Selling a product online that customers would most likely prefer trying on in a brick-and-mortar store is a challenge.
Felix + Iris, an online prescription eyewear retailer, provides a free home try-on option for its products with its Fit Kit.
However, getting customers to take the plunge to try on glasses at home was a challenge, especially because the brand is new having launched in September 2014.
Right from the get go, Jon Corwin, User Experience Lead, One Click Ventures (parent company of Felix + Iris), implemented A/B testing and optimization into every aspect of the Felix + Iris’ online presence.
The company falls under the umbrella of One Click Ventures, which owns two other online ecommerce eyewear brands, and testing is a large part of One Click Venture’s business strategy.
“We really embraced using A/B testing as another quick and easy feedback cycle to validate whether our messaging is in line with our customers’ needs,” Jon said.
In this blog post, we’ll detail one of Felix + Iris’ tests on the homepage of the site, centering around the hero image and copy for starting the free home try-on process.
Control
“The control’s hero unit’s design was certainly in line with our audience. It definitely spoke to our audience. It was aligned with our brand,” Jon said.
But, as Jon discovered, as a new brand, there are some disparities with no having brand equity to help carry Felix + Iris’ message.
Another issue that Jon identified was ambiguity within the call-to-action to “Get Started.”
“Essentially, the top funnel conversion point we were testing is for them to start the Fit Profile quiz. But we realized with the control, there was some ambiguity around what steps were required, what the value of the Fit Profile is for the customer, and what they get out of it,” Jon explained.
Jon developed his hypothesis: Will replacing the hero image with an actual image of the home try-on kit as well as adding the steps in the process help to portray the tangible results of trying Felix + Iris?
Treatment #1. Changed hero image, added steps
In the first treatment, Jon changed the hero image to reflect what the actual Fit Kit potential customers who ordered a free home try-on would look like.
Steps for the try on process were included as simple bullet points:
- Take our style and vision quiz
- See your recommended frames
- Try them on at home for free
The CTA was kept the same as the control: Get Started.
Treatment #2. Changed CTA
In the second treatment of the Felix + Iris homepage hero unit, Jon took the same elements in Treatment #1, but this time, changed the CTA to: Start Fit Profile.
Results
Treatment #2, with its clear CTA as well as more relevant hero image with step-by-step details of the process laid out, increased conversion 71.62% with a 95% level of confidence.
Jon noted that the only differences between Treatment #1 and Treatment #2 was the CTA changing from “Get Started” to “Start Fit Profile.”
“Even that small tweak in the button copy reaffirms that for those that potentially don’t read the headline copy, maybe don’t even look at the hero image, they just look at the button, the button is more effectively communicating what actually they’ll do by clicking ‘Start Fit Profile’ instead of ‘Get Started,'” he said, “which is kind of, “Start what?”
This test, early in Felix + Iris’ business life, is confirming the value of testing and optimization for the brand.
“A quick three-day test can inform you both as marketers and your tech team as product builders whether you’re inching in the right direction. It’s been really encouraging for us to have such a big win early on with this Felix + Iris brand being so new,” he said.
Jon stressed it is imperative to maintain an iterative approach in testing, continually pivoting and making data-based decisions on how the team markets products online.
Tune in on Thursday for part 2 of this series on testing for more on how Felix + Iris has established a testing culture and three strategies for improving testing operations at your own company.
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That’s impressive, one little change in the main CTA increases the conversion by 72%, it’s really good. You are absolutely right that A/B testings are so much important in every aspects of marketing to measure the effectiveness with real time data, be it on social media or landing page conversions. A really good tip with a good example for all marketers, optimizers and product builders. Very helpful, thanks for sharing.
What software do you use for online testing?
Hi Tim,
Thanks so much for your question! I reached back out to Jon at Felix + Iris and he had this to say. Please note that MarketingExperiments (and MarketingSherpa, sister company to MarketingExperiments) strive to remain as vendor-neutral as possible, and this is not an endorsement for a solution. This is simply what one marketer uses, and may or may not be the best fit for you:
“We currently use Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). We’ve actually been using them for 8 months now and couldn’t be happier. We were using Optimizely previously but ran into some issues with their tool affecting our site’s performance. Not sure if these were unique to our implementation (many other companies seem pleased with Optimizely) but we haven’t run into these same issues since switching to VWO. The learning curve is low and the VWO tool is super easy to use so you can spin up new tests in no time.”
Hope that helps! Thanks again for reaching out!
-Erin