We have been selling our software this way for a long time. Before we introduced these two pricing levels, we were selling our software for $29.95. Adding the more expensive Pro edition for $49.95 was a good way to increase the price without dropping the old price. After the change, about 80% of our customers started opting for the Pro edition, causing a nice jump in profits.

The presence of two editions also gives our visitors a choice. Price conscious customers can opt for the cheaper Standard edition. Buyers just looking for the best, regardless of price, can choose the Pro edition. The availability of choices helps to increase conversion rates.

As you can see in the image above, we have done something similar with our range of barcode scanners, a cheap CueCat for $19.95 as an entry level scanner, a deluxe laser scanner for $139.95, and a mid-level option for $79.95.

But offering multiple editions also has one drawback: it adds complexity.

Complexity

If you offer multiple editions of your software, at different prices, you will have to as clear as possible about the differences between them. Our solution for this is to include the little blue question mark thingies everywhere we mention the two editions. Clicking it pops up this feature comparsion chart:

But still, a large percentage of the support questions we get is about standard and pro editions. People still ask about the differences between them. And about how to upgrade from Standard to Pro. Or why feature X has suddenly disappeared after unlocking the trial edition (the trial edition has all Pro features, so unlocking to the Standard edition disables some features). Also, we get people complaining about feature X being a Pro feature, while they think “this is something every user needs” (yes, we also get this for advanced stuff like “Export to XML”).

Having two software editions also adds complexity to your shop page, especially if you offer multiple products. The page has to show list both editions, with their prices and again some way to find out more about the difference between them. The buyer must be able to to add either the Standard or the Pro edition to the cart, and preferably the shop page should allow switching between the two. In the Collectorz.com shop, it looks like this:

So I began wondering: is the availability of the two editions still increasing my profits? Or is the extra complexity hurting my conversion rates? Well… if you have been reading my posts for a while, you can probably guess what’s next…

The test

Here’s the A/B split test I have been running for the past 14 days:

• Version A: As described above, the product pages and shop offering two editions, Standard and Pro.
• Version B: Product page and shop listing just the $49.95 edition, just called “Movie Collector”, without the Pro postfix.

In the B version, the Buy-box on the product pages looked like this:

And the shop page could be reduced to:

Simpler, but less choice and looking more expensive.

The results

Well, let’s start with the good news:
In the B group the average purchase value was 31% higher.
But the number of sales (= conversion rate) dropped by 25%, causing an overall 2% drop in profits.
The conversion to trial sign-ups also dropped, by about 3%.

Interestingly, during the first few days of the test, the results looked promising. The B edition immediately showed the increase in purchase value, but the number of sales was higher too. The A version proved better in the end, but took more time to pick up steam.

What’s happening here? Well, I can’t be sure, but it looks like the more price-conscious customers are also taking more time to decide on their purchase, e.g. by seriously evaluating the trial edition. The kind of user who had no problem with the $50 price tag apparently also had no problem buying without trying. Hey, why not add a 2nd $50 program and the deluxe scanner too

Anyway, it seems like we shouldn’t get rid of the Standard edition (yet). The 2% decrease in profits is small, but a 25% drop in new customers being added to “the pool” is unacceptable and could cause a large drop in profits in the long run (less cross-sells, less up-sells, less upgrades, etc…).

But wouldn’t it be great to increase the average purchase value by 31%, without the drop in conversion rate? Back to the drawing board…

Interesting results, so I tried some experiments with the color of my own sign up buttons.

On the Collectorz.com website the main call-to-action buttons (Try and Buy) are a dark shade of blue (what we call “collectorz blue”). This results in a nice and quiet look. But if I can get more sign ups by introducing a noisy Sign Up button, I won’t complain.

The Red Button

I tried a red one first. It sure stands out
The results after about 400 sign ups:
The conversion rate dropped by 9%.
Not quite what I had expected. Maybe red is too much of a danger color? Are people scared to click a big red button? Or maybe it’s too red and will a softer shade of red do better?

