Analytics Obsession

Question

My client is really obsessive about analytic data. He wants to explore the tiniest details to maximize his open, click, and conversion rates. While theres nothing wrong in that, but sacrificing usability and the site's design in order to achieve better performance? He'd use an ugly looking red button only because it performs better than what fits the theme of the site.

Is it the right thing to do? What do you guys suggest?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If he is obsessive with conversion tracking, you are probably using a tool like Google Website Optimizer. Using tools like this give you the possibility to try all possible solutions using a/b or even Multivariable testing.

If you are using tools like this, you can propose several "nice" designs to prove that a better or prettier design can ameliorate his sales performance.

I tend to go pretty far when sacrificing design, when we are talking about improving conversion rates. If my customers are taking it too far. I often propose (and charge) a second site, competing with the first one. Like this you can use different strategies on each site.

As this website is quite technically oriented, question like this might get more answers on "online marketing" forums like Search Engine Roundtable, DigiPoint or Webmasterworld

Answer 2

Many studies offer great statistics like those, for example a download link containing the word "free" will be clicked way more often.

Your client may be interested more in making more money than making a "artistic"/"beautifull" website, when creating a website you must understand your customer needs, as a professional I've been forced to design/code many solution I did not personnaly like, but those were perfect for the customer.

To make a link, what you are asking is "If I am a car seller and someone want to buy a red car but I HATE red, what must I do?", the question is pretty simple to answer I think ;)

Answer 3

This is a rather open ended question with no easy solution yet.

There are some startups that try to monetise on the problem that you are describing, they were not available when this post was created though. One of the approach I've encountered is roughly based on a centralised analytics platform that would extract, store and mine and data for specific customers and target groups. The presentation of the website is based on replaceable components. Their content and (to some extend) arrangement is based on the feedback from the platform and is generated dynamically when user accesses the site.

If he is obsessive about this, you could convince him to connect to one of those.