Week 1: Best of A/B Testing - DHL Ethnicity & Gender Testing

Welcome to our six-part blog series entitled “Best of A/B Testing.”  Every week we will be showcasing a customer A/B test, along with testing results and learning. 

This Tuesday, we are  showcasing a two-part A/B test from DHL Australia, an international leader in courier, express and parcel delivery services.

Which courier image increased lead conversion rates 30%?

Test 1: European vs Asian
Traffic source: Pay-per click advertising on Google
Market: Australia 
Test Type: Imagery; testing ethnicity & gender

Hypothesis: A European courier image will drive more lead conversions than an Asian courier image because Australian searchers will find a strong emotional connection to a European courier (90% of Australia’s population is of European descent).
 

Results: Surprisingly, the Asian courier drove 30% more lead conversions than the European courier. It is interesting to note that over 8% of the Australian population is of Asian descent (predominantly Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino and Indian).

After the initial ethnicity test, DHL continued to test imagery. The second A/B split tested gender, a female against a male courier of Asian descent.

Which courier image increased lead conversion rates 15%? 

Test 2: Female vs Male
Traffic source: Pay-per click advertising on Google
Market: Australia 
Test Type: Imagery; testing gender 

Hypothesis: A female courier will drive more lead conversions than an male courier because previous testing results (in Norway) showed female imagery as a strong driver of conversion.

Results: The female Asian courier drove 15% more lead conversions than the European courier, similar to results in Norway, where female imagery resulted in a 25% increase in lead conversions.

DHL operates in over 220 countries and territories, and specializes in providing customers with customized transportation solutions from a single source. 

In 2010, Global Digital Marketing Specialist, Rolf Inge Holden, adopted LiveBall and deployed the software to marketing departments in 50 markets. Since, DHL has created landing pages in over and 200 countries and territories in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Learn more.

Landing Pages for Social Media Marketing

Social media is all around us. From Facebook to Twitter, more people than ever use social networks to communicate with friends, family and colleagues. They also use them to follow brands and research recommendations about products and services. Using landing pages in your social media marketing can help you turn social interactions into social conversions. Let’s dig a little deeper and see how.

Get Social With Landing Pages

According to a wonderful post from Social Media Examiner, more businesses see increases in responses and leads with the addition of social media. In this post, they give us some great stats. Let’s talk about them and what they mean for how you can use landing pages in your social media efforts. 

1. Approximately 40% of social media users access their accounts through mobile devices. 

Today’s smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices allow us to access just about anything online.  As more people come to your landing page via social media, you can bet a good amount will use a mobile device.  For any social campaigns, you should be ready to automatically redirect mobile visitors to a mobile optimized version of your landing page.

2. Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S. site.

 With over 800 million users, there’s a good chance you will see many prospects hit your Facebook properties. This means if you don’t have a Facebook presence, now’s the time to get it started. 

Using an iframe, you can pull a Liveball landing page into one of your Facebook tabs. For instance, these pages could include an opt-in box for your email list or get people to demo or to download a whitepaper.  Every LiveBall console comes with templates designed to fit the specialized size requirements of Facebook, helping you create Facebook specific landing pages with code or development resources.

3. 51% of Facebook users and 64% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.

Wow – this one says a lot to me! With a loyal following on social networks, you will not only have a way to instantly communicate with prospects and customers, but you have a medium that earns trust faster – and that leads to more sales.

This means it’s important to stay active on your social networks to earn your prospects’ trust.  Keep in touch and market to these followers by use specific landing pages to offer free educational content, special offers or access to online events.  Make sure that you add social sharing buttons to these landing pages, so your fans can let their friends know about this cool whitepaper or demo they just saw.

How do you integrate social media with your landing pages? Leave us a comment to let us know!

7 Ways to Add "WOW" Factor to Your Landing Pages

Looking for a way to engage your visitors or present content in an interactive way?

Consider adding rich, layered and interactive motion content to your pages to help you add the wow factor your competitors are lacking. Rather than spending exorbitant amounts of money on custom Flash or javascript, utilize a landing page platform that gives you sophisticated, dynamic templates that empowers you to make beautiful pages with lots of “wow” — no code or development resources needed. 

• Improve your speed to market
• Reduce your reliance on production resources
• Entirely dynamic for marketer-managed updates

Tabs, accordions, rotators and lighboxes allow for “on page” content exploration, without sacrificing conversions. Make the most of your landing page real estate by incorporating one or more of these seven interactive elements.

1. Tabbed Content
Try using tabbed content to showcase product and/or service features.

2. Accordions
Accordions allow you to maximize space and and offer an interactive way to display and control large amounts of content. Accordions are especially useful for displaying information within mobile experiences.

3. & 4. Content & Product Rotators
Interactive rotators give you several dynamic ways to feature product imagery, testimonials and reviews.

5. Layered Content
Try layering content over images, without outsourcing to a designer. 

6. Lightboxes
Trigger forms, special offers, or additional information (such as privacy policy) to be displayed in lightboxes. 

7. Social Widgets
Last, but not least, add social widgets allowing visitors to ‘Like’ your page on Facebook, share on Google+ or tweet from their handle. 

