Conversion experiment: Beyond the Basics: Advanced Conversion Experiments You Should Try

1. Why conversion experiments are essential for online businesses and how to go beyond the basics?

Conversion experiments are the backbone of any successful online business. They allow you to test different elements of your website, such as headlines, images, copy, buttons, and more, and measure how they affect your visitors' behavior and actions. By running conversion experiments, you can optimize your website for higher conversions, which means more leads, sales, revenue, and customer satisfaction.

However, conversion experiments are not a one-time activity. They require constant monitoring, analysis, and improvement. You cannot rely on the same tactics and strategies that worked in the past, because your audience, competitors, and market conditions may change over time. You need to go beyond the basics and explore advanced conversion experiments that can give you an edge over your rivals and help you achieve your business goals.

In this article, we will show you some of the advanced conversion experiments that you should try on your website. These experiments are not for the faint of heart, as they involve more complexity, risk, and creativity than the standard ones. But they can also yield more significant results and insights that can transform your online business. Here are some of the advanced conversion experiments that you should try:

1. Personalization experiments: Personalization is the process of tailoring your website content and offers to each individual visitor based on their characteristics, preferences, and behavior. By personalizing your website, you can increase relevance, engagement, trust, and loyalty among your visitors, and ultimately boost your conversions. Personalization experiments involve testing different variations of personalized content and offers to different segments of your audience, and measuring how they affect your key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, you can test different headlines, images, or calls to action for visitors from different locations, devices, sources, or stages of the buyer journey. You can also test different product recommendations, discounts, or upsells for visitors who have different purchase histories, interests, or intents. To run personalization experiments, you need to have a clear understanding of your audience segments, their needs, and their behavior. You also need to have a robust personalization tool that can deliver the right content and offers to the right visitors at the right time.

2. Multivariate experiments: Multivariate experiments are a type of conversion experiments that allow you to test multiple elements of your website simultaneously, and measure how they interact with each other and affect your conversions. Unlike A/B testing, which tests only one element at a time, multivariate testing can test multiple combinations of elements, such as headlines, images, copy, buttons, and more, and reveal the optimal combination that leads to the highest conversion rate. Multivariate experiments can help you discover the synergies and trade-offs between different elements of your website, and optimize your website design and layout holistically. However, multivariate experiments also require more traffic, time, and resources than A/B testing, as they involve more variations and combinations to test. You also need to have a powerful multivariate testing tool that can handle the complexity and statistical analysis of multivariate experiments.

3. Long-term experiments: Long-term experiments are a type of conversion experiments that run for a longer period of time than the usual ones, and measure the long-term effects of your website changes on your conversions. Most conversion experiments run for a few days or weeks, and measure the immediate impact of your website changes on your conversions. However, some website changes may have delayed or lasting effects on your conversions, such as changes in your pricing, subscription, or loyalty programs. These changes may not affect your conversions immediately, but they may affect your retention, churn, lifetime value, and referrals in the long run. Long-term experiments can help you capture these effects and evaluate the true value of your website changes. However, long-term experiments also require more patience, commitment, and consistency than the short-term ones, as they involve more uncertainty, variability, and external factors that can influence your results. You also need to have a reliable long-term testing tool that can track and measure your conversions over a longer period of time.

These are some of the advanced conversion experiments that you should try on your website. By running these experiments, you can go beyond the basics and uncover new opportunities and insights that can take your online business to the next level. However, before you run any of these experiments, make sure that you have a clear hypothesis, a valid sample size, a realistic goal, and a rigorous methodology. You also need to have the right tools, skills, and resources to execute and analyze these experiments effectively. And most importantly, you need to have a culture of experimentation and innovation that encourages you to test, learn, and improve website continuously.

2. How to use multivariate testing to optimize multiple elements of your website at once?

One of the most powerful ways to improve your website's conversion rate is to conduct multivariate testing. Unlike A/B testing, which compares two versions of a single element, multivariate testing allows you to test multiple elements and combinations simultaneously. This way, you can optimize your website holistically and discover the best combination of elements that work together to achieve your goals.

However, multivariate testing is not as simple as it sounds. It requires careful planning, execution, and analysis to ensure valid and reliable results. Here are some tips and best practices to help you conduct successful multivariate tests on your website:

1. Define your hypothesis and goals. Before you start testing, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and why. What is the problem you are trying to solve? What is the expected outcome of your test? How will you measure your success? Having a well-defined hypothesis and goals will help you design your test and interpret your results.

