Visual Website Optimizer

One of the questions we often hear from users who are new to A/B testing is what should they test. This does seem like a simple question but it can be quite baffling to the new-comers. This post is one such attempt to narrow down certain options to test, the changes that worked for others might work for you. The change here that we are talking about is testing having a video on homepage or product page. Previous case studies prove that it usually works wonderfully. One such case study is video increases conversion rate of a landing page by 46% and in another one they tested two call to actions ‘Watch the video’ v/s ‘Get Instant Access’ and found out that the video one increased newsletter signups by 28%.

In this latest case study, one of our clients Buy Real Twitter Followers made a variation with a small video explaining about their service on the homepage. This little change helped them increase their sales by 216%. Buy Real Twitter Followers was formed as a response to  the need made by the growing Twitter advertising market. Getting Twitter followers has been a large concern by many network marketers and businesses whose primary aim is to advertise through Twitter.

Visitors usually tend to skip the blocks of text. This case study only goes on to prove that users much rather prefer to see the video for the product validation than reading block of text to get the gist of the product.

Original Page

Variation Page

This is what Rene Harvey had to say about the A/B testing tool they used: Visual Website Optimizer: “VWO was very helpful, it was very easy to use and provides a room for designers such as myself to customize without having to change the original code.”

As always, everything is open to testing and the idea is to find what change benefits the most. Let us know what you think about this case study in the comments below.

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Through his website SixPackAbsExercises.com, personal trainer Carl Juneau teaches men the best ab exercises for getting six pack abs. Carl heard his top competitor doubled his sales after he started to use video to market and demonstrate his products so he decided to use Visual Website Optimizer to test video on this website. Carl carried out three split tests which conclusively proved that videos increased conversions on his website by as much as 46%.

A/B Test #1 (call-to-action test)

In first split test, he tested two variations of the “call to action” on his sales page.

• The control was: “Next Page Read Sample of Book”
• Variation 1 was: “Watch Video Preview”
• Variation 2 was: “Watch my #1 Abs Exercise On Video”

Variation 1 of Carl’s sales page. Call to action: “Next Page Watch Video Preview.”

Here are the results for this test (goal being click on call-to-action and go to next step in funnel). Both calls to action that hinted at a video significantly increased the number of visitors who clicked to the sales page (step 3). The best-performing variation (variation 1) increased conversion by 14.18%.

A/B Test #2 (salesletter test)

In second split test, Carl tested one variation of the sales page:

• The control was a long-form salesletter, which had been tweaked extensively over two years
• Variation 1 was a one-minute professionally produced video where Carl demonstrated his best abdominal exercise. At the end of the video, the “call to action” said that more exercises could be found in the manual and the workouts

Variation 1 of Carl’s second sales page

Here are the results for test #2 (goal was to go to next step of funnel). The video sales page significantly increased the number of visitors who clicked to the price/guarantee page by 46.15%.

A/B Test #3 (follow up test)

Third split test was a follow-up test. In it, Carl tested:

• The winning video only
• The winning video at the top of the page plus his longstanding control salesletter below

To his surprise, the video-only page won. Here are the results. Adding the long salesletter below the winning sales video significantly reduced the number of visitors who clicked to the price/guarantee page by 35%.

Carl couldn’t explain these results. He shared his best guess:

I’m guessing visitors were intrigued by the sales video and clicked through to the price/guarantee page to get more info. They may have been turned off by the long salesletter when I added it to the video and lost the excitement created by the short, punchy video.

Lessons

Video converts! It did so when mentioned in a “call to action” (a 14.18% increase) and also when used to sell (35% and 46.15% increases in two different tests).

As more and more surfers have broadband Internet and powerful computers, video seems to be slowly taking over the web. Carl increased his conversions with video… why not test it and see if it increases yours?

Feedback on Visual Website Optimizer

Carl also submitted feedback on his experience with Visual Website Optimizer:

I carried out these test using Visual Website Optimizer. Before switching to Visual Website Optimizer, I had one solid year of testing under my belt (63 tests) with Google Website Optimizer.

Between the two, Visual Website Optimizer wins hands down. It’s easier to use, faster, and more user-friendly.

When you signup for a 30 day free trial (or purchase a subscription), you install a piece of code on each of your test page. Once the code is installed, you can perform as many tests as you want. You don’t need to re-install a new piece of code for every new test. This was the case in Google Website Optimizer, and it made testing cumbersome.

Visual Website Optimizer’s website itself is faster. It loads in a flash.

Creating tests is intuitive, quick, and easy. It’s done through a “visual” interface. In short, Visual Website Optimizer loads the page you want to test. You then select the sections on your page you want to test. For each section, you specify different versions using the what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor (FrontPage style). You also have the option to edit the HTML directly. When you’re done, you can preview each version before you start the test. It’s that easy, and results are available right away!

One last word on customer support: in two months, I’ve emailed the team 26 times. On average, I’ve gotten a response the same day. VWO team is smart and dedicated. This level of customer support is unheard of.

As you might guess, I strongly endorse this service.

Full disclosure: I’m in no way linked to Visual Website Optimizer, except that I use the software. I’m not being paid for this review.

Carl Juneau

http://www.sixpackabsexercises.com/

Editor’s note: we had a similar case study last week where the call to action ‘Watch the video’ increased conversions by 28%. These two case studies make a strong case for testing a video on your website. It may probably do wonders to your conversions!

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We recently revamped the introductory video for Visual Website Optimizer by adding a voice-over and updating it by including some new features (e.g. heatmaps).

From start (entering the test page URL) to end (interpreting test results), all it takes to run your first A/B test is just 2 minutes. And you thought testing is a dark art? Watch the video below:

Do you think video can be improved? Please leave a comment to let us know what can we add, remove or change to make A/B testing using Visual Website Optimizer even more exciting.

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A picture is worth a thousand words. And a video is worth laboring through hundreds of documentation pages and forum threads. The following video shows how to create a multivariate test using Visual Website Optimizer in well under 4 minutes.  The short tutorial is a must watch if you have heard about multivariate testing in articles/blogs; and always wondered what exactly is it. Even if you haven’t heard about multivariate testing, don’t worry – this tutorial with demystify that. Basically, multivariate testing is a technique where you vary several elements on your page to see which version results in maximum conversions (that is, form submissions in this case).  A successful multivariate test can often result in 50-100% increase in conversions (case study to come out soon).

Without any further blabbering, here is your video tutorial on multivariate testing (click Play to start the video):

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