Archive for the "eMail Optimization" Category
Will “Merry Christmas” really double the conversion rate over “Happy Holidays”?
A new CNN article suggests that “Merry Christmas” still rings brighter over “Happy Holidays”
The demographics breakdown
Overall poll results for Americans:
- 64% prefer “Merry Christmas”
- 31% prefer “Happy Holidays”
- 5% are unsure
Ok. So now you’ve got some data from a obscure poll that says solid majority of Americans prefer you to say “Merry Christmas”. The question is what do you do with that? Do you put “Merry Christmas” on every page? Maybe on banner ads? What about emails? Or should you say it at all?
Well, since we are into testing, we cajoled one of our clients to let us test Merry Christmas v. Happy Holiday a couple Christmases ago. The client allowed us to test this with specific email campaigns, and below are results: (from a prior post.)
We wanted to know if using “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” in an email campaign to a small segment of customers would impact conversion rates?
We were able to randomly select a group of 100,000 customers for a client and tested these subject lines:
A few notes on the test:
- The client is a large retailer, their customers mirror a general sample of the USA.
- The email mirrored the subject line’s message; all other elements were the same.
- We sent the email on the 21st of December.
The results showed a HUGE difference . . .
As you can clearly see, “Merry Christmas” killed it, nearly doubling the click through rate of the other subject lines.
Although we’re not allowed to share the “buy” data, it was just as impressive. Nearly doubling the number of transactions by changing an email subject line shows just how important it is to test and try new things. If you’re not constantly testing, you’re throwing money away!
Have any of you tested MC vs. HH and seen a difference? Do tell us. We wish you a Happy Holiday season! ;-P
Opt-in Email Newsletter Popup Best Practices for 2012
If you’re like the other gazillion websites trying to get people to sign up for an email newsletter, then you probably have an opt-in email popup form. You know, it’s that annoying lay-over popup box that asks new visitors to opt-in with their name and emails.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were landing page optimization best practices for designing these? Then your opt-in popups could grab many more subscribers right out of the gate. At the very least, it would be good to know which elements are worth focusing on in testing.
Since we thought it would help a LOT of people to get some straight answers on popup opt-in forms, we got Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker on the phone (Conversion Voodoo is very lucky to work with the best of the best in online marketing). We had an idea for him:
“Whaddya think about us running some tests on the opt-in popup for your newsletter?” Jeremy’s reply was about as easy as they come, “Have at it!” So we did.
Not only that, but Jeremy requested that we post the results for his audience. All we could say was “absolutely!” We rarely get to publish results because 99% of our clients want to remain anonymous — so this was sweet!
Our goal was to test the “default” settings on the popup to see if there were the better ways to convert visitors into subscribers. We hoped to find some best practices to share with you for your website that may not have a horde of visitors every month like the Shoemoney blog. Although we counted more than 30 different elements in opt-in popups, we whittled that number down to the most relevant (i.e. the ones you should care about), which you’ll see in the tests below.
Read the rest of this entry »
“Merry Christmas” vs. “Happy Holidays” showdown – nearly double the conversion rate!
The Wall Street journal suggests that “Merry Christmas” still reigns in popularity as a season’s greeting over “Happy Holidays”
So how does emailing customers with one or the other impact conversion rates?
We selected a 100,000 customer list for a client who tested these subject lines:
A few additional notes on the test:
- The client is a large retailer, their customers mirror a general sample of the USA.
- The email mirrored the subject line’s message; all other elements were the same.
- We sent the email on the 21st of December.
The results show a HUGE difference . . .
As you can see the “Merry Christmas” subject line drove nearly double the click through rate of the other subject lines.
While we haven’t included the “buy rate” in the chart above due to client confidentiality, the results were similarly impressive.
Nearly doubling the number of transactions by changing an email subject line fairly well illustrates why if you’re not rigorously testing every facet of your online business (or letting us do it for you!), you’re throwing money away.
More fun with email testing:
- Personalizing your subject line can drop conversion rates . . .
- Optimize your email conversion rate with three quick tips . . .
- Unsubscribe links at the top of your emails will improve conversion rates . . .
P.S. – Contact us today to increase your conversion rate . . .
We work on a performance basis and charge nothing up front.
If you want to drastically improve your conversion rate contact us today.
Personalizing your email subject lines can drop your conversion rate . . .
Building on our last post about optimizing your email conversion rate, the 10th eMail Marketing Metrics Report came out and contains many points that you can use to help increase your conversion rate and optimize your email campaigns.
But beware, there are some traps in their data that can lead your conversion rate astray – let’s start by looking at a few of their key points: