But, I believe that conversion is cumulative, and every pixel of design you employ in your shopping cart contributes to the semi-conscious feelings of comfort and confidence that prospects get when they decide that your cart is safe and credible enough to do business with.

Many Conversion Rate Optimization practitioners would start by recommending that you run out and buy what is called a “credibility indicator“–some sort of flag or badge that indicates to prospects that you’re credible.  Some of the more popular credibility indicators are the McAfee certification and the Verisign security symbol.  This is not a bad approach, and some of our testing has proven that it can have a positive effect on conversion rate, but last I checked, it costs money to get this type of badge to place on your site.

I encountered a shopping cart today that didn’t have any security/credibility badges in the active window, yet I still felt perfectly comfortable converting on their website.  I’d like to use them as example (click screenshot to enlarge).

Groupon.com has quickly become one of the “darlings” of the FutureNow team.  We like their deals, we enjoy their copywriting, and now we like the design of their cart.

Let’s look at the reasons why this cart is so well designed that it doesn’t even need a security badge:

Reason #1: “I was a Late Stage buyer…” I’d already signed up with Groupon to receive coupons.  I’d already read several of their emails, and I’d clicked through to “learn more” about a particular deal.  I’d read the details, and I’d taken the call to action.  Late Stage buyers are always more primed to convert, and need less reassurance about your security or credibility.  Invert that statement and it reads “Early and Middle Stage buyers are less primed to convert, and need more reassurance about your credibility and security.”

Reason #2: Clean form design. The page I screencaptured has some really nice elements of form design, including large, legible fonts, field labels above the fields, clean and roomy layout, and a high-contrast call to action button.

Reason #3: Capture of Security Code. The form asks for my credit card security code, also called as the “CCV” number.  Whether it actually improves security or not, I always feel more comfortable when an eCommerce site captures this piece of data.  It probably helps them avoid fraud, too!  Does your cart capture this?  Hint: it should.

Reason #4: Fantastic Point of Action Assurances. All the FAQs in the right column are a tad wordy, but they absolutely reflect the “voice” of the overall Groupon experience, and they do a great job of avoiding “legalese.”  Check out the questions they address: What happens next? What about gifting?  Change/cancel?  Is this safe? Each question is answered clearly and confidently, and that builds my confidence.

Reason #5: Custom guarantee. Readers of my posts already know that I’m not a fan of “copycat credibility,” so you know I’m loving the “Groupon Promise” custom graphic and text.

The two key points here are:

1) Good design increases the persuasiveness of your website. Bad design does the opposite.

2) You don’t necessarily have to “pay out” for credibility. And if you pay for a badge of some sort, it’s not a guarantee that your conversion rate will go up.  As long as you overcome the challenge that sits between your prospect and a conversion, it doesn’t matter what approach you take.

I am disappointed to report that our online shopping experience at Target.com was, for the most part, a very frustrating experience. We already had in mind some of the things that we would like to purchase for our new apartment, but even being able to find these items from the home page proved to be a difficult task.  Essentially, we were late stage buyers ready to hand over our free dollars to Target provided that they could meet the product requirements that we were looking for.

For example, we knew we would like a bookshelf.  However, after going to the ‘Furniture’ tab at the top of the screen we didn’t find any options specifically for bookshelves. So, after scanning the page, we selected the ‘Storage and Organization’ option from the left navigation hoping to get some results.  What we found was an array of options totally unrelated to what we were looking for.

So…we tried again.  We went back to ‘Furniture’ and decided to search under ‘Home Office.’  Maybe this would give us what we were looking for. Finally, under a heading titled ‘Home Office Essentials’ on the left navigation we were able to find ‘Bookcases’ in small print.  After going to this link, we were given some more options to narrow down our search.  At this point, we had a pretty good idea of what sort of bookshelf we wanted according to size and probable color, so we went for the ‘Shop By Color’ option.

Another difficulty we experienced was navigating through the product pages.  There were limited pictures for each product, making our decision a difficult one.  At this point, it was only because of our abundance of gift cards that we trudged on through this process, as finding and selecting our particular product in mind felt more like a battle then being guided toward what we had in mind.

Possibly the most frustrating part of this online shopping experience was our experience during checkout. Target only allows four gift cards to be used at checkout.  If not all of the cost is covered by the gift cards, they obviously require an additional form of payment.  The most concerning aspect in this process for us was that at no time during the checkout process were we told what was covered by our gift cards and what was being charged to our card. This lead us to complete check out and void the same transaction three times before we felt satisfied that Target was not charging our credit card the full amount of the purchase!  Their web analysts must be confused by that data!

This is just another example of a website failing to speak adequately to the late stage buyer ready to buy.  Rather than being able to easily navigate through the site in order to find a product we already had in mind, we had to actually dig for the product.  Target also failed to give us confidence in the product we were buying with more product images to ensure us of the actual quality of the product, not to mention our troubling experience during the checkout process.  If our Target bookshelf wasn’t essentially free for us newlyweds, we would have been tempted to avoid online shopping with Target altogether in exchange for a less time-consuming and more enjoyable experience with another company.

Now, the point of all this isn’t to beat up on Target or their Web Team; their struggle is our struggle: how to provide intuitive navigation and browsing pathways through a large catalog site and make converting easy and fun!

Editor’s Note: Whitney isn’t new to the FutureNow team, but she’s new to the blog with her inaugural (inblogural?) post.  Welcome, Whitney!

During recent “routine investigations,” I’ve run into some really big customer review issues my clients are facing. Not sure just how important reviews are to your sales/leads?  Almost 70% of customers looked at more than 4 reviews before making a purchase.  If that’s not enough, take a look at the data from some other research:

• 77% of visitors shopping online use reviews and ratings when purchasing. (Jupiter Research, August 2006)
• 63% of consumers suggest that they are more likely to purchase from a website if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA & iPerceptions study)
• 92.5% of adults surveyed, said they regularly or occasionally research products online before buying them in a store. (BIGresearch)

In order to put together reviews that work, you need to get into the minds of your visitors. If you were shopping for your product/service, what would be important for you to find out in a review? Now it’s your turn to go undercover as your various different visitor types and map out a customer review process that works.

I’m always shopping for sports gear, it seems.  I’ve been looking around for some goggles, but I am not set on a brand or type of goggle.  I would actually consider myself pretty uneducated about goggles. These are the things that I’m looking to find out:

1. I want a pair of goggles that will fit my helmet properly
2. I don’t care about a feminine style or color; I just want to make sure that the goggles fit my face well, so they need to be made for a woman.
3. I ski in a large variety of weather conditions, so I want a pair of goggles that either work well enough in all conditions or ones that have swap-able lenses for different conditions.
4. I use the goggles mostly for skiing but on the odd occasion, I go snowmobiling, and want them to be suitable for other sports as well.
5. I definitely want to avoid goggles that fog up, but I also don’t want the goggles to be too ventilated that my face may freeze.
6. I don’t have a specific budget in mind.  I’ll compare price once I’ve found a few great options.

