Table of Contents

• 1. Analyze the performance of your current forms 
• 2. Beware of what you’re asking for
• 3. Mandatory fields and form validation
• 4. Clear and attention-grabbing CTAs
• 5. Testimonials and social proof 
• 6. Form placement 
• 7. Concise and convincing copy
• 8. Personalize your messaging
• Keep leads coming in with simple form fills! 

In the world of B2B SaaS, free trials and demo request forms are more than shooting just a list of questions to prospects. In your pursuit to humanize B2B marketing, you should focus on building connections with your audiences, generating trust among them, and convincing them to try what we offer. And the starting point for all of this is having them sign up for a trial or request for demos. 

It may seem like a lot of work, but it’s worth the effort.

Of course, your forms need the right ingredients to achieve their objectives. But to tap into their true potential, turn your focus on A/B testing. This strategy not only allows you to test one experience against another but also to understand what works and what doesn’t at that point for your website.

So, let’s begin discussing how to approach revamping forms and utilizing A/B testing to increase lead generation in this blog post.

1. Analyze the performance of your current forms

Before you give your web forms a makeover, make sure to diagnose the pain points.

By examining user behavior and identifying where they’re getting stuck or abandoning your form, you can make targeted improvements that will increase your conversion rates and drive more leads.

And that’s where VWO Form Analytics tool comes in. It can track and analyze user behavior to give you all the juicy deets on what’s working and what’s not. From drop-off points to time spent filling out each field, our form analytics tool helps you delve into macro-level as well as field-level statistics. Once you’ve gotten your hands on these data, you can work towards building high-converting forms by testing and incorporating the right elements.

2. Beware of what you’re asking for

Less is often more, and in the world of forms, this couldn’t be truer! Ever found yourself abandoning a form because it was long and you did not have the time to fill it out? But your audiences don’t have to go through the same. Make this process easy for visitors by reducing the number of questions you ask them to answer. This way, they can focus on the most important ones and save a lot of time. They’ll appreciate that you’re not too curious to collect too much personal information and therefore trust you enough to try your offering. 

Suppose you’ve asked users to enter both personal and official email addresses in a free trial form. But for this purpose, entering just one email address could work. Some forms ask a ton of questions like,  “How many employees do you have?”, “What industry is your company in?” and “How long have you been in business?” which are often not important to be answered at the outset. Let’s stop overwhelming users with so many questions from the get-go. If your product is solid, they’ll stick around. 

Having said that, we also believe that asking questions can sometimes help a brand evaluate the potential fit between the product and the customer.  At VWO, filling out our free trial and request demo forms is a breeze. However, to ensure we connect with prospects who are truly invested, we’re ramping things up by scheduling one-on-one meetings with our team immediately after they submit their basic information on the request demo form. The winning experience saw an increase in clicks on the request demo CTA button by 35.32% and demo page visits by 3.01%. 

3. Mandatory fields and form validation

Imagine you spend time filling out a form but all your efforts go in vain as you see an error message telling you that you entered the wrong information after you’ve filled out most of the fields. This is where form validation comes in. Form validation helps users ensure that they are filling out all the fields correctly on the go, which reduces the chances of making errors and speeds up the submission process. 

Highlighting mandatory fields is also crucial in helping users save time. Imagine your prospects are to fill out your request demo form which is quite lengthy because you need to ensure the product-customer fit. But the form doesn’t clearly indicate which fields are required. When mandatory fields are highlighted, users can identify which fields should be filled in and focus on them, resulting in a faster form submission rate. 

4. Clear and attention-grabbing CTAs

CTA buttons can make a big impact on your leads and bookings. They are the ones that seal the deal and get those leads coming in. But if they are not attention-grabbing, they are highly likely to be overlooked by users. 

Suppose your free trial form features a “Try now” CTA button, but it’s barely getting any clicks. A CTA like this one might fail to motivate visitors to take action. What you can do now is run a test by creating a variation featuring a far more interesting CTA copy – “Start your 30-day free trial now” This specific CTA gives visitors a clear picture of what they’ll get by clicking it. With years of experience helping brands, we’re confident that this variation will be a winner. But we still suggest you study visitor behavior on your website and then decide if you’d like to run this test or not. 

5. Testimonials and social proof

Testimonials and social proof are like stamps of approval from your existing customers. They show that these customers have already taken the plunge and had a great experience using your product. As a result, prospective clients can also take the leap following their footsteps. 

If your form ticks most of the boxes of best practices yet doesn’t bring in any leads, try adding testimonials and see how that performs. Below is how Chargebee encourages users to sign up for a free trial by displaying a testimonial on the left side of the form. 

Using VWO Visual Editor, you can add any type of form modal or widget to pop up on your website. You can also edit and customize them to suit your brand guidelines and improve request demo/free trial conversion rates. It’s also possible to preview the changes on both desktop and mobile before the test starts. Sounds fascinating? Try it out to fully understand its capability.

6. Form placement

If your forms are not easily noticeable, visitors are less likely to take the pain to find them all by themselves. So, keep them in a prominent position, making it easier for visitors to engage with it and use it to submit their information. 

To determine the right placement of your form, you can A/B test different form placements. At VWO, we ourselves champion the use of pop-up forms on our website. Our pop-ups are not at all intrusive in nature as they show up only when users click the CTA button. 

Why not give your website visitors a hassle-free experience by embedding your form above the fold? This smart placement eliminates the need for scrolling and allows them to fill out the form with ease. 

Human Interest, a US-based SaaS company, opted for VWO FullStack to integrate with Contentful and improve lead generation on its landing page. By showing the contact form above the fold, the number of form submissions increased by 3.77% and the number of calls scheduled with prospective customers increased by 75.84%. To know the details of this case study, read here. 

Alternatively, you can also place the CTA of the form in a sticky header that remains at the top of the page as visitors scroll down. Clicking the CTA button can open either a separate landing page or display a web pop-up. 

The age-old question, pop-ups or landing pages, which is the better form submission tool? We say, test them and see which one of them brings the maximum conversions for you.

Pop-ups ask for minimal information, such as an email address, to sign up for a free trial. Landing pages, on the other hand, show detailed information about your product or service and may ask for more information to be submitted, such as name, company, or phone number. 

If you go for landing pages, make a statement with head-turning information and take advantage of all that extra space. Give your landing page the attention it deserves by including SEO keywords, showcasing your success with testimonials, and adding reviews or security badges. Plus, you can add a compelling video that showcases what your product can do for your prospects. 

Does VWO help you test landing pages? Oh sure, it does! You can use VWO to test either individual elements of your landing page or conduct split-URL tests to validate complete overhauls. Request a demo and have our experts explain this in detail. 

7. Concise and convincing copy

One of my favorite sayings on LinkedIn these days is ‘Sell benefits, not features”. And that’s what I’m suggesting you do in your free trial or request demo forms. Users want to know how your product helps them solve their problems. If you’re not getting that part right, they can switch to brands that do that better. 

Tell your users what they can expect by signing up. Apart from a catchy headline, you must also list the benefits awaiting them after they are up for request demos. Think your current copy is not performing well? Our Visual Editor can come to your rescue. Its AI-powered copy generator can suggest great copies that resonate with your prospective customers. A/B test and see if the improved copy helps drive more conversions or not. The results will impress you, we’re sure. 

8. Personalize your messaging

Personalizing your forms can increase the likelihood of conversions. Here’s an example to help you understand how.

Let’s say yours is a customer relationship management platform. You’ve observed that most new visitors are starting to fill up the free trial form but not completing the signing process, based on the insights uncovered from segmented visitor groups on VWO Form Analytics. To push them down the lead conversion funnel, you can personalize your form and test it against the non-personalized generic form for this audience group. 

Suppose the control has something like “Unlock a 15-day free trial to start building better business relationships.” To appeal to this segment of the audience specifically, you can now tweak your offer to “Unlock a 30-day free trial to start building better business relationships”. The duration of the free trial can make a big difference in driving responses from visitors. 

Similarly, for a request demo form, you can offer 3 days of free inbound marketing consultation with one of your in-house experts who can customize a plan in the areas of marketing and sales for a prospect’s business. Run this test against the regular request demo form without a consultation offer. Roll out the experience that drives maximum demo bookings to all new customers. 

Keep leads coming in with simple form fills!

Free trial forms and request demo forms are the gateways to your SaaS products that spark user interest and guide them towards exploring what you have to offer. Whatever we discussed in this blog are the basic components of a good free trial form. But remember, with user experience being unique to each website, A/B testing is key to finding your perfect fit.

Whether you’re analyzing current form performance or testing out new optimization ideas, VWO has got your back. From form analysis to a range of testing options, it’s the ultimate tool for boosting your leads and taking your business to the next level. So, don’t settle for mediocre results. Let your free trial and demo forms soar with VWO!

You must have started with lots of questions (related to the use case, budget, impact, etc.). Then, there is a very high probability that at each stage of the buying process, you must have come across some content that answered a doubt and let you move forward. In the end, you must have chosen the tool that resolved all your doubts.

Content is like a signpost that leads you to the destination while moving on an unknown path. On that unknown path, you followed the signpost that made things clear for you. Similarly, your potential client is also moving on that unknown path. So, do you want to build signposts that will appeal to them? 

If you’re interested in building content that will brighten your potential client’s path to the destination, we have six B2B content ideas for you. Each idea includes examples that have leveraged these formats to increase engagement and conversions. 

1. Pillar pages

In any successful content marketing plan, pillar pages play an integral role. Essentially, a pillar page refers to an extensive and detailed content piece that delves into a broad topic within your industry or business. It functions as a central hub that connects all the relevant subtopics and content on your website, providing links to and from other pages and content.

Pillar pages should give a comprehensive and captivating perspective on a subject matter. Additionally, they should be visually appealing, user-friendly and incorporate a variety of multimedia elements, including images and text. 

