EyeView's Blog

Trust Indicators and Conversion

One of the repeated themes from the Conversion Conference last week in San Jose, was the importance of displaying your trust indicators prominently on your landing page.

Trust indicators are the visual clues you can use to let your site visitors see that you can be trusted. If your conversion involves some kind of financial transaction, you want to show that you have the highest levels of financial protection. If you’re collecting data, you want to demonstrate that your site is secure and your visitors’ data will be kept private. If you’re promising to deliver something, you want to express your commitment to service and punctuality.

In their New York Times bestselling book Trust Agents, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith write about the importance of trust as a commodity that can be shared, lent and borrowed. In addition to the kinds of security and integrity indicators, I mentioned above you should also borrow trust from your valued customers by adding their logos to your site. When your visitors see the logos of other trusted brands on your site they are most likely to trust you.

So far, so simple. Trust indicators have been tested on many sites and they have been shown to boost conversion in many cases.

As far as the authority borrowed from existing customers goes, I’m totally on board. As a consumer or a responsible buyer for a company, I can see why using the logos of big brand companies is a persuasive tool in convincing me to purchase. If it’s good enough for [fill in the name of a company you admire here] then it should be good enough for me. I get it.

But the security icons leave me a little cold. I’m a sophisticated browser. I feel confident about finding the results I want through search. I believe I can discern whether or not a company trying to sell me something is trustworthy or not based on the language they use and the images they present. I don’t believe that if any of those indicators gave me pause that it would be an image of a padlock that set me straight. I’m also not convinced that any symbol of security would help me overcome serious misgivings I might have about an online provider’s ability to deliver on its promises.

Leaving aside my personal prejudices, I still want to determine whether either of these kinds of trust icons have a place in conversion videos. Is there something more persuasive about animation with a voiceover which makes the flat representation of a security icon irrelevant? Should the corporate logos of your customers scroll through a video or should each one be animated as it would be on its own site? At what point does the “borrowed trust” of someone else’s logo become a distraction rather than a trust indicator and an aid to conversion?

Of course, I don’t have answers to all these questions right now. But you can be sure we will be running more tests with video trust indicators in the future.

Conversion Conference - First Thoughts

It’s been a hectic couple of days here in San Jose. The inaugural Conversion Conference, set up by Tim Ash from SiteTuners, is generally agreed by both attendees and presenters to have been an unqualified success.

From my perspective it was gratifying to spend time with so many conversion professionals. Everywhere I went people were talking about testing methodologies and the comparative advantages of A/B and multivariate testing. It was conversion geek heaven.

The speaking tracks were broken up into four groups: Persuasion, Best Practices, Hands On and Testing. Having sampled at least one presentation of each group I found them to be relevant and useful.

The conference kicked off Tuesday morning with a keynote address from Tim Ash himself. Tim is one of the pioneers of Landing Page Optimization and he delivered an entertaining introduction breaking down the basics into easily digestible and practicable suggestions.

Straight after Tim, two presenters tag-teamed a session called The Power of Split Testing. Both Brooks Bell and Lance Loveday delivered valuable insights into the basis of this vital art. Brooks, in particular suggested the 5 Ts that must be considered when it comes to A/B testing:

• Traffic
• Technology
• Time
• Trust
• Team

Throughout this and every other session I was in, people were tweeting furiously to get the word out to their networks. By tuning in to the conference hashcode, #ConvCon, I was able to get real-time updates from the parallel track. It was a sign of the conference’s quality that there was always something interesting going in each of the two meeting rooms and seating space was almost always at a premium with listeners sometimes spilling out into the corridor.

Day two started in fine fashion with a presentation from Bryan Eisenberg delivered at breakneck speed. Bryan’s energy, undiminished by his impressive weight loss, woke everyone up and led into another day of fascinating sessions.

All in all, I feel that the conference more than justified its existence. There was a clear need for a dedicated conversion conference and I’m thrilled to note that the next one is already scheduled for October. I have the feeling that most of this week’s attendees will come back and that, once word gets out, there will be more people lining up to visit the show. 

