2010
29
May

How We Improved Our Conversion Rate by 72%

One of my favourite parts of creating web apps is being able to make subtle changes to our sales pages and see the impact it has on our signups.

With CareLogger being a side project, our time available for marketing is limited. We found conversion optimization to be a good way to spend 30 minutes once a week refining our pitch to customers. It also maximizes the amount of signups so we have access to more people to conduct customer development with.

After these 3 experiments our free signup conversion rate went from 14.5% to 25%, a 72% improvement.

1) Including a pain point in our headline

When we launched the site our headline said Keeping Tabs on Your Diabetes Just Got A Lot Easier:

While this explained in very general terms a benefit of our product it didn’t hit on the real need that people had when they decided to keep a logbook to record their diabetes. Making your life easier is what almost every product promises.

People weren’t looking for our software because it was easier than what they currently do. They wanted better insight into their illness so they can stay as healthy as possible.

So we changed our message to Maintain Your Optimal Health by Keeping Tabs on Your Diabetes. We also highlighted the most important benefit “Optimal Health” with green.

This change resulted in a 31% increase in conversion after 1000 trials (our metric was signing up). Not bad at all.

2) Changing our signup button from Green to Red

Earlier this week I came across an article by Performable that explained how changing their call-to-action from green to red increased conversion by 21%.

I had to try it out so that day I set up an A/B test on our homepage call-to-action.

So far we’ve had 600 participants and our conversion rate has increased 34%.

We generally wait until 1000 trials but so far the results have been pretty significant.

We believe that it was so effective because we used green on many other parts of the landing page and the red just stands out so much more. It’s all about contrast.

3) Changing our button text from “Signup for Free” to “Get Started Now”

We also experimented with changing the button text on the call to action to from “Signup for Free” to “Get Started Now”. This one had a smaller effect, after 1000 trials our conversion rate improved by 7%.

The difference in this one is that “Get Started Now” is an easier sounding commitment than signing up. Signing up also has connotations with paying (our app is free).

Next up we’re going to try alternating the stock photo on the homepage from a male/female couple to a doctor and patient.

- By Dan McGrady

  • Nice results. You can also use http://www.reedge.com a free AB and multivariate testing tool that also has behavioral targeting, geo-targeting etc all build in.
  • Dan,

    Thanks for the link to the Performable. Impressive results!

    In-case you missed it we just released a new app called SuperConversionButton.com (http://www.superconversionbutton.com). Would love your feedback on it.

    Cheers,
    David
  • 1) Brilliant - emotional language is very good at engaging and converting the user.

    We've done split tests with 2 pieces of content that give the same information, but one uses emotional language, drawing feeling out of the reader... Looking at time on page and conversions, there are definite gains to be had.

    2) Great tip... getting my designer on this now lol :)

    3) I would think that "Free" would do well for conversions (everyone loves free stuff, right?) - I see you included that in smaller text on the button.. brilliant.

    You all do great work - keep it up!
  • Kamesh M
    Small changes Big difference.Thanks for sharing this experience...
  • Always interested in the analytics of A/B testing. Thanks for sharing.

    Wondering if you've seen @AlwinHoogerdijk 's article, "Sign Up buttons: Red, Green or back to Blue?" http://j.mp/95boRQ ? and whether you tried a blue for the button background color. Aside from Alwin's results, I rather suspect both Twitter and Facebook tested their sign up button colors extensively.

    Did you test the shorter imperative tense, "Start Now", rather than the more colloquial, "Get Started Now"? Just wondering.
  • Nice work. Thanks for sharing your numbers.

    Did you do any A/A testing, comparing the same screens to get a natural variation? Sometimes A/A testing can give you differences of about 5%. Doing this can help you assess smaller increases in conversion rates more effectively.

    For example if your natural variation is 2% then your 7% increase could be said to be more significant than if it was a 5% variation.

    Thanks again :)

  • You are right, it's all about the contrast men, not because your layout is blue you have to use blue CTA buttons, the contrast is the king for conversion pages, i may suggest just to use the Call To Action Start Now, it brings more the attention.

    Great Post
  • Very nice experiences. This can not be learnt in any books :), it's based on reality. Very helpful for me. Thanks for sharing.
  • Sebastian green
    Great article.

    I also read about the green to Red button article and must admit I was a little bit unsure that it would work in the real world so I am really glad you tried it and showed it worked.
  • I like it. I also like that you opted to refine and test your strategy instead of "scrap it! Total redesign" as I find so many shops like to go for.
    I'll definitely keep it in mind for customer sites.
  • Exactly, it's so tempting to redesign the entire site. But when time is constrained like in most startups a complete redesign is risky because its hard to measure the real benefits.

    Even if we do an overhaul later, we know what fundamentals are working and can focus on other problem areas.
  • randsco
    Dan - Good stuff. Demonstrates that a site overhaul to effect change isn't required. Sometimes small changes can have a big impact. Thanks for the read.
  • Very interesting. However, I don't get why you only changed the button to "Get Started Now" in the header of the site. You also have one similar button in the footer of the homepage, and that's still green and says "Signup for Free".

    Wouldn't a little more consistency be even better?
  • The majority of our signups come from the homepage CTA so for the sake of agility I only tested that one. Also I don't think A/Bingo lets you run the same test in multiple places (I could be wrong).

    I'm working on replacing the green footer call to actions today with the get started now.
  • Interesting stuff - like with many things, it's a small nuance or change that can make the difference between good and great.
  • Fantastic results with small changes.Thanks for sharing !
  • Good stuff!
    Thanks for sharing :)
  • boydbutler1
    Dan, maybe you could add a few testimonials to help sign ups? Particularly those that are specific in nature.
    Video would help too.
    It's really easy with ScreenR and powerpoint.

  • Very helpful walkthrough of your process and results. Thank you for sharing!
  • Pb
    My guess is a female doctor wi have the best sign up rate!
  • Pb
    My guess is a female doctor wi have the best sign up rate!
  • howtoplaza
    Wow, changing the color of green button to red button is really fascinating. And it worked.
  • Great article! We have started A/Bing big changes, but this really drives home the need to concentrate on the small stuff too - apparently it all makes a HUGE diference!! :)
  • Small tweaks can make all the difference. It is important doing A/B tests.

    We do these tests constantly.
  • Jay
    That's really interesting, who would have thought such small details make such a big difference. I hope we can make use of this on my two big projects.
  • Thanks for the post Dan! We're about to re-jig our landing page as well, so these insights are really useful.
  • Fantastic results. Thanks.
  • Thank you for sharing.
    Trackback: http://adoptimize-modules.blogspot.com/
  • Thank you for sharing your Data, true winners share all. It was interesting that as you walked me through the progressive updates, I agreed with every change. I usually refuse the dreaded "Sign-up Now" button, but I might go down the rabbit-hole of a "Get Started Now" button. Good work.
  • bdickason
    Great post! What are you using for your A/B tests? In-house software or a service ala google's website optimizer?
  • What did you use to help do the testing?

    Google Analytics?
    Another tool?
  • We used A/Bingo, a rails plugin: http://www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo/

    I also use Google Analytics goal funnels to measure the overall conversion rate
  • Really useful insights and well done on the increase in conversions. Makes me certain to try the same for my French Food Store.
  • Wow, I never thought that can be possible!
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