Pillar pages work best in improving conversion at the top of the funnel (ToFu). A pillar page can attract more traffic to your site as it showcases expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, which makes content rank higher in SERPs. 

Take the example of the pillar page created by VWO on A/B testing. 

It touches on the broad topic of A/B testing and explains all the related subtopics to make it exhaustive and compelling simultaneously. The guide page showcases a table of contents that makes visitors aware of the content and jumps to a section of interest. 

The guide has images and actionable tips, making it visually appealing and easy to digest. Also, a call-to-action to email the guide allows for achieving the objective of generating a lead. 

The landing page has achieved a top-five ranking in the SERPS for keywords such as A/B testing, with a monthly search volume of over 10,000 in countries like the USA. This has resulted in a substantial influx of traffic to the page. Additionally, it projects VWO as a thought leader in online experimentation. 

That’s the power of pillar pages. Though it takes significant time and effort to create these, the rewards are worthy of all the input. 

2. Visual-based storytelling

In the age of information overload, the human attention span is fleeting, and your content strategy must include modern content delivery mediums based on visual storytelling. Content formats like Google Web Stories, short videos, and video series are becoming popular as they are visually appealing and quick to consume. 

Visual-based storytelling does not aim to replace long-form content formats such as pillar pages, guides, landing pages, and blog posts. Instead, it offers a distinct approach to engaging with audiences by conveying content concisely and narratively. This unique mode of storytelling can be highly effective in enhancing brand awareness and expanding the reach to a broader audience, which in turn increases the conversion at the ToFu.

Mailchimp is one of the leading players in the email marketing and marketing automation space that incorporated visual base storytelling with its Mailchimp Presents initiative.

Mailchimp Presents shares content related to entrepreneurial spirit via video and audio-based content. The video series and films engage the audience with stories and motivate them to be entrepreneurial. The subtle CTAs to Mailchimp offerings promote the brand and how it can help businesses scale up.

Such initiatives bring a fresh perspective to the brand’s outreach initiatives rather than just promoting links to new blog posts. Though such initiatives require significant capital and human resources investment, a small business can start with other visual-based mediums like Google Web Stories, YouTube Shorts, etc.  

3. Webinars

A webinar is an incredibly engaging and powerful way to communicate ideas, share knowledge, and build connections with your audience. A survey in 2021 that included 115 marketing practitioners concluded webinars as the most effective ToFu demand generation tactic.

Additionally, webinars are one of the few strategies where there is two-way communication between you and your audience. Many companies conduct ask-me-anything (AMA) webinars to resolve doubts and questions related to the product, which helps increase the conversion rate at the middle of the funnel (MoFu).

By bringing in guest speakers and thought leaders from your domain, you can capture your listeners’ attention and draw them in, helping them to connect with your content on a deeper level. Also, by incorporating personal anecdotes, case studies, and examples from your own or other brands’ experiences, you can bring your content to life and inspire your listeners to take action.

For example, CNBC organized a @work Spotlight Series event in 2020 for CXOs on changing business scenarios and leveraging technologies at work. 

The virtual event series featured esteemed guest speakers from Fortune 500 companies, offering invaluable insights to participants. With an intuitive and engaging experience, including targeted breakout rooms, the event fostered dynamic two-way conversations between attendees and guests. 

The results were remarkable, with over 20,000 average views on weekly live streams and a staggering 1 million unique visitors to CNBC’s Digital Events Hub, showcasing the event’s widespread success.

4. Case studies

In the B2B realm, case studies serve as a powerful medium to highlight the positive impact your product has brought to your clients. They also serve as compelling evidence for potential clients to evaluate your product based on the tangible results achieved by competitors or players within the same industry. 

Case studies are a collaborative effort between your company and your clients, and the data presented in them must be accurate and genuine. Exaggeration or understatement can lead to legal implications, which is why case studies are considered a highly reliable source of information for companies to assess the effectiveness of a product.

Take the example of VWO’s Success Stories. 

The success story landing page indicates the brand name, industry, utilized VWO product, and improvement in the conversion metric. 

It allows a potential customer to easily skim through the numerous success stories, identify their industry, and report uplift before delving deep to get more information. Additionally, it enables the sales team to share relevant case studies while they are conversing with a potential client to finalize a deal. 

Thus, case studies aid in giving a final nudge to a client to buy the product, as they showcase the product’s potential and answer doubts related to the product’s performance. Which helps in converting leads from the bottom of the funnel (BoFu) into clients.

5. Online courses

Online courses have become increasingly popular over the years and for good reasons. Many companies offer paid and free courses to increase brand affinity, revenue, customer retention rate, and project domain expertise.  

A good online course targets a specific topic catering to a specific user segment. It enables learners to delve deep into the topic and equips them with valuable knowledge. An online course should clearly outline its duration, prerequisites, a comprehensive table of contents, and expected learning outcomes. 

Online courses are efficient in converting leads at the ToFu by providing domain-specific courses and at the BoFu by providing product-related courses. 

Take the example of HubSpot to understand the power of utilizing online courses as part of the content strategy.

HubSpot offers a wide range of online courses that include certification programs related to marketing/sales and training programs on the HubSpot Product stack. Here is how it has helped Hubspot:

• Established HubSpot as a thought leader in the marketing and sales space. Which in turn, enhanced brand reputation and credibility.
• Lead to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates because training courses offered on HubSpot Academy have helped customers achieve their marketing and sales goals using HubSpot’s products. 
• Enabled a partner ecosystem, which includes agencies, resellers, and integrators, by offering partner-specific training and certifications. It has helped partners gain expertise in using HubSpot’s software and services, enabling them to deliver better results to their clients and drive business growth. 

The utilization of online courses has been instrumental in creating an ecosystem where HubSpot clients and partners receive comprehensive training to maximize their return on investment (ROI). 

As a potent medium for delivering valuable content, online courses have played a pivotal role in building a loyal customer base, fostering customer success, and enabling partners to deliver exceptional results using HubSpot’s offerings.

6. Whitepapers

A whitepaper is a detailed and comprehensive report that focuses on a particular topic. It aims to present a problem and its solution in an unbiased and convincing manner. Unlike promotional materials, a whitepaper does not endorse or criticize any company. Its main purpose is to educate rather than sell products or services. Normally, whitepapers are around 10 to 15 pages long and offer an authoritative perspective on the subject.

The structure of a whitepaper comprises several sections, including a title, an extensive summary, a table of contents, an introduction, an overview of challenges, proposed solutions, recommendations, a concluding statement, a brief company background, and a call-to-action (CTA).

A whitepaper by The OpenGroup on cloud computing can serve as a great guide to understanding how a whitepaper is written and structured. This whitepaper focuses on building Return on Investment (ROI) in cloud computing. It begins with an executive summary and an introduction that outlines the context and existing challenges. The subsequent sections delve into specifics, including financial value and ROI models. These insights are designed to assist you in maximizing ROI from cloud computing. The whitepaper concludes with a summary, references, and acknowledgments. 

Notably, it incorporates factual information and statistical data to establish credibility and underscore the expertise of The OpenGroup. The entire whitepaper educates you and elevates your knowledge about the topic without being promotional, which is the purpose of this content format.

Whitepapers are created to establish expertise and cultivate trust within the industry. Positioned at the initial stages of customer engagement, they provide valuable insights and help generate potential leads. Importantly, whitepapers offer informative solutions without directly promoting a product or service. 

Boost content performance with VWO

It’s not enough to just create content and never look back. In order to truly optimize your content and improve engagement, you need to take a data-driven approach. 

It means understanding how visitors interact with your content, identifying areas for improvement, and A/B testing to ensure that your content is not only high-quality but also effective in achieving your goals.

VWO enables you to enhance conversion rates by monitoring and optimizing your content. One common use case is to utilize VWO Insights to analyze the scroll depth at which the majority of users exit high-traffic content formats such as pillar pages and blog posts.

A scrollmap looks like this:

Once you know the scroll depth where most users are leaving, you can utilize VWO Testing to test how adding an image or interactive element can improve the conversion. Additionally, you can move important elements like newsletter sign-up above the point. 

Furthermore, VWO Insights provides access to useful data like heatmaps, session recordings, and survey responses, which can aid in understanding visitor engagement with your content, enabling you to generate data-driven hypotheses. You can then optimize your content by conducting experiments with VWO Testing.

Grab a free trial of VWO and learn how to improve important media conversions like social media shares, email-ups, user duration, etc.

Tying it all together

To conclude, these six content ideas can play a significant role in improving conversion rates at different stages of the sales funnel.

The pillar pages provide comprehensive information on broad topics and bring traffic from organic sources, while visual-based storytelling engages audiences and increases brand awareness. 

Webinars build connections and offer a two-way communication platform, case studies highlight a product’s positive impact, and online courses foster an ecosystem of thought leadership along with a loyal consumer base. While whitepapers help you build trust, showcase authority, and generate leads at the top of the funnel.  

Although it requires significant resources and effort, the results are undoubtedly worth it in the long run.

If yes, then you will agree that training is a very important component of outdoor sports. The training simulates the real scenarios of the game to identify shortcomings and make improvements. Yet, its benefits extend beyond mere performance enhancement, as it also facilitates learning in areas such as nutrition and psychology, ultimately leading to an overall improvement in one’s sportsmanship.

Similarly, conducting online experiments is like training your digital property. It not only enhances your conversion rate but also provides valuable opportunities to gain insights into various facets of the digital landscape, resulting in the overall growth and development of your company.

Don’t believe it? 

In this blog, we have aggregated five real-life examples to showcase how experimentation induces learning related to various aspects impacting your visitors’ digital experience like content, conversion funnels, experimentation approach, and design. 

Let’s begin.

1. Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies, a technology giant, places significant emphasis on experimentation. The company’s commitment to this practice is exemplified by CEO Michael Dell’s occasional communication with the Digital Analytics team regarding ongoing tests. Experimentation has not only made a positive contribution to the multi-billion dollar revenue, but it also has induced some learnings for the company. 

