453% Increase in Website Signups, 32% Reduction in Cost

Favery.com is a private-sale site that brings members exceptional jewelry at great prices and provides styling ideas and inspiration.

We worked with Founder Anne Nichols over a three month period to increase website signups and reduce cost per signup. The result was a 453% increase in signups and a 32% reduction in cost.
 

This was achieved by combining AdWords Campaign Optimization and Landing Page Optimization using Google Analytics and Favery’s internal optimization system.

How We Did It

To dramatically increase online signups, three things need to happen:
First, you must be able to “get in front” of your prospects. Second, you must show them an ad that is compelling and interesting (getting them to click on it). Third, you must communicate the value of your website and get them to sign up.

Anne Nichols was already doing an excellent job at getting in front of prospects using Google AdWords, so we started with ad testing.

Five different sales messages were split tested. Conversion rate ranged from as low as 3% to as high as 8%. Once a “control” was established we moved on to landing page optimization.

The first round of landing page tests focused on design changes… we created landing pages that showed different products and had different layouts.

   

Changing the headline messaging made a big difference. The winning headlines were as much as 17% better at converting than the initial headlines.

In our second round of landing page tests, we forced the user to sign up before any content could be viewed. We applied a “curtain” effect to the landing page and placed the signup box front and center. Example: http://www.favery.com/home3

This tactic increased conversion rate by nearly 70%. With the new higher conversion rate, AdWords bidding strategies that were previously too costly became viable… the increase in conversion allowed us to scale up advertising.

The Key Takeaway

Conversion rate optimization makes advertising affordable. Once we had a method for converting clicks into signups, we could increase signups simply by showing the ads more often and under more keywords. Conversion optimization allows you to outbid competitors and gain market share.

Follow Up Experiment: An ADDITIONAL 80% Increase in Signups, 44% Reduction in Cost

After our engagement Favery used the same methodology to develop a follow up test that increased conversion rates an additional 80% and reduced cost by an additional 44%.

Favery now gets signups at 1/3rd the per-optimization cost.

What made the difference? The new “control” is a landing page that combined all the winning elements from previous experiments, but the design focuses on product discovery instead of shopping. The winning design arouses curiosity and invites engagement, as opposed to focusing on selling a specific category of product.