely mention it, but would try and test over headlines with a more targeted message to the customers.

I love using icons to ensure trust and security; the use of badges and certificates is a great way to enhance brand security. In One-hour Translations’ case I would suggest repositioning them in a place that would give them more emphasis.

What to test:

• A good way to emphasis an element is to give it some white space. White space will help differentiate between the important and the less.
• Cleaning the page completely. Reducing text, all the elements and amount of colors.

 

 Dynado

It took me too long to understand what Dynado is offering. “Better All-In-One communications” could be so many products… why are there random words highlighted below the headline? It makes it extremely hard to read the text and understand what they do.

There are literally hundreds of products out there today doing team management and communications. I have no idea why Dyando is better than others.

Using random stock photos of people around a computer does not help their case. Most companies use a task management and communication tool for teams that are remote… they don’t sit around looking at a computer together so I’m not sure what they were going for here.

What to test:

The call to action button has two issues that I’d fix:

• The first is the text – the title of the page says Dynado and the headline of page uses the word ‘Better’ as part of the sentence, so most people have no idea that “Better” is the name of the product and it’s very confusing.
• The other thing I’d test is the color of the button, I don’t usually do these kinds of tests (before testing strategies) but the white text on the neon green button make my eyes squint.

 

daPulse

I decided to critique daPulse as a second point of view on team collaboration platforms (full disclosure, I used to work with these guys):

The messaging is great. As mentioned before, the world is crowded with different platforms and products and it is extremely important to stand out and say how your product benefits the customer. This is true to all industries, your competitors are doing the same as you, more or less, and it’s up to you to show your customers the emotional benefits in purchasing your product or software. It’s not about being the best product. It’s about making a change in your customers’ life.

Appealing to managers on a personal level and telling them they’re going to become amazing managers is what categorizes daPulse as different (Great job!).

The signup area is a little over crowded. I would definitely test moving the “free 30 days trial” sentence below the form and giving it less emphasis. Visually, I’d also enlarge the top part of the page to give it more emphasis and, in turn, enlarge the signup area.

Notice how the image in the background amplifies the “connecting remote teams” theme; although not a clear image and I’m not quite sure what the gold in the corner stands for, the idea of worldwide collaboration is clear and precise.

What to test:

• I’d consider using the testimonials and trust elements in a more prominent position on the page (right now it’s at the bottom).
• I don’t know how targeted and segmented the visitors arriving on this page are but I’d consider further clarifying what it is that you do by adding a subtitle.

 

The John Maxwell Team

The first thing that comes to mind when looking at this page is: A coach of what? Very vague headline and I’m not sure why it is in quotes. I’d move the part about “leadership” to the headline.

Starting a video automatically is extremely annoying. Don’t do it.

The registration form is short and to the point. I would, however, merge the first and last name fields. I’d also work on the text above the fields, as it is very hard to read clearly.

The messaging of the entire page is about life’s transformation and then the call to action button says, “click here to get started”. I’d consider trying “Change your life today!” or something along those lines.

What to test:

• The call to action should also be a contrasting color to the rest of the page. I’d also consider adding some type of background color.

 

Cricket IP Security Cameras

The use of the color Green on the call to action button is very good as it is the general direction in which a visitor will look at.

The list of benefits is great but I can’t read it. White space is crucial here, and I’d also increase the headline to make it more noticeable.

Great use of security elements and icons blow the call to action.

What to test:

• I know they’re selling security cameras but that image is just terrible. No emotion, no interest and no purpose other than showing the visitor what the camera looks like. When talking about security you want to make visitors feel secure and peaceful before even purchasing the product. Show them how safe they’ll be once they acquire this camera.

 

Last but not least

A company that will be launching their dating app in 1.5 months sent this landing page to me and asked me to review it. Their goal for now is to sign up people, so that once they launch they can send them the news and get them engaged. As there’s not a lot to go on, this will be short but I do have some important comments.

This is a screen capture from a standard screen, which means you have a bug and it needs to be fixed, as I can’t read that sentence at the bottom

The hierarchy of elements on your landing page doesn’t make sense. It seems that your logo and company name are more important than the sign up form. I’d enlarge the signup field and button and give it much more weight. In addition the black stipe stands out more than other elements on the page and is hogging all the attention. I’d consider changing the color, moving it lower in the page.