So, where, you may ask, can I find a landing page platform that can offer these “wow” features? Right here, of course!

Every “off the shelf” LiveBall platform comes with the above functionality. No code or Flash required. Ready-Made Widgets are completely dynamic and customizable — just use the widget editor to add your images, content, links. Many of the elements even support conditional logic!

Statistics Show Mobile Landing Pages Are A Must

Ever look around and watch how many people are on their mobile devices, doing research or messaging someone? Yep, we all do it. Mobile internet use is quickly expanding, and it’s here to stay.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some serious statistics that show where mobile is going and why you should start creating mobile landing pages.

Increasing mobile usage

According to a release of the (IDC) Worldwide New Media Market Model forecast by 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wired devices.

In-store mobile usage

A survey by Yahoo! and the Nielsen company showed that 9 out of 10 mobile users utilized mobile Internet while in a store or mall. Of those users, about 50% of that activity was related to shopping.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for retailers to increase sales from mobile and to connect their offline sales to online sales. For instance, a store or retailer could use a QR code on a storefront window with a special incentive asking visitor to scan the code for special discounts or deals.

TV watching & mobile usage

According to the same survey, 86% of internet users will use their mobile device while watching TV. A quarter of those viewers say they browse content related to the subject they’re watching on TV.

With the ease of use with smaller and more convenient mobile devices, it’s not surprising – it’s so much easier to use your phone than to open your laptop.  Based on this statistic, if you’re directing TV ad traffic to your website - or if you just advertising on TV - you should be ready for mobile traffic. Creating mobile landing pages promoting a compelling offer that’s related to TV-based content is a great way to bring in more sales or leads.

Impulse Research and Buying

Ever HAD to know something or make a purchase, right away? Yes, I’m talking about the impulse buy or want to know about something there or it would drive you crazy thinking about it – all day!

According to the Yahoo! survey, 56% of respondents said they would use their mobile device when a PC/laptop wasn’t nearby and 45% would use them to research unplanned purchases.

Yes, you know I’m going to say it – another prime opportunity! Just think of how many conversions or sales you could get from all those prospects that needed what you offered – right away – if you greet with them a mobile-optimized landing pages.

What does this mean for you?

If you’re not making mobile landing pages, now’s the time to get it going! Check out these past posts on mobile landing page strategies and best practices:

•  One feature we love to have on mobile landing pages.
•  10 useful tips for creating mobile landing pages

 Did you enjoy these statistics on mobile Internet usage? Do you see the same trends with your own customers? Leave a comment below and share!

Top Landing Page Best Practices for Higher Conversion Rates

The number one goal of a landing page is to get visitors to convert – whether it’s a form fill or sale, your landing page should propel visitors to act.  If your visitors aren’t converting or if you want to increase your conversions even more, then it’s time to do some testing.

Although it’s not rocket science, putting together the right killer mix of elements to your page isn’t always easy.  What works for one traffic source may not work for another, so it’s important to always try out new ideas and combinations.  However there are certain time-tested and true landing page best practices for increasing conversion rates that you should check your pages for if you’re not happy with your conversion rate.  Use these landing page best practices as a starting point for your testing ideas and plans. 

Top Landing Page Best Practices For Higher Conversions 

• Uncomplicated forms – I’ve been on landing pages with some very compelling messaging and I almost filled out their form – almost. Long, complicated forms are a hassle and a turn off. The best forms only gather what is absolutely necessary – nothing more, nothing less.  Nurture programs and progressive profiling can help you build up prospect profiles over time.  For initial lead generation forms, whatever your form is asking should be proportional to the your offer.
  
  
• Center their attention – If a landing page has you looking in all different directions with no apparent target, it’s likely you’re going to click the mighty back button. The focus of a landing page should be to compel your visitor to convert – and that’s it! Keep all of the content on your landing page clear and focused on getting visitors to the conversion point. Take a big step away from your landing page (both figuratively and literally), is it still clear what you’d like your visitors to do?

• Use a compelling call to action – A good, clear call to action is vital! You need to tell your visitor what to do and how to do it – if you don’t, they may go away, never to return.  Make your call to actions compelling- don’t simply say “Submit” but try using active, positive messages like “Download your free whitepaper now” that reaffirm what visitors are getting from you.

• Give them what they want – Visitors come to your page for specific reasons – to get something that helps them solve a problem or answer a question. If you don’t address their needs right away, you’ve lost that conversion. If you’re getting traffic to your page then you know that whatever offer was in your ad or email is connecting with your visitors; keep their attention by continuing with that same offer and conversation on your landing page.

• Mind the fold – You know that part of the page that lies “above” the scrolling point? That’s the area above the fold and generally for an effective landing page, you need to put your most important elements for conversion – the elements that you definitely want your visitors to see – in that space.  You only have a moment to convince most visitors to stay so use your best real estate wisely. Don’t make visitors scroll to find your call to action or form.

Use these best practices to form new test ideas and to get your conversion rates up!  In addition to these conversion techniques, another great way to get your page ready for higher conversions is by using our READY framework.

If you are looking for a way to create and test high-converting landing pages, schedule a demonstration of our landing page solution, LiveBall, & we cab help you put these best practices and others in to action.