The Green Button

Next attempt: a green sign up button. IMO it looks a bit nicer than the red one. But that’s not what counts, is it? Will it get more people to sign up for the trial? Ehm… no…
The results (400 sign ups counted):
13% less sign ups.
That’s even worse than the red one.

Back to Blue it is

Well, that didn’t work. So for now I am back to the blue buttons. I still think that making the free trial option stand out more is a good idea. But apparently not like this.
Maybe I should have tried Dan McGrady’s 3rd tip first: “Change the button text from “Signup for Free” to “Get Started Now”. Dan says:

“Get Started Now” is an easier sounding commitment than signing up. Signing up also has connotations with paying.

Make sense, so that’s what I am testing at the moment.

CD delivery companies (we have worked with SwiftCD and CustomCD) are always pushing us to have “Delivery on CD” pre-checked. Understandably, because this is bound to sell more CDs and thus bring them more business. And automatically adding a $10 Priority Support subscription is sure to result in more subscriptions to that service.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Making more money on each sale, who can say no to that?

Unless…
… the sudden addition of extra costs is putting people off. Some customers may even feel cheated. Sure, one can easily (?) remove the extras from the cart, but that’s all extra steps in your checkout procedure. Overall, making people opt-out on your up-sells may cost you sales.

Of course, it’s all about the bottom line: Will the extra profits per sale compensate for the lost sales?
Now we can all have long discussions about what will happen. And I could easily write several articles about the expected effects.

As always, there’s only one way to find out for sure: An A/B split test.

The test: Cart A vs Cart B

The test is pretty simple. The big blue buy buttons on my product pages (see below), either take the customer to cart Version A or cart Version B.

Version A is the opt-in version. The initial cart only contains the software the user select, then he can optionally add extras like the Delivery on CD and Priority Support.

Version B is the opt-out version. The cart automatically contains both extras, but these can be easily removed using the little red “X” buttons.

The results

After one week of testing and 232 sales counted, these are the results:

• Sign Ups: -2.4%
• Sales: -17.8%
• Average First Purchase: +5.6%
• Total Profits: -12.8%

As you can see, it confirms the expectations: the Average First Purchase went up and Sales decreased. But the extra money made per sale is not nearly enough to compensate for the loss in sales quantity.

What does this mean?

So does this mean we should not automatically add or pre-check extras like CD-Delivery and Support subscriptions?
Well, not like I did it in the above test. But I have not given up yet. Here’s a couple of ideas I would like to test later:

• Test with just the CD or just Support auto-checked. Maybe one of them is causing the lost sales. Looking at last week’s sales I am seeing a lot of CD Delivery sales, but very little Priority Support subscriptions. So most people are removing the support option. Is there hope for a design that has just the CD Delivery auto-added to the cart?
• Make it even easier to opt-out, e.g. by making the “remove from cart” buttons clearer and bigger.
• Offer both options as pre-checked check boxes right in the big Buy box on the product page, so that users can uncheck them even before clicking my big blue buy button.
• Offer a “Premium Pack” option on the product home page, that has both extras included in a bundle, with a separate Buy button and the total price of $69.95 listed right there. We have used a similar solution before for a barcode scanner bundle and that was working well.

The last time I did this, the main thing that struck me was all the Try/Buy “noise” on the right side of the screen. There’s a Sign Up for the Free Trial box, a Get it Free (TrialPay) option and five (!) different buying options (Standard, Pro, two “Pro + scanner” options, plus a “custom order” option). I realized that I had been replicating most of my shop page right there on the landing page.

So I started experimenting with a different approach, aimed at getting more people to sign up for the free trial. Then just let the trial edition and the autoresponder sequence do the conversion to sales. I didn’t want to remove all buying options though, because we see a lot of customers buying without trying. But it would have to be reduced to just one button, simply taking the user to our recently re-designed shop page.

