Minor Changes Major Lifts: How headline and call-to-action optimization increased conversion 45%

all right well good afternoon or good morning depending on where you're calling from from around the world we're going to drill deeply into the content immediately as you can see on the screen we are showing the results of a major study we just did around the world with marketing organizations and it was shocking for us to learn that more than 52 percent uh only 52 actually finish an optimization project moreover as we drill down deeper we began to look and we saw that there were two critical areas that we might drill down on in this particular Clinic that can help you that have just uh logged in for this event these are the changes the most impactful elements and by the way you can see this in the landing page optimization Benchmark report published through marketing Sherpa one of our research companies and uh what's fascinating to me is that so much of the uh you might say the results or the improvements originated from changes in the headline copy and the location of the call to action now we have less than an hour together you may be wondering what can we do in this short period of time that can make a significant difference when I start back in The Daily Grind and in fact marketers everywhere are frustrated by the inability they have to get good tests up or to make the significant changes deep into their processes that they know would produce a high yield today is different we want to focus on something that we think will be highly actionable something you can take back something you can use something that will prevent or present you with pragmatic ways to get significant results and so we're going to drill down really thinking about the first two inches of your landing page and the last two inches of your landing page now coming up next in the very next research Clinic we'll show you a series of experiments about what happens in the middle but you know it doesn't matter what happens in the middle it doesn't matter if you don't get those first two inches right because no one's going to read what occurs in the middle and a lot of marketers focus on the call to action without thinking about those first two inches but today we want to show you how the first two inches and the last two inches come together and make such a significant difference for us so we're going to drill right into a case study and uh drill down again on the headline and the call to action and move into the study itself we're a test protocol one thousand one one and the goal is to increase qualified survey panelists some of you may have seen this before because we've drilled down on it in a different approach for a different reason we need it today to learn about those first two inches in fact I'm going to give you a key principle and I'm going to show you the five most common errors in those two inches and then we're going to look at five common errors in the last two inches but let's look at the study now so you can see behind me essentially uh this is the blowout of the top of the control you'll see some text and and it's broken down into reasonable clusters it's numbered the blue boxes are just us anonymizing the brand but you can also see by looking at this this particular slide that it's a very long page and it's hard to get people to complete this page in fact we only hope for a small maybe even a single digit Improvement which had and would have an enormous impact on this organization and here's the middle of the page and you can see uh the bottom of the page coming up here and uh and now let's look at uh some thoughts about that before I go any further you can see where we start talking about some of the errors but use your Twitter account or your q a feature right now on the go to meeting control panel to tell us some things you would do to make this uh better reduce friction we have but what are some of the ways you can make this page better where's the value in the headline Thank you Pam good point shorten uh uh some of the copy someone says add a headline says Karen Karen you're you're absolutely right form labels are too complex says Graham add a headline says Jeff I need to know the why at the beginning Devin that's correct add subheads Karen you must have been on last week's event good call uh let me look at some others Here video says malinka and uh Janice says create a different page for the foreman listen there are hundreds of responses coming in we read every one of these it helps us understand what you're learning as an audience how to calibrate what we teach for you next time but at present let's go back to this and look for just a moment we did want to reduce the friction but we also wanted to clarify the expression of the value proposition and somehow encapsulate that in a headline how do we do it well here is the optimized version now please don't think of this as the final optimized version remember we're doing a series of iterations we're isolating key variables sometimes we do a radical cluster sometimes not but whatever in the end we're trying to improve performance and we're doing more than simply trying to achieve a lift we're trying to achieve a learning and in doing that we have focused just on this headline and we learned some fascinating insights so here's the headline set up your account today and start earning money is that a great headline I don't know scale of one to ten I'd give it a seven but we tested ten and I'm going to show you more in just a moment so uh here is the series you can see all of the headlines there was enough traffic coming to this page that we could drill down deeply we could test it well and we had all of these versions Let's uh unpack that a little bit more we also made a change to the friction on the page we reduced the number of form fields from 24 to 15. so let's look again you should see the control and the treatment you can see that the treatment is shorter and you can see that we've added value at the top of the page because we've drilled down on the headline in particular we have no subheader Karen it's better with a sub header but that comes in later kinds of experiments right now we just want to think about the impact of that and I do want to point out something else for reasons that I would explain if I were to break the data down and I have in other clinics so I will not now we know that the primary factor that influenced the outcome was the headline it's something we can validate with science but I can't teach it just yet and so let me move on and by the way I'm joined today in the studio I don't know if Dan introduced has he introduced Adam and uh and our other guest John burned and uh and so uh John this is John's first time with us he's an analyst in the lab I don't think he's ever been here and he's sitting on the chair and his leg is shaking I don't know if that's good or that's bad I I can't assume that he's nervous because he wouldn't be if he's a bit it wasn't a big giant brain but he he's going to be he's going to be helping us as we do some live optimization by the way we're gonna do something different today we're going to live up at the end but we're also going to be doing optimization as