For now we will have to rely on the presentations from this show which Tim Ash has promised to make available to everyone who attended. In addition, all the sessions were filmed. I’m not sure what Tim intends to do with all this footage, but, if you want to see it, you had better contact him yourself and request it.

Conversion Conference West 2010

Do you know the way to San Jose? I do and I’m heading there early next week. I was thrilled when Tim Ash contacted us and asked EyeView to deliver a session on the impact of video on site performance at the first Conversion Conference. It’s not like we haven’t had other speaking engagements. It’s just this is the first ever conference aimed directly at conversion professionals.

The conference runs concurrently with the latest eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and positions video squarely as part of the scientific search for superior site performance (I’m practicing my alliteration to prepare for my presentation!).

Several people have suggested that 2010 will be remembered as the year that Conversion Rate Optimization captured the mainstream attention of big-hitting marketers. Some of those people will even be attending the conference. I’m looking forward to hearing the keynote addresses from Tim, Bryan Eisenberg and Jakob Nielsen and rubbing shoulders with as many like-minded conversion buffs (conversion geeks?) as possible.

By positioning the conference alongside eMetrics, Tim has smartly staked the claim for moving conversion rate optimization away from the softer consultancy side of things and into the realm of measurable science. That’s exactly where we believe that EyeView sits and I’m keen to connect with others who are involved daily with the iterative cycle of testing and analysis that lies behind all our optimization efforts. 

If you’re going to be at the conference, please find me and say hello. I think it’s going to be a very productive few days.

New Video Marketing Quiz Lands With A Bang

We’re really excited to launch the newest Video Marketing Quiz with all new questions.

Following the success of the last quiz, we wanted to top ourselves and present some of the data generated by the tests we run in the most engaging way we could imagine.

Since the last quiz we have seen the format picked up and imitated by Omniture/Adobe, which just makes us think that we created an exciting product.

To mark this launch we are giving away hundred of dollars in Amazon vouchers to the people who take the quiz and the Tweet their results.

Every hour for the first eight hours after the launch today at 10 am ET, five lucky tweeters will be selected and sent $20 to spend any way they wish.

It doesn’t get more exciting that that!

Enjoy the quiz and get tweeting!

Great Resources for Conversion Optimization

People are always asking me what (and who) I read to keep up professionally, so I thought it was time for a post highlighting some of the most useful sources of information I turn to regularly to keep me up to day with the world.

Due to the nature of our EyeView’s business I find my blog reading time split evenly between content that is focused on conversion and optimization and commentary on the latest developments in online video and video advertising. So will split this post into two and deal with each area separately

So here is a list of the top 5 go-to reads for conversion and optimization. For each I’ll list a URL and Twitter ID where appropriate.

The best introduction you can have to the world of conversion is Bryan Eisenberg. Eisenberg is published all over the place, but is blogging regularly now at BryanEisenberg.com. There is very little in the world of optimization that Bryan hasn’t already written about, but you can be sure he always finds a fresh topic for his meaty posts. In addition to his work online, Bryan has co-authored two of the most informative books I have ever referred to – Always Be Testing and Waiting For Your Cat To Bark? Bryan tweets as @TheGrok.

The guys at Conversion Rate Experts don’t blog as regularly as I would like them to, but when they do, you can bet they have something weighty to say. With offices in London and New York, this team of conversion consultants have built their reputation on making a difference for some high-profile customers. They are definitely worth listening to.  

Brian Massey has cleverly dubbed himself The Conversion Scientist. It’s a great title, but it wouldn’t be worth anything if he didn’t back it up regularly with some real science. You can follow Brian on Twitter where he is @bmassey.

Raquel Hirsch and Chris Goward at Wider Funnel put out consistently great material that always offers food for thought and usually a practical way to apply that thought. Chris publishes a daily conversion optimization tip on Twitter as @chrisgoward and Raquel moderates a number of conversion optimization groups on LinkedIn.

 My last entry for now is a bit of a cheat. SEOmoz doesn’t focus too hard on conversion optimization, but the sheer breadth and volume of quality content that is posted there means that they are host to some of the best and most informative discussions on the subject. You can follow the SEOmoz twitter stream here and pick through the SEO stuff for some conversion optimization gems.

