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It’s the one strategy Amazon, Google, Microsoft and all winning online business turn to. It’s the single best investment according to Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, even Bill Gates wished his team used A/B testing way more than they do.
It’s also the single best activity to learn about customer motivation, lower marketing acquisition costs, use data to inform design decisions, and grow revenue without spending an extra dime on marketing.
Wins in conversion rate improvements are a compounding source of growth. Even with consistent small wins, a 1% consistent improvement over a number of different areas makes for an unstoppable and winning team.
Best Books for a Budding Conversion Rate Optimizer
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
The odds are against you. You’re competing against Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook. It’s an unfair game. And yet, there are still a ton of ways to win.
In Moneyball, it’s a story of just that. Winning against the powerful, elite teams. It’s the story of using data to make decisions. A story, even to this day, more companies need to hear. Testing, finding out what drives conversions and revenue can be your Moneyball strategy to win against the biggest competitors.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
The must read for all marketers applies especially well for conversion rate optimization. The six universal principles of influence apply to building a high converting funnel. It’s a great place to start for building a pipeline of hypothesis to test. Using one of the six principles of influence for each testing idea will help cement and rank each idea.
Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear
The guide on why using certain phrases makes people buy. Choosing the right words to show customers why what you have to offer is essential. Best parts of the book are the appendix of words to use, The Ten Rules of Successful Communication, as well as the polling approach to figure out what customers value. Hearing the voice of the customer and framing all communication to personalize the message to maximize conversions.
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
A guide to build products customers can’t put down. Packed with examples from successful products, you’ll be able to walk away with a list of ideas to test. Based on research
Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain
Techniques to stand out based on neuroscience research. Buyers are tapped out with the number of sales messages each day. These techniques allow you to stand above the noise to reach buyers in a more memorable way.
Aricles and Communities
The definitive guide to conversion optimization – this guide gives you the nuts and bolts of A/B testing. It is over 30,000 words long.
ConversionXL – a great blog on everything conversion-related. It covers everything from tips and resources to recommendations on how you should go about your testing.
Which test won – this website has thousands of examples of A/B tests from other companies. They even share which test won and by how much.
GrowthHackers — tools, community, and the best articles to continue learning about testing.
Start Here:
What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question. – Jonas Salk
- Who are my ideal customers,
- Why are these behaviors happening,
- What’s the current state,
- Where are we testing, and
- How are we integrating?
Who are my ideal customers: Find Product-Market Fit
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- Survey.io
- Google Forms
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Why are these behaviors happening: Use the Golden Questions
Conversion-rate-experts.com calls them the six golden questions. All six revolve around uncovering both why customers did and did not convert. Figuring out and “understanding the people who did buy, allows you to tip the scales for people who didn’t,” explains Dr Karl Blanks.
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- Qualaroo
- Hotjar
- Olark
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Six Golden Questions to Ask:
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- Where exactly did you find out about us?
- What persuaded you to purchase from us?
- Which options did you consider before choosing our ‘X’?
- What’s the thing that nearly stopped you buying from us?
- What was your biggest concern about using us?
- What was your biggest frustration in finding the right ‘X’ online?
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What is the Current State: Analytics
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- Google Analytics
- KissMetrics
- Mixpanel
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Where are we testing: Keep track of not only what page but the testing Que
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- Optimizely
- Experiment Engine
- Convert.com
- Google Optimizer – part of Google Analytics, this gives you a tool to start for free. Limited to three concurrent tests.
- Visual Website Optimizer
- Adobe Test and Target
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