I teach in fact just a moment I'm going to pull up on the first pages and we're going to look at it in relation to some of the principles that we want to learn together so keeping that in mind let's look over here at the results control 26.04 percent and the treatment 28.76 percent what do you need to understand by focusing on reducing the length of the form and by strengthening the value through a clear headline we got 10.44 percent more registrations that was a very significant Improvement perhaps more than we hoped there's more to be learned and remember what the whole point of today it's not to show you a case study and impress you with the cleverness of the mechlab scientist instead we want to learn something from this case study we want to use it to motivate all series of learnings that will help you get the first two inches of your page right so let's uh let's think a little bit more deeply as you look at these results we're surprised to see that some of the treatments perform significantly better than others and in look at the actual relative difference in conversion all the way down that right column you can see it here and as you're thinking about that let's let's drill down on the on a few key pieces number one when we just worked without uh with a reduced friction and you can see this point I made earlier without the headline we didn't see a Dramatic Lift the lift came as we connected the headline in this particular piece of research and there are some things we can learn look at the winning headline whoops let me back up here get paid to take free surveys now I can talk more about this in just a moment and I don't know if we go deeper into this uh or not Paul do we show them the other get headlines and let me just recommend there's another clinic I don't know what it is I don't know its name I would like to know it headline optimization you can find that in our archives you can find it using the search field at marketingexperiments.com we break this down because you're going to find that all five of the top headlines had one factor in common and that is they emphasize what you receive they emphasize the get factor and they did so right at the front of the headline and that's worth knowing and that study is really worth taking some time with we've taught and spent almost an entire Clinic breaking down this particular study but there's more I want you to learn today and it's different than that particular piece so let's move on and lay out the first key principle all marketing messages should be centered around the interest of the customer so when it comes to crafting effective headlines you need to emphasize what the visitor gets rather than what they must do I don't think that's especially profound except when you see it in the context of the detailed case study but it leads to another key piece and that is the first in a series of errors that I want to help you to try and recognize now think about your own hands in fact many you're in front of the internet and if you have multiple monitors or the ability to do this I would say pull up two or three of your main landing pages and start assessing the first two inches with the things we're talking about right now so here is the first a headline the first error a headline that is too clever I see this problem all of the time here's an example from our own library now you'll notice the top is Paul Cheney and if you were in the clinic last week you'll discover that Paul in some sort of humble version of arrogance uh pointed out and he's right in front of me here that that he has headline beat my headline in a test and it really wasn't his headline against my headline it was two versions two approaches we're both trying to learn now I don't take away from Paul's uh significant Victory but he got a 92 percent Improvement and I think he was feeling guilty in getting this 92 Improvement because you know he's a junior analyst and I'm supposed to be the senior whatever here and and and uh I think he rubbed me in it my nose in it so long that he did this he even put his picture here he says not this and he shows a headline he developed headlines on deadlines sounds like a drug part one how to consistently write effective headlines without working late now look at this next headline this just tested stock images or real people the second headline a little less clever look at the Tweet difference 25 on the top and 10 0.30 or I'm sorry 1030 on the bottom small rounding error 1030 not this but this by the way the guy he's pointing to to develop that headline and actually it was in our blog is Austin McCraw and as you know Austin uh Works regularly in our content as an and as an expert in this area both these guys are too young to be that smart it's a threat to me I'm very old all right not this but this now let's look at something else you submitted this headline this is something the audience submitted for today's event we're gonna look at a lot of these we're gonna look at more as the day unfolds and I've got more profound errors coming up but just look at this headline there's a lot of things wrong with it number one it's hard to read it's all it's all caps John come on up John okay all right so so now I'm telling you this because Philip or Philippe it looks like submitted this page Phillips in our audience today or Philippe is in the audience today and we want to make the whole page better we're not going to drill down on the entire page we're going to just look at the headline because that's the part we're teaching it we may come back to it later but uh you can see uh the background and John this is your first time on a clinic this is your first time in the studio and um and you look lovely in burgundy all right go ahead and I like your haircut especially all right so talk to me tell me uh tell me what you see here okay just to quickly provide some background on the page that we're seeing here um this is a page that Mazda is using to uh present their Sky Active technology which is basically enhancing the engine performance while maintaining the fuel efficiency that we expect from hybrid vehicles so what we see in the headline to communicate this Revolution and Technology we see the automotive World needed a revolution it begins now um clearly there's no explicit communication of the benefit that this revolution in technology delivers to the user this kind of ambiguity just leaves the user questioning why should I continue searching through this page why should I explore now why should I spend time to conduct that research so clearly here a more effective headline that drives home the benefits of the improved engine performance with the increase in the fuel efficiency would motivate the user through the funnel now thank you John and and John John is being polite and I you know a third of my audience or agency so agencies I'm on your side but can I just talk about this because this is a great way to learn something we're going to move on fast I got a lot of content to cover today a lot of content and some of these things you'll never I don't think you'll ever heard anywhere else just they come out of the research but this you think you've heard but I'm not sure we get it you know I have children I have three and I often say things to them and they nod their head and they they say they know that and they I believe they know that but they don't get it if I might be so bold as to give you an example I said to my 17 year old son because of a conflict in my schedule I've got to jump on a plane fly to Denver and uh I came in today to the office in a pair of jeans and a shirt and thought well if we're going to do this lecture I need to get into my suit and I sent him home I said Son be here at 3 30. he said yes Dad I will be here at 3 30. he didn't get here well at 3 45 he was still at home at four o'clock he walked in the door guess what time I'm supposed to start four o'clock and that's why I found myself standing in my library in my underwear waiting for a suit he said it he acknowledged it but he didn't get it I'm hoping that you will think about this in a more um what John just said in a more profound way not what that I'm going to say more profound John but that we hear it in a profound way listen Clarity Trump's persuasion this headline is hard to read number one it's all it's Blue on Black which makes it hard to read it's blue on some sort of uh you know uh fade uh some sort of a color pattern it's all caps which makes it difficult to read it's all caps and I tell it's violating almost every key principle of clarity but then when it comes down to reading it the automotive World needed Revolution it begins now what does that mean is that government Aid is that what we just went through the last three years is that a change in financing is that the abolishment of unions no no offense to those of you in the union my point is I have no idea what this is about and it should be that simple you've got something really profound to say there and it needs to be said at least enough to eat me to engage with the rest of the copy please remember Clarity trumps persuasion and I want to suggest to you that when you're writing a headline it should be in the same style and tone that you would use if you had something important to say to a person you were meeting or a friend avoid agency speak and I'm putting that in quotes this is agency speak and it gets in the way of the meaning let's let's think about that and continue as we look at the next error a headline that sounds like a title I see these all over the internet in fact for those of you on the agency side who heard me talk about the weakness of that headline you might enjoy the next point because it's sort of the other side of the equation this is when we fail to communicate in a sentence and say something of of import that drives someone deeper into the copy remember the goal of the headline is to get people into the conversation to go the headline might present value as you saw earlier but that's not the goal it's just to present the value so we can get them into the conversation so we can really interact with them and with that in mind we have to be careful for a headline like the one you see here compared to what you might see here not this what you're looking at on the left side but this there's a significant difference and by the way there's a significant difference in performance an 816 percent difference in performance now let's look at another submission and Adam Lev's going to come up and join me here's a page that was submitted I want to look at the uh the headline and Adam go ahead and talk about many of you guys have heard Adam on the phone he's a star in the lab and uh and uh uh we have assigned him to John John is tutoring him mentoring him trying to trying to maximize his full potential tell us what you do Adam well I'd probably make three recommendations right off the bat here uh qualified virtual assistant service number one it's not action oriented it doesn't tell me what I can do on this page what I can do with you as a company you know tell me you know you know sign up to get a virtual assistant service um you know get virtual assistant service you know you know uh you know improve your ex with the virtual assistant service something that's action oriented that you know gets me to the paragraph to read the actual values that you're trying to communicate to the visitor the second thing is Page location as we can see the uh the headline is about three to four hundred pixels below the top of the page and so you're relying on the visitor to hunt and search for this headline instead of just giving it to him right away as as they as they enter the page I mean this is the first impression that you make to a visitor um or that you want to make to a visitor and you don't want to leave that first impression to an ambiguous vague photo that might or might not mean virtual assistant and the third recommendation that would I would make would be to um you know provide a value some kind of value of the service or of the benefit that you are trying to offer to the user so what do you mean qualified you know what can a virtual assistant do for me yes so I would recommend a headline such as um you know you know get virtual assistants with over five years administrative uh experience or say 45 percent uh or get 45 more percent efficiency with a virtual assistant service that kind of headline very good thank you Adam now let me just uh talk for you just a moment I want to help Mallory Mallory you submitted this page and I I don't want to be offensive sometimes we try to be quite direct remember um uh what we really want to do is help you but can I just tell you the entire page is missing it we're not optimizing the whole page but if I look at this page audience do you even know what they're talking about it's got boost defined I don't know what boost defined is it's like two words joined to make one word so it's a word that has no meaning with me to start with above it is whatever navigation there might be which is in the wrong location above it is a mistake and it says a home about feedback and contact but it's in Gray on white which means it's not even seen then there's a giant image and I literally have to stare at the image to understand what it's of it's an odd image it never shows a complete angle on anything and so you have to work through the image which is too much work underneath it is a headline that doesn't actually serve as a headline it serves as a title and underneath it is gray text on white with no eye path no bold font and no reason whatsoever for me to engage and if you turn to the right of it is a form that simply says your email address subject and message with no no incentive whatsoever for me to actually give you this information and so I want to suggest to you Mallory in all kindness this is not a page to optimize this is a page to just tear up start over and get way clear about and way less trendy or art Artful and get down to the meaning give me more perceived value than what I see or sense in terms of perceived cost this is all cost and no value okay and I hope that helps you Mallory without making you upset with me but marketers stay with me we have eight more points we have a series of errors on the on the two inches and you may have just joined us and not know this but we're talking about the first Twitches of your landing page the last two inches of