In one of the fireside chats with VWO, Narayan Keshavan, Head of the Design Analytics Team, shared his insights. The following learnings helped them improve their whole experimentation cycle and approach.

a. Don’t follow experimentation trends blindly

In one of their experiments for the website in China, the team at Dell tried to add a promo banner in the Navigation bar, a trend followed by a leading eCommerce website in China. But for Dell, the conversion rates dropped by adding a banner.

They learned that a trend should be followed carefully as every website is unique, and the user experience analysis should preside over each experiment.

b. Keep a neutral eye on an experimentation idea

The Dell Technologies team found that it’s natural to expect a lift in conversion rate from variations. But, the foundation of the whole effort is to run an experiment and not prove something. Thus, the optimization team must have a neutral approach toward each idea. It helps negate biases while running the experiment and post-analysis of the data.

c. Don’t fall for testing myopia

Testing myopia is a term used by the Dell Technologies team, which means you are so focused on improving a metric that you forget the effect on other metrics. 

Let’s say you aim to enhance the Click-Through Rate (CTR) of the primary Call-To-Action (CTA) button on one of your landing pages. You conduct tests using captivating banners and observe a surge in the CTR of the primary CTA. While this experiment may seem successful based on this one metric alone, a deeper analysis reveals that the bounce rate has increased due to a decrease in website speed caused by the banner’s size. As a result, even though the conversion rate has improved from people who engage, many visitors are leaving the site without engaging because the page takes too long to load.

Therefore, it’s crucial to take a holistic approach to experimentation and analysis instead of obsessing over a single metric.

Watch the complete webinar:

2. Uber Eats

Uber Eats started its operation in South Africa as an online food delivery service. But can you imagine that it is now a virtual mall that sells jewelry, clothing, and other accessories? Here is the screenshot of its product page:

Starting with the food delivery and diversifying to become a virtual mall happened because of experimentation. Uber Eats in South Africa has ingrained a culture of experimentation, where they depend less on market research and more on experimentation in the real world. Experimentation has allowed Uber Eats South Africa to grow 149% month-on-month in its non-restaurant vertices. 

Here is what the experimentation taught them and facilitated expansion outside food delivery.

a. A tool with an easy setup and automation enhances the experimentation culture

Uber Eats’ team recognized that a simplified experimentation setup means less dependency on development and fewer entry barriers, which motivates team members to partake more in experimentation. Also, by automating post-analysis and deploying the winning variation, the workload on the team is reduced, which speeds up the experimentation rate. It collectively promotes a culture of experimentation within the company. 

b. It’s important to take time while creating a hypothesis

The hypothesis is the foundation of the experimentation, and even simple-looking tests might turn complicated if there is a fault in the hypothesis. A hypothesis must be based on data insights and behavioral analysis. Also, the hypothesis must specifically mention the website element that needs to be tested and the expected improvement that you expect at the end.

For instance, if a CTA button on a landing page with a low conversion rate is identified through heatmap analysis to have fewer clicks and less attention, changing the button color to make it more prominent could be a potential solution. In this case, the hypothesis could be: “Changing the color of the CTA button to X color will result in a Z% increase in conversion.”

In addition, the team at Uber Eats advocates for testing one hypothesis at a time with various methods like A/B testing and Multivariate testing rather than testing multiple hypotheses with the same method to achieve better results.

3. MakeMyTrip.com

MakeMyTrip.com is an online travel aggregator in India that gets 44 million visitors per month. The two-decade-old company has first-hand experience with digital transformation and changing user demands. The experimentation culture has positively contributed to the 64.1% Y-O-Y growth that the company saw in 2022.

In one of VWO’s webinars, Aakash Kumar, head of the user experience at Makemytrip.com, revealed some critical experimentation-induced learnings. 

a. Fewer purchase cycle stages don’t necessarily mean more conversion

It’s a general notion that a few stages between awareness and purchase will lead to more conversion. However, the design team at MakeMyTrip.com found something interesting.

Their typical hotel search user flow started with searching for destinations on the homepage, which led to a page with a list of hotels. On clicking a hotel tab, a page opens with a hotel description followed by offered accommodation types. The team noticed that many mobile users who ended up converting were choosing the cheapest room option and there was a low conversion rate for premium rooms. 

After conducting a thorough analysis of user behavior and data collection, the team found that the hotel details page’s description was causing users to scroll excessively, leading them to select the first room type they saw after scrolling. To address this issue, the design team introduced an additional step that allowed users to select the room type before completing the transaction.

The whole optimization effort led to an increase in the booking rate for premium room types. 

b. Design changes should be gradual and not drastic

Drawing on their decades of experience in experimentation, the design team has discovered that design changes aligned with user needs should be gradual rather than drastic. Following the ideate-experiment-learn cycle during website design experimentation is crucial. Subsequent design changes can be based on the team’s previous experimentation and learnings, which helps to minimize risks and reduce negative impacts on the conversion rate.

Watch the complete webinar:

4. Netflix

Netflix has a culture of experimentation and learning, which helped it transform from a DVD mailing service to a streaming service giant with 230+ million paid subscribers worldwide. Here is what Netflix has learned about experimentation from decades of experience.

a. A successful idea can come from an unlikely source

Netflix has an open culture where anybody can see the running tests and associated results. The naturally low win rate of experiments brings humility and humbleness to the team. It opens up doors for every team member to share ideas and experiment with user experience. There are instances at the company where ideas from experts have failed, but ideas from executives and engineers have brought unexpected wins. The democratization has enabled them to get massive revenue-generating ideas from unlikely resources. 

b. A failed experiment in the past can achieve success in the present

Customer behavior and preferences are evolving, and at Netflix, they have found that revisiting past failed ideas and deploying them at present can find success. Sometimes, the analysis of the failed ideas suggests that they may achieve success in the present or the new user group. So creating a repository of each experiment along with its analysis is beneficial to redeploy and find success in the future.  

5. Frictionless Commerce

Frictionless Commerce is a 13-year-old digital marketing agency with a focus on enhancing the sales of Shopify websites by utilizing buyer psychology techniques to influence and convert new buyers. The agency has helped 118+ DTC brands and carried out A/B tests for them to improve conversion rates. Here is what the people at Frictionless Commerce have learned about buyer’s psychology due to these experimentations, which can help create copies and headings for landing pages.

a. Showcasing expertise and brand story create a sense of connection

People like to associate with brands who are experts in their domain and specialize in crafting the product or service. Additionally, a brand’s narrative, detailing its origins and the obstacles it overcame, can foster a sense of connection with the visitor and drive them further down the path to purchase.

b. Adding surprising facts can negate the midway quitting

Behavior analysis can help you understand the scroll depth at which most visitors leave. The team at Frictionless Commerce has found that adding a surprising fact at such points can reduce the midway quitting as it gives a burst of energy to a visitor to know more. 

c. If doubts are not solved, then the visitor will leave

If a landing page fails to address a visitor’s specific query, they may feel hesitant to trust the product or service being offered. The team discovered that four particular factors – the absence of features, unclear pricing, subpar features, and confusing design elements – can all contribute to a negative perception and generate doubts in the visitor’s mind.

To avoid these pitfalls, marketers should aim to view the landing page from the visitor’s perspective and ensure that any potential doubts or concerns about features, pricing, or design are addressed and resolved through testing.

This learning, along with other insights, helped the company in shaping A/B testing campaigns for their clients. 

One of their clients is into selling shampoo bars. The team at Frictionless Commerce carried out an A/B test which was influenced by the above learnings. Here are the controls and variations of the test created with VWO. You can see that the variation is trying to solve a doubt that will come naturally to a visitor’s mind. 

The test resulted in a 5.97% increase in the number of orders. 

Begin your experimentation journey with VWO

The five examples show that experimentation not only enhances the conversion rate but also generates valuable insights that can lead to new user experiences, business ventures, and cultural shifts, ultimately propelling the company to greater heights.

Also, we saw in the case of Uber Eats, one of the key contributors to success is the availability of a user-friendly experimentation tool that enables the rapid scaling of experimentation efforts. 

However, choosing an experimentation tool is not an instant decision. You have to evaluate the compatibility with your business and get hands-on experience with the tool before spending a buck. 

To facilitate this process, we have created a 30-day free trial that provides full access to all the offered capabilities without any financial obligations.

So, If you are new to experimentation or considering a switch from your current setup, we recommend reading our detailed guide on VWO’s free trial, which provides complete information about working with the world’s leading experimentation platform.

The key is to strategically spend on marketing to maximize your return on investment during these challenging times.

Table of Contents

• Get the right team by your side
• Accelerate the testing speed 
• Set your focus on lifetime value 
• Inform experiments with user research 
• Make the most of user segmentation 
• Recession-proof your business with experimentation

If your next plan is to audit your marketing strategy to adjust spending, ensure experimentation sits at the top of your list of priorities. Anyone who says you can forsake experimentation is probably taking you for a ride. 

In fact, experimentation is hands down the best way to convert all that traffic into customers by allowing you to ship the best-performing experiences to audiences. Instead of spending on acquiring new customers right now, it makes a lot more sense to focus on converting what is already on your website.

But yes, experimentation during a recession might require you to pivot your strategy. So, if you’ve been wondering how to harness the power of experimentation during testing times like this, we’ve got some tips to share with you. 

Get the right team by your side

If you decide to start with experimentation now, building an exclusive team for this exercise will consume a lot of your resources in an already cash-strapped market. At the same time, without skilled people by your side, you’ll be remote from getting the best result out of the testing platform. 

This is where the VWO customer success team can lend you a hand! Our dedicated success managers plan and support your journey with VWO, training your team to get the best out of our product. Throughout your optimization process, they are your true friend, guiding you to early successes and monitoring your progress. Further, they keep you informed about the latest developments in VWO and the industry, all while helping you achieve the highest possible ROI from using VWO.