The original design ( = Version A )

This is the A-version of my A/B split test, the original look of the product home page. The left side of the page offering lots of product information and screenshots (even separate screens for the Windows and Mac editions), the right side having all the try and buy options.

This layout has worked well for us for a long time, but for some first time visitors it may be a little overwhelming. Let’s see if we can make it a little easier on the eye.

The first attempt ( = Version B1)

Here’s my first “less is more” redesign. To reduce the noise on the right, I completely removed all the trying and buying boxes from the panel on the right, replacing them with 3 recent testimonials.
I rewrote the top part of the left side, aiming to give a full overview of the software with just 1 headline, 2 pictures and 3 bullets. Followed by two large boxes, one for the free trial, one for buying. Below these two call-to-action boxes I only placed a demo video and some more testimonials (not shown in the screen shot).

The results
Immediately after starting this test, the sign up conversion rate shot up. That was hopeful. But sales dropped.
Here’s the outcome of the A/B test after 7 days:

• Sign Ups: +12.3%
• Sales: -9.3%
• Average First Purchase: +8.6%
• Total Profits: -2.8%

After 7 days, sales in the B category had gotten stronger again, but were still 9.3 % lower than the A category sales. But interestingly, the average value of the purchases were 8.6% higher in B. So in the end, the drop in profits for version B wasn’t too bad: down by 2.8%.

What’s happening here? First, the removal of main call-to-action (buy!) from the top right seems to have resulted in the decrease of immediate purchases. The extra sign ups (and thus extra people on my autoresponder sequence) seem to compensate for this decrease later on. Maybe the autoresponder, and its Buying Guide on day 2, is also helping to increase the value of the first purchase.

The second attempt ( = Version B2)

I like the increase in sign up rate and the high value purchases of the B1 design, so it would be great if we could keep those and generate more sales at the same time.
That’s what I tried to accomplish in the in B2 version shown below, by adding two call-to-action boxes on the top right again, in the same style as the big ones on the left.

The results>

I tested this B2 version against the original A version, still my control. I let the test run for 18 days, so that the trial version and trial autoresponder would have the time to do their jobs.

• Sign Ups: +8.8%
• Sales: +5.9%
• Average First Purchase: 0%
• Total Profits: +5.9%

All numbers are green, so that’s great
But if we look more closely, we find two interesting numbers, especially if we compare these results with those of the previous test:
First, the increase in sign up rate is lower for B2. Which is strange because there are two sign up boxes now, one on the left and one on the right. Did version B1 have more focus on the two big boxes on the left, just because the panel on the right was more noise-free?
Also, we lost the increase in purchase values that B1 gave us. However, looking at the details I found that the average purchase was $50.30 for both B1 and B2. For some strange reason the value for A had gone down to $46.30 during the first test.

What’s next

I am preparing a 3rd test now. Version B2 will be my new control ( = my new version A). For the new challenger I am reintroducing the big screenshots of my iPhone apps (because these has gotten lost in the redesign).

And after two weeks of testing, this test is showing the biggest difference between A and B that I have ever seen in any A/B split test.

A/B test results

These are the results of the test, comparing B (with rebates) to A (no rebates):

• Downloads: up 5.9%
• Trial Sign-ups: up 2.7%
• Number of Sales: up 24.7%
• Average First Purchase Value: same
• Profits: up 25.3%

Twenty five percent more profits by offering rebates! That is much higher than I expected. So rebates really help to increase our conversion rate.
I was expecting to see a slightly increased average first purchase value too. This did happen in the first week of the test, but later on that effect disappeared.

Of course, the big question is: Will the increased profits weigh up against the rebates we have to pay out? Let’s look at that now.

Rebate Claiming Statistics

Here’s some statistics I extracted from the RebateDelivery system:

Of all the customer who purchased something that included a mail-in rebate, only 40% actually used their personal link and visited the GetMyRebate website. And of those:

• 25% printed the rebate form (25% of total customers)
• 10% selected one of the alternative offers (4% of total)
• 29% just viewed the page and did nothing (11% of total)

It’s too early to tell how many people will actually send in the printed rebate form and thus get their rebate. It will take a couple of weeks before I have those numbers. Up till now, we have only paid out to 2% of all customers who were entitled to a rebate.
But even if all users who printed the form will actually get their rebate (which is unlikely), the extra profits will more than cover the cost of the rebates (and the RebateDelivery fees).

