The winning splash page variant. Photo: Optimizely
President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign ran an excellent online operation. Much of their success derived from their successful use of A/B testing.
In an article on Optimizely, Dan Siroker explains a test the Obama campaign ran on the website’s splash page. They tested both the content of the page–pictures and video–and the wording of the call to action. They used the winning variant through the rest of the campaign, driving increased signups and increased revenue.
Siroker also reminds us a marketer’s intuition isn’t necessarily right:
Before we ran the experiment, the campaign staff heavily favored “Sam’s Video” (the last one in the slideshow shown above). Had we not run this experiment, we would have very likely used that video on the splash page. That would have been a huge mistake since it turns out that all of the videos did worse than all of the images.
In a post on Smashing Magazine, Christian Holst outlines 11 “fundamental guidelines” for e-commerce usability.
Perhaps the most universally relevant guideline is his suggestion to visually reinforce the security of credit card fields. This resolves an important issue that comes up with e-commerce forms of all sorts, including donation forms: “Customers might hesitate if credit card fields don’t appear secure (regardless of actual security).”
“By adding visual cues (such as borders, background color, and security icons and badges) around the form fields for credit cards,” Holst argues, “you can increase their perceived security for non-technical customers.”
Other tips include:
- Make the checkout process linear, without redirecting users to a previous step
- Apply clear labels to form fields and buttons
- Use shipping address as billing address by default
- Allow users to complete the transaction without registering
- Request only pertinent information
Implementing even some of these changes—testing, of course, to ensure they work—can result in large increases in conversion rate and revenue. Holst’s guide offers essential first steps for anyone looking to improve the effectiveness of their online transaction pages.