2. Choose the elements and variations to test. The next step is to decide which elements of your website you want to test and how many variations you want to create for each element. You can test anything from headlines, images, buttons, colors, layouts, copy, etc. However, you should not test too many elements or variations at once, as this will increase the complexity and duration of your test. A good rule of thumb is to limit your test to 4-6 elements and 2-4 variations per element.

3. Create your test versions and assign traffic. Once you have chosen your elements and variations, you need to create your test versions and assign traffic to them. You can use tools like Google Optimize, Optimizely, or VWO to create and run your multivariate tests. You should also decide how much traffic you want to allocate to each test version and how long you want to run your test. Ideally, you should aim for a 50/50 split between your control and test versions and run your test until you reach statistical significance.

4. Analyze your results and implement the winner. After your test is completed, you need to analyze your results and determine the winner. You should look at the overall performance of each test version, as well as the individual performance of each element and variation. You should also look for any interactions or synergies between the elements and variations. For example, you might find that a certain headline works better with a certain image, or that a certain button color works better with a certain layout. Once you have identified the winner, you should implement it on your website and monitor its impact on your conversion rate.

Multivariate testing is a great way to optimize multiple elements of your website at once and find the optimal combination that maximizes your conversion rate. However, it also requires more resources, time, and expertise than A/B testing. Therefore, you should use it wisely and follow the best practices outlined above to ensure a successful and meaningful test.

3. How to leverage personalization and segmentation to deliver tailored experiences to different audiences?

One of the most effective ways to increase conversions is to deliver tailored experiences to different audiences based on their preferences, behaviors, and needs. This is where personalization and segmentation come in handy. Personalization is the process of customizing the content, design, and offers of your website or landing page to match the interests and expectations of each visitor. Segmentation is the process of dividing your audience into smaller groups based on common characteristics, such as demographics, location, device, source, behavior, etc. By combining personalization and segmentation, you can create more relevant and engaging experiences for your visitors, which can lead to higher conversion rates, retention, and loyalty. Here are some examples of how you can leverage personalization and segmentation to run advanced conversion experiments:

- 1. Use dynamic content to show different messages or offers based on visitor attributes. For example, you can show a different headline, image, or call-to-action depending on the visitor's location, language, device, or referral source. This can help you capture their attention and appeal to their specific needs or motivations. For instance, if you are running a travel website, you can show different destinations or deals based on the visitor's country or city, or you can show testimonials or reviews from people who are from the same region or speak the same language as the visitor.

- 2. Use behavioral targeting to show personalized content based on visitor actions. For example, you can show different content or offers based on the visitor's browsing history, purchase history, cart abandonment, page views, time spent, etc. This can help you provide more relevant and timely recommendations, reminders, or incentives to the visitor. For instance, if you are running an e-commerce website, you can show product suggestions or discounts based on the visitor's previous purchases, or you can show a pop-up or an email to remind them of the items they left in their cart.

- 3. Use geo-targeting to show localized content based on visitor location. For example, you can show different content or offers based on the visitor's country, state, city, or even zip code. This can help you provide more accurate and appealing information, such as currency, shipping, taxes, availability, etc. For instance, if you are running a software website, you can show different pricing plans or features based on the visitor's currency or region, or you can show a map or a phone number of the nearest office or support center.

- 4. Use A/B testing or multivariate testing to compare different versions of personalized or segmented content. For example, you can test different headlines, images, colors, layouts, or copy for different segments or personas of your audience. This can help you find the optimal combination of elements that resonates the most with each group and drives the highest conversions. For instance, if you are running a subscription website, you can test different value propositions or benefits for different segments of your audience, such as beginners, experts, hobbyists, professionals, etc.

4. How to run experiments on mobile devices and optimize for different screen sizes and platforms?

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular and diverse, which poses new challenges and opportunities for conversion experiments. Unlike desktop users, mobile users have different behaviors, preferences, and expectations when interacting with websites and apps. They also face different constraints, such as screen size, bandwidth, battery life, and device compatibility. Therefore, it is essential to design and run experiments that take into account these factors and optimize for different mobile scenarios. In this section, we will discuss some advanced techniques and best practices for conducting mobile conversion experiments, such as:

1. Use responsive design and adaptive content. Responsive design is a web design approach that adapts the layout and appearance of a website to the screen size and orientation of the device. This ensures that the website is readable and usable on any device, without requiring separate versions or redirects. Adaptive content is a content strategy that delivers different content or features based on the device, context, or user preferences. For example, you can show a simplified version of your website on mobile devices, or hide some elements that are not relevant or important for mobile users. By using responsive design and adaptive content, you can create a consistent and seamless user experience across devices, and avoid potential issues such as slow loading, broken links, or layout problems.