Customer Feedback

Finally, what do customers think of rebates? Do they understand the concept?

In general, US customers have no problems at all understanding what a mail-in rebate is, as it is quite common in US retail.
In Europe however, the concept of a rebate is less known. In the first few days of the test (before we had the little question marks with the explanatory popup), we received the following emails, all from European customers:

what happened with the rebate?

I was about to pay for the Movie Collector Pro which was Euro 39.95 and with the Euro 8.00 rebate the cost was Euro 31.95.

But when I was going to pay, it said that the cost was Euro 39.95. What happened with the rebate?

am I eligible?

What is the mail-in rebate?
I would like to purchase your Book Collector Pro and I’m not too sure if I’m eligible for the mail-in rebate.

be fair and honest

When I try to pay I can’t get the Mail-in rabate you write. the payment page said €39,95 even though it up in the right corner on the same page said €31,95. Be fair and honest and I will buy your software.

the cost of sending mail from Denmark

The Mail-in Rebate properly wok well in US, if I have to send a regular mail from Denmark to US the rebate will disappear in cost of sending the mail.

unacceptable and underhand

When ordering, I get a mail rebate of just over €8, so the new total is €31 after the mail rebate. However, when you look at the
total being charged ot the credit card before making the payment, it still shows €39, which is totally unacceptable and underhand.
It gives the impression that you receive a reduction and yet it doesn’t change the amount charged to the credit card.

If you are unable to provide clear and accurate pricing, then I will have no other choice than to find another cheaper software.

What’s Next?

Of course, I’ll be switching on mail-in rebates for all customers now. But there is room for improvement in a couple of areas.

First, I am wondering if allowing customers to combine their discount coupon with a mail-in rebate would further increase the conversion rate. Currently we are not allowing that combination. When a customer uses a coupon, the mail-in rebate automatically disappears. I think this is going to be my next A/B split test.

Then, I am disappointed by the number of people who opted for one of my alternative offers. Maybe I need to add more attractive offers or at least work on the presentation of the offers. This could bring down the number of paid out rebates even further.

To be continued…

Well, in short, RebateDelivery is a new system for offering Mail-In Rebates for online software purchases. Let’s look at the details of how it works and how to use it to improve sales. Oh, and of course I am running a new A/B split test to find out if it indeed helps to sell more software

What is RebateDelivery?

Well, here’s a quote from their FAQ:

RebateDelivery is a patent-pending service enabling software, game, and e-commerce firms to offer real mail-in rebates to consumers purchasing software and games online.

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of a mail-in rebate: A Mail-In Rebate gives the customer part of their money back, after the purchase. They pay the regular price for the product first. Then after the purchase, they can send in a card or form by regular mail to get the rebate amount back, either by check or bank transfer.

Of course, the idea is to increase conversion rates, to get more people to buy. If in the end the extra profits outweigh the amount of paid out rebates, we make more money. According to the RebateDelivery FAQ, less than 40% of customers actually claim their rebate, which increases the chances of increasing profit margins.

Mail-In Rebates are heavily used in retail, especially in the US, but not online. The RebateDelivery system now lets vendors offer rebates to their customers for online purchases. Here’s how that works:

After their purchase, customers receive a link to the GetMyRebate website. On that website they can print a form, fill it out and mail it in to an address near them. RebateDelivery then handles the pay-out of the rebate amount.

Plus, RebateDelivery has added to the mail-in rebate concept by allowing vendors to provide several “alternative offers”. With these alternative offers in place, people coming to the GetMyRebate website are offered one or more alternative ways to claim their rebate, e.g. by opting for a free software product (usually having a value higher than the rebate amount). This helps to further reduce the percentage of rebates that are actually paid out.