Accelerate the testing speed

During an economic downturn, businesses shift into high gear and take all the necessary steps to keep their business surviving and even thriving. The approach should remain the same when it comes to your experimentation. The faster you test, the quicker you will know what can work and what cannot to protect your business from the effects of the recession. If you have an experimentation program laid down already, audit it and see if it’s possible to increase the velocity of testing with high-impact tests first.

For example, Dorado Fashion, a US-based fashion website, added a bundle offer in the mini-cart on all devices to improve the Average Order Value (AOV). An A/B test was run only for 26 days where the variation emerged as the winner with a 14.14% increase in clicks to the Thank You page. Explore other small tests that led to impressive results in our Small Tests. Big Wins. eBook. 

Further, VWO’s A/B Test Duration Calculator can be of great help in this regard. Enter details like existing conversion rate, minimum improvement expected, number of variations, average visitors every day, and percentage of visitors included in the test – and you will get the duration for which you must run the test to achieve a statistically significant result. Prioritize tests that can be run quickly and contribute to conversion uplift. 

The more you reduce your dependencies on the developing and engineering team, the faster you can set experiments and get results. Not only can you make all types of changes to your web pages through VWO’s Visual Editor, but you can also make these changes go live without involving the IT team with VWO Deploy. Plus, you can release a change only to a particular set of visitors, whom you can segment in more than 1000 ways. 

So, let’s understand with an example. Consider you want to show a 10% discount to new visitors on your hotel booking website against the control without a discount offer. Using the VWO editor, you can add a standard widget template to let’s say the homepage of your website. Next, you decide that you want to direct this offer to new visitors using mobile and in the age group of 25-40 from Connecticut, where you’ve just started your operations. You then combine multiple parameters together to target a very specific segment for this test. This is just one example; you can target visitors in various ways using custom segments on VWO. Run the test for a set time and see if the variation wins. If successful, launch it with VWO Deploy. 

Set your focus on lifetime value

Acquiring new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones. This makes maximizing the Lifetime Value (LTV) of existing customers all the more crucial, especially in a tight financial market.

Of course, you should test every piece of content on your website before shipping them, but prioritize the ones that may have a greater impact on your LTV. For example, changing the color of a CTA button may increase the click-through rate but there is no guarantee that it would contribute to the business metric. 

Test loyalty programs, up-selling/cross-selling, free shipping, or any idea that delights your customers and encourages them to continue purchasing from you. Remember, there is no one test against another. It all comes down to prioritizing when times are tough. 

Let’s see how Bear Mattress, a bed mattress-selling brand, increased the number of purchases by improving cross-sell flow on its mattress product page. They partnered with the VWO team who observed that user interaction with cross-sell items was minimal, images for cross-sell products were not present, and the copy was not customer-friendly on the product page.

For the variation, they implemented a number of changes, including making the copy more customer-centric and adding thumbnail images if cross-selling items. 

This test was run for 19 days and led to a 16% increase in revenue. Drawing inspiration from this case study, you can run cross-sell tests on your website, provided your research shows the scope of implementation of such a test.

What we must mention here is that VWO Data360, our customer data platform, lets you create and track complex business metrics like LTV by considering customers’ page-level engagement. Using this capability, you can roll out an experience that can help you retain customers, repeat purchases, and drive revenue. Want to discover what this experimentation platform can do to sharpen customer experience other than this? Sign up for a free trial today! 

Inform experiments with user research

Don’t sacrifice research at the altar of faster implementation. When we suggest that you should increase the velocity of the test, we don’t mean you can pick any random tests that you ‘think’ can improve conversions. Rely less on your convictions and more on how visitors behave on your website. 

For example, if you see users dropping off from the checkout, you can implement a guest checkout hoping to increase revenue through this test. This is where VWO Insights helps you big time with its user behavior analytical prowess. While heatmaps show you the visual representation of users’ activities on your website, session recordings give you a walk-through of their journey on your website from landing on the website to exiting or converting. 

When you plan experiments that are in line with what users expect to experience on your website, they are more likely to emerge as winners and impact conversions positively. Hence, combining the power of VWO Insights and VWO Testing empowers you to turn user insights into data-focused testing strategies.

The Australia-based IMB bank has been using our experimentation platform since 2017 to optimize its website. Funnel analysis using VWO Insights showed that users dropped off from the first page of the loan application form. For the first campaign, the team introduced a number of elements like awards, USPs, and total time to complete the steps in the hope of arresting drop-offs from the page. 

For the second one, an exit pop-up was added that asked visitors to save the application form and continue according to their convenience. The two campaigns saw an increase of 52% in form completion and 85% in completed saved form respectively. To know more, read the case study. 

Make the most of user segmentation

Running tests that are targeted to specific user segments gives you more impactful results. Loyalty programs work great during economic tough times. They helped several businesses entice returning customers during the recessions of the 1990s, 2008, and COVID-19 times. Taking inspiration from this, you can segment returning customers and run a personalized campaign where you show a loyalty program sign-up option in a website pop-up. 

Since you’re targeting this campaign to returning customers, the chances are high that your variation will outperform the control. On the other hand, had you run this test without segmentation, everyone, including new visitors, would have become a part of this campaign. Because new visitors are less likely to sign up for a loyalty program as they haven’t tried your products/services yet, including them would have skewed the result of this campaign.

Now let’s say you sell luxury cosmetics online. To attract new customers, you can offer 15% off on the first purchase and build a test based on it. Along the same lines, you can create tests by segmenting users based on shared geographies, age, gender, and so on. But that said, remember, over-segmentation can reduce the sample size you need to divert to your variations and prevent you from arriving at a statistically significant result. So, create segments based on the traffic your website gets and the number of variants you’re testing in an experiment. 

Here’s a case study proving how businesses can pull off a test using custom segmentation – OneClick is a US-based eyewear retailer that has been using VWO Testing and Insights for conversion optimization on their website. 

One of their experiments using VWO aimed to increase conversions by personalizing the checkout page for One Click’s customers based on their country. The hypothesis was that, as a global brand, tailoring the experience to each user’s location would make it more engaging and relevant. 

The personalization was achieved using VWO’s custom segmentation, which dynamically altered the content on the checkout page to include localized information such as shipping rates, delivery time, and currency. This was done in order to enhance the customer’s shopping experience. For example, customers visiting the website from Canada would see relevant information such as Canadian shipping rates, estimated delivery time, and Canadian currency on the checkout page. 

The variation outperformed the control and increased the conversion rate by 30%. You can read here how VWO helped One Click conduct other winning tests. 

Recession-proof your business with experimentation

Experimentation allows businesses to make data-driven decisions, rather than relying on intuition and assumptions. This is especially important during a recession when resources are limited and every dollar counts. 

And to come through all of these challenges with flying colors, arm yourself with VWO. From user behavioral analytics and testing to personalization and customer data platform – VWO will help you navigate the woes of recession with its multifarious capabilities. 

To use all of its capabilities to your advantage, sign up for a free trial now. Don’t let the recession hold you back, start experimenting with VWO and see the difference it can make for your business.

What is a value center?

A value center is a crucial component of a business. It is a function, a team, or a department that plays a vital role in boosting the company’s profit. A value center brings tangible benefits to the organization by optimizing costs, generating revenue, or even doing both at the same time. Moreover, a value center identifies new revenue-generating prospects by exploring new markets, and innovating products and services. 

Is CRO a value center?

A cost center refers to a department or unit that does not directly contribute to the company’s profit. In some cases, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is perceived as a cost center since its outcomes may not always yield tangible results in a short period and give occasional failures.

While CRO initiatives can encounter challenges, it is crucial to recognize the long-term value they bring to the organization. CRO can be turned into a value center by leveraging continuous experimenting and optimization of strategies to improve conversion rates and enhance overall organizational performance. Even failures in CRO experiments can serve as a valuable foundation for future success, as they provide invaluable insights and learnings that contribute to creating an experimentation loop.

Moreover, CRO acts as an enabler of efficiency within the business. By testing and refining different elements of a customer’s journey, CRO helps identify and eliminate bottlenecks, streamline processes, and enhance the overall user experience. This, in turn, accelerates growth by maximizing the conversion of visitors into customers and maximizing the value derived from each interaction.

How to make CRO a value center

Let’s understand how to make conversion rate optimization (CRO) a profitable investment (value center) with some real-life examples. 

a. Create a CRO cycle to increase revenue

Revenue is the fruit of an optimized visitor journey that starts via landing pages on different devices. Many organizations need to avoid expecting results with few tests. CRO is not a magic wand that will uplift revenue in a single campaign or a few days. It requires constant efforts to optimize each stage of the visitor journey, from the landing page to the checkout page. 

For instance, GRENE, an agriculture wholesaler, utilized VWO to optimize the conversion funnel. The company ran a series of experiments for the 2018-19 financial year. The experiments included the A/B testing homepage, checkout page, product section, etc. This whole optimization exercise resulted in a whopping 59.9% increase in revenue. Such a staggering growth in revenue makes CRO the value center of GRENE. 

CRO can become a value center when you create a strong hypothesis and identify revenue-affecting elements at each conversion funnel stage. Then, with a constant CRO cycle of testing-learning-optimizing, you craft an optimized conversion funnel that increases revenue. CRO reaps rewards with consistency and not with one-time initiatives. 

b. Turn failures into information goldmines

Many companies give up on CRO because of failing to achieve desired goals. However, a failure in CRO is a goldmine of information that can be a foundation for future optimization. Here is one great example of the same.

Uncommon Knowledge, an online education portal, tested its lead generation page to see an uplift in leads. The team at the company created a variation of the lead generation page with new design trends, while the original version had a traditional magazine layout.

At the end of the test, the team found that the old page beat the new one by a 19.55% conversion rate. The optimization efforts were unsuccessful, but the insight from it was a goldmine for the team. It came to their notice that the majority of their target audience is aged 45+. 

