
Can a Puppy Sell a CMS? - bobfunk
http://www.webpop.com/blog/2013/04/16/can-a-puppy-sell-a-cms
======
aaronjg
First of all, great work. It looks like you boosted your conversion rate from
0.19% to 0.43%. Which is a 125% improvement, or with confidence intervals, 55%
- 179% improvement.

However, before everybody goes out and puts puppies on their homepages, they
need to realize that there are a bunch of things being tested.

Image vs. no image: Is it possible that having any image at all improves the
conversion. You should test with other pictures: perhaps some animals, people,
nature, and see if the puppy is what makes it work.

Call to action: The 'puppy' version also features a more succinct call to
action in "Sign up now" rather than "Start your 30 days free trial." Perhaps
this also contributes some of the difference.

Button size: The button size in the 'puppy' version is smaller. Perhaps this
has some effect as well.

Length of text: The 'puppy' version has more description of what is involved
in the free trial. It says "Pick a plan & sign up in 60 seconds. Upgrade,
downgrade cancel at any time." vs. the no puppy version that says "Start you
30 days free trial."

Vertical vs. Horizontal Layout: The 'puppy' version has a vertical layout of
the text and button, where they are stacked on top of each other rather than
left or right.

So there are at least five different changes made between these two designs.
Clearly the second design wins on conversions, but it's not entirely clear to
me why it wins.

~~~
SeanDav
Not sure how you can get much of value from an A/B test with multiple changes,
especially if one is claiming that only 1 of those changes is what is
responsible for all the improvement.

~~~
harlanlewis
If nothing else, they have a hypothesis to test in the next experiment.

Even when possible to isolate and remove ancillary changes to improve split
test purity, it's often not beneficial. If there's a significant number of
changes, achieving statistical significance across the full matrix probably
isn't even possible.

But that's ok, because limiting changes to a single test queue restricts your
ability to move fast and try lots of stuff, which _is_ beneficial. So when you
test, try cheap multivariate methods (there's a bunch!) to quickly understand
how interactions between multiple changes affect results.

------
davidroberts
Emotions do sell things. I like to think of myself as a rational person, but
it certainly works on me.

For example, when I was living in Japan around 1996, we needed a kerosene
heater for our apartment. We went to the big department store, and they had a
lot of different ones. Each of them had a sticker affixed describing the
various features and advantages, but they were mind-numbingly similar. But one
of the stickers had a photo of Mai-chan, the cheerful and engaging child star
of a cooking show that we had enjoyed on Japanese TV a couple years earlier.

My wife pointed it out to me, and we ended up getting that heater. Not because
it was any better, but because we liked Mai-chan, and her photo was on it. Of
course Mai-chan has absolutely nothing to do with heaters, and we knew it. But
we didn't care.

We always called it the "Mai-chan" heater, and even though we left it behind
when we returned to the states, I guarantee if I mention the Mai-chan heater
to my wife today, nearly 20 years later, she'll smile and know exactly what
I'm talking about.

The puppy screenshot in the original post has a similar effect on me. A part
of me wants to reach out and pat the cute dog on the head. But I can't. But I
can click the button, which is what he obviously wants me to do. Sure it's not
at all rational. But it motivates people. I suggest keeping the dog and adding
it all your advertising. Make it your mascot. You can't go very wrong with a
puppy!

~~~
craze3
_I suggest keeping the dog and adding it all your advertising. Make it your
mascot._

That's exactly what I imagined when I saw the title; a startup
testing/comparing the conversion rates of a dog mascot/logo. It goes hand-in-
hand with establishing a memorable brand. I'd be really curious to see how the
conversion rates are affected by a complete website/brand overhaul containing
a dog mascot.

~~~
guptaneil
Not a dog, but my startup (tabuleapp.com) added a koala as our mascot, and our
conversion rates more than doubled. We help college students organize
homework, so the fun koala face helped differentiate us from most homework
planners that just use a book as their logo.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you ever plan opening in Poland, add a panda instead.

There's a known few years old meme now, featuring a panda and a number "3".
It's a rebus that should be read as "panda 3", and understood as "pan da 3",
which is a kind of impolite way of saying "sir, please give me a 3 (D grade)".

