Lance shares our “No Bull” approach to marketing his services and I’m glad to share this Q & A with our readers.

George: How do you know when your site isn’t converting as well as it could?

Lance Loveday

Lance: One potential sign that your conversion rate is putting you at a competitive disadvantage is if competitors are always showing up in the first 2-3 spots in the paid search results, but your ROI goals require you to show up lower on the page. While they could be spending blindly, it could also be a sign that competitors are seeing higher conversion rates. Because higher conversion = lower CPA = higher margin = higher CPA tolerance = higher bids = you get outranked.

But regardless of where you’re starting from, our approach is to never be satisfied, and always seek incremental improvement. Why settle for an average conversion rate when you could have an above average one – or an above average conversion rate when you could have an industry-leading one? The beauty of conversion optimization is that it’s a one-time cost with an ongoing benefit, so you don’t have to move the needle much on a conversion engagement to have a positive ROI when you have the benefit of time on your side.

We try to realistically model the projected outcomes of projects for clients to set expectations on the range of results they could expect to see. Although we try to be conservative with our estimates (better to under promise and over deliver) it can be a bit scary for us to put those numbers out there because that’s usually what becomes the benchmark for success for the project. But we like a challenge, and there’s nothing like the concreteness of a defined target to help bring focus to a project.

George: In assessing a site how should we think about the roles of KPIs vs competitive benchmarks vs user studies?

Lance: We like to use a combination of metrics to calculate success, as relying on too few metrics can lead to unintended consequences. Enron’s earnings, for example, looked great right up until they went under. So an effective dashboard should contain a balance of business metrics (revenue, transactions, margins), site metrics (conversion rate, bounce rate – by source), and user metrics (usability testing results, long-term survey response trends). We don’t put much stock in competitive conversion rate benchmarks, as variances in business models, traffic mix, and site strategy between sites almost always results in an apples-to-oranges comparison. A low-converting site can be very profitable, which is ultimately the most important competitive metric.
We also like to take a funnel view of the site as whole and measure throughput at various levels. Not all sites lend themselves to that kind of analysis, but it’s an incredibly powerful way of looking at your site if you have the capability. Taking that view allows us to model out the impact that small changes to a given page template can have on overall results.

George: If my website isn’t converting well am I better served by doing a complete re-design, or by taking an incremental test-driven approach to improve each template?

Lance: In a majority of cases it makes sense to take the more incremental approach. There’s almost always some upside to be found in every site. But we have worked with a few sites where the problems have been so structural that we’ve recommended a full-scale redesign.

George: How much can one raise the bar by moving the pixels around on the page? I know when we were in the design consulting business we often found it a challenge to measurably improve conversion rates unless the old design was really bad.

Lance: You’re touching on the core stumbling block we face as conversion consultants: Most people don’t believe that small interface tweaks (pushing pixels) can have a material impact on business results (more money). But a whole host of studies including this one and our own experience has shown otherwise.

For example, we just doubled conversion for a long-time lead generation client of ours, for whom we’d previously tripled conversion. So ultimately they increased lead volume by 6X with no loss of lead quality. Granted that didn’t happen overnight. But it’s a good example of the kind of game-changing impact you can have with a well-executed conversion optimization initiative. The average e-commerce site may not have that kind of upside potential, but it’s not uncommon for us to increase conversion by 30-50% on e-commerce sites.

George: Wow! 30% is a big lift!

Lance: One problem we’re seeing is that people are focusing so much on the sexiness of the new testing technologies that they are rushing to conduct some tests without ensuring they’re doing it properly – and then when they get mediocre results concluding that either a) there’s no room for improvement, or b) testing doesn’t work. But like anything, tests can be done poorly or done well. Doing it right means clearly identifying objectives, developing good testing plans, deploying the right kind of test method, testing user experiences (not just design tweaks) that have a high probability of success, ensuring statistically significant results and so on. It takes a lot of different skill sets all working together to do testing well – strategic, technical, creative, analytic and more. Sorry, I’ll get off the soapbox now.

Also, I prefer to be called a Site Whisperer. Pixel Pusher is just so demeaning.

George: Got it, “Site Whisperer” it is! :-)

George: Is there a particular piece of a website that is most often the stumbling block for conversion? Search results? Category pages? Product pages? Navigation? Shopping tools? The checkout process?