The new design trend was not relevant to the target group, and the failed test validated that relevance is the key to conversion, not the trend. Thus, even a failed experiment can become a foundation for the next optimization effort. So, CRO is a value center, even if you face failures.

c. Run experiments to retain customers

You can increase your website value by constantly acquiring new visitors or retaining returning visitors. But, it’s always easy and more affordable to retain a returning visitor than a new one. That’s why every business is in a race to increase the visitor’s lifetime value, which is the monetary benefit that a single visitor delivers to a company. CRO is a value center because it increases the visitor’s lifetime value.  

One example of this is Tele2, a leading Dutch mobile subscription service. They were facing a decreasing subscription rate and wanted to make necessary amendments to uplift it. The team at Tele2 did a detailed analysis and found that adding a filter of mobile brands in the product section can create convenience in the visitor flow. Thus, they ran an A/B with the original page without the filter and variations with it. Here is how it looked:

The test ran for 28 days and registered a 27% increase in subscriptions from existing customers. For Tele2, CRO campaigns ensured a positive cash flow from the existing customers. What is more important is that they didn’t stop after one campaign and kept analyzing behavior and experimentation to engage their customers.

In addition, you can run CRO campaigns such as personalized experiences based on past behavior and experiment with cross-selling and upselling tactics to better customer retention rates. Improved retention rates, in turn, result in increased revenue while keeping customer acquisition costs low since fewer resources are needed to onboard new visitors to maintain revenue.

d. Aggregate customer data for hyper-personalized experiences

CRO is now moving towards unifying data from various sources and profiling customers based on it through customer data platforms (CDP). The customer profile can be segmented and targeted for a hyper-personalized experience.

One real-life case study is of Yves Rocher, a global cosmetic brand. Yves Rocher wanted to personalized product recommendations section. The team utilized a CDP to recommend personalized products to new and existing customers. The existing customer got recommendations based on past behavior data, and for new customers, the recommendation algorithm worked on the recent activity. 

The optimization efforts led to a 17.5x increase in clicks on the recommendation section and an 11x increase in the purchase rate. Thus, CRO efforts get a boost from technological advancement like CDP and become a value center for an organization. So you must leverage this advancement in your favor and move towards creating hyper-personalized experiences to drive more revenue. 

Conversion rate optimization with VWO

Over a decade, 2500+ customers have found their value center with VWO.

VWO allows you to understand visitor behavior, experiment with user experience for multiple devices, personalize experiences, and aggregate visitor data for segmentation and targeting. As per G2 Summer 2022 reports, VWO has been named a leader across five categories winning 20 badges.

Once you partner with VWO, you don’t have to go anywhere else for your optimization needs. Here is what one of our clients says:

VWO has been the most comprehensive testing tool I’ve used, and they have the support and services to back it up.

Product manager, Micro Focus

So, multiply your gains with VWO. Get a comprehensive VWO free trial of its complete range of features. VWO also offers a free starter pack for web testing that supports 50,000 monthly traffic. Visit VWO’s plans and pricing to find more information.

Conclusion

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is a value center because it benefits an organization in terms of revenue and directly affects its growth and cash flow. 

CRO increases revenue by optimizing each stage of the visitor journey, from the landing page to the checkout page. It also turns failures into information that can be used to improve future optimization efforts. With constant CRO efforts, an organization can increase its revenue, keep customer acquisition costs low, and create a positive cash flow from its existing customers. 

Therefore, CRO should be considered an essential investment, and organizations should engage in constant CRO efforts to reap long-term benefits.

A good search function can make or break a customer’s shopping experience. If it’s fast, accurate, and intuitive, it can turn a browsing session into a purchase. On the other hand, a slow and clunky search experience can drive customers away in frustration.

For this reason, A/B testing your website search is super important. The more you test, the faster you understand what your customers want and the more conversions you can drive.

But where do you start and what do you test? Making the search bar more noticeable is just the beginning of improving your website’s search function. You’ll still have to do a lot of other things but don’t worry, we can help. So, in the second blog of the series ‘A/B testing ideas for eCommerce,’ we share the top testing ideas to enhance your site’s search experience. Let’s begin!

1. Image search results

Just imagine you have to enter the whole search query every time and you’re not even sure if it is right because there’s no correction prompt. That would be frustrating for sure! Autocorrect makes sure that typos and misspellings don’t impede the process of finding the products you want. Autocomplete helps you find what you’re looking for even faster by suggesting search terms and phrases as you type. These two search features have proven to be so effective that they’re now accepted as the standard in UX design. 

Safety Gear Pro has been collaborating with VWO for quite some time now and has run a number of tests, one of which was improving the search box design on the former’s website. The variation where the size of the search bar was increased emerged as a winner, but the team didn’t stop there and ran an iteration. 

Unlike the control that only displayed suggestions once the visitor began typing, the variation showed top searches and categories as soon as the visitor tapped on the search bar. The suggestions were based on keywords frequently used by users on the website through the site search, as well as the categories with the highest traffic and page value. The variation increased the number of transactions, resulting in a 20.40% increase in Thank You page visits.

Test idea 1 – Replace text-based suggestions with image search results

Users who search on websites are 2-3 times more likely to convert. It’s really smart to capitalize on this user behavior. How? Here’s a simple solution to try: replace text-based search suggestions with image-based results. Let’s say a visitor has searched for an ‘iPhone cover’ in the search box. Instead of showing text suggestions, show different product images (iPhone covers) so users can get a quick idea of the product they want to purchase and click through to the page from the search result itself. 

While you can test the UI elements of your search bar using VWO Testing, experimenting with search engine algorithms falls under the purview of our power-packed VWO FullStack. With some help from your developers, you can have these interesting ideas implemented and tested on your website. Roll out the version that improves user engagement on your website. This will give you an edge over competitors and tempt your visitors to come back for a seamless experience.

2. Filter options

Visitors who search on your website are in a purchasing mindset and eventually end up converting. But just because they know what they want to buy doesn’t mean they don’t need a bit of hand-holding. They are meticulous about what they want and want to reduce the clutter of items they are not looking for. 

For example, I was looking for wedges on a shoe-selling website some days back. The search results were overwhelming, with so many options! I was trying to find something casual, not fancy party shoes. Did I go back to the search box to try again? Nah, the search results page had a filter on the side that let me narrow down my choices based on what I was looking for, like casual wear, color, and foot shape.

Test idea 2 – Side or horizontal filtering bar

Usually, the product filtering bar is seen on the left side of the website. But if you see many visitors dropping off after interacting with filtering options, you can create a variation with a horizontal filter bar featuring major product categories and see if it helps arrest the problem. This will bring every category within the sight of visitors without them having to scroll down and look for filtering options.

Test idea 3 – Add more filter options

A mere 16% of eCommerce sites have effective product filtering. You too can belong to that 16% by boosting your filter options and gauging its impact on user engagement. If visitors are grumbling about too many “out of stock” items in search results, consider adding an availability filter where they can easily exclude those items and only see what’s available now.

To implement any sort of client-side tests including this one, VWO Visual Editor is the best thing that there can be to help you through this. Whether you want to rearrange, move, replace, or copy-paste any element, all of that can be easily done using this editor. Plus, you can use the code editor if you have to make any changes to the HTML code of your website. 

Here’s how Eastpak, one of the leading backpacking companies in the world utilized VWO to improve product filtering. First, by using VWO Heatmaps, they noticed that only a few mobile customers interacted with the filter bar on their product category page. So, they ran a test where they redesigned the mobile filter bar with clear and consistent labeling and made it stay at the top of the screen which would lead to enhanced filter usage and conversions.

And as expected, the interaction with filters improved by 106% compared to the Control. There was a 7% increase in the click-through rate because customers were now able to find relevant products more easily. Want to replicate these wins on your website? Sign up for a free trial with VWO and get a reliable tool by your side on your experimentation adventure. 

3. Sorting

Don’t assume that optimizing product filtering means you’re all set – optimizing sort options is crucial too. Both serve different purposes and optimizing one doesn’t excuse neglecting the other. 

By arranging products based on important factors like price, popularity, or customer ratings, shoppers can compare and simplify their choices by saving time and enhancing their shopping experience.

Additionally, well-designed sorting features can also help eCommerce websites improve their search engine optimization, as they can use sorting options to create a more organized and user-friendly website structure.

Test idea 4 – Display more sorting options

Going with the same old sorting options of price low to high, price high to low, and A to Z is a common sight in most eCommerce stores.  If you find that visitors are using the sorting options but not getting the best out of them, try experimenting with adding more relevant options, like sorting by highest ratings, review count, and in-stock items. 

When you’re using VWO Visual Editor, you can not only make changes to the element but also add a goal which can be “click on element’ in this case. Consider making it available to all visitors if heatmaps and other qualitative analysis tools show that users are using the sorting options more. Catch a glimpse of these features in action by signing up for VWO free trial. 

4. Product information

How product information is displayed on the search results page will decide if users click through and visit product pages as the next step. First thing first, product images should be high-quality because this is what visitors rely on entirely since they can’t touch and feel the product they want to buy. Next comes important product information that can sway audiences to make a purchase. 

Test idea 5 – Enable quick view of product images

Run a test where you create a variation that allows visitors to click ‘Quick view’ and see the product picture in full-screen length. Clicking outside the picture can bring it back to the default size. Have this variation compete against the control and see which one helps improve user engagement.

Here’s another inspiration for you. So, Optimics, a conversion rate optimization agency, used VWO to run tests for one of its retail clients called Mall.cz. In one of the tests, the agency wanted to see if showing larger product images would have a favorable impact on revenue. Two variations were created: the first showed larger product images with a text description, while the second had larger images with a description viewable upon mouse-over.  The second variation was a winner with an increase in revenue by 9.46%. 