2. segment and target your mobile audience. Mobile users are not a homogeneous group, but rather a diverse and dynamic segment that can vary in terms of device type, operating system, browser, location, network, behavior, and preferences. Therefore, it is important to segment and target your mobile audience based on these criteria, and tailor your experiments accordingly. For example, you can test different versions of your website or app for iOS and Android users, or for users in different countries or regions. You can also use geolocation, push notifications, or QR codes to deliver personalized and relevant content or offers to your mobile users based on their location or context. By segmenting and targeting your mobile audience, you can increase the relevance and effectiveness of your experiments, and avoid potential biases or confounding factors.

3. Test different elements and interactions. Mobile devices offer different possibilities and limitations for web design and user interaction, compared to desktop devices. For example, mobile devices have touchscreens, cameras, sensors, and other features that can be used to create engaging and interactive experiences. However, they also have smaller screens, limited keyboards, and less precise inputs that can affect the usability and accessibility of websites and apps. Therefore, it is important to test different elements and interactions that are specific to mobile devices, such as:

- Navigation and menus. Mobile users tend to have shorter attention spans and lower tolerance for complexity, so it is crucial to provide them with clear and intuitive navigation and menus that allow them to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. You can test different types of navigation and menus, such as hamburger menus, tabs, accordions, or swipe gestures, and measure how they affect the user journey, engagement, and conversion.

- Forms and inputs. Mobile users tend to have more difficulty and frustration when filling out forms and inputs on mobile devices, due to the smaller screen size, limited keyboard, and less precise input. Therefore, it is essential to optimize and simplify the forms and inputs on your website or app, and make them as easy and convenient as possible for mobile users. You can test different aspects of forms and inputs, such as the number and type of fields, the labels and placeholders, the validation and feedback, the autofill and autocomplete, or the use of voice or image inputs, and measure how they affect the user satisfaction, completion rate, and conversion.

- calls to action and buttons. Mobile users tend to have more urgency and impulsivity when making decisions and taking actions on mobile devices, so it is important to provide them with clear and compelling calls to action and buttons that motivate them to act. You can test different elements of calls to action and buttons, such as the size, shape, color, position, text, or icon, and measure how they affect the user behavior, click-through rate, and conversion.

By testing different elements and interactions on mobile devices, you can improve the usability and accessibility of your website or app, and enhance the user experience and conversion.

5. How to use behavioral data and analytics to understand your visitors and design better experiments?

One of the most important aspects of conversion optimization is understanding your visitors and their behavior on your website. By collecting and analyzing behavioral data, you can gain insights into what motivates them, what frustrates them, what interests them, and what makes them leave. You can also identify the most valuable segments of your audience and tailor your experiments to their needs and preferences. In this section, we will explore some of the advanced ways you can use behavioral data and analytics to design better experiments that will boost your conversion rate and revenue. Here are some of the topics we will cover:

1. How to use heatmaps and scroll maps to visualize user behavior and engagement. Heatmaps and scroll maps are graphical representations of how users interact with your web pages. They show you where users click, hover, scroll, and spend time on your pages. You can use these tools to identify the most and least engaging elements of your pages, the optimal placement of your calls to action, the best length of your content, and the potential sources of friction or confusion. For example, you can use a heatmap to see if users are clicking on non-clickable elements, such as images or headlines, and make them clickable or add a button nearby. You can also use a scroll map to see how far users scroll down your pages and adjust your content accordingly. For instance, you can move your most important information or offers above the fold, or add a sticky header or footer to keep users engaged.

2. How to use session recordings and user feedback to understand user behavior and pain points. Session recordings and user feedback are qualitative methods of collecting behavioral data that allow you to observe and listen to your users. Session recordings are video recordings of user sessions on your website, showing you how users navigate, interact, and complete tasks on your pages. user feedback is any form of direct communication from your users, such as surveys, polls, ratings, reviews, comments, or testimonials. You can use these methods to gain a deeper understanding of your users' behavior, goals, expectations, emotions, and challenges. For example, you can use session recordings to see how users fill out your forms, how they react to your pop-ups or banners, how they use your search or filter functions, and how they respond to your error messages or confirmation pages. You can also use user feedback to ask users about their satisfaction, preferences, opinions, suggestions, or complaints. By combining these methods, you can identify the main pain points and opportunities for improvement on your website, and test different solutions to address them.

