Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking about something new to you, something most companies wouldn’t admit to: a look at one of our losses.
A “best practice” that failed so badly we had to pause part of the test early. And if I have to be clickbait for a 2d, it’s a tactic you can use in your calls to action as we communicate.
So come for the train wreck, then stick around for the lesson, because what we found drove an additional 4% of leads from our CTAs.
And I’ll just show you the best way to recreate it. (Development, that is. Now not the train wreck.)
The simplest practice that didn’t exist
I turn to AJ Beltis, Conversion Methodology Marketing and Promotion Manager, when I need absolute authority on two things: 1) pop culture movie references and 2) content conversion.
So, after being told that within a temporary period the best possible practice would lead to a 14% loss in the conversion price, I ran to him like Luke flying once again towards Obi-Wan.
It all started with a test of our CTA button wording. Longtime readers may recall that our anchor texts were once a hodgepodge of more than a few varieties.
“It used to be up to the bloggers, because each of those CTAs was once personally identified,” AJ explains. “So sometimes it was ‘Get the template,’ sometimes it was ‘Download now.’”
And why do we test? the whole thingWhen we decided to make our CTAs more consistent, we started by testing several possible language choices. The test variations were:
- The Regulation: “Get the [Product Type]”
Reduce and dry. Right to the point. A great example of our previous anchor text methodology.
Example: “Get the template”
- The simplest practice: “Let yourself go [Product Type]”
An identical to the above, simpler now we add “free” as an incentive. A wonderful and non-controversial tactic that you will see in every single given CTA.
Example: “Get the flexible template”
- The joker: “Let yourself go [Specific Product]”
Right here we add a summary of the offer to the button itself. At the time, this seemed redundant because there was already a summary above the button, so hello, let’s take a look.
Example: “Get Social Media Calendar Template”
We’re now so confident in the results that we’ve put our money where our mouse used to be and put 25 of our top lead-generating blogs to the test.
“We felt very happy with the risk, because we weren’t getting rid of the rest or changing the rest in any drastic way,” AJ says. “So it was once a pretty safe way to test something.”
John Hammond felt the same way in Jurassic Park.
What Went Wrong (and What Went Right)
Within 2 weeks, Variant B caused our conversion rate to drop by 14%, until we finally discontinued that division to reduce losses on our most important lead generators.
So why didn’t the best artistic practices work?
“One idea is that any time you realize something is labeled ‘free’ on the Internet, it might have a spammy connotation.”
Simply put, like Pavlov’s dog, we have all been trained to search for “free download” and quickly scroll through before discovering what is undoubtedly a scam and/or ED treatment.
Oh, so what about Variant C? The one we dismissed as redundant?
In fact, this increased our conversion rate by 4% overall and 7% among new visitors.
So why did this variant work where the other failed?
AJ believes that it is essential to use visual cues to focus attention on the keywords the reader is searching for.
“When people learn a blog post, they do it pretty much by skimming as fast as they can to get a response,” he says with a shrug and a crooked smile. “I’ve been a blogger, and it sucks to say, but then again, no one usually learns all 1,200 words that you just put a lot of time and effort into.”
(Alternatively, not you now, dear reader. Not you now… Right?)
Let’s say a shopper is scrolling to learn more about social media content calendars. Suddenly, they see a big orange button that provides a social media content calendar template.
“This is the specific problem I want AND Is it free? I’ll take it.”
Conclusions on CTAs
To see the most important takeaway, scroll up once more and take a look at the CTA button just below the create this blog. You’ll notice that we don’t include any descriptive text above the button, but instead use the description on the button itself.
A couple of other insights from AJ:
1. Test every single thing. (Or “Don’t take best practices at face value.”)
Relying only on best practices would have hurt our conversion rate, without us even understanding why.
Likewise, if we had not tested what we assumed was redundant selection, we might not have discovered any wins.
“If we had simply tested ‘free’ against control, the test would not have worked,” says AJ. “Alternatively, since we tested ‘free’ against control against ‘free [specific thing]’, that extra layer worked.”
2. Use keywords in your anchor text
“If you use the keywords that they’re searching for, that’s going to be a bonus. If you use the words ‘content calendar template’ or ‘planning template’ when they’re reading a blog about social media content calendars… they’re already thinking of that word, so psychologically, it might hook them a little bit sooner.”
Putting keywords in your anchor text could also be a win for accessibility, as it helps other people using visual display readers understand what they’re clicking on.
3. Test your top lead drivers
After being beaten worse than Rocky by Apollo, you’d probably think we’d start testing much less important pages, but that’s not the case.
As Rocky says: “It’s not how hard you get hit, it’s how you get hit and how you keep going.”
As AJ says: “After looking at our main page testing, that’s also where the most important selection for expansion is. If we had been just a little more protected by testing the pages that don’t convert so well, we probably wouldn’t have been able to uncover the extent to which a strategy could be successful or unsuccessful.”
4. Trust your audience over authority.
And that includes me, AJ, and Obi-Wan.
Always imagine your audience’s reaction to what you discover in any data.
“Respond to your audience,” AJ says. “Some audiences might find a test we’ve run not very compatible. While we might look to other companies for inspiration, run it on HubSpot’s blog audience and find that their test doesn’t work for us.”
5. Test your supplies too.
Amid all this talk about CTAs, AJ makes one final point: your CTA is as simple as what it offers.
So test what you offer too.
“We use templates because templates are the graphics for us. We don’t do webinars because webinars are not the graphics for us. Some companies, they only do webinars because that’s what works for their content space.”
Learn how to test your CTA button text and offers
Unlike Rebecca’s test on paid ad landing pages, for this Do you want to test one part at a time. So you definitely need to test your anchor text and content material separately.
Additionally, you’ll want to use a tool that carefreely splits your website visitors between variants—something like Convert, VWO, or, hello, Content Hub!
- Access the test web page.
- Click the file menu and then make a selection ““New,” then “Run A/B Test.”
- Enter a name for each variant.
It should be something descriptive that will be easy to remember. If you happen to take a look at screenshot number one, you will see that we simply used “Original Internet Web Page”, “Variant B – Loose”, and “Variant C – Loose + Description”.
- Click “Create Variant”.
- Change the anchor text or link destination point (but not all!)
For this optimization phase, you will get good results by testing one trade at a time. (Although you will definitely test some diversifications on that trade.)
To recreate AJ’s test, take a look at the offer summary in the anchor text. Heck, you might even want to check using “free”.
- Click “Publish” in the top right corner, then “Publish Now.”
No matter what you decide to test, you definitely need to keep an eye on the results over the years. Be able to pull that emergency brake so you can avoid your own train wreck.
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