your landing page and we're going to go through a series of errors that you need to avoid in order to get the maximum yield so let's keep going um I am looking at the third error a headline in the form of an empty question I see this all the time now we've talked about a headline that's too clever lots of of cute sounding headlines that actually are devoid of meaning we've talked about a headline that really isn't headline at all it's just a title it sounds like a title it just tells me where I'm at now we're talking about a headline in the form of an empty question see these it's as if the marketer doesn't really know what to put so they run a little question across the top of the page and hope that'll engage and we all know that problems and questions can be used in a dynamic way but the way I see them used as a headline typically it just makes me want to click away so let's drill down on that here is a real headline from a real experiment that we conducted and it is Why Try Britannica online and my answer is exactly hit the little green arrow and leave I didn't come for you to ask me that question I came for you to answer that question and I need you to answer for me right away you have seven seconds to get my attention and to answer three questions where am I at which should be something I don't have to read or look for I should send sit immediately it's not something I hunt for in terms of getting an answer it's something that I immediately see and sense because the design of the page where the logo's at where the Banner's at I absorb it what can I do here this is where the headline comes in drive me into text why should I do it and the first paragraph should start to answer the why it's what begins the unpacking of your value proposition let's look at the improved version but this so not this what you see here but this get unlimited access to all 32 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica during your free trial I remember this study I remember the whole piece I'd love to break it down this is one change in a remarkable study but look 103 increase in conversion now that wasn't just from the headline I'll just tell you that because of the study but it was the headline was a huge part of this and uh and you need to think about this next key and that is is there anywhere on my site where I'm using some sort of empty question for a headline you uh one to optimize right now and I think I'm just going to Wade through this one and keep going because we have so many ahead we'll come back to some more guys in in just a minute this is uh planning your spring 2012 event question mark that's that's really almost a title disguised as a question mark but it's a poor headline at least it has a sub header but the subheader is undone by the fact that the headline is stacked on top of what might be another headline already have your events worked out yet another question I'm hit with questions instead of answers and and this was submitted by a Devin and Devin uh without getting into too much depth because we can look at it earlier this text on the left side of your page is doing far more to make me work than it is to work for me I have to make meaning of the page because I'm trying to sort through a kind of empty set of questions those aren't intriguing questions those don't drive me into the content they're just kind of uh a question mark So at the end of a title and it doesn't produce the throughput energy that's necessary I'm going to keep going to the to to uh to another example for you because we have so much content here here's the fourth air a headline without a sub headline look there's a time when we have those on our site but in most cases you're going to get a performance increase if you ease people into that first paragraph with an interesting subheader it won't be as large as the headline otherwise it's just another headline but it will be dominant over the rest of the text beneath it and it will trance uh you might say translate someone or or transition them from the headline into the core text as we look at an example of what not to do and what to do let me just pause for a moment you're logging in I'm going to be showing you the next treatment before someone comes up to help us review that I want you to give me your thinking about the best headline but even prior to that can I get feedback use your q a are we going at the right speed are you finding this helpful give me feedback right now so I can optimize my presentation live I ask the audience this a lot or at least once or twice when I'm teaching but it really helps me calibrate because we want this to be as effective for you as we can possibly make it good I'm looking at a lot of wonderful encouraging comments coming in let me just keep looking all right it looks like they're all positive excellent then we're going to keep right going here is the fourth the fourth mistake a headline without a sub headline and here's an example not this but this so look on the left look on the right you see how there is a bit of a sub headline underneath the main headline and you say well does it make that big a difference yeah yeah it makes an 88 difference in the conversion rate everything we do here is grounded in data we ran 10 000 plus page and path tests we've run tests across a span of more than one billion email we've recorded five million telephone conversations we've interviewed 500 000 key Executives constantly trying to learn that's what that's what matlabs is marketing experiments in case you aren't familiar with how they work together is one of the research companies inside of the Met Labs family mechlabs is the world's largest independent Research Institute in this field and we're constantly trying to discover and so when we make these uh these these insights available to you they're not coming because we have some people that sit around a table and think about from their experience what they might recommend but rather they're they're born in all of this data and it's very comforting for me to be able to say to you don't do that and then show you the exact uh result when we make the change and that's what happens in each of these as you can see by tightening up these headlines we see a significant impact now audience this is where you come in we're going to help the next person this was submitted by Jerry and in a minute I'm going to have staff come up and help me with this um and uh and then we're gonna move on and uh and and John you'll be up next I think right after Adam on this I'm just kind of I may skip around a little bit guys and how I use you based on our time but just take a look at this audience help me fix this help me fix this too busy someone says this landing page makes me scream says Darko tell me how you really feel Darko hard to read that font size Bryden yes no eye flow says Paul yes Karen says wow Karen that's uh Karen McRae I see you on here uh several times commenting is that a good wow or a bad wow let me know please font sizes uh says someone else looks like Eric too many bold says Graham why would you vary the size and weight of the fonts as someone else oh Davis Baker says awesome landing page Davis I assume that you're not close friends with