3. How to use segmentation and personalization to target different user groups and scenarios. segmentation and personalization are techniques of dividing your audience into smaller groups based on their characteristics, behavior, or context, and delivering customized experiences to each group. You can use these techniques to increase the relevance and appeal of your website to different types of users, and optimize your experiments for different scenarios. For example, you can segment your users by their location, device, traffic source, referral, browser, language, or previous actions, and personalize your content, design, or offers accordingly. You can also segment your users by their stage in the buyer's journey, their level of interest, their purchase intent, or their loyalty, and personalize your messages, incentives, or urgency accordingly. By using segmentation and personalization, you can create more engaging and persuasive experiences for your users, and increase your conversion rate and revenue.

6. How to test different types of content and media, such as videos, images, headlines, and copy?

Once you have mastered the basics of conversion experiments, such as setting up a hypothesis, choosing a metric, and running an A/B test, you may want to explore more advanced ways to optimize your website or app. One of the areas that you can experiment with is the type of content and media that you use to communicate your value proposition, engage your visitors, and persuade them to take action. Different types of content and media, such as videos, images, headlines, and copy, can have a significant impact on your conversion rate, depending on your audience, your product, and your goal. In this section, we will discuss how to test different types of content and media, and what factors to consider when designing and analyzing your experiments.

Here are some tips and best practices for testing different types of content and media:

1. Videos: Videos can be a powerful way to showcase your product, demonstrate its benefits, and tell a story that resonates with your visitors. However, videos can also be costly to produce, take up a lot of space and bandwidth, and distract or annoy your visitors if they are too long, too loud, or too irrelevant. Therefore, you should test different aspects of your videos, such as the length, the quality, the placement, the autoplay, the sound, the caption, and the call to action. For example, you can test whether a short or a long video works better for your product, whether a high-quality or a low-quality video affects your visitors' perception, whether a video above or below the fold attracts more attention, whether an autoplay or a click-to-play video increases engagement, whether a sound-on or a sound-off video annoys or delights your visitors, whether a caption or a voice-over video helps your visitors understand your message, and whether a clear or a vague call to action at the end of the video prompts your visitors to take the next step.

2. Images: Images can be a great way to capture your visitors' attention, convey your brand identity, and illustrate your product features. However, images can also be misleading, irrelevant, or boring, and reduce your visitors' trust, interest, or motivation. Therefore, you should test different aspects of your images, such as the size, the quality, the relevance, the emotion, the diversity, and the originality. For example, you can test whether a large or a small image works better for your product, whether a high-quality or a low-quality image affects your visitors' impression, whether a relevant or an irrelevant image supports your value proposition, whether a positive or a negative emotion image influences your visitors' mood, whether a diverse or a homogeneous image reflects your target audience, and whether an original or a stock image enhances your credibility.

3. Headlines: Headlines are one of the most important elements of your content, as they are often the first thing that your visitors see and read. Headlines can be a decisive factor in whether your visitors stay or leave, click or scroll, buy or bounce. Therefore, you should test different aspects of your headlines, such as the length, the clarity, the benefit, the urgency, the curiosity, and the personalization. For example, you can test whether a short or a long headline works better for your product, whether a clear or a vague headline communicates your value proposition, whether a benefit-oriented or a feature-oriented headline appeals to your visitors' needs, whether a urgent or a relaxed headline creates a sense of scarcity or abundance, whether a curiosity-inducing or a straightforward headline arouses your visitors' interest or satisfaction, and whether a personalized or a generic headline connects with your visitors' identity or situation.

4. Copy: Copy is the text that you use to describe your product, explain its advantages, and persuade your visitors to take action. Copy can be a subtle but powerful way to influence your visitors' behavior, perception, and emotion. Therefore, you should test different aspects of your copy, such as the tone, the style, the structure, the length, the readability, and the persuasion. For example, you can test whether a casual or a formal tone works better for your product, whether a humorous or a serious style engages your visitors more, whether a linear or a nonlinear structure guides your visitors better, whether a short or a long copy works better for your product, whether a simple or a complex copy helps your visitors understand your message, and whether a logical or an emotional copy convinces your visitors more.

7. How to experiment with different pricing strategies and payment options to increase conversions and revenue?

One of the most important factors that influence the conversion rate of your website is the pricing strategy and the payment options that you offer to your visitors. How you present your prices, how you structure your plans, and how you facilitate the payment process can have a significant impact on how many people decide to buy from you. In this section, we will explore some advanced conversion experiments that you can try to optimize your pricing and payment strategies and increase your revenue.

Some of the experiments that you can try are:

1. Test different price anchoring techniques. price anchoring is the psychological phenomenon that makes people compare the value of a product or service to a reference point, such as a competitor's price, a suggested retail price, or a discounted price. By using different price anchoring techniques, you can influence how your visitors perceive the value of your offer and make them more likely to buy. For example, you can try:

- Showing a higher price before revealing the actual price, such as "Was $99, Now $49".