These were some things worth noting about review sections of web sites, as I started my search for the perfect goggles.  Click the screenshots to enlarge.

REI.com lists out pros and cons as part of their product reviews, which is generally a great idea. The only problem is that this is a ‘pre- set’ list of pros and cons. The visitor simply checks the boxes in each list when reviewing a product. A list is good to start with, but the visitor should be encouraged to write their own pros and cons as well. Sometimes there are pros and cons worth mentioning that won’t be in the list. If the cons field is always empty (as it is in this example), some visitors will become skeptical. The visitor wants to know the bad and the good in order to weigh out their options effectively. If some visitors feel this is too good to be true, they won’t move forward in their buying process.

I love that REI.com identifies the reviewer based on their level of experience with this industry.  This reviewer establishes herself as “advanced.”  We can assume that she means advanced skier, but the reviewer was probably given very few options to describe herself.  Don’t limit the visitor’s ability to describe herself. You can give her a few options to give her some direction, but you should encourage her to describe herself in a way that allows the visitor to see who she is, why she is reviewing and how this product is used in her lifestyle. In other words, it’s good to know that she is advanced, but I want to know the type of weather she skis in with the goggles and how often she uses them, and whether or not she uses a helmet. The same goes for “best uses” category here.  Don’t make the visitor only choose from a ‘pre-set’ list.  Encourage her to go into more detail.

Backcountry.com not only features regular reviews from customers, they also encourage professionals in the industry to review products and upload their pictures using the product. They also list commonly asked questions and corresponding answers about the product.  The organization of the reviews, pictures, and questions on Backcountry is a little scattered and could be improved, but they definitely feature information that will help the visitor decide.

This is a quick list of tips to help you create effective customer reviews:

1. Feature overall star ratings of the product/service and review specific features/characteristics of the product/service that the customer will be interested in. For instance, many forget to feature reviews that tell the visitor about the delivery and customer service following the purchase.

2. Don’t just try to get reviews from the average customer, but also look to get reviews from respected professionals or leaders in the industry.

3. Feature pros and cons of each product/service, but don’t limit the reviewer to only a ‘pre-set’ list of pros and cons.

4. Have the reviewer describe themselves (location, gender, their experience in the industry) so that the reader can find reviews from those who are similar to themselves. Also, have the reviewer describe how they use the product; in what environments and how often, etc.

5. Encourage the visitor to upload pictures of themselves using the product/service. This adds emotional value.

6. Encourage the visitor to write further comments about the product, how they use it and what the real benefits are of the product, etc.

7. Feature a section with “commonly asked questions” about a product or service.

Is it time to do some work on your reviews? Well, what are you waiting for?!?

I scan the list of unread messages in waves: First, I pick off the obvious junk messages.  Then, I scan the “From” fields and subject lines to make sure I at least recognize who these messages are from and that they’re “legitimate.”  If anything looks questionable, it’s deleted in a few seconds.  Sound brutal?  It is, but that’s the reality in many consumers’ minds, and we consumers get more savvy and suspicious each day!  I do not envy the jobs of email marketers, and those who are successful deserve high salaries and our respect

This post won’t cover the importance of optimizing your “From” fields and your subject lines in order to maximize open rates.  That should be obvious, and it’s been covered plenty over the years.  Let’s instead assume that you’ve made it into a prospect’s inbox, you’ve passed their suspicious screening process, and you’ve enticed them to open your message.

Now, besides meeting the expectations that the subject line set, what else can you do to optimize the content of your emails? A few tactics are: having good “images blocked” layout, strongly worded calls to action, and clear incentives.

Another often overlooked optimization you can work on is your copy, particularly the “tone” or “voice” aspect. As I regularly read marketing emails, I’m amazed how boring they all sound.  Who is writing these?  Who are they writing to?  They read like the copy was written by a committee of marketers, not a person who’s excited and passionate about what they sell.  If you write your emails to “everyone,” you will resonate with no one.

I did receive a decently-written marketing email before the Holidays, and the tone was so audience-appropriate that I saved it.  Let’s go through the various elements and see what lessons there are, from beginning to end:

1. The Salutation: The email was addressed to the “[Brand] Fam,” and while it would be worth doing some testing, I think it worked for a couple reasons.  The decision not to use my name actually worked because I’m savvy enough to know that type of weak first-name “personalization” isn’t genuine.  The shortening of “Family” to “Fam” works because the company sells hip, urban clothing and accessories, so it begins to set an appropriately informal tone.

2. 1st paragraph: The first paragraph covers the “why you’re receiving this communication” requirement:

I wanted to hit you up because I see that you haven’t shopped at [website] in a while.  I know the economy has been messed up and that may be one of the reasons you haven’t shopped recently.

This is a reasonable explanation for the communication, delivered in a genuinely “street” tone.  While the real truth may be that they segmented their database and I ended up in the “hasn’t bought in last 90 days” batch, I don’t think about it when I read good copy.  And, whether this tone is carefully crafted by an expert copywriter, or an honest missive from the young CEO, it doesn’t really matter, because the tone of the copy has gotten me to lower my guard and engage in the marketing conversation.

3. Offer: While somewhat predictable, the next paragraph of the email offered me a 20% off coupon code.  While offers should be carefully optimized, I like that the offer came early in the copy to clear out those who can be easily persuaded to purchase using an incentive.  Assuming I’m not in a buying mood just yet, let’s read on…

4. Body copy: Assuming that those who read past the coupon code were Humanistics or Methodicals, or needed additional persuasion, the rest of the copy hits a couple points:

But if there are any other reasons I want to know!  We pride ourselves on our connection to our customers and if you had any problems, issues, or aren’t seeing what you like just hit me up on my email and cell # is below.  Actually, hit for any reason if you have ideas or just want to chop it up.

We have literally thousands of berserk new styles that have dropped on the site in the last week for both men and women…it is never too early to do a little holiday shopping or buy yourself something nice…you deserve it!!!!

The first paragraph is great for Humanistic shoppers, and establishes personality through use of the first person as well as credibility.  And the tone continues to be informal and hip, yet consistent.  The next paragraph entices the Spontaneous profile with the ‘new styles in the last week’ hook, and goes on to mention both gift shopping as well as shopping-for-self.  Basically, telling me it’s OK to shop for myself even though the Holidays were coming up…smart!

5. Secondary call to action: Those who didn’t click on the coupon code primary call to action still needed a nudge towards the site, so the email goes on to provide secondary calls to action for those who kept reading below the fold (or beyond the preview pane).  The links pointed to “new arrivals” landing pages for men and women.

6. Closing: The email ends with the name of the founder of the website/brand, a cellphone number, a personal Twitter address, and a personal Facebook address.  My critique here is that the “sender” should have clearly identified himself at the beginning of the email, which may have added credibility and gotten more people to stay engaged and read the good copy.  But, it’s still impressive that the founder has signed this email and included some pretty “personal” contact information.

So despite some grammatical issues (which only add to the personal tone of the email in this case), it’s a pretty persuasive email from a lot of different angles.  And, even if I don’t convert based on this marketing touch point, the company built its brand equity for later with personal communication, style, and voice.