Lance: It can vary by site, but the checkout process is a common place to find very high dropoff rates. Depending on which stats you want to believe, the average shopping cart abandonment rate (across all industries) is 50-60%. My eyes get big any time I see a cart abandonment rate of 50% or higher, as that’s usually an indicator that we’re going to be able to make a huge difference for that client.

But we’ve seen plenty of examples where the category pages and/or product pages were the primary bottleneck as well.

George: What design flaw do you run across most often?

Lance: This is more of a strategy flaw than a design flaw, but I’ll go with requiring a separate login/registration step. It’s a real conversion killer from a user experience standpoint, and usually has such limited value to the site owner since users generally provide their email address anyhow later in the checkout/registration process.

George: How often do you find that platform constraints are ultimately the root of design problems?

Lance: More often than I’d like. But I’m really encouraged by some of the new testing platforms that enable us to bypass platform constraints. There are now some really elegant way to run tests on your site and increase conversion regardless of what platform you’re on. We’re running a test on a client’s shopping cart now that has required zero IT support or back-end changes.

George: How important is speed these days, and in your view is this mostly a “solved problem?”

Lance: NO WAY is this a solved problem. Load time is still a major conversion inhibitor for a number of sites – and its impact on conversion is growing as user expectations continue to evolve. This release from Akamai is about the link between site performance and customer satisfaction for financial services firms, but the lessons apply to all types of sites.

George: Any other general advice you can give?

Lance: Here’s my attempt at a Top 10 list:

1. Start small. But start.
2. Don’t test for the sake of testing. Test for impact and learning.
3. Test hypotheses, not opinions.
4. Don’t underestimate the power of persuasive design.
5. Spend 90% of your time in planning/strategy/test design/crafting great designs, and then 10% of your time running the test.
6. Test among good options.
7. Don’t settle for the 5% gain if a 50% gain is possible.
8. Be willing to be wrong.
9. Get out of your comfort zone.
10. Make testing an everyday thing.

George: Thanks so much for taking the time, Lance! Lance’s very well received book: Web Design for ROI is available at Amazon and other fine book stores!

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This is isn’t a big deal for online retail yet, but it will be, in the next 6 to 18 months.

Today, HTML markup is about how data should be presented. By tagging elements on a HTML page with standard class names, microformats are about what data mean. Microformats will form the foundation of “Web 3.0″, aka the Semantic Web.

Google is starting with microformats for people (hCard) and reviews (hReview).

It seems clear Google support for the SKU microformat (hProduct) is coming soon, as there’s already documentation for it on Google WebMaster Central.

What will this mean to online retailers long-term?

• The first retailers to add hProduct tags to their product pages will enjoy an early sales advantage, as Google will present their products first because of the extra data.
• The advantage will be short-lived, as large retailers and standard e-commerce platforms will quickly jump on the band wagon.
• Retailers will chafe at the simplicity of the format. hProduct doesn’t encompass shipping, tax, bundled pricing, or even UPC. Argh. When Google miscategorizes or misprices your product atop their SERP, get ready for additional customer service calls.
• hProduct markup is essentially a product data feed, albeit with limited fields. Google’s current product search hasn’t gained much traction, but widespread hProduct data will help Google disintermediate the shopping comparison engines.
• Long term, hProduct markup will increase consumer perception of Google-as-store, eroding weaker retail brands (see “search engines atomize retailer brands”, halfway down this post.) Building a strong well-defined brand is key.
• When Google presents more SKU-centric multi-merchant data on the top left of the page, paid search on the top right becomes more crucial to get your link in front of shoppers. The paid search core competencies –optimal bidding, extensive keywords, and solid “why-shop” copy — become even more important.

What should online retailers be doing about this today?

I’d recommend keeping a close eye for mentions of hProduct on the WebMaster Central Blog.

I’d also recommend planning to add hProduct tags to your SKU pages, probably by late ‘09 or early ‘10. (Here’s the link the Google hProduct documentation again.)

For better or worse, this is where online retail is heading, and your marketing and merchandising teams will benefit from being there at the beginning.