Test idea 6 – Show ratings and review

One piece of information that can totally make visitors flock to your product is a rating or review. Instead of just keeping them on the product page, display them on the search result page as well. This will catch visitors’ eyeballs when looking for a product they wish to buy. Plus, you can show not only the ratings of the product but also the number of reviews those ratings are based on. A rating of 5 stars and just 3 reviews is not as reliable as a rating of 4.5 with over 60 reviews. Run an experiment to determine if this change leads to increased user interaction and directs more visits to product pages.

5. More product recommendations

Having organic search results appear in response to visitors’ search queries is considered sufficient to meet their needs. But why not provide them with even more options? So, here’s what you can do –

Test idea 7 – Display a section highlighting top choices or expert recommendations

Create a variation that showcases a carousel, banner, or recommendation tile featuring top choices or expert-recommended products related to a visitor’s search. Compare this to the control and observe its performance. If it helps increase transactions for your brand, implement the change right away. Look at how Target showed me a tile of recommended products along with hundreds of products in organic search results as I searched for kitchen rugs. 

6. Pagination/scrolling/load more button

Pagination works great for users who want to have control over the number of items they see on each page and then jump to specific pages. This is especially beneficial for websites having a large product inventory, as it helps reduce loading time and simplifies navigation. 

On the other hand, infinite scrolling offers a seamless browsing experience by automatically loading more items when visitors scroll down the page. This is a good option for websites with a smaller number of products and for those that want visitors to browse more items. An amazing cross between the two results is restricted scrolling with a “load more” button. It allows users to see a limited number of items at first and then choose to see more items if they want by clicking on “load more”. It provides visitors with control over the amount of content they see while still allowing for an easy browsing experience.

Test idea 8 – Pagination/infinite scrolling vs restricted scrolling with load more option

Based on the visitor behavior on your website, you can create a new variation of restricted scrolling with a load more button and run it against your control, be it pagination or infinite scrolling. Next, you can see which one is keeping visitors for a longer period on your website. 

7. Breadcrumb navigation

Breadcrumb navigation gives a proper understanding of where users are on your website and how they got there. It also makes it easy for users to return to a previous page without using the back button or go to the homepage.

Further, breadcrumb navigation can improve a website’s SEO by ensuring a proper organization of the website architecture. This helps search engines crawl and index pages and rank them more effectively – all of which leads to increased online visibility. 

Test idea 9 – Incorporate breadcrumb navigation

As a business grows and expands its product offerings, it’s important to keep the website user experience up to pace. One way to do this is by incorporating breadcrumb navigation. This navigation is crucial for larger websites with many pages, but may not be necessary for smaller sites with fewer pages. Based on all these factors, you can run a test with a variation showing breadcrumb navigation. If it’s helping improve user engagement, click-throughs, or cart value, you can roll this out to all visitors. 

Let’s clarify something for you. Some may question the best placement for breadcrumb navigation. Unlike most eCommerce sites, Apple’s website has placed this navigation towards the bottom of the page. Therefore, decide its placement based on how visitors behave on your website and what they expect from it. 

Breadcrumb navigation is at the top for Lenovo, while it is at the bottom on Apple’s website.

8. Call-to-action buttons

CTA buttons nudge customers in the right direction to make a purchase. Don’t underestimate the importance of CTA buttons by assuming that customers already know to click a product image to access the product page. Panduro, a Swedish jewelry store, found this to be true after conducting a CTA test.

In collaboration with VWO experts, they found that in the control the call to action (CTA) button was labeled “KÖP” (Buy), which confused users as to whether it would take them to the product page or add the product to their cart. It was, therefore, hypothesized that renaming the CTA copy to “Snabbköp” (Quick Buy) in variation 1 and “Lägg i varukorgen” (Add to Cart) in variation 2 would provide a clearer indication of the intended action when clicked. Adding a secondary “View Product” button below the main CTA would also serve as a visual cue for users who wish to navigate to the product description page.

And yes indeed, variation 2 saw a 6% improvement in the conversion rate for clicks on the main call to action (CTA) button. This was accompanied by a 10% increase in visits to the revenue page.

Test idea 10 – Show CTA buttons on the category page

Some eCommerce websites don’t show CTA buttons on search results/product category pages at all, thinking they take up a lot of space and users already know where they have to go from here. If your website belongs to this category, we say that you take the middle road – create a variation where you show CTA buttons only when users hover over the product image on the desktop. If it shows an improvement in click-through for products, go ahead and roll it out for all visitors. But remember, CTA buttons should be all-time visible for mobile visitors on your website because hover doesn’t work on small devices. 

Wondering if you can create variations for both mobile and desktop using VWO Testing? Stay assured that there’s nothing to worry about. The Visual Editor doesn’t just let you create or edit but preview variations on different screens in different resolutions before shipping them. Sounds great? It’s time that you tried the feature out. 

The way forward

To summarize, A/B testing is crucial for providing your customers with the best search experience and making their shopping journey super easy. The ideas we discussed here will give you a solid foundation to start from. Taking a cue from this, you can further tailor your experimentation program based on your visitor behavior and business needs to achieve search success on your eCommerce store.

VWO can be a valuable ally in your optimization journey. Its extensive capabilities, from testing and analytical tools to a customer data platform and personalization, make it an exceptional optimization platform. Sign up, try it out, and see for yourself why it’s a game-changer. You won’t regret it. Good luck!

You can see that advanced technology did not come out of the blue. It evolved with one advancement becoming the foundation for another.

For instance, the smartphone industry stands on the foundation of numerous technological breakthroughs. From the initial landline telephones, the concept of cordless phones emerged, followed by the integration of mobile communication with computing power. 

Over time, we witnessed an evolution from personal digital assistants, such as BlackBerry devices, to the advent of the iPhone, which paved the way for the smartphone industry.

It’s like a loop, where each advancement created new opportunities that, in turn, lead to further progress. The loop has revolutionized our technology because we never left a loose end after an advancement. 

What if we followed the same approach toward experimentation on digital properties? 

Experimentation can sometimes lift your conversion rate beyond expectations and at times drop even for a promising hypothesis. It’s part and parcel of the process. 

But if you stick to a linear approach of closing the test after getting results and move on to test something new, it will rarely give you breakthroughs. You’ll miss out on chances to improve conversion rates and overlook valuable insights for future success. In the best-case scenario, it will plateau your growth rate. 

That is why it’s time to move on from the linear approach and take a strategic approach with the Experimentation Loop to realize the true conversion potential of your websites and mobile apps.

But what is an Experimentation loop? Let’s delve into this fascinating concept.

What is an Experimentation Loop?

An Experimentation Loop starts with identifying a problem through behavior analysis and creating a solution in the form of a hypothesis. Then, you run experiments to test the hypothesis. You either win or lose, but with a linear approach, you stop the experimentation cycle here. But with the Experimentation Loop, you investigate the test results to uncover valuable insights. The uncovered insights can derive new hypotheses, which lead to further experiments, creating a continuous cycle of learning and optimization. 

Here’s a visual illustration of how the Experimentation Loop works:

With Experimentation Loops, you are not just stopping at the results but diving deeper to understand the reasons behind the results, identifying anomalies, and discovering if particular audiences (or participants of the experiment) react differently from others. This becomes the foundation for your new hypothesis and experiments. 

It is especially critical in today’s ever-changing digital landscape, where user behavior is constantly evolving. By embracing the continuous learning and optimization provided by Experimentation Loops, you can stay ahead of the curve and keep improving your conversion rate.

Understanding the Experimentation Loop with an example

Here is a hypothetical example that explains how the Experimentation Loop functions:

Consider a landing page created with the intent to generate leads. The original version of the page has a description of the offering in the first fold, followed by the call-to-action (CTA) button that will lead to the contact form. 

Let’s say that the behavioral analysis of the landing page reveals many visitors dropping off on the first fold. This leads to the hypothesis of adding a CTA above the fold to improve engagement. This way, you create an A/B test to compare the original version and the variation with additional CTA above the fold. 

Here is the visual representation of the original and the variation of the landing page:

Let’s assume that the test ends with the variation outperforming the original in terms of the conversion rate (i.e. number of clicks on the CTA). Here, the traditional approach concludes the test. But with the experimentation loop, we will try to analyze the results to come up with more hypotheses and open up multiple opportunities for improvement.

Suppose, we zero down on the hypothesis that demands testing the CTA button. Then, the second round will involve coming up with multiple variations of the CTA text and CTA color to optimize the button. Here, to find out the best variation, we can run a multivariate test to compare the original version and multiple variations with different combinations. 

At the end of the test, there can be an uplift in conversion, which would have not been possible with the traditional approach. And if the test fails to get an uplift in conversion rate, it will lead to insights that can help in knowing more about the users.

Likewise, we can check the results to know if a particular audience segment engaged with the button more than others (and if they have common attributes) – in which case, it could lead to a hypothesis for a personalization campaign that includes personalizing the headings or subheading before the CTA as per behavior, demographic, or geographic attributes of the segment. 

Thus, an Experimentation Loop opens up the opportunity to improve, which is not possible with a siloed and linear approach. 

But how can you carry out the successful execution of the Experimentation Loop? 

The experimentation loop consists of three steps, and we will delve into each of these steps in the upcoming section.

Three steps in the Experimentation Loop

Following are the three key steps in the Experimentation Loop for improving conversions. 

Step 1: Identify problems

The Experimentation Loop starts with identifying the existing problem in user experience. First, you do a quantitative analysis that involves going through key metrics like conversion rate, bounce rate, and page views to identify the low-performing pages on the user journey.

Once you zero down on the weak links, you can do a qualitative analysis to understand the pain points. You can check session recordings and heatmaps to know the performance of each element that affects the conversion rate.  

Once you identify the problem associated with the elements, it can help draft a hypothesis.

Step 2: Build hypothesis from insights

After identifying elements that are affecting the conversion negatively, you can start digging into the insight data to make sense of it. 