I hope you found this inspirational.  Let us know if you would like help optimizing email marketing campaigns.  Or, if you feel your emails are strong, perhaps you need to optimize your email campaign landing pages and checkout?

Figure 1

The Holiday (online) gift shopping saga continues!  First, I was buying water bottles, and now I’m shopping for a gift card to send to some relatives.

Instead of taking you through the somewhat exhausting 11-step purchase process I went through for the sake of “convenience,” this post will just call out a few of the interesting high points and low points (with suggested optimizations) on the emotional roller coaster that is online shopping.  While the theme is a holiday gift card buying experience, you’ll see that the challenges are applicable to many shopping carts year-round.

First, arriving at the site’s homepage, I wasn’t very impressed with the placement of their gift card banner (see Figure 1).  On December 15th, you’d think they could give the gift card option a much more prominent presence on the homepage. File this one under “lost opportunities.”  The fix: Put it above the fold in the active window.

Clicking the gift card banner brought me to a much better page.  The top of the results was stacked with colorful Holiday-themed gift cards, and I was reminded about the selling proposition of “never expires” and “always the perfect gift.”  The scent is getting better, and I click the gift card with the most appealing design.

Figure 2

On the details page for my potential gift card, it’s a mixed bag (see Figure 2).  On the plus side, the copy is decent.  On the minus side, the 3 competing calls to action are somewhat odd in color, and it’s not clear which is the “primary” call to action.  Also, after I added the card to my shopping cart, the “added to cart” message was WAY too subtle. That message needs to be super obvious, and drive people to either checkout or keep shopping.

On the “view your cart” checkout page, it was all bad news (see Figure 3): a free shipping promotional message displayed in red text makes me think there has been some sort of error.  The fix: NEVER use red text in the shopping cart if it’s not an error message, even if red is part of your brand’s color palette.

Figure 3

After clicking to move forward in the process, I get the standard login screen, which is kind of a pain, but overall I’m giving it the thumbs up because they placed “guest” checkout first on the left, then login second on the right (see Figure 4).  Readers, have you tested the order of these elements on your login pages?  Have you tested removing these pages altogether, and allowing a “passive” login and passive registration during or after checkout? Something to think about for 2010, yes?

After continuing as a guest, the billing and shipping information page was simple, clean, and usable.  Good job, website!

Figure 4

The next page covered shipping method, gift messaging, and gift packaging, and it was another page that had some good and some bad.  The good was that you could preview the gift packaging in a popup window (see Figure 5).  The bad was that the gift message was restricted to 200 characters, but it didn’t tell me how many characters I’d typed so far. This gave me the lovely error message you can see in Figure 6.  Note that the error message is the same color as the promotional free shipping offer!  This type of error condition is avoidable, and if you can avoid an error condition in checkout…DO IT! The fix: add an inline validation script that tells you how many characters you’ve typed in real time.

Figure 5

Figure 6

The next step was payment, and it was a relatively painless screen, but it could’ve been optimized with a 3rd party security badge.

The final step (phew) was the review and confirm screen, and this screen had a huge usability issue.  I call out usability issues especially when the software makes the user responsible for something that it (the code) could take care of behind the scenes.  Again, if you can avoid an error condition in checkout by writing better code, DO IT. See figure 7 where the website tells me to only click the “submit” button once.  If I accidentally click twice, I just bought two items instead of one!  Guess what, BB&B?  It’s 2009, and you can disable the submit button after 1 click while delivering a “processing” message and thanking me for my patience.  DO IT. (Note: If you happen to have an account at Bank of America, you can watch the behavior of their final sign-in button.)

Figure 7

OK, sorry for the rant.  I’ll end on a high note by congratulating the merchant.  The confirmation page asked me if I’d now like to create an account post-purchase, and I really like that approach.  I’d like to see more of that post-purchase sign-up happening in 2010.

The lesson to take from all this is that the highlights increased my motivation to buy, and the stumbling blocks decreased my motivation to buy.  Checking out online is a cumulative process; if I accumulate enough error messages and bad experiences, I’ll leave.  While the concept of persuasion is extremely powerful in optimizing your online marketing ads, the checkout is all about usability, clarity, and a smooth customer experience. It’s hard work, no doubt, but my latest experience shows that the vast majority of sites still need to be focusing some resources in checkout.

I have a certain younger sister-in-law who is a freak for the actor who plays “Edward” in the Twilight movie saga.  I undertook the mission to buy the “Edward” water bottle that was sold through Burger King when the movie first came out.  So, I went to my local Burger King, walked up to the front counter, and VERY QUIETLY asked if they had any Edward water bottles left.  Go ahead and snicker now if you’d like.

I was informed that not all locations had even gotten sent water bottles, and they had none.  The kind lady behind the counter gave me a promo pack, saying, “maybe you can order it online somehow.”  Aha!  Now I’m excited!

So, let’s use my embarrassing episode and see what we can learn about how to optimize a marketing outreach from the “driving point” to the landing page, and on through to conversion.

Step 1

The place where I started was a 3″ x 5″ printed card (see Step 1).  Remember that a driving point for online marketing often starts offline, and there’s no reason offline collateral can’t be optimized.  This touch-point does a decent job establishing the theme “Team Edward” that will be continued online.  A custom URL helps as well; easy to remember even if you lose the card.

Let’s take a look at www.TeamEdwardBottle.com (see Step 2).  The landing page is decent, and reflects the

Step 2

look and feel of the movie, as well as the “Team Edward vs. Team Jacob” theme that is essential to a much larger marketing campaign.  Apparently, young women across the country are pummeling each other with water bottles and other merchandise over this divisive issue   There are a few product features repeated from the offline card, the product photos are high quality, and the calls to action are relatively clear.  Also, there is a product upsell that would come in handy for a gift-buyer shopping for two daughters on opposite sides of the battle.  My only critique on this page is that I could use some reassurance about the security of the checkout.  I get the feeling that I’m not buying from Burger King, nor Twilight, but some 3rd party, and hence I’d like to feel a bit more comfortable about the credibility of that 3rd party.

Step 3

I clicked the Team Edward call to action to initiate the transaction.  On the next page (see Step 3), I’m presented with a standard shopping cart product/pricing table, although I’m a bit surprised to see “Team Jacob” in my cart!  They added the other product into my cart with a quantity of “zero,” which was a bit off-putting.  I don’t think I’d have risked annoying my customer.  Especially with the giant upsell banner already in place.  The good news is that now I do get a 3rd party Point of Action Assurance about security which makes me feel more confident to move forward.  Also, the wording of the call to action is strong.

Moving forward, I’m expecting to head into the standard “shipping and billing” page to do the real transaction.  Unfortunately, my expectations are not met, and I’m a bit shaken.  The seller has thrown up an overlay popup (see Step 4) trying for a third or fourth time

Step 4

to upsell me into buying another bottle.  But, the whole point of the campaign is to choose sides!  Enough is enough!  This hardcore interruption in the purchase flow is very risky.

