Posts Tagged "magnify360"

Affsum Session: Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages

Posted on Jan 26, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking | 1 comment

Date: Tuesday, January 13th, 2009.  Session 8b, 2:00pm.
Session Description: Learn how to optimize your landing pages and increase conversion rates by 50-500% using simple techniques and technologies.  Get that competitive edge by increasing margins and return on marketing spend. The panel consisted of:

• Olivier Chaine, CEO & Founder, magnify360 (Moderator)
• Trevor Claiborne, Product Marketing Manager, Google
• Lisa Crossley Hunter, Senior Director of CJ Search, Commission Junction
• Beth Kirsch, VP of Marketing and Business Development, uAmplify

I was expecting some gems in terms of site optimization, and boy was I not let down!  I’d heard Lisa and Olivier speak last September at CJU, so I knew I was in for good stuff from them.  I mentioned this session as one I planned on attending before leaving and Trevor stopped by to say hi.  I had a chance to chat with him briefly in the bloghaus after the session and let him know what a great job they did as well.

Bullet Point Review!

• 98% of your traffic is wasted.
• 2% is the average site conversion rate.
• Copy heavy pages perform better later hours.
• There isn’t one magic answer.
• Ask yourself these questions about your visitors:
  • Why are they here TODAY?
  • How do they THINK?
  • How do they BUY/STICK?
  • What kind of dialog is best?
• Google’s website optimizer is a free tool to do this for you.
• A/B testing is your friend.
• So is multivariate.
• Best practices: start now, test often.
• Resource: Google Website Optimizer
• Share search channels.
• Cooperate with other departments with
  • Ad copy
  • Natural listings
  • Trademarks
  • Display URL Usage
• After testing, what works for affiliates is often different than what works for search.
  • One page tested, search conversions went up 60% but affiliate went up 454%!
• You could be losing tremendous amounts of revenue by not optimizing.
• Don’t start without a plan.
• Don’t just copy what someone else did, it probably won’t work the same for you.  TEST!
• Don’t assume an optimized page today is going to be optimized 6 months from now.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Just make sure you’re sending the most qualified traffic to the merchant page; you can’t really optimize their site or spend your time trying to help them that much.
• How much data is needed?  Generally speaking 100 impressions per change, but really, use a tool – they’ll tell you when enough data has been collected to pick a winning optimization.
• Is there a hierarchy of what to test?  Not really, just pick a few things and go small first.  Multivariate is complicated so start with something more manageable.

In the end, I really enjoyed hearing more from Lisa and Olivier – their expertise seems to know no bounds!  Trevor also nailed it with the information about the Google Website Optimizer – my fellow attendees and I speculated that he was why most people came, to learn about the free Google tool!  Unfortunately I wasn’t impressed by Beth – her speaking was really mumbled so I couldn’t quite pick up everything she said, and most her slides related to case studies and not a lot of tactics.  Maybe at a smaller venue or had I been closer to the front I might have been able to hear her better.  Ultimately these tidbits did well, but the slides will really tell you the background behinds these notes, so here they are!

CJU Course: 7 Keys to a Stellar Landing Page

Posted on Sep 22, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking |

I was excited for this panel, which promised some great information on how to perk up your landing pages.  The speaker was:

• Olivier Chaine, CEO & Founder, magnify360.

Bullet Point Review!

• Software-as-a-service delivers different landing pages to different visitors.
• Personal based development is growing.
• One experience, “the best” experience doesn’t work for everyone.
• Why do people abandon?
  • Intent mismatch: their intent when finding your site doesn’t match what your site delivers (i.e. their intent is research and you have buy links but no reviews, or their intent is to buy and you have reviews but no purchase links).
  • Personality mismatch: they just don’t jive with your site.
  • Visual design/ease of use: pretty isn’t always the best, you want it to be functional and branded first and foremost.
  • Product/Pricing perception: you must understand shopper personality types to sell to the different types of consumers.
• Reinforce Banner/Ad Message.
  • Support ad copy; must have direct correlation.
  • Image copy can match too.
• Have a strong call-to-action.
  • Optimize header & call to action copy.
  • Don’t forget the button copy.
• Variation in page flow.
  • Form/copy split up.
  • Can generate 30-50% lift by splitting form questions into multiple pages.
• Mobile.
  • People on their phones have a different intent; may not be ready to buy over the mobile net.
  • If they do want to make the purchase they are fast and very transaction oriented.
• Target Behaviorally.
  • Look at the profile performance.
  • Check weekend performance vs. weekday performance.
  • Check branded landing pages vs. non-branded pages.
• Target multiple personalities.
  • Look at buying process, purchase attitudes, industry knowledge, learning style, purchase criteria, buyer readiness.
• Design for the customer.
  • Why are they here TODAY?
  • How do they THINK?
  • How do they BUY/STICK?
  • What kind of DIALOG is best to have with them?
• TEST, TEST, TEST!
  • Use manual testing & improvement.
  • AB & Multivariate testing.
  • Behavioral targeting & optimization.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Start page variation by removing elements or large ad copy chunks & seeing what happens.
• Try completely different designs entirely.
• Making changes to landing pages allows you to buy more traffic & still be profitable.
• 25% conversion rate increase can mean a 75% volume increase, which means more buying power.
• Start small with behavioral targeting.
• Test often, measure always.
• Work with your sales and customer service departments to optimize.
• Find the right technology partners.
• Have fun & remember that this is about engaging with people.
• What to ask an agency before hiring them?
  • Do they optimize manually or automatically?
  • Do they focus on small elements or full pages?
  • Do they do behavioral targeting?
  • What kind of reports & analytics do they have?
  • Are they a full service agency?
  • Do they have any performance guarantees?

I really learned a lot from this session since I’m not entirely familar with landing pages.  This really got me jazzed to apply what I’ve learned the next time I need to assist on a landing page design or even if I have to make one myself!  I might even try to do a landing page for something to excercise this new knowledge.