How to use Mail-In Rebates for software sales?

Having listened to Jason and Steven explain the system, it took me a while to really understand how I would be able to apply this to my business. I mean, is this an alternative or replacement for using discount coupons? What’s the difference exactly? Or should this be used in a completely different way?

Rebates vs Discount Coupons

First, some “technical” differences:

Of course, the obvious difference is that when using a coupon, the discount is immediate, that is, the customer only pays the discounted amount. Whereas with a rebate he pays full price and *can* get the rebate amount back later.

Another important difference is that with coupons you can give a specific discount to specific parts of your audience. For example, at Collectorz.com we give $5 coupons to everyone who signs up for the free trial, and $10 coupons to existing customers. Also the coupon system is built into your regular checkout process: Everyone who has a coupon enters it into the special box and gets the discount. Everyone who doesn’t have one pays full price.
With a rebate this is more difficult. There is no built-in way to give the rebate to specific customers. You just sent out the “get my rebate” link to everyone who completes a transaction. The only way to give the rebate to specific customers would be to create specific check-out pages.

Rebates are for all customers, especially *new* customers

The above two differences mean that rebates should be used in a way that is completely different from how you would normally use discount coupons.

First, if you have one shopping cart / check-out page, the rebate is given to everyone who buys. So rebates are more suited to do promotions to all your customers, as a way to increase your overall conversion rate. Then, the fact that is not an immediate discount means that is less suitable for special offers to specific customers anyway, especially if they are existing, loyal customers. IMO, it’s not a good idea to make your loyal users jump through the hoops of printing a form and sending it in by regular mail, just to make use of your special offer.

So rebates should be given to all customers, especially new customers who are buying their first product from you. And if we are going to give the rebate to everyone, we might as well make sure everyone knows about it, and as early as possible, preferably on the landing page. This way we can maximize the positive effects on the conversion rate.

Technical Implementation

What does it take to implement RebateDelivery for your site and shopping cart? Basically, there’s five parts to that:

• Setting up your rebates and alternative offers: Use the RebateDelivery vendor system to define your rebates and your alternative offers, including descriptions, amounts, etc…
• Displaying the rebate: You won’t get a positive effect on conversions if your visitors don’t know about the rebate. So you should display the rebate on your website and during checkout.
• Notifiying RebateDelivery of orders: The RebateDelivery system has to know about all orders that are processed successfully, so that they can handle the claiming of rebates. You can notify them using a SOAP interface or a simple HTTP POST.
• Giving your customers the GetMyRebate link: You can give them their personal link (including a unique transaction id) on your “thank you” page or in their order confirmation email (or both).
• Handling alternative offers: When a user opts for one of your alternative offers, you have to make sure they actually get it. RebateDelivery can notify you by email or using an HTTP POST (or both).

Testing RebateDelivery on Collectorz.com

Giving rebates to everyone sounds scary, doesn’t it? Ok sure, not every customer will claim their rebate, but a lot of them will, costing you money. Will your conversion rate increase enough to pay for those rebates and, preferably, result in some extra profits?

Well, there’s only one way to find out… just test it and track the results. So that’s what I am doing at the moment. I am currently running an A/B split test, where all B-visitors get the rebates and all A-visitors don’t.

For that B-group, I have defined three different rebates:

• A $10 rebate for everyone who buys a Pro edition of our software.
• A $15 rebate for customers buying a Pro edition plus a CueCat barcode scanner.
• A $20 rebate for people who opt for Pro software with the expensive Opticon barcode scanner.

The rebates are displayed prominently on my landing pages, in the “buying choices” panel on the right, like so:

During check-out, the shopping cart uses similar “Price after Rebate” terminology:

In both places I added a little question mark thingie, that when clicked shows the following explanation in a pop-up window:

What is a Mail-In Rebate?
A Mail-In Rebate gives you part of your money back, after the purchase.