After dismissing the overlay popup, I’m on to the real checkout process (see Step 5).  The true checkout page doesn’t have anything terribly wrong with it, but it just doesn’t feel credible.  I’ve never even seen a 3-column layout in a checkout!  And something as subtle as the serif font adds to the feel that this was thrown-together in about 10 minutes.  Again, just because nothing is broken doesn’t mean that people will convert.  Every pixel, every visual cue you present, will either add to, or subtract from, the persuasive momentum the prospect has heading into checkout.

Step 5

Once I made it through the checkout page, I was on to confirm my order.  At this point, everything should be done, and all I have to do is review my entries, and click “Buy,” right?  Well, take a look at Step 6’s screenshot.  You’ll notice that something MAJOR is missing.  I don’t see a call to action, do you?  Ouch, that is a persuasive scenario about to break down, and money about to be left on the table.  A simple check should always be run on critical pages like this one:  Is the primary call to action above the fold, high-contrast, and clearly labeled? If no, fix it.  If yes, consider testing it.  The call to action was hidden below the fold, see Step 6a.

Also, since this was a gift I was buying for someone, and part of a self-proclaimed “Holiday” promotion, where was I supposed to input a greeting/gift message for the recipient?  That is a pretty basic feature these days, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t have included it.

Step 6

Step 6a

After I finally found the call to action, and transacted, the “thank you” page had no major defects or noteworthy items.  Remember that thank you pages are still a chance to interact with your customers, so don’t waste the opportunity to test different offers, messages, upsells, or ways to collect useful data.

Similarly, the email confirmation I received had no serious challenges, but also could be considered a lost opportunity because it didn’t invite me to take further action.  Considering I just bought a movie-themed water bottle, there are dozens of different messages they could test presenting to me to see which ones resonated.  Think about fan clubs, movie sites, a Facebook fan page, a Twitter stream, a blog, etc.  The customer’s inbox is hallowed ground, so don’t be dismissive of the opportunity to reengage the purchaser and ask them to continue to interact with your site and your marketing efforts.

All in all, I give the persuasion funnel a “B-” grade.  The usability of the checkout was OK, but that is expected.  A few tests could confirm how risky those aggressive upsell interruptions were, and the one major flaw on the purchase page could be fixed in 30 minutes or less, but how much money has it lost already?

I think the temptation with marketing campaigns that end in transactions is to not take them seriously enough because they are viewed as “short-term” projects. But, a very inexpensive usability test or audit by a pro could have found that one major “below the fold” issue and prevented lost sales.  Optimization doesn’t have to be a major project conducted on a major redesign of a major site.  It can and should be done on marketing outreach programs no matter how short-lived they’ll be.  If you’re investing marketing dollars on it, you owe it to yourself to optimize for better marketing ROI.

Staying in a mediocre hotel in Albany, NY (with mediocre WiFi) got me thinking about another optimization tactic that we forgot to post about this year: SITE PERFORMANCE.

[Note: I was curious about how the big industry players were doing in terms of performance, so I started hitting them from my lousy WiFi connection.  The un-scientific results are sprinkled throughout this post, and they aren't all that surprising ]

So, if the goal is to for your site to be flooded with qualified, motivated buyers all through the Holiday Season, has your site been optimized for that flood of traffic? Performance testing is a good start, but that can only tell you how fast code loads, http response times, etc.

The more important thing is what the customer experience is like when your B2C site is under heavy traffic loads:

• What order do elements load in?  Is the user stuck staring at your logo while they wait for product images or navigation?
• Are your calls to action bulletproof?  If the button images are slow to load, do you have text behind them that loads first and is still prominent and high-contrast?
• Does your global navigation ALWAYS load quickly?  How about search?
• Have you been “naughty” or “nice” in regards to having good alt test behind images and links?
• Do javascript menus have alternate HTML versions?
• Was your site’s code architected to provide the best user experience under the worst server load conditions?

The software development profession uses the phrase “degrade gracefully” to describe a site or application that still works with javascript turned off, images turned off, on dial-up connections, on Internet Explorer 4, etc.

I like to think the same concept should be applied to sites that are under heavy traffic stress. If every GrokDotCom.com reader decided to hit your site within the same 10-minute period, would your site ‘degrade gracefully,’ or would it be completely un-usable?  Go try shopping on your site on a dial-up connection.  Of course, it’s going to be frustrating, but do the important things load first?  Can you at least navigate/browse/search while you’re waiting for pages to fully load?

Site performance optimization is definitely not FutureNow’s area of expertise, but these screenshots are a good reminder that all the fancy conversion rate optimization in the world won’t help if your site takes too long to load, or won’t load at all (ahem…Bing.com shopping site!).  Remember that “Functional” is the base of the Hierarchy of Optimization!

1. It’s often where “low-hanging fruit” grows. Conversion obstacles can often be removed quickly, leading to large gains in a short period of time.
2. It’s an area where you’ve already succeeded in persuading the prospect. They are in the Late Stage of their buying process, so a relatively low investment can give you a relatively high return.  In other words, you don’t have to produce pages and pages of persuasive content to move the visitor forward in her buying process.
3. Customer expectations regarding their online shopping experiences are rising every day. If your competitor has a more optimized checkout, they may be taking market share from you.

There’s a very wide spectrum of online selling solutions, from a PayPal button on a single sales page to a highly-customized checkout with a floating/sliding/shining interface and behaviorally-targeted cross-selling.  Still, FutureNow’s clients tend to fall into 1 of 2 camps:  those with a 3rd-party cart and those with a custom-built cart.

There are pros and cons to each, which I’ll touch on briefly, but please don’t consider this brief post the authoritative work on the subject–there’s lots of research and reviews out there on the various shopping cart investment options.

3rd Party Shopping Carts, also known as “canned”: Some of the pros are lower cost, quicker time to market, and the efficiencies/convenience gained when you buy a package that handles payment gateway, fraud protection, SSL encryption, etc.  Some of the cons are lack of control over look and feel, lack of control over the user experience, and more difficulties encountered with testing and optimization.  The tradeoffs seem pretty straightforward, but a lot depends on the IT resources you have at your disposal.

Custom Shopping Carts: Some of the pros are a user experience that’s more tightly integrated with the rest of your site, better tracking for better analytics, easier to make changes and add features, and easier integration with testing tools like Google Website Optimizer.  The obvious cons are higher cost, more operational overhead, and slower time to market.  Again, the tradeoffs are the same, and a lot depends on your company’s resources, budget, and business goals.

Those prospects we speak with who are interested in optimizing for a higher return on their eCommerce investments often ask questions like: Can I optimize my 3rd party shopping cart? The answer is a definitive “Yes!” even on the most restrictive 3rd party carts. One of our clients enjoyed a 38% increase month-over-month in their “funnel conversion rate” just by adding some reassuring copy and links only in the areas of their cart they had access to: the header and the footer!

