This challenge comes to us from Troy O’Bryan, the Co-Founder and Chief Response Officer of Response Capture – a performance marketing company in Beaverton, Oregon. Troy is an alumnus of a Live Optimization Workshop taught by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin in Seattle.
Objective: Response Capture’s B2B client sought to improve landing page conversion rates while generating optins for ongoing communications
Goal: To gather profile information
Primary research question: Which incentive will generate the most conversions?
Approach: A/B single-factorial split test
“… a chance to win one of twenty “… a chance to win one of ten
$25 Amazon gift cards…” $50 Amazon gift cards…”
The Results:
As we teach in our Landing Page Optimization course, the objective of Incentive is to “tip the balance” of emotional forces from the negative, in this case represented by the Friction of filling in several fields of profile information as well as by the Anxiety of submitting personal information.
There is an “ideal incentive.” Incentives must be tested to find that ideal. And that is the challenge Troy took on with the above test.
But, dear reader, we post a different challenge to you…can you use your marketing intuition to guess which incentive performed best? Remember, the cost of these offers was the same, yet the formulation of the incentive produced a conversion rate increase for Troy’s client.
Which do you think performed best?
Take a good look at these incentives and let us know which one you think performed best in the comments section. Also, let us know by how much you think it improved conversion. The marketer that chooses the correct incentive with the closest conversion rate gain guess wins…the jealousy and admiration of his or her peers.
Come back on Friday to find the conversion gain winner along with the full story behind this successful test so you can drive similar improvements with your own pages.
$25 incentive. There is more chance of winning, and the price difference isn’t very different than $50.
I’d guess that option number 1, with the higher number of prizes, would have the conversion rate. I’d guess a 30% conversion rate.
I think the 20/$25 incentive did better. More chances to win.
I’d say choice one. To me, the better % chance to win a gift card, albeit less money, makes me think this.
I’m going for the $50 / 10 option.
My reasoning is that the chance of winning is incredibly small because Amazon is popular so the larger prize attracts more attention than the number of prizes. I’m going to guess a small uplift of 15%.
All of these explanations assume that users are rational, consciously taking risk and reward possibilities into consideration. Prospect theory shows that for losses, people tend to take big risks. With prospective wins, however, they tend to be less risky. Therefore, the 20/$25 option should provide a somewhat higher conversion rate, possibly around 15%. However, I will say that this depends on how the terms (1 of 20 or 1 of 10) were presented. If they were clearly marked, then my guess remains the same. But if they were not, then I’d guess the $50 option would drive more conversions because people will obviously go for the higher potential gain when the chances of winning are unclear.
Incentive # 1 converting at 13%
The least amount of stuff they have to sift through in the beginning will increase your conversion rate. I go with the $50, because it’s what slaps you first. Simply put the dollar amount is higher.
$50 one.
Incentive #1 I think the $25 offer is the winner. It feels worth the effort to enter if I have a 1 in 20 chance. A 1 in 10 chance doesn’t motivate me to make any effort or provide my information. I think there would be a lift of about 35%
Incentive #2.
Consumer drive by greater $$$ value, rather than percentage of win.
Small lift, 5-10% in conversion.
Incentive 2 is more logical, but incentive 1 gives more of a chance for the public to win!
incentive 2: one of then $50 cards + 30%
@goalgorilla
No. 2: even though the odds, are worse, the 1 of 10, reads ALOT like 1 in 10, whereas 1 of 20 seems like 5% chance to win (even though that’s not correct). Also, I’d lean to lotteries example where they demonstrate even if the odds are not in your favor, it’s worth it to chase a bigger prize. And $50 feels like it’s worth giving up personal info for.
#2 wins in my opinion.
Incentive #2 will win. Increase of 23%
One of ten is perceptually easier to grasp and inclination is for larger prizes. So many people do national Lotto, for massive jackpots, but almost no chance to win.
Great quiz all the same and my number one predication is no-one can predict the performance difference. The winner will be as lucky as the person who won the Amazon $25 or $50 dollars.
Incentive #2. People don’t really care for probabilities when they participate in sweepstakes or lotteries. The price itself is more important.
I came back Friday, and I’ve come back Monday… and I don’t see the answer. Is it staring at me and I can’t find the link? Or is it not posted yet?
Curious in Toronto
@Brad Einarsen
Nevermind… I found it, it’s in the Trackback link. IE8 messes up the formatting at the bottom of the page…
That’s right Brad, you can find the full story behind this successful test on Friday’s blog post… https://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog/research-topics/response-capture-case-study.html
Choice 1 — 20 winners instead of 10. Improvement — maybe 10%