11 Things That Work More Often Than Not in A/B Tests (2)
Trustworthy Testimonials Beat No Testimonials Not surprisingly, leveraging social proof with legitimate testimonials can often increase conversions. Since word of mouth is a huge factor in purchase behavior, displaying testimonials can help drive trust in your site.
But your testimonials should be authentic and trustworthy. If not, consumers are skeptical. In fact, an econsultancy study found that negative reviews can help boost your conversion rate (only to a certain extent, though. Too many negative reviews is not a good thing.)
How you display testimonials matters, too.
Simple text testimonials can help. But adding a photo of the reviewer can help even more. Quality photos in general can help boost conversions, but specifically in the domain of reviews, they help add authenticity to the text. Finally, adding video testimonials can help boost credibility even further. Sidekick is a good example of testimonials done well:
You can also leverage the credibility of other sites by pulling your testimonials from Yelp and other review sites. As Sean Ellis wrote in an Unbounce article, “When you use the testimonials from trusted sites, you hit a trifecta of credibility: authenticity of real customer feedback, published on a credible website, with a more objective bent because it appeared elsewhere on the web.”
10. Offer a guest checkout option A few weeks ago, I wanted to buy this tank top:
(check URL for image)
I went through the checkout process, and I was happy to note that they had a ‘guest' option: (check URL for image)
I chose ‘guest' and paid for the item. Later on, they asked if I wanted to register, and I did anyway.
This is a common experience. The converse is much less smooth. When e-commerce sites force registration, they put up one extra barrier for the customer. In fact, 1 in 4 customers leave because of forced registration. It's just another facet of ‘greedy marketer syndrome,' and it can be solved with a guest checkout option. 11. Free shipping Charging for shipping is a conversion killer. At this point, the majority of companies offer some form of free shipping. If you're not one of them, start trying to figure out a way you can offer it. You've surely heard of the research on this: 2BigFeet had already implemented free shipping on orders over $100 with coupons and had noticed a spike in conversion. After they made free shipping automatic on $100+ orders, their conversion rate increased by 50%.
ComScore found that Free Shipping Day increased sales by 16%.
A study by Compete found that 93% of respondents said free shipping on orders would encourage them to purchase more products online. As David Bell said, “The phrase “free shipping” is like a siren song to many who shop on the Internet.”
For more info on the power of free, check out “Free” by Chris Anderson.
Note: this is not just a test object. This is a fundamental business decision. Shipping is a large expense for small businesses, and this is a tactic you will have to learn to bake into your business strategy. Sometimes, it might be damn near impossible to make free shipping profitable. However, there are strategies you can experiment with:
In an article for Kissmetrics, Andy Hunt outlines 4 ways to make free shipping profitable for your business:
Establish a Baseline: Compare conversion with and without a free shipping offer.
Create Thresholds: Increase the minimum order value required for free shipping, and test the improvement in margin.
Set Restrictions: See what kind of improvement you'll get by offering free shipping only on select products where it is profitable. Enact Price Increases: Increase all your product prices to compensate for the loss you take on free shipping, and see how your profit compares.
Conclusion
Nothing is universal. Your website has specific problems, not generic problems. You're better off doing proper conversion research using a data-driven framework (like ResearchXL) to make sure you're testing the right things. CRO is a process, not a list of tactics.
But the 11 things above boost conversions more often than not. They're a good starting place for test ideas as well.