That’s an extreme example, but with our guidance, clients can make the best of their current platform, whatever it happens to be.  And many clients, after getting a few “wins,” decide they want to upgrade from a 3rd party cart to a partially or fully custom cart.  In that situation, we often work to optimize their checkout before it goes live, saving them time and money, and then continue to refine the customer experience and persuasiveness of the live cart through more formal testing. We also work with several implementation partners who grok Persuasion Architecture and can build custom carts based on OnTarget recommendations.

The point of all of this is that you shouldn’t defer or avoid Optimization based on what type of checkout platform you have.  Persuasion Architecture is “platform-agnostic,” and the best time for Optimization is always “Now.”

Enter the “Product Configurator.” While it sounds a bit like an evil robot out of control, what we’re talking about today is simply an online application to allow prospects to customize a product on their way to buying it. This can be a lot of fun for online shoppers if done well, and lead to increased conversions or it can be a huge waste of money if the user experience isn’t really well thought out. If it’s planned out poorly, it may frustrate visitors and lead to a decrease in performance.

One of the main reasons survey takers give for NOT buying retail items online is the inability to touch/hold/feel the product before buying.  This is a challenge that almost all eRetailers have to work to overcome, and letting them see their customizations in real time as they play around with different configurations and features can be a good tactic to make sure people make it all the way through checkout.  It can also be a way to make gift shopping more fun–seeing the product “come alive” as you customize it for someone special on your shopping list can be very persuasive and exciting.  Finally, product configurators can be a great way to convert Early and Middle Stage buyers; those who aren’t quite ready to pull out their credit card yet.  The ability to save what they’ve configured can be a “hook” to get them back into the buying process, or at least allow you to market to them as time goes on.

When I think of being able to customize a product and buy it, I tend to think of sites like CafePress.com and Zazzle.com who specialize in small items like hats, t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc.  But I wanted to grab some more interesting examples for you, so let’s look at a couple West Coast companies who let bike riders have a little fun as they create unique products to purchase.

Example #1: Mission Bicycle Company

In the mood to build a custom fixed-gear bicycle?  Probably not, but use your imagination!  This site’s product configurator takes you step-by-step through the process, using clear copy explanations, a progress indicator, and friendly assurances.  They manage to do this using plenty of white space in a clean layout and flow.

In the end, you can see a mockup of your bike’s design, which components you’ve chosen, and an itemized price.  My favorite part is that it doesn’t get too heavy into jargon, which would make the n00b feel intimidated.

Example #2: Timbuk2

Once you’ve designed your fancy bicycle to ride around on the streets of San Francisco, you’ll need a cool bag to haul your laptop and other sundries, right?  This brings us to another West Coast company’s “build your own bag” product app.

Timbuk2’s site does a nice job of using actual photographic images as opposed to illustrative graphics.  It’s impressive that they cover the many permutations (bag types, colors, patterns, add-ons, etc.) with high-quality photos.  The flow through the options is very intuitive, and in the end you definitely feel like you’ve made something that reflects your tastes.  This makes NOT buying it very difficult!

So those are two examples in a very narrow niche.  I ask all Grok readers: Who else is doing a good job with this type of online app?  Who does it well in clothing?  Shoes? (other than Nike, please!)  Laptops?  Leave a comment about whose product configurator you like, why, and what product category it’s in.  Also chime in if you’re building something like this in time for Holidays 2009!

A valid question/concern, to be sure.  Our answer is, of course, “It depends.”  However, here are a few approaches that we’ve seen work:

Extreme Effort Until a Certain Date

Look at your previous year’s analytics and the upward trend of conversions closer to the holidays.  When did it start to trend up in a consistent manner?  Mid-October?  November?  Late-November?  Based on last year’s trend line, pick a date after which you’ll stop optimizing and stabilize your site for the Holiday rush.  Then, free up all the budget and resources you can to work on an optimization to-do list from today until your stop date.  After the Holidays, you can finish everything that didn’t get finished before your stop date.

Optimize the Checkout Process

Another approach is to focus solely on the checkout process from now until the end of the Holidays.  This means leaving the homepage, landing pages, content pages, etc. alone until 2010, and just test and optimize the cart pages to squeeze every last conversion out of those folks you’ve persuaded.

Merchandise for the Holidays (a.k.a. Deck the Halls)

Some clients want a site-wide approach that ties in with Holiday shopping and gift-giving.  This is less about optimization and more about seasonal relevance, but it’s still a valid approach that could lift your Holiday conversions.  Many sites simply throw a Holiday-themed graphic on their homepage and call it “done,” but the world-class sites have little touches throughout the site to put their prospects in a shopping mood.  eBay has done some nice, subtle things to dress their site up around the Holidays, and I’m sure they have something up their sleeve this year.  One of our clients last year used empty real estate throughout the site, including the shopping cart, to display some Holiday messaging and graphics.  They also updated their checkout through the last week of the Rush to indicate how many days were left to have gifts reach recipients by 12/24, creating a nice sense of urgency as well as being informative.

Split Your To-Do List

A fourth approach is to simply brainstorm every optimization you think could impact your conversion rate.  Then, use various criteria to split the list into “pre-Holidays” and “post-Holidays.”  Commit the resources and intensity to get the “pre” list done, then leave the “post” list until everyone is back in the office and the 2010 budget is approved .  This is probably the easiest approach, but carries with it the risk that you’ll implement some low-impact optimizations, when you could have implemented the high-impact items.  In this case, we recommend outside help to prioritize that list!

We hope these ideas help everyone find an approach they’re comfortable with, execute well, and reap the rewards!

The ones who make it through will be those who are passionate about the customer experience, AND who are able to prioritize their work between now and the “Holiday Crunch” so that the hours expended actually impact the number of sales they make.

Where do you start if you want your site to be a stellar performer this Holiday Season?  A great place for most to start is on Shopping Cart Abandonment.  That’s low in your sales funnel, where you’re losing customers who were already acquired via marketing and persuaded to buy from you!

Let’s examine a prioritized list of reasons shoppers listed that caused them to abandon shopping carts.  Then, we’ll offer actionable suggestions corresponding to each concern.  The data comes from the 8th Annual Merchant Survey, conducted by PayPal and comScore in April of this year.

#1 High shipping charges

We’re all aware of this challenge, and it’s somewhat out of your hands, but there are things you can do.  One is to thing is to test different shipping offers in the cart.  Another, if you have a certain order value that qualifies for free shipping, is to display how much more the customer needs to qualify.  For example, “You are $xx.xx away from free shipping!  Continue shopping »”

#2 Wanted to comparison shop

Make sure you’re saving customer carts for at least 30 days, maybe more for the Holidays.  A recent study sponsored by McAfee showed that the average time span between visiting a site and checking out was 34 hours! Acknowledge that this behavior is occurring and plan for it.  If you’re sending “cart recovery” emails inside of 24 hours, you may be really annoying your prospective customers!

#3 Leaving to Google a coupon code

If you have a coupon code capture field on your “View Shopping Cart” page, you may consider moving that capture later in the checkout process, when prospects are more ‘invested’ in the process and less likely to bail and go “coupon Googling.”  Some of our clients offer coupons right on their site as a way to combat this behavior, and it works.