For example, you identified the banner image position as the reason for the high bounce rate of the blog after all the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Then you can build a hypothesis about the position of this image that offers a solution for the high bounce rate.

While framing the hypothesis, you should specify the key performance indicator (KPI) to be measured, the expected uplift, and the element to test.

Next, you move forward to run the experiment. 

Step 3: Run experiments

Based on the hypothesis, you choose from tests like the A/B test, multivariate test, split URL, and multipage test. You run it till the test reaches a statistical significance.

The test may result in a change in the conversion rate, and the insights about the user behavior toward the new experience can open doors to identify areas for the second cycle of the experimentation. 

Thus, the Experimentation Loop will constantly carve a path to improve conversion.   

Experimentation Loop and sales funnel

Running Experimentation Loops at every stage of the funnel can substantially improve the conversion rate and provide a strategic framework for testing hypotheses rather than a haphazard approach.

To enhance the conversion rate of the same element, you can run an Experimentation Loop, as seen in the example of A/B testing to Multivariate testing. 

Alternatively, you can analyze the insights from a test that improved a metric to see how it affected other metrics, which could lead to the second cycle of the test.

For instance, let’s take the awareness stage. The goal in this stage is to attract users and introduce them to products or services on a digital platform. 

Suppose you ran an A/B test on search ads to get more users to the website and monitored metrics like the number of visitors. 

Let’s say the test led to an improvement in traffic. Now, you can move on to analyze other metrics, such as % scroll depth and bounce rate for the landing page, and identify areas for improvement. To pinpoint the specific areas where users are leaving, you can use tools such as scroll maps, heat maps, and session recordings. The analysis can lead you to create hypotheses for the second leg of the experiment. It could involve improving user engagement by testing a visual element or a catchy headline.

Likewise, running the Experimentation Loop at other stages of the funnel can optimize the micro journey that the customer takes at each funnel stage. Moreover, the Experimentation Loop can lead to hypotheses creation from one funnel stage to another, resulting in a seamless experience that is hard to achieve with a siloed approach.

How Frictionless Commerce uses Experimentation Loops for conversion copywriting

Frictionless Commerce, a digital agency, has relied on VWO for over ten years to conduct A/B testing on new buyer journeys. They have established a system where they build new experiments based on their previous learnings. Through iterative experimentation, they have identified nine psychological drivers that impact first-time buyer decisions.

Recently, they worked with a client in the shampoo bar industry, where they created a landing page copy that incorporated all nine drivers. After running the test for five weeks, they saw an increase of 5.97% in conversion rate resulting in 2778 new orders.

It just shows how Experimentation Loops can bring valuable insights and take your user experience to the next level. 

You can learn more about Frictionless Commerce’s experimentation process in their case study.

Conclusion

Embracing the continuous learning and optimization provided by Experimentation Loops is crucial for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve and improve their conversion rates.

To truly drive success from your digital property, it’s time to break the linear mold and embrace the Experimentation Loop. By using a strategic framework for testing hypotheses, rather than a haphazard approach, businesses can continuously optimize and improve their digital offerings. 

You can create Experimentation Loops using VWO, the world’s leading experimentation platform. VWO offers free testing for up to 5000 monthly tracked users. Visit our plans and pricing page now for more information.

We are beyond delighted with your unwavering love for our content. Your support has enabled us to reach so many audiences, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We’ve been working hard to keep up with your demand to see more of our content, and we’re thrilled to announce something new and exciting – our very own VWO Podcast.

Podcasting is a fun and interesting space where you can enjoy any content of your choice anytime and anywhere. So, let’s say you’re in a rush to pick up your kid from school, but you also want to utilize the time to learn about data-driven personalization. You don’t really have to choose between the two. Tune into the relevant podcast episode and gain some valuable insights on the go. Also, we know that everyone learns differently, and some of us just absorb information better when we’re listening. All in all, our objective is to make the process of acquiring information or knowledge easy and fun for our audiences. 

We spent a lot of time curating VWO Podcast for you, featuring exclusive episodes with industry leaders who will share their knowledge and insights about everything related to conversion optimization, UX, experimentation, data analytics, and so on. 

So, who are the top industry leaders on our podcast?

Darrell Williams – Darrell Williams On Using Hick’s Law To Drive CRO Success

Currently serving as the Head of Insights and Optimizations, Darrell has several years of experience as a growth marketing expert with special focus on CRO, SEO, and analytics. In one of our episodes, you’ll hear the expert shedding light on the perils of offering too many choices to your customers and overcoming this problem by leveraging feedback & prioritizing products/services.

Chris Marsh – How Chris Marsh Added +$3M to Client Revenue With CRO & UX

Chris Marsh is an independent CRO consultant who shines bright in the CRO community on LinkedIn, offering his thoughtful suggestions and tips for audiences. You’ll hear the expert talk about how he added +3M to client revenue using the right approach toward CRO. Want to replicate his success? Well, Chris says it’s not simple or easy, but it’s not impossible either. Just have the right approach and give this episode a listen. 

Brian Massey – Brian Massey On How Data Has CHANGED The Way We Design

With 15 years of experience under his belt, Brian Massey is the conversion scientist you must listen to if you want to take a scientific approach to conversion rate optimization for maximum results. He says the design process is getting smarter. Marketers no longer exhaust budgets and then analyze if it was money well-spent. So, what do they do instead? This is why he discusses how data can improve design and boost ROI.

Julia Ritter – Julia Ritter on How To CONVERT Users From Email Campaigns

Having worked as the Email Marketing Manager at Mailjet by Sinch, Julia Ritter loves sending out emails and measuring their performance. Julia drops a bomb that people usually receive up to 50 emails per day! How do you make sure they open and read yours? Join Julia as she shares the do’s and don’ts of email campaigns along with actionable strategies to improve email open rate and click rate.

Our lineup of industry experts doesn’t end here! But for now, we’ll leave you with a taste of what’s to come. Want to discover more? Subscribe to our podcast and join us on this exciting journey!

Here’s where you can listen to our podcast

Our podcast will be available on Spotify in video format and on other streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts in audio form. We’ll be releasing a new episode every Wednesday. Make sure you hit the follow button on Spotify so you’ll be notified when a new episode is out.

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We’re excited to share our VWO Podcast with you and hope you’ll enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoy creating it. If you find it helpful and informative, do share it within your network. We want to help as many people as we can.

Your feedback is important to us, and we’d love to hear from you. So, go ahead and tune into our first podcast episode. Enjoy listening! We’ll catch up with you soon. Until then, keep listening and stay tuned!

Types of mobile app experiments you can try

Let’s look at the top four experiments that impact app user experience significantly and show, using real-world examples, how you can try them out in VWO.

1. Search experiments

Users with shorter attention spans are easily distracted and may not take action if there are too many obstacles. Given the limited screen space on mobile devices, it is not practical to include an extensive menu or a variety of filters to aid navigation within the app. Therefore, incorporating and optimizing search functionality becomes necessary to improve product or feature visibility and ensure proper showcasing for mobile apps. 

Metrics to track

Assuming you’re already considering optimizing your app search, here are some metrics to keep a close eye on: 

• Search exit rate
• No. of users selecting the item shown in the search
• No. of searches with no results

These metrics can be defined easily in VWO. Insights drawn from this data will give you a clear understanding of where your app’s search performance currently stands and where it is lagging.

Deep-dive into user insights with qualitative behavior research

To provide more depth to your observations, supplementing quantitative data with qualitative research can prove valuable. Heatmaps are widely used (and loved) for this, and for a good reason. Say you see a dip in the number of clicks on the search results. There could be a few reasons why: 

• The search results are not relevant 
• The results order is not personalized 
• The number of items displayed after the search is too low 

VWO’s upcoming Mobile Insights product makes it easy to leverage session recordings and heatmaps or scroll-maps to delve deeper into user behavior and identify what needs to be optimized. With VWO Mobile Insights, you can find answers to questions like:

• How are visitors using the search function? (e.g., to look for categories vs. pointed specific products)
• Is auto-complete impacting conversion? 
• Is surfacing their search history effective in improving sales for previously purchased items?
• What is causing friction in their search experience?

Examples that you can try

You can formulate and validate hypotheses through A/B tests based on your observations. 

If you are wondering where to start, here are a few real-world examples you can refer to for inspiration. 

Example 1 – Search results by category

Some of the best implementations of app search are on social media sites like Instagram and YouTube. When you begin typing on the Instagram search bar, you will see results organized under categories like accounts, audio, tags, places, etc. Instagram and YouTube show search history, giving users one-click access to retry their previous search phrases. 

Example 2 – Search results with product suggestions

GOAT, an American eCommerce platform, has implemented an impressive search feature that enables users to find what they need swiftly. When you click the search icon on the bottom nav bar, it shows you a few product categories to browse and fills the page with items under the chosen category. When you click the search bar and start typing for something, you can see product suggestions with corresponding text and images.

Tests that can be devised

So, let’s say you want to improve the click-through rate for your search results. Here are two hypotheses you can test based on the above examples to meet the said goal.  

Test 1 Idea
Hypothesis 1: Grouping search results under different categories like people, places, and groups will improve user engagement. 

Control: Search results are displayed as a product list.

Variant: Search results displayed along with ‘group by’ filters. 

Test 2 Idea
Hypothesis 2: Showing images along with search results will improve the click-through rate for product suggestions. 

Control: Results showing product suggestions that have only text.

Variant: Results showing product suggestions that have both text and images.

You can quickly implement such tests on VWO’s Mobile A/B testing platform in just a few steps. Below is a video demonstrating the steps involved in creating a test based on hypothesis 1 for an Android application built using Java, for instance. VWO  also supports frameworks such as Flutter, Cordova, and React-Native. 

Behind the scenes in VWO

VWO provides lightweight SDKs for iOS, Android, and all popular backend languages. Adding the mobile app SDK is a one-time integration process, after which VWO generates API keys that you can use for app initialization for both iOS and Android apps. You can refer to this comprehensive guide if you need a detailed explanation of the steps.