Technorati Tags: data feed, Google, hcard, hproduct, hreview, microformat, online-retail, upc

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When you consider landing pages in the context of advertising, the banana is even more important. After clicking on an ad, customers are landing on your site in a state of half-blindness, they don’t know what to expect or what they’re getting themselves into and they’re trusting the internet Gods to take them to a helpful place. For that reason, a retailer’s landing page has to be able to efficiently answer three general questions that go through an arriving customer’s mind:

1. What can I do here?
2. Why should I do it here and not someplace else?
3. Where do I start?

By addressing those three questions upfront you’ll save your customers a lot of confusion, and you’ll be better able to present them with a banana. If I’m a customer looking to comparison shop for polo shirts, a good landing page will show that I can buy polo shirts here, suggest that this website is the be all and end all of locations to purchase polo shirts, and use an interface for sorting through styles, price points, and brands of polo shirts that is recognizable and intuitive. This would likely be a well designed sub-category page.

I spend a lot of time evaluating landing pages for our clients, and over the past few months I’ve seen landing pages that fall over the spectrum between good and bad. But the other day I saw one of the worst landing pages yet, and thankfully it wasn’t from one of our clients and it wasn’t the end result of a paid search advertisement. Recently, the bank HSBC has been advertising all over the New York Times website. They’re paying for the top two ads on the page, and though display ads online don’t cost nearly as much as they do in print, I’m guessing that the ad spots pictured below probably aren’t cheap.

The term “private banking” caught my eye, and I was curious to find out more about private banking and HSBC in general, so I bit my lip, furrowed by brow, clicked the ad, and landed on the following page.

The first red flag on this page is the pre-loader for a Flash based interface. Generally speaking, entire websites built with flash are a usability nightmare. For one thing Flash is a browser plug-in and there’s a chance customers won’t have it installed. Secondly, one of the key reasons designers use flash is to build a custom, non-standard, user interface for a website; and it’s in this second instance where a usability issue becomes dead weight on a landing page’s conversion rate. As a customer, if I land on a page and I’m trying to get my bearings, the last thing I need is a brand new navigation scheme and interface to try and figure out.

Need an example? Take a quick look at the HSBC interface (the picture below may not do it justice, try interacting with the HSBC site:

While I first clicked on the ad hoping to get more information about private banking and HSBC, I’m now stuck trying to figure out the spinning globe/incomplete puzzle motif and how it helps me navigate the site. The landing page doesn’t address those three general questions we mentioned earlier. There’s no banana, and as a monkey, I’m thinking “well what’s in it for me?”

The strange thing is that if you were to search Google for “Private Banking” and click on the first sponsored link, you’d be taken to a much more reasonable landing page: a map with the locations of all the HSBC private banking offices in North America. This page is built in a more traditional way, with top and left navigation, and interface that seems intuitive enough. It’s by no means perfect, but it’s certainly better than the alternative.

Some may contend that banner ads or display ads are more about branding than straight ROI. I’ve never entirely bought that argument, and I’m not sure it pertinent’s to this conversation. Regardless of whether we’re talking about display ads or search ads it’s important to remember that the beauty about advertising on the web is that we can get immediate results from our advertisements. As a consumer, if a banner ad, or a search ad, catches my eye, why wouldn’t I click on it? The key is that in either case just getting me to click isn’t a win. It’s a two part process:

1. Get my attention
2. Sell to me

As such, it doesn’t matter how many eyeballs or clicks an ad garners, because in the end, the most important thing is that the landing page it points to has plenty of bananas for the monkeys.

Technorati Tags: Banner Ads, Display Ads, HSBC, Landing Pages, Private Banking, ROI

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OK, what is Chrome “destination search”? Here’s an example. If I start typing “cnn.com”, Chrome suggests “Search cnn.com for <enter query>”:

If I select that option, or if I finish typing out “cnn.com”, Chrome presents what I’ll call a destination-search box in the address bar or the browser:

See the light blue search button for the specific site in the address bar? If I enter a query there, Chrome searches CNN for “obama” (or whatever), using CNN’s own site search.

(Note this is different from Google’s Search-Within-A-Site feature, which uses Google Search, and of which I’m not a fan.)

Chrome can do this because it “understands” the site search box on the destination site.

I noticed Chrome Destination Search works for some retailers (Crutchfield, Zales) but not others (Overstock, PetCo), and wondered why.