What does “invite me” mean? This is again to do with the messaging, you need to put yourself out there and not by comparing yourself to your competitors. Explain what happens when you signup, what the value is and why it’s worth your visitors’ while.

What to test:

• Your messaging gives the visitor absolutely no value; you’re basically just saying you’re an alternative to Tinder. Nothing about your product- why it’s different or how it will make a change in the world of online dating. There are literally thousands of online dating platforms; you have to give people a reason to signup, because right now there isn’t one.

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This concludes this month’s landing page examples and critiques. I hope you get a few ideas from these landing pages critiques and I’d love to hear about them. If you have any questions about my comments let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear them.

P.S

If you’d like us to critique your landing page in our next round, shoot an email to contact@conversioner.com

 

It is my great pleasure to announce the release of Conversioner’s first mobile optimization guide.

A recent study by Millward Brown showed that in average, consumers use 2.6 devices online to convert (tweet this). This stat demonstrates the importance of understanding user behavior and emotions- why do consumers use different  devices to convert? because different devices serve for different usages – Creating a mobile responsive site isn’t enough anymore. It is vital to start creating different user journeys for each device and audience.

Mobile optimization is the one area that has changed significantly over the last few years and will continue doing so throughout the years. What has been common knowledge or obvious tactics to convert mobile visitors into customers is slowly changing and proving to be less and less beneficial. It is no longer enough to simply make your desktop website mobile responsive. According to statistics in Monetate’s Q1 2014 Ecommerce Quarterly, in the first quarter of 2014, 11.6% of website visits were made from a smartphone. (tweet this) That’s an increase of 8.72% from the year before, indicating a continuing upward trend for mobile web browsing. Further more,  According to Forbes, 74% of people use their mobile phone to help them while shopping, with 79% making a purchase as a result of that search. Mobile optimization has never been more important, it’s time to lay down the foundations.

 

Read the Complete Guide to Mobile Optimization

 

What you’ll learn:

 

Chapter 1: The Basics of Conversion Optimization

What is conversion optimization? This is where it all begins. If you’re just starting out with optimizing your landing pages, pricing pages, mobile pages, check out process or any other part of your funnel give this short chapter a look.Understand the basics of conversion optimization, what doing conversion optimization really means and where to start.

Chapter 2: Crucial Mobile Numbers & Statistics

This chapter will arm you with all the crucial numbers and stats you should know. A look at these numbers will lead you into understanding the importance of mobile optimization, mobile user behavior and expectations. Don’t forget to share these stats with your team to get them on board.

Chapter 3: What is Mobile Conversion Optimization?

We’re hoping that by this chapter we’ll be preaching to choir. Assuming that a website that looks nice and functions well on a large screen will also do so on a smartphone is a glaring oversight that can lead to the loss of significant revenue. In this short chapter – understand the basics of mobile conversion optimization.

Chapter 4: Mobile vs. Desktop Optimization

There are 8 basic differences between mobile and desktop optimization, this will be the chapter you discover them and start getting a few crucial tips for immediate uplift on your mobile conversions.

Chapter 5: Where to Start

Okay, enough with the theory, time to get to work. Take a deep dive into your next steps in mobile conversion optimization – where to start, what metrics to follow, and the 3 most important elements you need to be tracking for mobile optimization. Follow these metrics closely to understand your audience better, track your results better and know where to start optimizing.

Chapter 6: Mobile Optimization Foundations & Tips

Once you’ve figured out what your mobile visitors are doing and understood the metrics, it is time to start optimizing. There are a few quick tips that require designing and developing for quick higher conversions on mobile. Whether you’re optimizing for purchases, email lists or signups, these tips can take your mobile pages to the next level. This chapter includes tips, and hacks to guarantee mobile conversions.

Chapter 7: Establishing mobile content

The biggest question the will keep coming up while planning your mobile optimization strategy is content. What content should my mobile site hold? It is the bsics of any good conversion strategy and it will determine the impact you get on your mobile site. As established in previous chapters, this chapter will emphasis the importance of creating different journeys per device and how to do so.

Chapter 8: AB Testing Your Way to Success

Now that you have your mobile strategy ready and your optimized versions ready to be launched, it’s time to start testing for conversions. This chapter will cover the best ways to run mobile conversion tests and feature an interesting case study which increased revenues by over 500%.

Read the Complete Guide to Mobile Optimization