Jerry and that's a that's a third party opinion it actually is an above average landing page I think it has a weak headline but I like the clarity underneath it I like the way the button is uh I have some questions about nav on the left two orange buttons on the left are probably hurting you they're evenly weighted but there's a lot about the page that is above average can't read the Blue on Blue text thank you that is a problem which one is the headline very important question Ali good Paul Travis says I'd rather see half the wording and more flow good good uh and it's non-logical I don't know if that's a real word uh Paulo but but uh I'll go with it and uh too many action items says Ty uh the art at the top is overwhelming to the eye says Jordy my eye is all over the place says Stephanie too many distractions says Clint all right this is good I like these these thoughts and and Paulo says sorry I'm Portuguese I thought so with that last name Paulo we got your point and I'm sure your English is better than my Portuguese so take a look at the page and uh and I'm gonna ask Adam come on up Adam talk to us about this one sure so most of the audience already hit a lot of great points and the solution to this page is actually quite simple I mean the headline is just too wordy too much going on you're firing multiple arrows at multiple targets without even aiming you're you're asking the visitor to make sense out of something instead of delivering it to them in a way that makes sense you know that's your job to to make the the headline make sense not the visitors so it's easy to solve this problem I would just you know keeps a lot of the same words the same benefits that you have and simply say you know get Comfort toll-free conference call service in over 90 countries and then have a sub line that takes some of those side benefits those secondary benefits and and communicates them to the visitors so you know get conference calls in over 90 countries and then Sub sub headline you know 24 7 operated support with 100 guarantee and and that's really all you have to do and like Dr McLaughlin said it's already a very good landing page just needs a better clear headline that makes sense to the visitor without them having to make all kinds of interpretations very good very good Adam let me just say something else to you Jerry and everybody will pay attention closely uh I think one of the most insightful comments from the audience was where's the headline because see you got this text it looks like maybe it's an on C at the top that might be on conference I can't tell what it is big large slanted and then you have something else underneath that you can't read on conference the blue is lost in the blue and then you have conference calls with confidence underneath that and if you stop and think about it you divide the page right in half and almost the top half are headlines and they all look I mean if I were to count them the way they're done on this page by the way that's that whole Center the way they're centered is wrong too it looks like one two three four five six seven eight I'm looking across eight or nine lines here that are supposed to form a headline so Adam's point is dead on the problem is that I don't even think people think your headline is your headline I don't think they know which headline is a headline and so I want to give you a good thing though I like the blue underline on your button you guys think that's crazy but it's really clear that's a link and frankly you're actually trying to express a value proposition up there there's really good text in that headline but I'd make a classic headline with a sub header and uh and then I'd probably have a paragraph a text before I went to no reservation free access to 19 cents uh something that engages them in conversation any event and I'd really look at the left nav but you've got some good things happening here thank you for submitting this Jerry let me know if that helps you and um and I see some really good advice from the audience that we may make available for you as well so we have covered four errors we've said Beware of a headline that is too clever a headline that sounds like a title a headline in the form of an empty question a headline without a sub headline but also be aware of a headline that is point middle now what is point middle we've talked about this in a couple of our copywriting clinics but most people aren't familiar with the concept in this headline help you lower is the main point now by 50 is great but it it only means anything if it's about lowering the payments here lawyer payments becomes much clearer what's the difference 16 in conversion is the difference so think about something where is the main thrust of your message I like that the 50 is at the beginning or the end in fact I'd love to test save 50 percent and then you know Dash lawyer payments uh uh with in the name of the company or do that say 50 and a subheader lawyer you know there's some other ways to do this but we see a 60 16 increase with that particular change and that is an example of getting the most important part of the sentence either at the front or the back and generally at the front now here's a page and I think John's going to help us with this in a moment but I need the audience to help me first it also has done some things right you know I we pick on a lot of pages and a lot of the pages that you give us um need a lot of work this is an above average page too there's some significant weaknesses for you but you've done some things right with a copy let's have the audience help us optimize the headline here we are I'm watching to see what they say and then I'm going to pull you up John so lawyers won't let you save 50 ah yes I understand that Jordy we see that problem a lot particularly the banks what about get 50 lower payments John says we're back on the other one but you got a good point tell me about this one non-specific headline yes should start they say with close more sales interesting the headline is vague yes it is what's the value for me says Philippe make your website a success says Scott help succeed says Marlin make your website pop says Janna what you're actually writing headlines here what is the company name since we need a good point help your website succeed Andrea said she's moving towards a different point good you know what uh and Andre you make a very good point we could rewrite I don't help your website succeed lacks a lot of credibility but it's way better than let us why because the help is in the middle and the last thing I want to do is let you do something I want you to do something for me I want to get something from you but it's the wrong way to start out a headline keeping all that in mind John come up here and talk to us all right once again certainly some great points uh brought out by the audience but uh like we said uh we're touching on the uh the point middle issue here uh clearly your website succeeds this is the tangible benefit that the user is looking for this is why they're contacting you to look for this service so obviously an optimized headline could be increase website your website performance uh something to that effect whatever that goal is for