After some poking around, I think that using non-conventional HTML forms (eg using Javacript submits) in your site search confuses Chrome. I’m not 100% certain, but this held for the sites I checked. If Chrome can’t figure out your site search, Chrome doesn’t give your site the desirable Destination-Search presentation.

Now, Chrome has under 5% browser share, so who cares about any of this? Valid point. Four thoughts:

• As much as possible, urge your web developers to favor “semantic” HTML. Simple well-formed HTML helps ‘bots better understand meaning from markup. Spiders typically ignore Javascript. If your forms aren’t constructed conventionally (that is, input fields with an input type=”submit” button), spiders won’t understand them. Semantic HTML helps not just Google, but the entire web.
• If you need fancy Javascripty actions, go ahead and use them, but add them clientside using progressive enhancement. Few retailers use progressive enhancement. More should. The idea is simple: send simple lean standards-compliant pages, and add all the bells-and-whistles to the page after it loads before it renders. Your human visitors won’t even notice, and your site becomes much friendlier to ‘bots (and visually impaired humans, and mobile devices, too).
• I’d wager that Google drives Chrome marketshare during 2009, perhaps reaching 15% by 2010.
• If better markup leads to better presentation in Google Chrome, might not the same hold for Google natural search results too?

Technorati Tags: chrome, crutchfield, Google, javascript, overstock, petco, progressive enhancement, zales

Many companies cannot afford tools from the big vendors, so they work with Google Analytics. An entire generation of web analytics experts are being trained by Google to analyze business exactly the way Google wants your business to be analyzed…

GA is a great piece of free software, and it covers all the important metrics. Nonetheless…

Technorati Tags: Business, Google, Web Effectiveness, Web Usability

LowerMyBills ran a small blurb ad about mortgage rates. Identified as an ad, but at first glance looks like an article. Relevant headline. Relevant copy. Relevant rate calculator gadget.

But they matched their copy with a dizzying flash movie of a circle of dancing skeletons.

Skeletons? I’m not sure I get it.

What are they trying to say?

• “The mortgage industry is dead; refinance now at a favorable rate”?
• “Halloween is coming, always the perfect time to refi your house, trick or treat”?
• “Lenders have skeletons in our closets; truth is the ultimate sales tool“?

Perhaps I’m looking for meaning when it isn’t there. Perhaps MLB went with a random shock image to grab a click.

Hmmm… other folks have called out strange LMB video ads on YouTube.

Videos which don’t match the ad.

You think LMB tested this idea, or not?

Technorati Tags: Business, Web Usability

Never send fatal errors to outside world.

These stack traces provide too much information to hackers.

It is OK to dump debugging messages to the browser for users behind the firewall or for users on the dev site, but never for your production site.

If you run an online store, ask your IT folks to check that your servers are configured correctly on this.

Technorati Tags: Business, Code, Web Usability

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Last Thursday and Friday 30 people from 18 of our client companies joined us for networking and deep conversation about online marketing.

The main event on Friday included my take on Search Marketing in 2008 and some great tips from Larry Becker on website effectiveness strategies.

We then branched out to discuss:

• Setting efficiency targets for marketing programs and how the incremental view plays into that,
• How clients addressed Multichannel Credit Allocation and where they see that going,
• Catalog circulation strategies and prospecting in 2008,
• Social Media. From video and blogging to Facebook, Twitter, etc. What was worth doing, what seemed to be a waste of time at this point.
• Email frequency, open-rate benchmarks and strategy,
• SEO strategies and the merits of outsourcing some or all of those efforts,
• Affiliates and strategies for controlling the bad actors without dismantling the program entirely,
• The power of purls — personal urls — as a marketing tool,
• and much much more.

The Summit showed that many folks were wrestling with the same complex issues, and that most retailers were struggling to meet “plan” this year, particularly since July.

The event also confirmed for all attendees what we had always known: RKG has really smart clients. Many great insights shared both in the public forum and in more private networking contexts throughout the event.

As we plan for future events, clients: please let us know what you’d like to see in terms of content, format and locations so we can make what was a great event even better! And, if you’re not currently a client, but would like to be… :-)

Thanks again to all who participated!

