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Data-Driven Success

Designing or redesigning your site is a huge effort, and everyone is happy when it's done. However, the first version of your site should not be the final version. It's the beginning of the learning process. Imagine you're a customer coming to your site. Does the headline tell you the primary benefit you'll get from the site? Is the next thing I should do (sign up, etc) obvious? Using testing techniques that were pioneered in direct mail and honed on the web, we will work with you to scientifically test different versions of your home page to get more site visitors deeper into the site.

Instrument your site to track your signup funnels

The first step is to set some benchmarks. If you haven't already set up systems to track the number of visitors to the various pages in your signup process, then through to the purchase process, we will help you install those systems.

Build, Measure, Learn

There are no right answers. Each test is borne out of a hypothesis that we can improve some aspect of the site. A common one is testing headline text. We might test 3 different headlines and learn that one does 30% better than the others. Then, we test the winning headline against other headlines to see if we can come up with something even better. Similarly, we can test changing things in the signup pages. By including a testimonial or security message on the signup page, we might be able to get more of your customers to complete the signup form. Each test is a cycle of building something, measuring it's effect, and learning from it. The faster we can get through this cycle, the faster your site will improve, and you will see business results.

Convert Signups to Buyers

With many of today's web sites, the site must play the role of both marketing person and sales person. The "marketing" part of the site gets the customer interested, while the "sales" part of the site "closes" the sale. While some sites are designed just to do the marketing part (for instance this site!), many Software as a Service businesses have to let the site make the sale. Frequently this means increasing adoption, making your customers love you so much that they'll pay. If they don't use the site, the certainly won't pay. We'll help you convert signups or trials into paying customers.

Tools We Like

Optimizely

Optimizely is a relative newcomer to the A/B testing space. They differentiate themselves by being extremely easy to use. Where other tools require website deployments involving engineers with every test, Optimizely eliminates that need, allowing for extremely rapid deployment of simple tests.

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics allows you to easily track your site visitors through their entire lifecycle with you. As the name implies, this tool makes it extremely easy to create metrics dashboards. If you don't already have an internal dashboard, this is the fastest, easiest way to get one.

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics allows you to easily track your site visitors through their entire lifecycle with you. As the name implies, this tool makes it extremely easy to create metrics dashboards. If you don't already have an internal dashboard, this is the fastest, easiest way to get one.

Test & Target

At the high end of the A/B testing space is Adobe's Test & Target. This powerful tool allows for very sophisticated segmenting, allowing you to segment your customer base, and drive them through specific "experiences" that you can implement through their software.

Survey.io

Survey.io is a free tool developed by Sean Ellis and KISSmetrics which is designed to help you understand whether you have product/market fit, and what the primary benefits your customers are getting out of your site are.

UserTesting.com

Usability studies used to take weeks and cost thousands of dollars. Now for only $39, you can have your site tested by a real user, complete with a video and audio recording of the tester. This is an indispensable tool for identifying those difficult to spot usability problems, as well as ensuring new features work as expected prior to launching them to a wide group.