🎉 Conversion Party #44

Welcome to Conversion Party #44, featuring:

• Heatmap Update: Dylan’s press tour has kicked off.

• CRO Deep Dive: Video above the fold gives Chase agita and costs you money.

• CRO Hack #444: Save for later.

• Obligatory Roundup™️: Because it’s a SaaS newsletter.

Let’s get into it.

HEATMAP UPDATE
How many bears can you name in 30 seconds?

Dylan was on a podcast. He’s about to embark on a bit of a press tour, so call this one the first of many. The first ~15 min or so are focused on his entrepreneurial journey.

A few fun facts I picked:

• As a tween, Dylan used scarcity to convince suburban parents that his time was worth $30/hr.

• The man put $300k into a sports drink only to flush the idea before it ever went to market. Maybe we’ll drop a flavor to celebrate a Series A

• Dylan has never lost an employee. Across 8 businesses, nobody has bounced voluntarily. Unreal.

Try listening to Dylan at 1.5X. It’ll change your life.

CRO DEEP DIVE
Video looks cool, but is it?

We all want our brands to look cool. It’s a tale as old as time.

And what looks cool? Video on your website.

A few quick facts to get us started…

1. Customers come to your site to learn why your product is for them.

2. The human attention span is ~8 seconds.

3. That’s down ~25% since 2000.

So…. why would you use video?

Most people who visit your site exit before getting below the fold. That real estate is the only 100% viewed part of your website. If a video requires > 8 seconds of attention to get the information you need, and it lives above the fold, you’re squandering opportunity.

Why do brands insist on using video?

In many cases, they believe a video will “save them,” similar to how they use video content in their ad creative.

The fallacy here is that the consumption cycles are linear from social platform → your owned website. Customer expectations change once they leave the comfortable confines of IG or TikTok - you had to entertain them before, now you’ve got to keep them.

But how?

• Image + Text > Video - it’s direct, easy to understand, faster to iterate and let’s just say it - more cost-effective.

• Run the 3 second test with a few friends → with your video idea or image/text combo are they interested in continuing on the journey with your brand?

  • Side note - see how many <5 second sessions your website has - these are usually considered bounces but if you are currently testing a video and these go up…your customers DON’T LIKE IT.

• Survey customers after they purchase - what did you think of our video? Did that help you understand why our brand was important to you? You’ll learn whether your video was actively working against driving purchase intent velocity.

Instead of using video above the fold, why not try something like…

A Good Example

• This assumes you don’t know about the brand so you learn right away what the hero product is. A wallet but with a twist.

• The copy gets straight to the point, I do think they could add: The Ceramic Powder “Wallet” Collection for the sake of clarity.

• Image is sized appropriately and easy to understand.

• CTA goes straight to the product that is being shown.

A Less Good Example

This isn’t all that bad. It’s just more eye-catching to write bad so you keep reading

• This isn’t all that bad. It’s just more eye-catching to write bad so you keep reading

• Image is eye-catching - which is nice but the background is a similar color to the product making it hard to actually read what the product is.

• The copy isn’t clear about what the value is to the consumer.

• CTA’s aren’t focused on a direct action being taken.

tl;dr

• Make sure your headlines have a clear value prop that’s benefit-focused

• Images are tied to that value prop and give clarity to your product

• Make sure your CTA’s have a direct action to take.

• Don’t get overly focused on brand until you are at certain scale.

• If you insist on using video, make it shoppable and fast. Use Videowise (tell ‘em Heatmap sent you).

CRO HACK
#444: Save for later

MOSTLY RANDOM
Obligatory Roundup™️

• We’ve got three merch drops next month. New lid, pocket tee, and something exclusive for our SaaS pals. LMK if you want in.

• Friend (not imaginary) raised $2.5m. Dropped $1.8M on a domain. The world is healing.

• SaaS fantasy league, anyone?

• Sean Frank ethered Amazon last night. He’s 100% right, and I’ve never been more ready to buy a Ridge wallet in my f*ck&ng life.

• In “sh!t I ordered online this week,” we’ve got… a hyper-minimalist logo kit?