You pay full price for the products you buy, but as soon as you have completed your purchase, you will receive a link to our “Get My Rebate” website.

On this website, you can print your personal rebate form. Return that form by regular mail to receive the rebate amount back, either by check or bank transfer.

Currently I am not allowing coupons to be used in combination with a rebate. When a customer uses a discount coupon, the rebate automatically disappears. I am not sure if that is the best way to do it. Maybe I should do a further split test later, to find out.

Generally speaking, I expect that it will take some experimentation to optimize results, maybe even to just get it to work at all. I saw the same when I started using TrialPay and also with McAfeeSecure. This is not something you can just implement and be done. It’ll take time to find the best ways to use it, to optimize the rebate amounts, the alternative offers, the presentation on your website, etc…

Coming soon: the results of the A/B split test

I started my RebateDelivery A/B split test on September 4, so it has been running for 10 days now.
I am planning to let it run for at least 14 days, maybe longer. The full results of this test will be posted here later. For now, I can tell you that preliminary results are promising

So in August 2008 I ran a simple A/B split test, testing just that:

• Group A: my regular product pages, no TrialPay option
• Group B: An extra “Get it Free” button, taking visitors to the TrialPay offer page. Just for our Standard edition (regular price $29.95). The button was a regular HTML button, just like our other “Add to Cart” buttons. Like so ->

The results were surprising: After tracking 240 sales (in 10 days), the profits in the B group were 30% higher. The extra TrialPay sales (only 13) didn’t account for that increase, so having the TrialPay option was generating more regular sales too.

My guess is is that the presence of the “Get it free” button had lowered our bounce rate and got first-time visitors to stick around just that little bit longer. Then they eventually ended up buying in the normal fashion (maybe because they want the PRO edition or something).

New website design, new TrialPay box

Then in May 2009, while toying and struggling with a new website design, I introduced a new TrialPay box. With a nice TrialPay logo, a short explanation and a big “Get it Free with TrialPay” button. Pretty cool looking box.
And without testing, I just added it to the new product pages. I know, completely unlike me as I normally test everything. My only defence is that I was testing other important changes at the time. Still stupid, I confess

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my TrialPay profits were slowly decreasing in the past couple of months. Also, we had been getting some confused customer emails, who had clicked on to the TrialPay website, looking to download our trial edition.
“trial pay, get it free” <-> “free trial edition” … I can see the confusion, especially if the two options are placed close to each other.

Anyway, reason enough to look into the presentation of the TrialPay offer again.
Of course, with another A/B split test:

Split testing TrialPay presentation

Here’s the two designs I tested against each other:

• Version A: a very prominent TrialPay box, right below the Free Trial box and above the Buying Options. The first buying box offers both the Standard and the PRO edition, as side by side choices.
• Version B: here I went back to the old box, offering TrialPay very subtly, as a free “buying option” inside the Standard edition buy box. The PRO edition has been given its own box.

The results

After four weeks and a total of 1290 sales, version B is resulting in 4% more customers and 4% more profits. The number of trial sign-ups was 2% higher too. The average first purchase was exactly the same in A and B.

The difference is not large, but after tracking this many sales, we can safely conclude that version B is doing better. On top of that, during the entire test, version B has been ahead. After two weeks of testing (enough data to make a decision), B was ahead by 10%. So I am quite confident in choosing for design B.

Also, the test shows that the way you present the TrialPay offer on your landing page can have a considerable impact on performance. In this case, it looks like bigger wasn’t better. And placing it right besides the “free trial” option could be confusing, maybe because of the “trial pay” name?

Other ways to use TrialPay

The above only discusses the usage of TrialPay on your product page, or landing page. But of course there are various other ways to use TrialPay.
At the moment we are also presenting users with the TrialPay option in our “trial expired” screen and on our upgrade pages (where people pay for the upgrade to a new version). Both with limited success. I am getting some “sales” that way though.

