SES: Converting Visitors into Buyers

Moderator:Allan Dick, Vintage Tub & Bath
Speakers: Nigel Ravenhill, Scanalert
Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, Inc.

Note: In looking at the list and I haven’t heard any of the speakers before, nor are their companies in a space that would place them as being qualified to speak on this subject. You would think that getting some high profile affiliates would make more sense.

Nigel was up and did a plug for his company and then went through a test of “Trust”:

• Ran A/B Split tests with marked versus unmarked sites
• Used 30 day cookie
• Conversions Tracked
• Captured: cookie type, date, date and time of sale, order key and IP address
• Ran 140 tests
• Average delay from cookie to purchase was >19h hours

What affected the delay to make it 19 hours?

• Competitive scope
• Price
• Demographics
• Brand recognition
• Number of competitors online

The more competitive the market, the delay is longer because the user is shopping for the best price.

This is not true. I have conducted survey after survey after survey and when you get down to why people really buy, price is down the list … usually in the 3-6 slot. Even in competitive markets, trust is always going to be a top three factor, and will win every time over price.

Tips to Influence the conversion rate and retention by:

• Appearing to be real
• Publish hours
• Eliminate garage startup stories
• Don’t wait until shopping cart to give comfort
• Extending cookies to 30 days will help populate returning carts

These are solid tips. Let me go a bit further. According to my testing, having testimonials, or giving a virtual “assurance” that you are who you say you are increases conversion rates. Personally, I would extend the cookie to 90 days. And if you ship product, offer a free shipping option or at least give an “estimate” of shipping before they get to the checkout page. Nothing is more annoying than buying a CD for $7.95 and getting hit with $14.50 for shipping and I live in the same state. In fact, “high shipping or late to disclose shipping rates” is the always in the top three of reasons people abandon a shopping cart. Do things different, make a solid offer for free shipping or offer a low shipping rate. You will see higher conversions.

Make related products easy to find

• Use search box to refine search
• Meaningful site navigation
• Related products cross-sell
• Bestsellers list

Amazon does a great job in this area and one that you would be wise to mimic if you have the same type of cross-selling options.

Help the customers choose:

• Employ a variety of things to bring comfort - customer service, FAQs
• Answer customer questions
• Help the customers share information
• Enhance the shopping experience with Buy Now changes and save cart type options.

I find Best Buy’s site lacking in this area. It is difficult to get real questions answered and what is on the site isn’t always in the store, and what is in the store isn’t always on-line. It is frustrating. Or worse, the product is on-line and it is in the store, but the on-line price is cheaper. They won’t match it in the store. I hate that.

Conlusion

• Find reports at www.scanalert.com
• If you make it difficult to find what the user wants - they will leave.
• Marketing Experiments tested cart recapture through email and had a 240% conversion rate on those recaptured carts.
• If you can capture the email, you can resend the cart to entice the purchase.

Everyone knows that if the process is difficult, the buyer will leave. However, there is a huge range in the definition of “difficult” based on the buyer’s ability. What is difficult for one is easy for another. No system is perfect, and it is best that you appeal to your biggest audience, rather than change something that affects 3% of your visitors.

Recapturing Abandoned Cart via email is done by using multiple screens at checkout. The first screen asks for name and email address. If you abandon your cart before completed checkout, you will be emailed to ask you to come back and complete the cart for an added incentive, which is usually free shipping. While Neil tested this and realized a 240% increase, which is great, I have tested it as well and found out that people would abandon the cart on purpose to see if an offer was made. They would then use the incentive to purchase at a lower price. According to exit surveys, the figures of “recapture” weren’t as impressive as there were enough buyers who played the system that made it a wash.

While it is great to capture additional sales, look at the offer and make sure that it does not eat into your profit margin, or it could spell trouble for your bottom line.

Brian is now up.

In 1880’s Frederick Winslow Taylor began studying usability and how to work more efficiently.
His focus was about users and tools. People think about the web as a tool but it’s really a communication vehicle.