------
terrellm
The article title gives the puppy image credit but I think the additional text
had as much if not more of an impact on the conversion lift than the image.

    
    
      "Start your 30 days free trial" text 
    

vs

    
    
      "*Sign up now* 30 days free rial.  Pick a plan & sign up in 60 seconds.  Upgrade, downgrade, cancel at any time." with a puppy image.
    

The second version is so much better because it tells the viewer what to
expect... the 60 second signup, flexibility in changing plans, no long-term
commitments. The dog image does help since he is looking at the call-to-
action, which also draws the viewer's eyes there too.

It is a great post and just goes to show how testing can really help boost
conversion. It's often a lot cheaper to grow your business by improving
conversion rates than by increasing traffic.

~~~
mbesto
Totally agree. The OP wrote:

 _"But we can still be fairly confident that the image was the main factor
since this test had a much higher change in click through than what we
typically see when we just test text vs text."_

How can you be fairly confident? They broke the cardinal rule of the
scientific method.

~~~
bobfunk
Well, it's worth noting that while we're interested in the general science of
puppies and conversions, our end goal with this test was not to determine the
exact value of the puppy picture, but just generally finding the best way to
get people to click our call to action button...

~~~
LargeWu
Except you have 2 variables - puppy/no puppy; and copy A/copy B, and therefore
4 combinations. You only tested two combinations, so you have no way of
knowing if the puppy or the alternate copy was the reason for the increase.

------
orangethirty
Yes, dogs do sell. I've used:

\- babies (various poses, ages)

\- tools (wrenches, screwdrivers, axes, etc)

\- clothing

\- auto parts

\- aliens (as in fake grey aliens)

\- people in weird situations

\- women crying (this one works well near saint valentines)

\- an animal with a cast (better yet if its a small bird)

\- toilet paper (a _new_ roll. not used)

\- random charts (pie, bar, etc.)(The charts doesnt even need to make sense)

\- a lock (big master lock)

\- and one time I ran an alpaca. Weirdly, it converted better than anything
else. Don't ask.

~~~
IanDrake
\- aliens (as in fake grey aliens)

I wonder how well real aliens would do.

~~~
orangethirty
I meant fake looking. Not some realistic image. Still, I'd like to test a real
alien, too. (:

------
elliottcarlson
At one point in my career I had two job offers on the table - my wife was
helping me decide, and when she saw that one of the companies had a dog on
their site, she said I had to work for them. In the end, I did accept that job
offer for my own reasons - but it's interesting how the emotional response is
to the cuteness factor.

Coincidently I now work at a company with currently 4 dogs in the office.

~~~
fuzzix
"Coincidently I now work at a company with currently 4 dogs in the office"

Jesus, and I complain about how hard it is to concentrate in a noisy open plan
office. A bunch of non-human animals roaming about might just tip me over the
edge.

~~~
elliottcarlson
I was concerned about this at first - but overall it's really great. There
have obviously been a few altercations between them, but those are rare. One
of the dogs is owned by a member of my team so he sits right by me all day -
occasionally he'll come by just to be pet, and when I am stuck on something
work related we play fetch for a few minutes to clear my head. Our daily
standups are pretty awesome too since we generally have a dog or two there
with us, for example, yesterdays standup: <http://i.imgur.com/3DABSti.jpg>

------
kailuowang
We all know that puppies can sell CMSs. That's a given. What they should A/B
test is the effectiveness between a black lab and golden retriever. Joking
aside, the text version has no picture at all (could be just that screenshot),
one thing I haven't forgotten from my marketing 101 is that pictures grab
attention 10X better than text.

~~~
bluedino
> the effectiveness between a black lab and golden retriever.

Good call. Aren't black dogs the least likely to be adopted from shelters?

------
rubinelli
Is that the sound of a thousand startups adding puppies to their homepages
instead of running proper A/B tests?

~~~
willismichael
Yes, yes it is. The question remains as to whether there is a small number of
stock puppy photos that will end up being used by the majority :)

~~~
outworlder
Just use pugs.

<http://pugbomb.me/>

------
peterwwillis
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising>

(to elaborate for the downvote-debbies: there is an entire industry designed
around getting users to use your product based on ideas such as this, and this
link is one place to learn more about that)

~~~
tixocloud
We learnt about this in marketing class. If you're feeling lazy about getting
creative, use cute animals.