6 Predictions For Online Video For 2010

The end of the year is always a time for reflection. This year I left behind my life with a major online video sharing site and started working for a company that is just as enamored with online video but approaches the medium with higher expectations. If video sharing sites represent the youthful excesses in the life of online video, then the next iteration is all about online video growing up, taking responsibility and earning its way.

Here are my predictions for the coming year in Online Video. I hope you enjoy my perspective.

1. Video Sharing sites will continue to grow in size but diminish in importance. In other words YouTube will be huger than ever but the story will be even more fragmented than it was this year. Apart from unpredictable viral hits like Susan Boyle, no YouTuber will ever again achieve the prominence that subscription grinders like Fred, Hot For Words and Michael Buckley have. YouTube has taken over from MTV as the number one place to watch music videos. YouTube is already more relevant as a search engine than as an entertainment destination site. It’s almost like Google could see into the future when they bought it.
2. Some small and medium businesses (SMBs) will embrace video more than ever before. The cost of entry for online video has been so reduced that every commercial site will experiment with the medium. Most will do so with no way of measuring whether the experiment was successful.
3. Some large businesses will continue to invest large sums in telling their stories with video. They will continue to be happy to do so despite not knowing how effective these videos are because however large the budget they are still cheaper than creating and buying airtime for TV ads.
4. Some SMBs and some large businesses will demand that their investment in online video brings a measurable return. They will operate under the assumption that marketing spend needs to be justified and they will seek out video solutions that combine analytics with video creation and implementation. They will find such solutions and they will be very happy.
5. Video will become a more important weapon in the affiliate marketer’s arsenal. As affiliates acknowledge the persuasive power of video over less dynamic media, they will push advertisers towards supplying video versions of banners and other collateral. Affiliates will be a major force driving video to becoming more accountable in the sales funnel.
6. Everyone reading this blog will appear in at least one video posted on the internet between now and this time next year. Happy New Year.

Happy Holidays From EyeView

As we come to the end of an amazing year, it’s great to look back and reflect on the changes we’ve seen. The year 2009 will be remembered as a breakout year for online video as it left the confines of video sharing sites and crossed over into mainstream acceptance. In 2010 every commercial site will include a video presentation at some point in its interaction with potential customers.

The final sign of acceptance will be when video is made accountable not just as a ‘nice to have’ marketing extra, but as a fully functioning tool in the marketer's arsenal with its own ROI and the expectation of revenue generation.

EyeView is proud to be leading the charge towards accountable video with our award-winning optimization program and our fantastic roster of clients.

Thank you to everyone for making 2009 so exciting and let’s see if we can’t do it all again in 2010!

Brits Vs. Yanks - A Conversion True Story

There seems to be some debate about who said it first, but whether it was Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw the quip still holds true that England and America are “two countries separated by a common language.”

But even when the language is the same, the accent used to express it can vary widely, and our response to that variation may impact our willingness to listen to the message being delivered.

We have long been interested in testing the impact of different accents. We usually do not change the content of a video for British or American audiences, but the accent in the voiceover is a different matter entirely.

Ginger Software markets a product aimed at improving your written English. It identifies spelling and grammar errors and is particularly useful for students, people with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, and business people for whom English is a second language. Once we had proven that the inclusion of video on Ginger’s site increased their conversion rate, we decided to test whether there was a difference in conversion when the audience heard an American or a British accent delivering the voiceover. Given that the product is tied so closely to people’s perception of correct English, we thought this would be real grudge match between two great nations. And the results didn’t disappoint.

We ran an A/B test where 50% of the global audience saw the video with a voiceover in a British accent and 50% saw it with the voiceover performed with an American accent. The conversion goal for each version of the video was to get visitors to download Ginger’s software.

Looking at the global population, we saw that the British voiceover was 4% more effective at converting visitors into downloaders. On its own, that would be interesting enough, but we wanted to look further into what was happening in each country.