the user another testing idea that might be valuable for for this site if you notice the sub headline in a smaller font uh stand out from your competition attract more customers and close more sales this kind of communication if it was more prominent it could kind of drive home those tangible benefits to the user in dollars and cents of what they could accomplish by going through with this service good point excellent thank you John all right so there's some things now just about the page in general look um you've got a sub headline good for you but the problem is you've got text that's difficult to read it's italics it's the wrong color on that background you have a paragraph that's very difficult to read it's like a gray on a white then you have a bad color for your bullets visit the free friendly web design none of that stands out and worst of all I can't figure out the call to action I don't know where it's at if it's at the bottom where do I click and if it's not at the bottom it should be there yeah we don't want the call action in The Flash Banner we want the call to action right there at the conclusion of the conversation when you're ready to ask we've talked about that before you need to sequence it properly hopefully you can think about that and and Shanna submit us uh you know more and we'll look at more of this and see if there's anything we can do to help you now listen to me I am less than 17 minutes left and in those 17 minutes I'm going to pack uh the second critical point we've talked about five errors in the first two inches I want to talk about five I think it's five is that five Paul five errors in the last two inches and I've got to do it in 17 minutes so if you're ready I'm going to load the gun and I'm going to shoot and we're going to shoot fast I don't like to talk fast but I do want to make this hour with you as rich as possible with insights and practical advice so let's move on oh by the way while I'm doing that I I see a sticky it's right up here on the monitors that I'm looking at as I'm teaching and uh I have been told and I think it's a valid point so I'll do it you know we're we're going to be in Denver in June for an optimization Summit the last is that correct no no is it June it's in June see Paul you're wrong you're right I feel better I feel stronger right yeah you you're building up my confidence I got the date right I thank you I need it June is the optimization Summit we did one last year in Atlanta it was a well we had double the attendance that we projected all we did was reveal to you our latest research on optimization and then we had marketers no no vendors from the platform we had marketers on the stage talking to you about their own experience as they try to optimize landing pages the good and the bad the mistakes they made what they learned how and it was uh it was just it was just a was better than I than I than I had hoped we're doing it again we're doing it in Denver and uh we're doing it in June many of you already know about it please come and meet us if you can in June and the note that by the way this is uh I don't know if you can close up this on the camera should I just hold it up like that Luke I'm looking through the camera and maybe you can you can drill down later this is the this is mechlab's internal marketing capabilities right here this is us at our best um on the yellow sticky pad it says VIP special offer uh ends next Wednesday you can save 700 on your ticket so um next time we might have a even a flyer we're gonna try to enter the digital age this is blue ink on a yellow sticky pad for those of you that can't see it but they put in here for me to remind you and I have done so gentlemen all right let's keep going page two the call to action here we go test protocol 1444 here's the case study that goes to increase the number of paid subscribers which treatment will generate the highest click-through rate we're now looking at the last two inches of the page Let's uh let's look at the home page and you'll notice that the testing area is in this right hand corner and that there's an ability to subscribe and this is the control that you're looking at and on the control uh you'll see that button and above it the form field and some text now let's keep going because here is the treatment testing area and I want you to notice there's a difference upgrade to premium access and look at all the value packed in there get up to 120 pictures per page browse with no ads browse way you know the reason you see the white boxes of course we're anonymizing the company but you should be able to see that this right hand part this call to action even though it's on this right hand side has been modified and it's been modified by bringing a lot more value let's look at them side by side on the left on the right look at the difference in those two presentations it's not that dramatic other than the color but there's a big difference in the thought sequence what does it produce 45 increase in click-through what do you understand by adding that value near the call to action the treatment was able to generate this significant increase well what else can we learn from that well here we go key principle number one behind every call to action there's a perceived cost for taking there is no such thing as free on the internet you want my click you want my email address you want my attention you want my acceptance you want something and I have to trade that for whatever you're offering and because of that we need to be careful that we have fully assessed what our customer perceives the cost is and we need to be careful that we have done something to make certain that what they perceive in terms of value exceeds the cost I wish I had a whiteboard I was writing for our book coming out it's called the marketer as philosopher there's a lot of Aristotle and Plato but lots of pragmatic this is how it applies to the marketer coming out of that book it's not like our Benchmark guides our reports or our handbooks this is made for the marketer who wants to spend some time thinking about who they are and what they do in their profession when that book comes out we'll share more with you but I was writing it today one of the things that we uh I wrote in in a diagram was you know why should I say yes to your offer and the answer is because P think of this in your mind capital V and then a greater than sign and then small p capital c what does that mean because perceived value is greater than perceived cost in the end all of marketing comes down to communicating that it always does I'm offering you something it cost you something if I want you to say yes I have to show you in fact it's not enough that the value does exceed the cost you have to perceive so and all of that plays in as we think about the call to action so let's look at these five mistakes and we are at 11 minutes we're going to go fast in 11 minutes here's the first one a call to action without implied value what does that mean well let's look at an example this is actually from one of our research experiments I know it as soon as I see it let's read it to receive your 500 free leads asterisk which means hey there's a catch and by the way we're going to put