~~~
wyck
Pretty much this, that's why most TV ads have animals and many huge
corporations base their entire brand around them.

What's next someone telling us they increased conversions because they used
photo's of smiling people?

/debbiedowner

------
goronbjorn
The lead designer at Mailchimp wrote a really good book on this subject
(designing for emotion): <http://www.abookapart.com/products/designing-for-
emotion>

------
svmegatron
In my experience "image beats text" is a really common result of an AB test.
For an encore, I'd suggest testing an image of a (smiling) person in that same
space.

~~~
malcolmmcc
Worth testing, but in my experience stock photos of people make websites look
cheesy and fake. Untrustworthy, even. Like one of those fake sites to gather
extra domain traffic.

~~~
svmegatron
Very good point. OP, be wary of stock photos, especially if the model is
wearing one of those asinine phone-headsets.

------
tankbot
If a puppy can sell a CMS, what about a Hippster Cheetah?[0]

[0] <http://www.extensis.com/>

------
chenster
From KISSMETRICS, color is also a major factor in buying decision.
<http://blog.kissmetrics.com/color-psychology/>

The most popular color? Blue! IBM is blue, now Windows Blue, Mac OS X aqua
blue... you name it.

------
felipebueno
This reminds me of Windows Bob but I don't think it worked very well for
Microsoft putting that dog there. Initially people (women and children) were
impressed with how cute it was but five minutes later they were trying to kill
that annoying yellow dog.

------
jschuur
Would be interesting to see puppy vs kitten results.

~~~
motyard
me too. +1

------
instakill
The change is more than just adding an image of a puppy:

You added an image, period. You also changed the CTA button style.

The split-test did not test an independent variable.

Having said that, it's good that your conversion went up.

------
jguimont
The whole marketing of the cellular company is based on puppy:
<http://www.fido.ca/>

------
dkuntz2
But was it really the puppy? There was a lot more text explaining what was
involved (okay, not all that much, because there wasn't a lot on either, but
significantly more) on the puppy version.

It could just have been that you described what signing up entailed. Plus you
included 'cancel at any time', which might help some people decide.

------
callahad
Newsblur also employs a puppy on the sales page: <http://grab.by/lIYE>

~~~
Maxious
Newsblur's puppy has a much better emotional connection - pay for this app and
the dog gets to eat.

~~~
voltagex_
I'm sad to say that was one of the reasons I signed up!

------
Samuel_Michon
More people clicked through to the sign-up page, but did the actual number of
sign-ups increase too? After all, in the end, that's what matters. If people
click your link just because they want to see more pictures of puppies, it
might not be such a great improvement.

------
sadkingbilly
It's not the puppy.

People used to game Google Adsense by putting their own images next to the
adsense blocks in order to get more clicks. MFA sites did this so much, Google
banned the practice of using images next to their ads. This is the same
result.

------
hjay
I'd like to see tests between that dog, and a person, or a group of people.
Having images generally will help with conversion rates, but what kind of
images would produce a better result? And for what kind of services?

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aw3c2
It says "the number of clicks on the signup button" was measured. That does
not seem like the metric they are interested in which would be "number of
actual signups".

------
jostmey
SUMMARY OF ARTICLE:

Question: Is a skillfully designed bug-free easy to use CMS package more
important than a picture of a puppy?

Answer: The picture of the puppy is clearly more important.

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hcarvalhoalves
This lacks a control test: a version with _any_ image.

Just the fact you used a graphic can make it superior to the text version, not
necessarily because it's a dog.

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mosselman
You changed the text, thus ruining the results, or at least, making them
worthless with respects to measuring the success rate of the puppy.

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abeh
It's a nice test. However, I'd like to see how many of each group stay after
the 30 day trial.

------
Kylekramer
"People like puppies" seem to be Rogers subsidiary Fido's business plan in a
nutshell.

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emackn
Of course, look how much traction Drupal has gotten from a raving water
droplet .

------
kamakazizuru
i wonder if it simply has to do with the fact that there was AN image there ?
Maybe verify by putting something not as cute - say an ORC or something like
that? and something neutral like a fruit?

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SmeelBe
Very interesting result, 100% more signups. Try now with a cat.