It seems that the often-heard comment by Americans that things sound smarter with a British accent actually translates into action. For US audiences, the conversion rate for the British accent was 5.5% higher than the American one – above the global average. In Canada, the British accent still outperformed the American, but by a mere 1.5%.

Irish viewers watching the British version converted 12% more often than those hearing an American voice while the response of the Australians was even more extreme. Viewers “down under” converted 32% more often when pitched with Pommie tones than with an American twang.

The Brits didn’t have it all their own way. In India, the American accent was 12% more effective at converting visitors. But the most surprising statistic of all came when we looked at the comparative performance of the two accents in the UK. For audiences watching the video in the UK, the voiceover with the American accent was 8% more effective at making visitors download Ginger’s software than the British accent, representing a significant swing away from the global trend. This was a wonderfully counter-intuitive response to the test that really drives home the importance of knowing your audience and optimizing your video geographically to ensure you get the best results.

There is nothing to say that the results obtained here would be replicated for other videos on other sites, but there is no denying the value of testing to ensure you get the maximum revenue from your traffic wherever it comes from.

When A/B Tests Attack!

We went back to one of our most successful optimization projects to see if we could further improve on the high standards we had already set.

Previously we had embedded a landing page video for TutorVista and experienced tremendous success. With clear confirmation that the video was key to boosting their conversion we decided to experiment further. When we have a clear champion like with that first test which increased conversion by over 80%, we test new alternatives in the hope that we can squeeze even higher conversion rates from the incoming traffic.

This time we tested a graphic element that was part of the call to action at the end of the video. The video was embedded next to a call to action button that said Subscribe in the panel to the right. In the first version (below on the left) we finished the video with a giant arrow on the player pointing towards the Subscribe button to reinforce the closing words of the video’s voiceover.

The competing version of the video went one stage further with a dynamic arrow shooting out of the confines of the video player and coming to rest right next to the Subscribe button (below on the right). The idea was to drag the viewers’ eyes as close as possible to the conversion goal for the page.

Whenever we run a new test for a site we always try to predict which way the test will go, but this one surprised us all. The arrow on the left that stayed within the player and gently insisted on directing attention to the Subscribe button converted at a significantly higher rate than the dynamic flying arrow that left the player.

There may be more tests to run for this kind of element that gleefully breaks the fourth wall of online video, but for now the “old school” version remains on top.

Decline in Digital Ads Offers Opportunity for Online Video

Online newspapers, once thought to be the only viable future for news media are no longer providing the comfort they once did. As offline ad revenues decline and cover price wars continue to cause major worries for print newspapers, publishers turned to their online siblings to help pick up the slack and for a while it was working. At first, many of the advertising dollars that left offline media just migrated online. It was the same media buyers talking to the same ad-sales personnel just about a different medium. In other words there was no advertising crisis, just a movement away from a tired medium towards a fresh and exciting one.

But, like the wrapping for today’s fish and chips, that is all yesterday’s news. In the UK the continuing depression in the property market combined with ongoing uncertainties in the job market has hit ad sales right where it hurts – in the classifieds. For too long now, newspaper publishers have depended on a booming property market and a healthy turnover of staff in key areas to ensure that they meet their targets. This report shows the problems facing the UK’s largest newspaper group, Trinity Mirror.

While the forecasts for the next few quarters are no brighter, I like to think that this downturn represents an opportunity for publishers rather than their end. No can say for sure whether the property market will return to its former heights, but publishers can use this time to regroup and think about what they really have to offer online. One of their key investments should be in video. No other online medium has the same power to persuade and encourage users to act.

I believe that as online publishers emerge from the current funk they will embrace video as the best solution for their advertisers knowing that it is the medium most likely to convert and provide value to those advertisers. At the same time, advertisers are turning to video as the most effective way of delivering a branded message with a precision-targeted call to action to each and every viewer.

Online video is the right solution for advertisers and publishers alike as they try to make sense of the current turmoil. The implementation of online video ads with measurable ROI will establish new models of publisher integrity which will rebuild confidence across all advertising sectors.

When the dust settles, people will be watching video and increasing numbers of them will be clicking on the embedded link.