#4 Couldn’t find preferred payment option

Most eStore owners offer a proper assortment of payment options, BUT are your customers seeing them at the point of concern?  We call these Point of Action Assurances.  When the prospect is in your cart, and wondering about their payment options, are you reassuring them at the point of action that you offer BillMeLater, PayPal, etc.?  Test different placements of those assurances.

#5 Item unavailable at checkout

Yikes!  This issue simply needs to be dealt with on your product pages, before the cart.  If an item is out of stock, why not capture an email so you can notify when the item is back in stock?  Zappos.com does a good job of this when a certain size of shoe is out of stock.

#6 Couldn’t find customer support

Similar to #4, most online stores do offer good customer service options, but sometimes your prospects aren’t seeing them at the appropriate point in the cart.  Test those placements.  Also, if you use live chat support, and the chat service is “offline,” what is the customer experience like?

#7 Security concerns

Similar to #1, this is somewhat out of your hands…the Web isn’t 100% safe for shoppers, and they know it.  But, Point of Action Assurances, 3rd party security seals, and credibility of design are key.  Another great opportunity for testing different placements and different seals in the checkout.

Blogger’s Note: Apologies for excluding other winter holidays in the title of this post; I was just going for alliteration

First, there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the Usability camp about redesigns and how radical they should be.

Mr. Nielson’s thoughts resonated with me given that our OnTarget product is generally focused on incremental improvement of clients’ existing websites. He urges readers to avoid redesigns that involve massive change to a site’s user interface.  Why?  Because users (read: customers and prospects) hate change and love the familiar, even if we as marketers are sick of how our own sites look.  It’s always good advice to “evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design.”  He also recommends “getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live several years with minor updates.”  I think that’s a key point: a good (re)design is one that can stay fresh and current for several years, and accommodate a process of continuous improvement and incremental change.

I’ve seen many gorgeous site redesigns that didn’t stand up to that criteria–they weren’t well-coded, well-documented, or maintainable.  And when it came time to start optimizing, the marketing team found many unexpected constraints that made incremental changes more expensive than they bargained for.

Another point I’d like to drive home is that redesigns should be done with ROI in mind, not because internal stakeholders are sick of the look and feel.  There should be documented goals that can be measured, for example, increasing pages per visit by 20%, and increasing conversion rate by 5%.  And flexibility should be built in, so that you can always have a “to do list” of small improvements you can implement each month to incrementally build on your successes.

Finally, if you are considering a moderate to major redesign, keep in mind that usability testing can be done on very simple prototypes before you make major investments.  And, we love giving feedback on mockups, wireframes, prototypes, etc. because it allows our clients to launch with the best possible product, after which we start the process of continuous improvement.

If you’re interested in improving your product detail/landing pages and cross-selling, this video (and upcoming Part 2 video) is not to be missed.

1. Schwan’s 35.2
2. Keurig 31.3
3. ProFlowers 26.0
4. Vitacost22.5
5. Blair 22.4
6. DrsFosterSmith.com 22.4
7. Woman Within 21.3
8. Amway Global 20.5
9. Roamans.com 18.7
10. Office Depot 17.9

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Benchmarks according to the FireClick Index

Increasing your conversion rate requires you to follow a continuous improvement program? If you need help improving your results let us know.

As I relate the following three eCommerce mishaps, be thinking about whether you can eradicate all of them from your business by the time the “Holiday Rush” hits. ALL are preventable, if you start today and take one item at a time.

Let’s start at the “precipitating event;” the spark that lit my desire to shop online…

1. An email with a promo code arrived.  w00t!  They paid attention to past purchases, and sent me a great promotion: 10% off a brand I’ve purchased before, and free shipping if the order exceeds a certain amount.

How They’re Losing Sales: Despite not mentioning an expiration date for the promo code, it was expired by the time I reached checkout.  I’m notoriously slow for opening emails from online retailers, but I bet I’m not alone.  Creating a sense of urgency with an expiration date is fine, but remember that shoppers sometimes go weeks without going through their personal email accounts to read your promo codes.

And now it’s Customer Service’s turn…

2. When the promo code came up as expired, I was understandably disappointed.  I’d just spent a fair amount of my weekend building up enough value in my shopping cart to qualify for the free shipping (Yes, I’m cheap.)  My credit card was out of my wallet.  So, I clicked the live chat in the cart to see if they’d extend the promo code, or give me an equivalent one.

How They’re Losing Sales: The live chat agent, while polite and earnest, was not able to do anything to help me (be a cheapskate).  They weren’t empowered by their employer to get creative and save me from abandoning my cart.  They suggested I call the “real” Customer Service during regular M-F business hours.  So my guess is that the live chat is being outsourced, which is fine, but if they aren’t empowered to save sales, they’re probably not giving good ROI.

Now stepping up to the plate, Technology…

3. I came back the next day with the intention of calling the retailer and trying to get them to extend the promo code or give me the equivalent deal.  So, I returned to the site and clicked “My Cart” to review what I’d put in there, and have it on-screen when I called.

How They’re Losing Sales: They didn’t save my cart! So many sites are saving cart items via cookie that I assumed my items would be there the following day or week.  So now I’m definitely not going to re-build my cart AND call them to try and negotiate the promo code.  I’m going to just repress the whole memory…maybe I’ll even forget the retailer’s brand in the process!

These 3 blunders may seem unconnected from a business perspective, but from a buyer perspective, they were all part of a persuasion scenario that broke down and turned a VERY motivated shopper into a lost sale.

I do like the site, and hope they can address these issues and stay in business.  But they and others will have a very painful holiday sales season if they don’t treat the disparate parts as a unified buying experience that must be nearly flawless to be profitable.

My question to Grok readers is:
Will Amazon’s infamous pressure-cooker culture eventually overtake all the innovations and friendliness of Zappos’s culture? Or, is the alliance a perfect shot-in-the-arm for both groups?  Will Zappos start bundling books with patent leather pumps?

But I just felt I had to call out an example of how poor copywriting and writing for search engine robots can ruin a decent Unique Value Proposition.

I was referred to a site to look at their homepage design (see screenshot, highlighting is mine), and immediately noticed that they had a prominent Unique Value Proposition (UVP) statement, which was promising.

The UVP statement wasn’t the best I’ve read, but at least it was an attempt that could be tested and refined. But the sub-text under the UVP was what irked me enough to write this post.

Someone decided to “we-we” all over the UVP! And it looks like they also tried to write for search engine robots instead of humans with credit cards:

“We specialize in custom ties, custom bow ties, bowtie / cummerbund / handkerchief sets, custom cufflinks, matching gift boxes, women ’s scarves, and much more. We can custom make your neckwear any way you desire. We have both standard ties and clip on ties as well as extra long ties for your custom ties. We even have custom ties for boys as young as 6 months. Our products are great for corporations, organizations, churches, choirs, schools, uniforms, athletic teams, fraternities, formal and special events, and many more.”

Notice that by focusing on SEO only, they end up with copy that will resonate with no one.