Web analytics is great for understanding that something happened on your site.

• What happened?
• Why did it happen?
• When did it happen?
• It’s like CSI - you need to analyze data and see what happened.

The tools tell you what happened - funnel reports, exit reports, complex scenarios. Your focus should be to figure out how that information can help you make money. Either you are going to help them get what they want or you don’t. It is as simple as that.

Eisenberg’s Hierarchy of Conversion

• Must be functional - can I take an order or process a lead.
• Can people get to it - do they get 404’s, is it readable for users with disabilities?
• It is usable, useful and not too clunky we’ll still buy.
• Intuitiveness, is it engaging, does it feel right? Only 26% of visitors report an e-commerce experience as engaging.
• Persuasion, is it convincing?

Buyer Behavior and Modeling

• Which type of person are you and what stage are you on in the buying cycle.
• Determine angles of approach and then help people buy by solving their problems.
• The name of the game is Opportunity Cost
• Visitors are ready to spend money and you’re not taking it.
• Testing alone is not going to solve conversion problems. You have to know what you’re testing.

That last comment that you must know what you are testing is vital. Too many webmasters don’t know what they are testing or they test the wrong areas. This is all about Opportunity Cost and I cannot believe that Economics 101, which I thought was the biggest waste of my time in college, would come back and be beneficial. Adam Smith was a pretty smart guy. I mean, here we are in the Internet Age and his “invisible hand” theory is still relevant.

Look at your page from various perspectives - buying a movie.

• Spontaneous - will these types of users find what they want immediately?
• Humanistics - is the data structured for this type of user.
• Methodicals - can you search/buy by genre?
• Competitives - search by actor and/or title.

As David Bullock will tell you, tweaking and testing your page for better conversions is hard work. So what do people do instead? They invest in traffic, focus on ranking, do SEO. What happens? Conversion rates drop and they don’t know why.

Study the funnel and know what causes users to fall out.

• Users can be forced out by friction - you scared them away!
• You’ve paid for the traffic and then scared them away.

You need to define the conversion goals. Then you need to give them what they want. And finally, you need to actually do the creative testing. Either A/B split or multivariate tests.

What to Do?

• Product images tell a story, use them to sell the product.
• Give them the detail they need.
• Don’t use standard photography, be different.
• B2B needs merchandising too.
• Persuade people to read what they download
• Pictures appeal to different personality types.
• Test headlines and hyperlinks.
• Spend a lot of time testing headlines.
• Test using fractions instead of percentages - it worked but we don’t know why
• Test sell versus customer focused words.
• Get them to click on the call to action.

Other recommendations:

• Don’t copy people who you think know what they’re doing.
• Add assurances at the point of action - return policy, customer service information, guaranteed response times. Lands End does a nice job at this.
• Do what people expect from you - don’t hide what people need to do.
• Watch what you say on your buttons - test “Buy Now”, “Add to Cart” etc.
• Think small - keep the pages lean and mean. Optimize images.

I disagree with not following the best in the market. That is the basis behind my Kitchen Table Copy technique (coming soon).

Does your site stink?

• Are you giving your customer the scent of relevancy?
• When keywords appeared on the page, the page was 70% more successful.
• A page either has the content the user is looking for or has links to that content.
• The reason they leave is because you did not give them what they were looking for.

Drop-offs
- 1 Click 9.56%
- 2 Clicks 54.6%
- 3 Clicks - 16.56%
- Only left with 20% of the people you initially attracted

Figure it out:
- Who is your customer
- What action do you want them to take
- Cover the motivations of each type of buyer

Guidelines
- Images tell a story
- Test headlines and copy
- Calls to action
- Point of action Assurances
- Make is obvious what you want them to do
- Don’t make them wait

Conclusion:
Put as many assurances into your landing page as possible to establish credibility. If you cannot establish the credibility, they will not convert.