Imagine having access to data that could literally double your blogs conversion rates overnight.
Better still, think about how powerful it would be if you could see videos of exactly how people interact (or don’t) with your opt in box, your lead capture page and your shopping cart. How incredible would it be if you could watch videos that give you powerful insight into how your visitors engage with all of your pages, your widgets, your social media buttons etc? If you haven’t heard of Clicktale yet, it’s a online marketers dream come true!
Check out the video below to hear how the team at Clicktale changed one word on their opt in form and doubled their conversions. (Excuse the rattling sound but my Mac is booked in to see the doc this week :)
Below is how their opt in form looked. As you can see, they had 5 fields to fill in but only 4 out of the 5 had an * indicating they were required fields.
Using their own form analytics, they discovered they had a 42.57% conversion rate. Not bad! But what they also discovered was that 39% of their visitors started to fill in their opt in form but never completed it. Using their Drop Report, they discovered field number 5 was the problem area with a drop off of 37.7% of visitors. So 37.7% of the 39% were instantly identifiable.
The 5th field happened to be the field that asked for the visitors phone number. Now this is extremely powerful insight as it wasn’t a required field!
Adding the word optional had an extremely powerful effect on conversions
If you think you had it covered by not making all fields on your form a required field, think again. From the studies the gang at Clicktale did, it would indicate that people scan your opt in form and assume that all fields are required unless you tell them they’re not!
So what they did was add one word, optional and bang, their conversion rate went from 42.57% to 80.1% overnight!
After this change they also found that 66.3% of their visitors chose to leave this field blank. This is a really powerful example of how asking for to much information from your visitors can scare them off.
How can Clicktale help improve my blog in general?
If you’ve been using Google Analytics, Clicktale compliments this tool beautifully. It’s one thing being able to see data on how people found your site, how long they spent on your site etc but being able to watch videos of how visitors interact when they come to your blog is priceless.
Oh and don’t worry, if you’re reading this post, the recordings show up as anonymous and don’t give me any insight as to your identity. Clicktale has a very strict privacy policy, which states that its software does not collect any personally identifiable information unless a visitor voluntarily and knowingly submits this type of data. Password fields are never recorded and during session playback question marks are displayed (as you saw in the video) instead of what the visitor types in. Any text that you enter into a form but don’t submit is hidden.
If you’ve thought about installing the software on Facebook to watch videos on how your ex engages on other pages, sorry your out of luck!
Here’s what’s included in the free version
- Domain Tracking for 1 domain
- Page Reports
- Advanced Filtering
- Visitor Playback Movies – first 2 page views only
- Click Heatmaps – limited to the most popular page
- Attention Heatmaps – limited to most popular page
- Scroll Reach Heatmaps – limited to most popular page
- Mouse Move Heatmaps – limited to most popular page
- Form Analytics – limited to most popular form
If you want to view the data on https secure forms such as shopping carts, you’ll need the paid version. As the paid version allows tracking for 3 domains, you could partner with 2 others to bring your monthly cost down to $25.
So there you have it, an online marketers dream! If you think others can benefit from gaining incredibly powerful insight into how visitors engage on their sites, be sure to tweet them this post. And of course make sure you leave me a comment below and let everyone know about any cutting edge software you’ve been using lately.
Michaelé
Hey Michaele – so happy to see you are now able to do video! You are awesome at it btw :-)
I have been using clicktale for a long time with my e-commerce stores and absolutely love it! So easy to use, and totally agree with your post, the amount of information it delivers is amazing. It definitely helped me to increase sales in a very short period of time. Also helped to understand the psychology of a buyer, which was super important to me at the time!
I have to say I think clicktale is a must for people working online :-)
thanks for the awesome post and introduction to clicktale
cheers
Nat
Hey Nat,
Thanks for your support and yeah I just squeezed that video in while my laptop was on the edge of blowing up lol!
I know that your e-commerce stores were very successful so thanks for letting everyone know that Clicktale was a big help to understanding your buyers.
I love that these guys keep evolving their technology.
Michaelé
Michaele,
Well, this is a pretty nifty piece of software. I had no idea that something like this even existed. Getting the kind of information this tool provides can really be a huge help. Thanks for sharing this with us. Gotta go head over and get my own account.
Hi Don,
I haven’t heard that word in a while but yes ‘nifty’ is exactly what it is.
I’ll be interested to hear from you in a week or 2 after your new account has some movies in it.
Michaelé
Hi Michaele,
Yet another excellent post about the evolution of technology and how it can help us as online marketers improve our conversions. It’s interesting to see how adding or deleting one word can change an opt-in campaign’s conversion rate so dramatically. And knowing how people are actually interacting with your site is indeed powerful feedback! I will definitely check into Clicktale! Thanks!
Mary Lou
Hi Mary Lou,
Thank you and yes the technology that’s out there to help us with conversions is just mind boggling!
I would love to hear what you think once you have your own account up and running.
Michaelé
Michaele,
Thanks for sharing another way to track your visitors. I’ll check this out later. Off to see what I can see!
Val :)
Val,
You’re welcome and I can’t wait to hear what you see!
Michaelé
Well Michaele, I must say you have come through with a serious tool here that will really help people.
I actually sent this video to one of my old clients as there sales conversions are quiet low.
I am sure this will help them and me.
ThankS a million
Marty Ware The SEO DAD
Hey Marty,
I really hope it helps your client. If their sales process needs work then Clicktale should be the perfect solution.
Let me know how it turns out on your own blog.
Michaelé
Wow – what an awesome tool Michaele! I hadn’t heard of this but after looking at this post and video I am definitely going to check it out. Thanks so much for the info
Hey Glyna,
I actually heard about the tool as part of a course I was doing.
Never a day goes by where I’m not totally blown away by the technology that’s out there!
Michaelé
Hi Michaele
You’ve done a terrific job with the video – I told you, you’re a natural at it!
(hehe – your computer sounds like teeth chattering!)
I agree with Don that it’s a nifty piece of software! (I love funny little words like that :)).
I’ve just opened a free account with them so now I’ll just sit back and wait to see what happens from there!
Thanks for sharing this information with us, Michaele.
~ Kylie ~
PS: I’m still fascinated by how fax machines work, let alone software like this! ;)
Hi Kylie,
Thank you and yes the computer did sound like chattering teeth or a helicopter about to take off lol.
It’s all fixed now so hopefully no more gremlins!
I can’t wait to hear what you learn about your visitors from your free account.
Michaelé
Aloha Val, wowwww…that is a cool tool to look into. I will check it and see what it does for me and I can see who, what they are looking at on my blog. Thanks for sharing! Lanikee.com
PS…feel free to swing by my blog and leave me a sweet comment. I had a chance to see you on MLM Launch Formula and glad I did. :)
Hey Lani,
I would love to hear what you learn once you have it installed.
Fantastic work on your blog. I love the header you created and the fantastic demo you did on the awesome graphics tool.
Michaelé