Here’s the official tally from our free We We Calculator:

Your Customer Focus Rate: 37.50% (3 customer-focused words)

Your Self Focus Rate: 62.50% (5 self-focused words, and 0 mentions of the Company Name)

You speak about yourself about 2 times as often as you speak about your customers. Might that have an impact on your effectiveness?

I’m not a Search Engine Optimization guru, but I’d wager that any SEO prowess you lost by fixing that kind of copy could be made up by 1 or 2 quality, keyw0rd-rich inbound links from reputable, related sites, don’t you?

Here are 5 key, unanswered questions (beyond shipping costs) of the shopping cart:

1. Do you offer alternate forms of payment (aside from credit card)?
2. Are you safe and secure?
3. Why are you asking for this information?
4. Do I have to set up an account to buy?
5. Do I get to review my order before we transact?

I recently bought a Father’s Day present online from a gift retailer, and their overall shopping cart process was “OK.”  I would give it a “B-” grade; it was good enough to get me through the purchase without bailing, but not nearly good enough to earn brand loyalty.  But, they did a good job of clearly answering the 5 Questions, and it was enough to help them “Get The Cash.”

I captured some elements of their billing page so you could see how their design answers the 5 unanswered customer questions.  When you click on the screenshots, can you pick which design element answers which question?

Are you adequately answering the 5 unanswered questions? Whether your confidence level is low, high, or somewhere in between, we know you could run some interesting tests to validate your assumptions about how well you’re doing, and you might increase your funnel conversion rate in the process!  Want help?  Let us know.

1. Schwan’s 50.5
2. FTD 27.2
3. ProFlowers 24.3
4. Vitacost.com 23.7
5. Woman Within 22.7
6. Roaman’s 21.1
7. ColdWater Creek 20.0
8. Eddie Bauer 19.3
9. Blair.com 20.20
10. QVC 17.30

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Additional March Retail Benchmarks:

The online retail sector in general registered an encouraging increase in ecommerce activities in March 2009 compared to February 2009 (month over month) but down compared to March 2008 (year over year).

“Consumers who shopped online in March purchased nearly 12.0 percent more items compared to the previous month, while the average dollar value increased by more than 4.0 percent, suggesting that not only were consumers buying more items online, they were actually spending more money on average than they had just the month before.

Unsurprisingly, year-over-year retail metrics for March remain down across the board compared to March 2008. The average number of items per order, average order value and shopping cart conversion all fell significantly—8.1 percent, 6.3 percent and 3.4 percent respectively—compared to March 2008.“

Page Views Per Session 11.39
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 476.13
Average Items/Order 5.82
Average Order Value $143.93
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 34.52%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 65.48%

* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.

Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.

1. Schwan’s 42.10
2. ProFlowers 36.50
3. Quixtar 33.20
4. Vitacost.com 28.90
5. Woman Within 24.20
6. LL Bean.com 20.40
7. Office Depot 20.30
8. Tickets.com 20.20
9. 1800Flowers 17.30
10. QVC 17.10

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Additional February Retail Benchmarks:

The online retail sector in general registered dramatic drops in ecommerce activities in February 2009 compared to January 2009 (month over month) and February 2008 (year over year).

“Gifts retailers and Jewelers—both traditional winners on Valentine’s Day—reported 23 percent and 15 percent increases in order sessions respectively. However, the average dollar value of those orders did not match these increases, with a modest increase of 4 percent for gifts retailers and a decrease of 14.3 percent for jewelers. These numbers illustrate that even on those occasions when consumers want to spend, they are spending in a more restrained fashion than in the past.”

Page Views Per Session 11.70
Product Page Views Per Session 3.17
Average Time on Site (in seconds) 481.05
Average Items/Order 5.21
Average Order Value $138.27
Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 34.39%
Shopping Cart Abandonment 65.61%
New Visitor Conversion Rate 2.00%
On-site Search Session 17.6%

* Source: Coremetrics LIVEmark Benchmarks US (PDF) – UK benchmarks PDF available.

Coremetrics LIVEmark leverages aggregate performance data across more than 300 participating brands to deliver over 35 benchmark metrics addressing performance indicators such as campaign and channel effectiveness, site stickiness and conversion rates.

Recently, I went to MySpace.com to look up a semi-obscure band.  Why did I go there instead of my usual search engine query?  Because every band is on MySpace.  If you are a band, and live in the Milky Way solar system, you are on MySpace, and everyone knows it.  It’s the kind of reputation you could leverage into ad revenue…you know, relevant banner ads, text ads, promotions, etc.

Midway through my brief listening session, the infamous MySpace music player stopped performing its function and overlayed an ad.  To continue listening, I had to dismiss a very intrusive banner.

I won’t waste anyone’s time with why interrupting my favorite song with a banner ad that has to be actively dismissed is a bad idea.  Instead, let’s follow the experience of that one visitor in a million who wants to stop listening to cool music, go off to another site, and take a completely different action.

So let’s look at the persuasion scenario the advertiser, Dominoes Pizza, has paid to funnel us into.

The Creative: It’s professional-looking, but it could at least try to have something to do with music.  The call to action button doesn’t really stand out or contrast, and it’s asking for a lot (go from listening to music to ordering food online).

The Landing Page: Yikes, that doesn’t look very fun.  Where’s the scent of information for me to follow?  Am I in the right place?  They also get bonus points for giving me a promotional price on 3 medium pizzas instead of sandwiches!

The Rest of the Scenario: I clicked into the scenario a bit deeper out of morbid curiosity.  Once again, nothing makes me more persuaded to order sandwiches online than a big picture of a plain cheese pizza.  The whole experience seems geared towards ordering pizza, which makes sense if I am a direct entry visitor.  Couldn’t they pass a parameter so the page defaults to the Sandwiches tab?

Disruptive advertising is risky. I’ve already started a mental list of brands I now hate because they interrupted my music listening (Blockbuster and Insurance.com joined the list).  So, if you’re going to risk a bad “brand exposure,” and a backlash of negative word of mouth (or worse yet, bloggers ), you’d better have your ducks in a row for those who actually click through into your conversion funnel.

Have you ever received great advice from a consultant but couldn’t implement it?

A recommendation is just advice, no matter how excellent, until you implement.

It’s only when you implement a recommendation that you reap the rewards.

Even when you know the advice is great you can get consulting indigestion.

You, the client, in consuming the advice can be the log jam or the hero of every consulting engagement. It’s rarely the consultant that makes the difference. If you choke or get indigestion then consulting leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Just-In-Time Optimization

We have always tried hard to screen for toxic clients with unrealistic expectations. Our NPS scores are excellent and our client successes speak for themselves.  Nevertheless, the most common lament among our clients isn’t about us it’s about them. They simply don’t have extra resources or time to implement everything we recommend.

We could ask our customers to change or we could change.

We chose to change!

Instead of providing you with a gut busting all-you-can-eat buffet we’ll provide you only the healthiest tastiest morsels of advice that you can actually consume and we’ll do it for much less money.

Think of it as just-in-time optimization. You tell us how much time and resources you can devote and we’ll prioritize our recommendations based on how much impact it will have towards reaching your goal.

