Arun Sivashankaran, Author at FunnelEnvy

Top 10 Copywriting A/B Tests to Boost Conversions

While it’s true that design plays a large and obvious role in conversion rate optimization, copywriting can deliver similarly huge lifts in conversions. Even the littlest copywriting tweak can drastically improve your conversion rate with far less time and effort than a design tweak.

The only way to take advantage of all this potential low-hanging fruit is to test. To that end, here are some of the top copywriting tweaks to make to improve conversions.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:54:43-07:00January 30th, 2014|Testing|0 Comments

8 Ways to Increase Paid Subscription Conversion Rates

The conversion process from visitor to paying subscriber or member can be long and complex and often has a high churn rate. After all, credit card information is much more valuable than an email address or time spent browsing.

To get more paid subscribers, you need 2 things: more visitors and less friction to buying. Here are 8 ways to achieve those objectives and ultimately increase your paid subscription conversion rate.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:54:54-07:00January 28th, 2014|Conversion Rate Optimization|5 Comments

4 Steps for Testing Your Way to High Converting Headlines

The most valuable real estate on your blog posts, email marketing, and published articles are the first 5 to 10 words. Studies show that your headline is absolutely critical. According to CopyBlogger, 8 out of 10 people read headline copy while only 2 read on. What does this tell you? It means that you’ve got an excellent opportunity to capture readers – and that most content on the internet today is failing to effectively do so. In this age of content marketing, writers and marketers can’t afford to have their content go off the cliff. The good news is that you don’t have to be a professional copywriter to get great results with your headlines. Here’s a closer look at how testing can get you closer to high converting headlines.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:55:09-07:00January 23rd, 2014|Testing|4 Comments

5 Steps to Reduce Your Churn Rate

Can you imagine bringing in any new customers and still not growing your business?

It’s possible, especially if you’re operating a SaaS or other subscription-based business.

You work hard to convince people to give your business a chance, so it’s a shame to see subscribers drop off after a few months.

Instead of racing out to get more customers, have you considered what’s causing people to leave in the first place? Odds are you can make some simple changes to keep more customers loyal, happy, and paying.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:55:35-07:00January 20th, 2014|The Funnel|2 Comments

Why Gmail Image Caching Doesn’t Spell Disaster for Email Marketing

From their algorithm updates to their tabbed Gmail inboxes, search giant Google is constantly innovating how it provides a better experience for users. In December, Google announced that they’d be rolling out another change that left email marketers reeling: images embedded in emails would be cached. Panic ensued. Why did the Gmail image caching announcement cause an uproar? Here’s a closer look at the changes, its potential implications for your company’s email marketing analytics, and some insights on the latest strategies to circumvent challenges.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:55:51-07:00January 15th, 2014|Digital Marketing|8 Comments

CRO Mentoring on AirPair

We often run into marketers and technologists on the web who aren’t ready for a long term Conversion Rate Optimization project, but need a little quick help with their UX, Analytics, or A/B Testing. For that very reason I’m very excited to be featured as a CRO expert on AirPair.

For those unfamiliar with the company, AirPair is a really cool San Francisco startup which helps pair anyone with technology experts for one-on-one coaching and consultation via video chat and screen sharing. It’s an online version of a tactic with roots in agile software development known as pair-programming. The concept of pair programming is that two developers work side by side on a problem, one actually writing the code while the other reviews and assists. Perhaps counterintuitively in many cases this approach actually increases overall productivity since there’s an immediate feedback loop on bugs (most software development time is spent debugging code) as well as a continuous peer learning process.

I feel strongly that the same concept can be applied to many of the day-to-day online marketing tasks that we all face, which is why I was very excited when Maksim Ioffe (AirPair co-founder) extended an invitation to join their network. We’re all working on very similar problems, and if I can help share any of the knowledge that I’ve gained towards helping with your CRO efforts please find me on AirPair.

And of course if you’re looking help with anything else technology related check out the AirPair blog.

By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:56:15-07:00January 14th, 2014|Conversion Rate Optimization|0 Comments

The Case for Testing: The Science of Conversion Rate Optimization

Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta and co-authors released a paper exploring “Do Display Ads Influence Search: Attribution and Influence in Online Advertising.” The questions driving the study were straightforward. First, do display ads make a difference in moving buyers along the sales funnel? Second, if yes, then how much of a difference do they make and for how long?

Most online marketing professionals read the above and immediately form an opinion. “Yes, of course,” you’re saying, based on years of personal experience in the industry. Or perhaps your response is “No, not in the case of industry X or Y,” based on a very specific anecdotal case you worked on.

But before we dive into the answer, and why it matters to conversion optimization testing, let’s explore a different question. What are the chances that your gut reaction answer is right – not just to this specific line of inquiry in online marketing, but how you make decisions about your business in general and in your understanding of how your customers make buying decisions?

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:56:27-07:00January 10th, 2014|Testing|6 Comments

How To Educate Your Prospects And Make More Sales At The Same Time

Ever have a friend who’s having relationship problems or going through a bad breakup?

It seems like they could just go on and on about it forever. It’s like a switch goes off. Even the shy types can’t resist spilling all the grim little details.

When someone has a problem, they can’t stop talking (and thinking) about it.

You can use this to build your credibility and make sales online.

You just need the right strategy to do it…

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:57:12-07:00January 3rd, 2014|The Funnel|0 Comments

The Top 7 Conversion Optimization Trends of 2014

According to a study by eMarketer, conversion optimization is a top priority for many businesses. Between 2012 and 2013, the percentage of businesses naming conversions as their number one priority rose from 34 to 39%. I anticipate that we’ll continue to see similar growth in the year ahead. Yet conversion optimization is quickly becoming a more sophisticated discipline. Better technologies and testing methodologies are evolving every day, which allow us to gather more data on any subject than we could ever use. 2014 will be the year where conversion optimization becomes imbedded in the DNA of companies, where it connects meaningfully with trends in the content marketing and mobile spaces, and when companies get ahead through structured testing and lean analysis. Here’s a closer look at what trends I expect to see in conversion optimization in 2014.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:57:23-07:00January 1st, 2014|Conversion Rate Optimization|4 Comments

Simple, Free A/B Testing With Google Content Experiments & WordPress

For any online business interested in A/B Testing these are great times. There are an incredible number of platforms and tools out there that we use daily to easily test copy, landing pages, and everything else on your site. Since I started with some simple scripts and Excel spreadsheets years ago, these tools have come a long way in terms of both usability and capability.

But many of these tools come with some hefty price tags that, while easily justified for a large ecommerce or SaaS business, are out of reach for many smaller companies. Many startups or small businesses can get a lot of benefit from testing, but don’t necessarily have the budget for the sophisticated platforms or require all of the bells and whistles.

As they often do, Google has provided us with a free (if limited) solution – Google Content Experiments. Since many SMBs run on WordPress, we thought putting together a simple guide on using Content Experiments with WordPress might make it easier for you to start your first test.

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By Arun Sivashankaran|2014-04-21T14:57:35-07:00December 27th, 2013|Testing|0 Comments

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