- Showing a lower price before revealing the actual price, such as "Only $49, Normally $99".

- Showing a range of prices before revealing the actual price, such as "From $49 to $99, You Pay $69".

- Showing a comparison with a competitor's price, such as "Our Price $49, Their Price $99".

- Showing a comparison with a similar product or service, such as "This Course $49, That Course $99".

You can measure the effect of different price anchoring techniques on your conversion rate, your average order value, and your revenue per visitor.

2. Test different pricing tiers and features. Pricing tiers are the different levels of plans or packages that you offer to your customers, each with a different set of features and benefits. By testing different pricing tiers and features, you can find the optimal combination that maximizes your revenue and satisfies your customers' needs. For example, you can try:

- Adding or removing a pricing tier, such as a free trial, a basic plan, a premium plan, or a custom plan.

- Changing the number of features or benefits in each pricing tier, such as the amount of storage, the number of users, the level of support, or the access to exclusive content.

- Changing the order or the layout of the pricing tiers, such as the horizontal or vertical alignment, the size or the color, or the position of the default or recommended option.

- Changing the names or the labels of the pricing tiers, such as the use of descriptive words, emotional words, or value propositions.

You can measure the effect of different pricing tiers and features on your conversion rate, your customer lifetime value, and your customer satisfaction.

3. Test different payment options and methods. payment options and methods are the different ways that you allow your customers to pay for your product or service, such as the type of currency, the mode of payment, or the frequency of payment. By testing different payment options and methods, you can reduce the friction and the anxiety that your customers may experience during the checkout process and increase your conversions and revenue. For example, you can try:

- Offering different currencies or localizing your prices, such as showing the prices in US dollars, euros, pounds, or yen.

- Offering different modes of payment or integrating with different payment gateways, such as accepting credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.

- Offering different frequencies of payment or different billing cycles, such as allowing monthly, quarterly, yearly, or one-time payments.

- Offering different incentives or discounts for different payment options or methods, such as giving a free trial, a money-back guarantee, a coupon code, or a loyalty program.

You can measure the effect of different payment options and methods on your conversion rate, your churn rate, and your cash flow.

These are some of the advanced conversion experiments that you can try to experiment with different pricing strategies and payment options and increase your conversions and revenue. Remember to always test one variable at a time, use a large and representative sample size, and run your experiments for a sufficient duration to ensure the validity and reliability of your results. Happy experimenting!

8. How to measure the results of your experiments and learn from your successes and failures?

You have learned about some advanced conversion experiments that you can try to optimize your website or app. But how do you know if your experiments are successful? How do you measure the impact of your changes and learn from the outcomes? In this section, we will discuss some best practices for evaluating your experiments and drawing actionable insights from them. Here are some steps you can follow:

1. define your success metrics. Before you run any experiment, you should have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. For example, if you are testing a new landing page design, you might want to track metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, click-through rate, and conversions. You should also decide on the level of statistical significance you want to achieve, which is the probability that your results are not due to chance. A common threshold is 95%, which means that you are 95% confident that your experiment has a real effect.

2. collect and analyze your data. Once you have run your experiment for a sufficient amount of time, you should collect and analyze your data using tools such as Google analytics, Optimizely, or VWO. You should compare the performance of your control group (the original version) and your treatment group (the modified version) on your success metrics. You should also look for any unexpected effects or side effects, such as changes in other metrics that are not directly related to your experiment. For example, if you are testing a new checkout process, you might also want to check if it affects your cart abandonment rate, your average order value, or your customer satisfaction.

3. interpret and communicate your results. After you have analyzed your data, you should interpret and communicate your results to your stakeholders. You should explain what you tested, why you tested it, how you tested it, and what you found. You should also provide recommendations for next steps, such as implementing the winning variation, running another experiment, or testing a different hypothesis. You should use visual aids such as charts, graphs, or screenshots to illustrate your findings and make them easier to understand. For example, if you are testing a new headline for your blog post, you might show a comparison of the click-through rates and the conversions for each headline, along with a screenshot of the blog post with the winning headline.

4. learn from your successes and failures. Finally, you should learn from your successes and failures and use them to improve your future experiments. You should document your experiments and their outcomes, and share your learnings with your team or organization. You should also identify the key factors that contributed to your results, and use them to generate new ideas or hypotheses. For example, if you found that adding social proof to your product page increased your conversions, you might want to test different types of social proof, such as testimonials, ratings, or reviews. Alternatively, if you found that changing your button color had no effect on your conversions, you might want to test something more impactful, such as your value proposition, your offer, or your call to action.

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