Twitter Calls-to-Action Test
| VERSION B | |
How site visitors voted:
VERSION A (57%)
VERSION B (43%)
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Actual Test Results:
‘You should follow me on twitter here’ got 75.2% lift in clicks compared to ‘Follow me on twitter.’ Dustin Curtis made this discovery while running a series of A/B tests of Twitter invite language on his blog dustincurtis.com. Each test version was shown to a different group of 5,000 randomly selected visitors in the space of a few hours. The Twitter offers weren’t very prominent – just text at the end of each blog post and as part of Dustin’s “About” paragraph at the bottom of the blog page (which is what you see pictured here). Actual clickthrough rates from some of Dustin’s tests: As Dustin suspected they would, active commands work better than laid-back statements. However, he was surprised adding a ‘here’ would still make such a difference for his blog’s very web-savvy audience. “Here and click here may be contextually messy and visually ugly,” he noted, “but if they improve usability, it might be a worthy tradeoff.” So, don’t let your Web designer talk you out of “Click here” yet. Tell them you need to test it. And, if you’re a blogger, for goodness sake test your conversion action language. Relying solely on a standard RSS button or social media icon on your sidebar is throwing away potential conversions. WhichTestWon.com is sponsored by: WiderFunnel Conversion Optimization, the A/B and multivariate testing firm that guarantees Conversion Rate Lift. Click here for info on improving your site’s results – risk free – today! |
Would be interesting to see if the word “here” would have as much impact if the links were denoted in a more conventional way. Past usability studies have shows the old blue, underlined link works best.
What a fantastic test. Wonderful information, especially for everyone trying to figure out what works…ultimately, it’s all about the test. Thanks for sharing this.
Would my Grandma know to click “You should follow me on twitter”?
No.
I knew “B” was the correct answer but voted for “A” on the grounds that I can’t stand it when someone “Should’s” me. I don’t recommend that wording to anyone. I offer choice or a polite approach, like “You may wish to follow me on Twitter here.”
I had a feeling that Version B would work better. There’s just something about an actual call to action.
One thing I don’t quite follow, though.
Am I to understand that this blog had 5,000+ unique visitors in the space of only a few hours? Is that correct?
So, Anne, are you going to A/B test the Twitter link at the top of your pages with “YOU SHOULD SHARE ON TWITTER HERE”.
I’ve used the ‘click here’ when I’ve been too lazy to rewrite a sentence to avoid it. I’m glad to hear that it might be the better option, particularly for my less-than-tech-savvy readers. Good one!
I wonder why didn’t this person test “follow me on twitter here.” or “follow me on twitter by clicking here.”.
I’ve read lots of theories that says when you tell people what they should do directly, that creates resistance.
Is it the “click here” call to action, or is it confusion. With the prevalence of definitional- and vendor-site links on Wikipedia, blogs and about pages, it could be a lack of clarity about what is going to happen when you click on the link that doesn’t say “click here”. My first reaction to Version A was that the Twitter link would take me either to the Twitter site or Dustin’s posts/articles on Twitter. And I had the set-up to know what would happen.
Almost any time your visitor needs to think before acting, you’re going to get lower response.
The goal was clickthroughs and not follows. How can we know what those who clicked on “here” expected? How can we know they actually did anything when arriving on twitter.com? And what if it had been one of those pages littered with a ton of “click here” links?
I don’t think that really is testing a “here” vs a non-”here” version. I don’t think it is a fair test.
In version A the anchor text is twitter. Of course no-one is going to click that link because they probably assume that it links to the twitter home page. The “here” variant was the only one that had anchor text that suggested that the link led to a page that would allow you to follow.
Now if the test had tested ‘You should follow me on twitter’ with “follow me” as the anchor text vs ‘You should follow me on twitter here’ with “here” as the anchor text then that would have been a fair test.
Interesting results – but they seem to have disappeared from his blog…
Um, yes I guess now we have to test changing it!
We doublechecked on traffic and yes, when he posts something new his traffic is unusually high for a personal blog. In fact, Dustin was splitting the traffic, so he had 5k per test cell… so that’s 10k uniques or more per afternoon when he ran tests.
I would like to know what would happen if he’d make “Follow me on Twitter” the link, not just “Twitter.” I’d also like to know if those who click just “here” are as likely, less likely, or more likely to actually follow him on Twitter. Or is “here” to be compared to “I’m feeling lucky” on Google.
We should also bear in mind that different audiences will respond differently.
My grandma (if she were alive) wouldn’t even know what Twitter is anyhow! She wouldn’t click either link.
Stupid test to begin with. I agree with Kevin that a hyperlink should be underlined (maybe a different color wich stands out on the black background – say yellow). If that was the case my old dad would have spotted the hyperlink. Even without the call to action ‘here’.
From the article: “Here and click here may be contextually messy and visually ugly,” he noted, “but if they improve usability, it might be a worthy tradeoff.”
To Kevin and Robin’s point, it may be a more worthy usability trade off to make the link colored and underlined than to make something “contextually messy.” Conversion should influence design not determine it.
The difference between these two:
You should follow me on twitter = 10.09%
You should follow me on twitter here = 12.81%
Seems to be statistically insignificant. The take away from this shouldn’t be that “click here” or “here” is useful link text by any means.
“Seem to be”, rather. And, this annoying box that keeps popping up asking me to subscribe to Anne’s newsletter are quite annoying. Why does it pop up more than once after I’ve already said no?
Many high traffic sites would be extremely happy to get a more than 2.5 point lift in their conversion rate. Statistical significance isn’t determined by how big or small the lift is, but rather by conclusive results (definition here: http://whichtestwon.com/testing-glossary/testing-glossary-2/conclusive-results/)
On the overlap offer, sorry it should only show up once unless you don’t accept cookies. I’ll doublecheck it’s working properly.
GW – Are you saying that the difference between 12.8% and 10.1% is insignificant, or that the results of this study are not statistically significant (which I do understand is what you said).
I think a near-27% difference in conversions is noteworthy, so I assume you mean the latter. If correct, then how so?
(Also, I think you were right the first time: “seems” — as “difference” is singular — no?)
[...] Twitter Calls-to-Action Test – Interessant, welchen Profil-Link zu Twitter die Leute eher klicken… übrigens auch eine generelle Empfehlung für Anne Hollands Blog. [...]