it in Red so that you're scared because you should be scared because there's something wrong here that's the wrong color and that's the wrong way fill out and submit the form below once received you'll be contacted by one of our Business Consultants that is what we say as a marketer that is not what the prospect here is the prospect hears fill this out and we're going to spam you for the rest of your life and uh and and we're gonna pester you a phone calls and uh and by the way you're not even get these leads unless you buy something from us that's what it sounds like and and then we have a button is there any value in that button I'll give it I'll give it some credit there's hardly a negative it doesn't say submit Fall on Your Knees before the Lords of marketing and admit that we've defeated you with our Superior values of persuasion and logic and Paul you don't even laugh anymore at that uh but but but it doesn't it doesn't it's not a it doesn't say register it doesn't say uh uh sign over your power of attorney or or promise US You're Next of Kin or your your firstborn child but it doesn't offer anything either just says click now look at the new one and look at the difference I'm moving fast so I went right to it the second version produces a 200 increase think about that but look at the difference it's all about value and the value is packed all the way around we can talk more about that but let's keep learning errors and let's look at somebody's page Adam I almost feel like I'm gonna have to just zip guys are you okay with that because of our time I don't I think we're gonna run out I'd rather get through all the points so I'm sorry because Adam's better looking than me John is smarter than me and you're stuck with me for the next seven minutes um get in fact that's actually uh that's actually Adam with his shirt off right there in that picture um get it ripped now for ten dollars now um you know the the image is doing something I suppose what it's supposed to do although that's not a good version of ripped I mean you know you're covering up his abs and when I think ripped I think ABS but that's a different issue we could talk about how to improve the image and test the image but here's the real issue because this is all we're talking about we're not talking about the ads we're not talking about the headline we're not talking about the layout of the Page by the way the layout of the page is wrong two evenly weighted columns the headline um is the beginning of a good headline but it does we don't cash it in the banner at the bottom is wrong and uh and I'd be really concerned about all that nav at the top unless I had to have it but but everything right now is about that button buy now now ask yourself a serious question it may come off a television ad there may be a reason why you think they're ready to buy but in almost every case you're asking for too much too soon without explaining without helping me understand the value and and and and Trevor there may be again something I don't know but we could really help this page you could see a dramatic increase I'm not ready to buy now but I might be ready to learn more this is the equivalent of walking up to the girl in the bar and you've heard me say it before right after work today and uh presenting the ring and saying will you marry me she doesn't even know you she's not ready you're lucky if she'll even turn her body in its and open up in body language and let you have a conversation but I'll guarantee if you don't get a conversation you're not going to get a yes not not sure waiting really long for her to be there for a really long drunk time and then I don't think that counts right it's against the rules Adam there might be hope for you if that works out but for most of us we can't we can't do it um by now is the wrong thing so let's look at another error we have seven minutes we got five errors so let's go fast a call to action that's among several others I see this all the time look at this not this there's calls to action all over that page every every place you see a link every place you see a button what part do I listen to what voice do I listen to remember people don't buy from websites people buy from people this is a conversation in their mind unfolding they need to hear a single voice they don't need to hear a whole bunch of people shouting at the same time and asking for action and that's what's going on here and uh but this here's the optimized version can that page be improved yes but look guys look this is an experiment this isn't just you know a bit of advice the page on the right makes 357 more than the page on the left that's a good enough reason to consider some of the things we're talking about I hope we're still learning by the way we don't have all the answers these are insights from looking at thousands of experiments I'm embarrassed at what we don't know but as we learn we're trying to share with you here's a page submitted it was submitted by Denise and Denise we're looking at the calls to action look how many look how many with no text no meaning no communication not even a headline and and I hope Denise you don't see this as a negative to me it's a positive if you're making any money whatsoever through this page think of what you could be making if you plug these leaks mostly at mechlabs we're just plumbers we're coming in fixing the links I'm trying to give you some tools today so you can go back and plug some of your own all right let's keep going all right good by the way audience I see your advice you're in the habit now even when I don't ask for it you start optimizing I love it two blue nothing stands out says Igor feel free on any of these treatments to keep giving me your thoughts all right here's the next call error and I am what's uh five minutes a call to action among evenly weighted ctas look Paul I'm five minutes I could do 12 more of these give me some more points ready error three a call to action that's evenly waited it's a big air we see it all the time this is an old experiment we did it with the New York Times we're still running with the New York Times all kinds of experiments and tests but this very old one see the buttons three of them evenly weighted here's the new call to action one of those was pre-checked radio box and so and by the way I don't like the text we later improved the text and saw another increase but just look at these two top to bottom and look at this the bottom produces a 64 increase by the way the next test produced a 541 increase and that's by getting that text clear but for now look at those evenly weighted calls to action they're hurting your conversion rates and I see it all over the Internet and there's one right now submitted by Adam and um no by Simone and Simone there's a lot of things about the page that I like but those two buttons on the right are evenly weighted which means I have to stop there's a kind of cognitive momentum when I move through a page and what you want is an increasing velocity you don't want a decreasing velocity and on this page you have to stop and make sense of which one one should be dominant over the other the other could be a blue text under link underneath it the other could be