So you’ve created variations, added conversion goals, and launched a mobile app test. The next crucial step is to analyze and extract insights from the test results. VWO’s SmartStats engine, based on Bayesian statistics, does the heavy lifting to compute and present precise test results as easy-to-consume reports that you can analyze to draw actionable insights. VWO’s reports are comprehensive and allow you to filter down results by date and visitor segments and even compare the performance of multiple goals in a test.

2. Navigation experiments

Navigation is among the trickiest things to build because it involves multiple complexities like grouping, design, and ease of feature discovery. Experts recommend “Tree Test” to help set a baseline for how “findable” things are on your app. It is a closed test conducted among users to see how quickly they can find something within the app. This article is a great piece to get you started on Tree Tests and also serves as a significant first step toward designing experiments to improve navigation. 

Metrics to track

Just like we did with experiments to improve search, here are a few metrics you must keep a tab on

• Item findability rate 
• The time taken to find a feature or product 
• No. of times users got it right on their first click
• Variability in finding time

By combining the performance of these metrics with qualitative research insights, you can determine an effective strategy for enhancing your app’s navigation. 

Examples that you can try

Example 1 – Card navigation

If you’re looking for navigation inspirations, one of my favorites is Calm, a meditation app. Their layout resembles a series of doors, each serving as an entry point. The cards are further segmented into categories like ‘Mental Fitness,’ ‘Recommended Collections,’ ‘Quick & Easy,’ and so on. The hamburger menu could be an alternative to this navigation style, but its use has declined due to its low discoverability, decreasing user clicks. On the contrary, card-style navigation is increasingly gaining traction for its user-friendly design. 

Example 2 – Simple tag navigation

Google Maps is another app that has user-friendly navigation. Once you enter a location, you see options like directions, share, and save location in the form of easily noticeable filter buttons. In addition, you also find commonly used facilities as filter buttons, helping you explore restaurants, shopping malls, ATMs, and parks near the entered location. Google Maps navigation is simple and helps people get the most out of the app.

Tests that can be devised

Improving the click-through rate of products from the navigation is usually the main goal of eCommerce owners trying to improve their app navigation experience. If that’s what you’re trying to do as well, here are two hypotheses to test:

Test 1 Idea

Hypothesis 1: Replacing the hamburger menu with card-based navigation tiles will increase conversion rates.

Control: The hamburger menu displays different product categories for users to explore.

Variant: Product categories shown in a card layout format.

Test 2 Idea

Hypothesis 2: Showing filter buttons for everyday use cases will result in users finding the relevant information quicker and using them more often.

Control: The feature search bar stays at the app’s top without filter buttons.
Variant: The search bar is at the top, with filter buttons for everyday use cases are at the top and bottom of the screen. 

If you wish to run both tests in parallel, you can do so with VWO without worrying about skewed data. VWO has the capability of running mutually exclusive tests on mobile apps. This ensures that a mobile app user participating in one campaign does not participate in another campaign that is part of the mutually exclusive group. You can accomplish this by adding multiple campaigns to a mutually exclusive group to ensure no visitor overlap across any of the campaigns. Creating a mutually exclusive group on VWO guarantees that your mobile app provides a consistent experience and that one campaign’s results are not influenced by another, attributing conversions to the right campaign.

3. Onboarding experiments

The app onboarding experience is subject to most change as it evolves with your products, categories, audience, goals, and others. While an onboarding experience changes vastly depending on what your product does, all good ones have a few things in common. They: 

• Reinstate the value proposition of the app
• Familiarize users with the features and benefits
• Encourage successful adoption of the app
• Minimize the time taken by customers to derive the value they want from using your app 

So, if you want to improve your app optimization experience, it might be a good idea to find answers to some pertinent questions first:

• Is our app onboarding process too lengthy?
• When do people realize value during the onboarding process?
• Which steps in the onboarding process should be optional?
• Do users look for onboarding help and support? 

Metrics to track

To support your goals and discussions effectively, relying on data and allowing them to steer your testing roadmap is essential. Tracking basic metrics like the ones listed below can be helpful:

• Onboarding completion rate
• Time to value (time between onboarding and getting the first value from your app)
• Activation rate reflects how new users perceive your app
• No. of onboarding support tickets generated for a specific period

Examples that you can try

Let us discuss some examples that can inspire you to test and improve your app onboarding process. 

Example 1 – Multiple log-in options in the onboarding flow

 Do you wonder if you should offer email, social login, or both during user onboarding? Every Plate, a US-based meal delivery platform, lets users choose any of the two options for logging in. 

Example 2 – Multi-step onboarding flow

How many steps should you include in your app onboarding process? See how Duolingo has aced it – proving that a well-crafted multi-step onboarding process can be successful without losing the user’s interest. The language learning app displays a series of screens asking users several (yet relevant) questions during onboarding to improve their learning experience.

Tests that can be devised

Would you like to know how many people have completed the onboarding process or how many support tickets have been raised? You can keep track of these goals by trying out the following testing ideas.

Test 1 Idea

Hypothesis 1: Providing social logins along with email can result in better conversion in step 1 

Control: Just email/phone login 

Variant: Email login + Google + Facebook 

Test 2 Idea

Hypothesis 2: Showing a progress bar during onboarding will nudge users to complete the onboarding process. 

Control: A multi-step onboarding process presented without a progress bar. 

Variant: A multi-step onboarding process with a progress bar at the top of every onboarding screen. 

With a tool like VWO, you can customize the target audience for your tests based on various parameters such as technology, visitor type, time, etc. You can select a targeting segment from the Segment Gallery or create a custom one.

In the context of the previous test example, suppose user research indicates that users are averse to entering their email and password and prefer more flexible login options. Based on this research, you could first target users in a slow market, say Mexico, to see if offering social login options generates a positive response and increases the number of users completing the first onboarding step. To accomplish this, you can go to custom segments to add conditions and select the corresponding attribute (Country) and value (Mexico).

Further, you can use ‘AND/OR’ operators for more precise audience selection. For example, suppose your learning application targets primarily mid-career professionals in Mexico. In that case, you can choose the custom variable option and enter ‘Age’ in the name field and an age group (such as 35-45) in the value field. Then, you can select the bracket on both sides and choose the ‘And’ operation. Alternatively, if you want to track the performance of any one of the groups, you can use the ‘OR’ operator in audience selection.

Here’s a short article on custom segments if you want to learn more. 

4. Pricing experiments

Offering discounts or coupons are necessary to boost sales and attract customers to your app. But how can you be sure your pricing strategy is helping your business grow?

Setting prices too high may drive customers away, while setting them too low could mean missing out on revenue. 

Metrics to track

To determine if your pricing is effective, analyze the following revenue-related metrics for your app:

• Lifetime value – Revenue generated per user from the time they’ve installed your app
• Purchase frequency – The average number of purchases your users make in a given time.
• Cost per install – prices paid to acquire new users from paid ads. 

 These metrics can be configured in VWO. If you believe the numbers are not up to your expectations, it may be time to consider A/B testing pricing plans. Doing so can help you maximize revenue without risking losses.

Examples that you can try

Example 1 – Giving a discounted annual pricing to subscribers

Strava, a popular fitness app, requires its users to pay monthly or annual subscription fees to access its advanced features. Customers can choose between monthly or yearly billing cycles, with the potential savings mentioned for the latter. This discount may incentivize users to opt for the annual plan.

Example 2 – Displaying dynamic pricing with a time limit

Heads Up! is a popular game where players hold a mobile device up to their forehead and try to guess the word or phrase that appears on the screen based on their friends’ clues. Notice how the original price is crossed out, and a time limit is displayed to create a sense of urgency and encourage users to act quickly.

You can create effective app tests based on these pricing display methods.

Tests that can be devised

Let’s say you want to increase the number of transactions/paid subscriptions on your app. The following are the test ideas you can experiment with.

Test 1 Idea

Hypothesis 1: Showing potential savings for a subscription plan will encourage users to opt for the longer one. 

Control: Monthly subscription plan and annual subscription plan. 

Variation: Monthly and yearly subscriptions have potential savings for both plans mentioned. 

Test 2 Idea

Hypothesis 2: Psychological tactics like urgency and striking out the original price can increase the number of users opting for this discount offer. 

Control: A simple discount banner with a new price written out. 

Variation: A vibrant discount banner with the original price struck out, the discounted price displayed, and a timer indicating the availability of the offer.

Let’s explore a more advanced approach called the multi-armed bandit (MAB) for one of the experiments we discussed earlier, such as the discount test inspired by the Heads Up example. Unlike the A/B tests we previously discussed, the multi-armed bandit approach is a bit more complex and involves a different methodology.

Suppose you have a time-sensitive discount offer with multiple variations to test, and you need to identify the best-performing variation as quickly as possible to minimize opportunity loss. Unlike A/B tests focused on determining the best variation, MAB focuses on getting to the better variation faster. When the optimization window is small, MAB is more suited to minimize opportunity loss in pricing, discounts, subscriptions, etc. In such cases, visitors who are served the second-best variation and don’t convert constitute lost revenue opportunities since they may have converted if they were part of the winning variation. You can learn more about MAB on VWO here.

Accelerate your app success with awesome testing ideas!

We hope you found the A/B testing ideas discussed in this article helpful. However, great ideas are only beneficial when implemented correctly. So, if you’re looking for a platform that offers comprehensive functionalities like light-weight Android/iOS SDKs, 24*7 tech support for multiple languages, the ability to select custom audiences for tests, and gives you reliable, real-time reports, VWO Mobile App Testing should be your top choice. Further, with the full release of Mobile Insights quickly approaching, you can gain a more in-depth understanding of user behavior, improve conversion metrics, and, most importantly, enhance the overall user experience of your app. Request a free demo to see how VWO improves your mobile app users’ journey.