Technorati Tags: RKG , SEM, SEO, Social Media, Web Effectiveness, Web Usability

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Contact:
Ryan Gibson
The Rimm-Kaufman Group
434-970-1010, ext. 110
ryan@rimmkaufman.com
www.rimmkaufman.com

Charlottesville company named one of Inc. Magazine’s fastest growing companies

Charlottesville, Virginia, Wednesday, August 20, 2008. The Rimm-Kaufman Group, a Charlottesville-based search marketing agency, has been named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. This prestigious list, which has been published annually since 1982, is a leading index of the manufacturers, service providers, and entrepreneurs that fuel our nation’s economy. RKG appears on the list at #315, and is ranked 24th in the Advertising & Marketing segment.

“We’re beaming that RKG made the Inc500, though I am still a little surprised,” said Alan Rimm-Kaufman, RKG founder and president. “We’ve bootstrapped the company, placing our emphasis on creating a great place to work and on providing great value to our clients. Rapid growth wasn’t our objective. Online advertising has boomed, and we’ve grown along with the channel. I am tremendously proud of what our team has accomplished.”

Inc. Magazine based its rankings on percentage revenue growth over the 2004-2007 time periods. The list is comprised exclusively of privately held, independent companies headquartered in the U.S.

Pay-per-click search marketing — sponsored links on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other engines — has grown into a $10 billion a year industry. Many large advertisers rely on specialized search marketing agencies like RKG to manage their search campaigns.

Over the past three years RKG has grown nearly 900% and currently manages search advertising programs for more than 100 clients, from internet start-ups to online retail titans.

“To me, the greatest joy has been in the manner of growth, not the amount of growth,” said George Michie, RKG co-founder and current Principal of Search Marketing. “We’ve grown on revenues; not VC funding, not loans, not acquisitions, but rather from providing great service to a growing pool of clients. Moreover, we’re doing it in a way that generates quality jobs and career options in my home town without grinding our employees into the ground. People work hard here, but its 40 hours a week, not 60. That’s important to us.”

“We’re looking ahead to continued steady growth,” Rimm-Kaufman added. “We’re actively hiring, especially software developers.”

# # #

About The Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG)

Based in Charlottesville, Virginia RKG was founded in 2003 by Alan Rimm-Kaufman and George Michie. RKG manages nearly $100 million in online search advertising and employs more than 40 people.

For more on The Rimm-Kaufman Group please see www.rimmkaufman.com

For more on the Inc. 500 please see www.inc.com

Technorati Tags: Business, RKG , SEM, Web Effectiveness, Web Usability

• RKG is Again Named One of Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies The Rimm-Kaufman Group has once again been named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the Fastest Growing Private Companies in America....

[enlarge]

In the ad, Dell promotes a new band, but somewhat tongue-in-cheek. No mention of anything like laptops, desktops, servers — you know, the stuff Dell sells. The only call-to-action is “Hear The Boxmasters At The Dell Lounge”. So, over to delllounge.com to check it out. The closest thing to a “what is this site?” explanation is the email signup blurb:

Live the life. Sign up. From the coolest shows to creative contests to sweet prizes — there’s so much going on at the Dell Lounge. Be the first to hear about it. Sign up and we’ll send you updates on what’s happening. Are you in?

(As an aside, the home page is hard to use. Items which are typically hyperlinked aren’t. Artist images and article headlines aren’t clickable. The only way to go deeper into the site are tiny “GO” links.)

Unlike the New Yorker ad, the delllounge.com home page does advertise Dell product. A single 350×125 tile promotes the XPS 420. But that tile is below the fold.

Dell grew through direct-to-consumer manufacturing and marketing. I’d wager a substantial chunk of Dell revenues still come from the direct-to-consumer channel.

What do you think?

• Does Dell Lounge help Dell sell computers?
  Does Dell Lounge help Dell sell more computers?

  • Yes, I think it does, directly, via ads on site.
  • Yes, I think it does, indirectly via building the Dell brand.
  • No, I don't, but I think it is good marketing strategy nonetheless.
  • No, I don't. I think this is a bad marketing strategy.
  • You're asking the wrong question. See my comment below.

  View Results
• Can you name retailers with stand-alone content sites that you think are effective?
Your thoughts welcome.

Technorati Tags: Business, Web Usability

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