slightly smaller but there's a lot of ways to make it not even but at the present it's mitigating your conversion rate so uh there is an example of evenly weighted options let's keep going uh and by the way I'd like to talk about this page it's a very interesting page and there's some things that you could do to actually get the page producing more but again I have how many minutes do I have Paul I have four minutes wow all right I'm on to four here's the fourth point a call to action above the fold I I like pointing this out you've heard me say it before I like pointing it out because it's not really about this problem with your CTA above the fold it's about thinking in the old way thinking and doing something just because somebody else did it in the newspaper days we always wanted to call to action about the fold website it's not a newspaper and I have seen so many companies Rush the call to action above the fold because that's what they heard they've got to do that can hurt your conversion you know here's why um if you walk into a car dealership tonight and the car guy introduces himself says hi points out three cars and says if you can make a decision in the next two minutes I can sell you one of those cars what are you gonna do I'm just going to get in my car and leave find somebody that gives me time to make a decision I'm not ready yet I don't know enough if you force me to choose yes or no the answer is no I'm gone back to the and I know I'm infamous if you're new to this you haven't heard all this before and I'm just touching on illustrations we've used in the past because they help they help you learn but if you've ever been on the call with me before um you may have heard this and I'll just touch it for a moment and you have my deepest sympathy for having to hear it again but if you go back to the bar tonight and you walk up to the girl and you you you grab her by the shoulders and kiss her full on the lips you don't even know this girl you want to meet her she's beautiful she might be your next wife so you kiss her full of the lips you are probably in trouble you're probably out of the bar the problem is you've got the call to action by the fold you forced her to choose and she's chosen yeah that's when she calls for the bouncer you you you you push too hard too fast and marketers we do this all the time look uh not this you can see here uh look at the top of the page we're listed the top we're going to work our way through it and uh and but this look at the difference let's go back I'm sorry I'm trying to go backwards but I'm not very good at this uh they have to have an idiot proof Clicker thank you thank you I have you can't see this I'm in the studio and I have lots of monitors and Paul just showed me that I'm looking at the wrong monitor apparently yours is moving but the one I'm clicking it's not moving right they do this to confuse me uh the the the call to action uh is above the fold here way up above the fold and look now it's down below where it belongs and what's the difference of 20 increasing conversion now somebody submitted this and by the way it might be that somebody when they land on the page and this came from uh ran ran when they landed on the page maybe they're totally sold maybe you've sold them on television with infomercial they don't need anything else just get in the download but if not dude you've got these people making a choice before they even know enough to make the choice I'm not going to download now even though you've got a headline the most downloaded translation software in the world let me show you what Paul does to me all during these clinics and Luke I want you to make sure this is on the final edit so that people have some empathy for me give me what give me that board oh he just erased it oh Paul sits there okay he's a very smug at the control panel in his in his in his in his flops and and and and bony long toes very long long bony toes and he has this little board and he holds it up like this am I right back up he holds it up like this with messages on it the whole time when I'm trying to teach some of them are rude some of them are insulting this one is just hey you got one minute left but you never know what Paul's going to write on the board again here at Mac Labs we're high tech this is our the most important monitor in the room is carried here by Paul Jenny Paul I will give you back your your uh analog monitor um in the meantime in the meantime back to this and uh I think here's the point don't get the call to action by the fold put it when they're ready for it and the final point in my last 45 seconds a call to action that asked for too much it's a bit like the kiss in the bar not only is it too soon but it's too much it's too soon because she's not ready to talk about marriage and she's not ready to give you a kiss but it's also too much because you're asking for it before she might be later but she's not now that's the whole point so not this become a member become a member become a member become a member in case you didn't get it become a member but this continue and and and continues a lot safer you I I'll continue but I'm not ready to become a member yet I want to know some more 81 increase and look uh in uh Steve uh submitted by Steve you didn't think we'd get to this but mycommunityfoods.com welcome to Community Foods order now do you see the button it's just too much too soon there might be a way to ask for less and get more now we can talk about the page because you uh Steve have you figured out from this that you need a headline and a sub headline and your paragraph's too long and he's bold font and an eye path and that great big truck's in the wrong place on the page there's a lot we can do to help you with this but we're focused at this point on the order now all of that leads to this slide this is my last slide and uh oh I have a I have another I there's no way I can teach the next thing Daniel's showing me because in the next event and you can sign up for this now and you and you know I'm not selling we don't have we don't charge for these but I do will tell you this we only have a thousand seats and we often will have fifteen hundred two thousand people register for one of these events to try to get online in the next one I'm gonna see you can see on the slide behind me here the five errors under each point What's missing we got the top two inches and we got the bottom two inches we're going to teach you in the next Clinic is what to do in the middle how to get that part right that is too complex to do in this particular Clinic we're going to talk about friction a lot of things related to The Middle in uh in your presentation for now I hope that you found today helpful if so the only thing we ask you to do is to tell a friend and uh because we want to build the world's largest community of marketers running experiments testing learning together I also want to thank John John you you got your wings today and uh and Adam you've done this many times and guys I apologize that I didn't go through everything with you but it was just that um the speaker was so long-winded uh you know we had the problem thank you all I appreciate your trust and we'll be back with more foreign