You get analysis and recommendations without the considerable expense of having to hire an analyst.

We’re Not Crazy

Well at least we’re not dangerous, except to your competitors.

OnTarget, our new software-as-service model allows us to automate a great deal of otherwise costly consulting tasks that don’t provide as much value to you.

With OnTarget you get:

1. Our expert analysis of your online lead generation and sales efforts;
2. The best recommendations you can actually implement with an estimate of time & resources required;
3. Pricing based on your ability to implement (starts as low as $1,000 a month) so that you achieve the highest return on investment of your time, money & resources.

We are launching the OnTarget program this week. We will be busy revising our website all week but you can preview the OnTarget service description.

If you want to know more or want to inquire about our reseller program please contact us.

We at FutureNow are big proponents of setting up a business culture of testing, optimization, and continuous improvement.  There are lots of advantages like improved conversion rates, bigger bottom lines, surviving tough economic times, getting past draining internal debates, and so much more.

Another advantage that we haven’t talked about as much is that an optimization culture can get you past the dangers of “best practices.” Many of our clients have implemented the “best practices” of other sites (or even other industries) and then wonder why they aren’t seeing big gains.  The main reason is that they’ve merely copied other sites’ ideas, and not tested to validate that those practices will work for their own unique site and business model.

I saw an interesting deviation from an industry “best practice” the other day, and whether it’s true or not, I imagine that testing allowed the site designers to go their own way instead of following the herd.

See the screenshot from Amazon.com’s “submit order” page.  Take a look at how they’ve handled the common issue of getting the purchaser to agree to terms and conditions before purchasing.  Many sites and site designers struggle with their Legal departments on how to secure agreement to terms while not reducing the quality of user experience (and conversion rate).

If you’ve read Always Be Testing, you’ve seen how we reference Amazon.com’s many evolutions of their site designs over time which come out of a very disciplined testing and optimization culture.

The common “best practice” in this scenario is to either:
a) have a checkbox near the call to action button that says something like “You must check the box to agree to terms before you submit your order.”
b) have copy near the call to action button that says something like  “By clicking the button below, you agree to our terms and conditions.”
In either case, the common design pattern is to hyperlink to the terms and conditions (near the call to action) so concerned visitors can read them in full.

Now note the subtle deviation from “best practice” on Amazon.com’s current page:

• They have no checkbox.  One less click between the visitor and Getting the Cash.
• They have the standard legal language at the top of the page in a much less prominent position.  It’s outside of the ‘box’ that contains the order information.
• The hyperlinks to the terms that the visitor is accepting are in the footer of the page; nowhere near the call to action.  You’d really have to be looking for them to find them.

So how did Amazon.com get the gumption to leave “best practice” design in the dust?  Again, I can’t be sure of this, but we wager that testing results and analytics data played a major part in the design.  I highly doubt that their Legal experts are playing fast and loose with legal and financial risk!

So there you have one of the less-thought-about benefits of a testing and optimization culture.  Only through testing can you gather the data you need to safely and comfortably make the decisions that work for your business, not your industry.  Best practices are pretty dangerous when you haven’t tested to validate and re-validate them.

As we’ve said many times, don’t copy Amazon.com’s design just because they’re an industry leader.  Do your own testing to gather insight, then make the design decisions that work for you.  And in the spirit of shameless plugs, we’re here to help if you need us.

Well sports fans, here we go.  Black Friday.  Soon, Cyber Monday.  (Forgive me for the brief digression, but did you know neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday typically deliver results, in the form of conversions, er, sales, mainly just delivering traffic   Unsurprisingly, retail numbers thus far have been bleak, to say the least.

Retailers are hopeful however, and doing everything they can to jumpstart the economy and try to turn a profit this holiday season.  Amazon got my attention with their personalized email, touting deals exclusively for me, but really failed to deliver on the promise.  Uber-disappointing when you consider how much insight they have into my buying process, not to mention my personal as well as holiday gift time purchase history.  Yes, even the market leaders sometimes miss opportunities. Perhaps they need some help harvesting the insight from their customers’ past purchase behavior?  [*Update* CNBC documents Amazon's strategy.]

Naturally, many retailers are using price cuts to try and attract attention.  Even brands who rarely do so, like Apple for instance, give kickbacks to customers this weekend.  Who says Politicians should be the only ones to prosper?!  [Don't say we're not in the giving back mood either- deal hunters should stop by Gizmodo for a rundown of all the best deals this weekend.  *Update* NY Times has a good rundown too.]

Not every retailer is up to the same old tricks though.  Sears, through a partnership with Yahoo is trying to capture the holiday spirit, and capitalize on the web sense of community to spur sales.  Of course, they promise exclusive deals as part of the promotion .

If history is any indicator, each of these efforts will result in traffic spikes (not only on websites but highways and mall parking lots as well!) of highly motivated would-be customers. These potential prospects certainly have a list of products in mind, or if they’re earlier on in the buying process, an idea of what type of product they’re shopping for.  Everyone hates to be sold, but loves to buy. Buying is about the experience, above and beyond the “right price”.  What will you do to convert those could-be customers into delighted customers?

Plato said, “necessity is the mother of invention.”  If Plato were faced with a marketing budget coming under fire to pare costs and brace for a long dark winter, I respectfully suggest he’d get focused on “inventing” some ideas around Optimization.  Your traffic is coming to your website for a reason, and if your conversion rate is in the single digits, perhaps it’s time to consider what your audience is telling you, and do something about it.  After all, you won’t have the same luxuries to keep spending $$ on driving an overabundance of traffic.  Perhaps now is the time to capitalize on opportunity: the web is your home to listen not to what they say, but rather to what they do! We’re always here to help you listen, and turn your audience feedback into actionable (and continuous) website improvements. 

Tomorrow we’ll start to see a harbinger of things to come.  Will Santa’s little elves be out in full force?  Most definitely.  But the larger question we want answered is, will the experience be enough to overcome the last stage of the buying process- reevaluation. So, in the name of research, go out and enjoy the deals… but let us know about the experience.

Do you see more sites this weekend who deliver on their promises, or are your expectations continuing to outdistance the experience they provide?  We want to know!  Our audience does too, so please sound off in the comments.

As obvious as that statement is, many still seem to deny the equally obvious implication: you won’t keep profit margins healthy unless you actively take business away from someone else – either from direct competitors, or from businesses outside your market/category.  If the pumpkin pie gets smaller, you’ll have to cut a fatter slice in order to get the same amount of holiday pie.

But how can you do that on the short term?  With the holiday season upon us, what can you do right now to ensure window shoppers actually buy from you (instead of someone else)?

Watch this video and take a hard look at how you can improve your websites with holiday focused Point-of-Action assurances.

Then read this article to get 10 outstanding “must do” action items.  Some of them will take longer than others, but many of the earlier recommendations could be executed so as to yield results for the Christmas and holiday seasons.

Plus, don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar tomorrow so you can leverage Google’s Quality Score – the Secret Factor to PPC Success for your holiday pay per click campaigns.