Deemphasizing a call to action that was performing poorly

Improving Conversions Case Study Part 3 –
Deemphasizing a call to action that was performing poorly

This is Part 3 of the case study to improve conversions on a web site for a software company.

Read the earlier posts:

Part 1 – Adding two “calls to action” to move visitors along to a Conversion Point”.

Part 2 – Moving contact form produces less leads, but higher quality leads.

We’re working on a web site for a software company. This company has one key software product along with a number of software “modules” that work with that key product. Most site visitors from search engines and referral sites either land directly on the opening page about this software product or they land on the home page of the site and then visit this page.

The product web page had one key “call to action”, a “How to Purchase” text link listed first in a section of bookmarks near the top of the page.

Using Click Tracks web analytics we could see that a number of people were clicking on the “how to purchase” link. This link leads to a form that visitors must fill out. They are then contacted by the company or a reseller.

Although a fairly large percentage of people we’re clicking on the “how to purchase” link, a very small percentage of people, about 5%, were submitting the form. Worse a little over 30% of visitors from search engines were exiting the site rather than filling out the form.

We suspected that most people are not willing to fill out a form with their contact information in order to find out how to purchase the product, at least at this stage.

We made some changes to improve the conversion rate including adding a paragraph above the form to better explain what would happen after the form was submitted (i.e. they would be contacted) and reduced the number of required fields.

This did improve the completion rate of this form. In fact it doubled to about a 10% completion rate. However having only 10% of visitors fill out this form was not acceptable. Worse a little over 30% of visitors from search engines were exiting the site rather than filling out the form.

We had to accept that most visitors were not willing to fill out this inquiry form in order to find out “How to Purchase” the software.

As I mentioned in Part-1 of this case study we added additional “calls to action” including viewing an overview video and a link to “Find a Reseller” which are resulting in much better conversion rates.

So we decided to deemphasized this “How To Purchase” call to action and emphasis the other calls to action.

We removed the “How to Purchase” link from the top of the page. Now it’s only showed at the bottom of the page within a “For more information” section. We also changed the order of the links displayed in this section so that a “Find a Reseller” link appears before the “How To Purchase” link.

In February 10.7% of visitors to the product page clicked on the “how to purchase” link. Now that’s down to 4.5%. More people clicking on the other calls to action. Exactly what we wanted.

We also made some changes to the form page to give people options once they reach the page. We highlighted these options and placed them prominently above the form. There’s a “Call Us” section at the top of the page inviting people to pick up the phone and call. This is followed by a “Find a Reseller Near You” section that includes a link directly to their interactive “find a reseller” map.

Here’s how the top of the page looks now:

How to Purchase Thank you for your interest in xxxxxx solutions. There are several ways to contact us to learn how to purchase a xxxxxx solution:

Call Us
If you would like to speak with someone regarding our solutions, call us at
+1 (XXX) XXX-XXXX and select the Sales option when prompted, or press 0 to speak with our receptionist who will direct you to the appropriate person.

Find a Reseller Near You
XXXXX prides itself on quality software backed by a worldwide Partner network of professionals who are readily available to meet your installation, support and design needs. This elite team of authorized XXXX solution providers offers a wealth of knowledge and expertise to assist you. To find an authorized XXXXXX Partner near you, please click here.

Use Our Inquiry Form
You can also receive information by completing the form below. Once we receive this information, we will contact you to further discuss your needs and our xxx solutions.

[Below this is the Inquiry form ]

Let’s check the results using Click Tracks. This is real time. I’m checking the results as I write this.

We’ll look at about an 18 day period.

Of course because we cut down the number of people coming to this form page we’re looking at a smaller number of visitors than I’d like, but enough for now (we’ll want to let data build up for a longer period and check again.)

Exit rates
About 26% of all visitors and about 31% of search visitors exit the site after they reach this page. So the exit rate is about the same as it was before, however there are two key differences now.

Now we have a Call Us section at the top of the page with a phone number listed. So some percentage of the visitors counted within Exit numbers are likely “exiting” by picking up the phone, which is exactly what we want. We’re not tracking “offline” conversions on this site at the moment. There are a few methods we can employ to track the numbers of people who come to the site and then convert “off-line” by calling on the phone. We may suggest this in the future.

Plus we have fewer people coming to this page than before so we are losing a much smaller number of visitors than in the past.

However, as we move along I may recommend removing this page altogether and rely only on the other calls to action that we have added to the product page.

Find a Partner Map
Excellent; almost 37% of search visitors (and 22% of all visitors) are clicking on the link to the interactive “Find a Reseller” map.

Submit the form
Less than 5% of visitors to the page are filing out the form now. The completion is less than half of what was before we made these most recent changes. This is actually good news. It tells us that adding the other options, the Call Us and Find a Reseller sections, above the form is working. Many people are using these other options instead of filling out the form or exiting the site.

Summary
In summary it looks like we accomplished what we wanted so far.

This “How to Purchase” form was the main “call to action” on this site’s most important product page. Many visitors exited the site after clicking through to this page and few were filling out the form.

We added more calls to action to the product page and “deemphasized” this one.

Now less people are coming to this page and many of them are using the Find A Reseller option.

In addition some amount of the visitors to this page are likely using the Call Us option, but we are not tracking these numbers at the moment.

We’ll look at the numbers again when more data builds and as we focus on improving the other calls to action from the key product page.

For more information:

Information on Web Analytics and Click Tracks

Improving Conversion Rates with Conversion Point Architecture

Deemphasizing a call to action that was performing poorly

Improve your web site conversions with a User Experience Site Review with Usability Expert Todd Follansbee

This is a great place to start increasing business from your web site! — for $425