I am still planning to experiment with other placements, like:

• Download page: offering the “free trial” and a “get the full version for free” side by side. TrialPay tells me that this has been quite successful for several of their vendors.
• Exit popup: showing the TrialPay option in a popup when people leave your site without buying
• After uninstall: a bit desperate maybe, but who knows?
• Pirates: Can you detect pirated copies or usage? Maybe you can convince some pirates to get a full version for free?

Other ideas are welcome. Post below if you are using TrialPay in a creative way.

So I tried it myself. Last week I started an A/B split test on this. Group A getting my regular .95 pricing, group B getting rounded prices. But for me, it did make a difference. Here’s my results after 8 days:

For rounded pricing:

• Downloads: down 5.2%
• Sign-ups: down 3.6%
• Sales: down 5.8%
• Average First Purchase Value: same
• Profits: down 5.9%

These are the results for just over 28,000 first time visitors and a total of 260 sales (A vs B -> 135 vs 125).

Statistically speaking, this is not enough data to be confident that odd pricing works better.
But still, I don’t think rounded pricing is ever going to cause a substantial improvement in profits for me. So I stopped the test today.

Version A, emotional, benefit-oriented:

Starting right now, you will enjoy a perfectly organized DVD collection…

Movie Collector Instantly Catalogs Your DVD & Blu-Ray discs.

You’ll Save Time and Money Today.

Finally Have Total Control Over Your Movie Collection.

Version B, practical, feature-oriented:

Automatic DVD Database Software for Windows, Mac OS X & iPhone

Movie Collector Automatically Catalogs Your DVD Collection.

Just Enter Movie Titles or Scan DVD Barcodes.

Instantly Download All Movie Details and Cover Images.

Seven days of testing gave me the following interesting results:

• Downloads: up 1.5%
• Sign-ups: up 2.3%
• Sales: up 9.7%
• Average First Purchase Value: up 13.5%
• Profits: up 24.4%

I was expecting version B to do better. People who are into cataloging their stuff tend to be a serious, practical crowd. But I wasn’t expecting the difference to be this big.
I am not complaining though

Now I must say that most of my current traffic is search engine traffic, either organic or paid search, e.g. searching for “dvd database software”. I suspect that this type of visitor knows exactly what he wants to do and why. He or she is just searching for the best software to do it. They don’t need to be conviced that they should organize their stuff to save time and money and to get control over their collection. They just want confirmation that Movie Collector will do what they want as efficiently as possible.

For other less targeted traffic like Content Network traffic, results may be different.
So I unpaused my Movie Collector Content Network campaign and am testing that now. Who knows, with a special fluffy landing page the Content Network may finally become profitable.

In terms of numbers of sales, it’s doing about the same as the old design. The profits for category B are slightly higher (about 3%), mainly because the average first purchase is still higher for the new design.

All in all, the new product pages are not a great success. But at least they are now performing well enough to switch to the new pages and start optimizing their details. I already have a couple of ideas I want to try:

• Headlines: Emotional / Fluffy / Benefit oriented vs Practical / Feature oriented
• Pricing: .95 vs rounded pricing
• Upsells: Move stuff like CD Delivery, Priority Support etc… to an interstitial upsell page, as opposed to including them in my “Recommended Buying Choices”

Today, I have started the “Fluffy vs Practical” headline test.

Version A:

Starting right now, you will enjoy a perfectly organized DVD collection…

Movie Collector Instantly Catalogs Your DVD & Blu-Ray discs.

You’ll Save Time and Money Today.

Finally Have Total Control Over Your Movie Collection.

Version B:

Automatic DVD Database Software for Windows, Mac OS X & iPhone

Movie Collector Automatically Catalogs Your DVD Collection.

Just Enter Movie Titles or Scan DVD Barcodes.

Instantly Download All Movie Details and Cover Images.

I am interested to see how this one works out. I A/B tested similar messages in my Adwords ads and the practical ones worked better there, that is, they resulted in a higher CTR.

I love A/B testing
Remind me to do another post about how I do these tests exactly.