With over 7 million visitors on TheNextWeb.com, the testing team focuses on driving traffic to specific areas of its site, to increase engagement and brand awareness.
For this study, the goal was to drive more traffic to the ‘Deals’ section, the site’s ecommerce store. Within the ‘Deals’ section, you can buy all sorts of fun, geeky tech products from software subscriptions to drones.
Previous analysis revealed not a lot of site traffic was clicking on the ‘Deals’ section, (placed within the top left navigation menu). The team wanted to figure out how to increase visitor clicks on the ‘Deals’ tab. But, at the same time, they didn’t want to detract from visitors clicking other tabs (blog’, ‘conference’, and ‘pro’ sections) in the navigation menu.
To achieve the best of both worlds, the team thought it might be beneficial to label the number of deals available. Doing so, they thought, might increase curiosity about deals without taking traffic away from other sections.
Hypothesis
They hypothesized showing a specific number of deals would help clarify and set visitors’ expectations, increasing conversions.
Test execution
To test this theory, the team created an algorithm that randomly generated a number between 100 to 110. This number was always close to the actual number of product deals available. The number was placed in front of the ‘Deals’ tab. Traffic was split 50/50. Half of the visitors saw the version with the number, the other half without.
Clicks on the ‘Deals’ link were tracked. Clicks on the other navigation bar links were also monitored.
Results
The results were telling. Simply adding a number in front of the ‘Deals’ tab lifted clicks an incredible 257.8%, compared to the version without!
Importantly, at the same time, clicks on other tabs remained stable.
Although the numbers 100 to 110 were randomly generated, no specific number outperformed. They all generated approximately equal clicks. This result indicated displaying a number was more important than the actual figure itself.
Test details
| Test element |
Navigation
|
| Page type |
All |
| Test date |
April 2015 |
| Segment |
All |
Website information
| Company |
TheNextWeb |
| Website |
thenextweb.com |
| Market |
Advertising, Internet |
| Visitors |
Internet & technology |
