

A/B Testing + Clickmaps = Awesomeness - paraschopra
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab-testing-clickmaps-awesomeness/

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kolektiv
Interesting, although heatmaps for A/B testing is not a new concept. They
don't appear to have put much thought in to the actions taken after the
findings though. Being surprised that more people go to "Pricing" than "Sign
up" is a little odd. People generally will look to maximise information and
minimise commitment in this context, "Sign Up" promises some potential kind of
work/commitment/lock in.

Replacing that with a link to a video seems to miss the point - people are
clearly interested in a specific kind of information (pricing, commitment
costs - the main potential deal breaker) and by making this change - you're
still not giving it to them. Now maybe you want to try and hook people in the
belief that if it looks cool enough, that'll override what would have been a
problematic price point - that, of course, would be a much more interesting
A/B test - up front pricing or concealed...

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paraschopra
What you describe is exactly what we have come to believe. Based on their
earlier experience with online tools, people probably have a "threshold" on
what they are willing to spend. No matter how cool the tool is or what value
it brings to the table, they want to first make sure that they can afford it
(before deep diving into learning if they really want it).

Replacing 'Sign up' with 'Video' makes sense because the pricing link is still
there. So visitors who want to see pricing can go there directly. What we
observed was that the homepage doesn't convey full potential of the tool so
putting up a video link probably helps those visitors who aren't that price
conscious.

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kolektiv
Yes, I can see that as a valid approach. The differentiated test I might try
though is to put pricing directly on the home page. It doesn't need to be the
main item, but as a test it might be interesting. As you say, some percentage
of people need to know price first of all - there's no point expending energy
evaluating and understanding a tool only to find out that you can't afford it
anyway.

Of course, this then gets in to price differentiation - there may be an
argument to say that you could have two sites, one more "enterprise" focused,
where features and capability are primary, and the price is high, and one more
focused around lower level users, making the price a key selling point.

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bdickason
I posted this on your blog but it seems that you are checking this more
regularly so I'll post it here:

The reason people (myself included) click Pricing is because they want to know
what they’re getting themselves into before starting a free trial. I suspect
that if you added the pricing clearly on the homepage, the # of clicks on your
‘free trial’ button would increase and pricing would decrease dramatically.

This is covered in the book ‘Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion’ where
the author describes a man refusing a flower from a little girl because he’s
“on to her game.” The idea being that people have become conditioned NOT to
accept free things without understanding the ramifications of signing up –
“What if I like it? What happens then? Do I have to pay $600?”

I have noticed this affecting my signups for web apps lately. For example,
ZenDesk looks great but the 30 day trial won’t help my company in its infancy.
I would love to use a ‘free single user’ version and would gladly pay
eventually, but I click pricing and see that after my 30 day trial expires,
I’m stuck paying much more than I’m comfortable with. So I haven’t signed up
yet. Again, GetSatisfaction is similar. I would like to use their service but
before clicking ‘Signup’ I click Pricing to see what I’m getting myself into.
What happens if I get hooked? Am I going to be out $200/month?

This is the question I asked myself with your software and your pricing is
reasonable. I will definitely sign up when my company launches our product.

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paraschopra
Thanks for posting this. Yes, you are true that people want to know what is
the catch before they sign up. In fact, I am a big believer of not concealing
or hiding things. Earlier on our pricing page we used to have free trial above
the pricing page. Even though we got relatively more number of sign ups for
trials but it doesn't help us because a lot of those users won't be able to
afford the service.

So, we are trying to be transparent: telling visitors what the tool does and
then what it costs. No gimmicks :)

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vog
This site promotes a new feature of the "Visual Website Optimizer" software.

On the one hand, this is a beautiful advertisement in the style of a blog
entry. But on the other hand, this unity between blog entry and ad is a bit
scary.

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synnik
Not scary to me --

I believe that advertising should be exactly like this: Inform you of a
product, tell you what value it can offer you, then allow you to make an
informed choice.

Advertising is only evil when it is deceptive.

~~~
vog
_> Advertising is only evil when it is deceptive._

... or when it isn't clearly visible as such. However, this one indeed seems
to be labeled clearly enough. Still it looks like a personal user report at a
first glance, and that's kind of scary.

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patio11
It _is_ a personal user report, because the guy trying to sell folks an A/B
testing service uses it to A/B test his own site.

That doesn't strike me as abnormal. In fact, if hypothetically a multi-billion
dollar multinational advertising firm did not routinely dogfood its own A/B
testing service, I would consider that a strike against them.

~~~
vog
_> It is a personal user report_

No, it is a _corporate_ usage report. It is just the writing style that makes
it look "personal".

This difference may be subtle, but it is important, because it has a huge
impact on how trustworthy the information is. And finding the right level of
trust for various information is exactly what makes the difference between an
informed user and a persuaded user.

(BTW, it is of course very positive that they make use of their own product,
and this is certainly not what I'm criticizing.)

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rumpelstiltskin
Can you expand on this - _Till 15th June, all plans get tons of additional
visitors for life!_

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paraschopra
Not sure this is the right place to answer but this means till 15th June we
are offering additional number of visitors tested in all plans. So, if we are
offering 10,000 visitors in one plan now, after 15th June it will be 5,000.

