5 must-know consumer psychology triggers to increase conversions on a website
Consumer psychology is the study of how “thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and perceptions influence how we buy and relate to goods and services”. We’re constantly psychologically triggered on a day-to-day basis, and if you’re a growth marketer interested in optimizing your company’s website, you should definitely understand how to implement them in your tests.
Let’s start with the scientific method, probably one of the most important methodologies to consider when implementing an optimization program. As in any scientific experiment, all AB tests should follow the following stages:
- Make observations: Information on web usage analytics (coming from your web analytics tool, for example), user research (information of how some target users interact with your website), and previous experiments to identify optimization opportunities that could be tested in the future.
- Thinking of interesting questions: interesting research questions about specific online behavior. Ex: Why is there such a significant difference between existing and new users’ sales for product XYZ?
- Formulating hypotheses: We try to establish the cause of the research problem. We should try not only to indicate the UX (User Experience) changes that we would apply to the site (changing the color or size of a button, for example) but really identify a consumer psychology insight that might be causing this problem (more on this later).
The structure of the hypothesis should always include a problem, a solution, and an outcome, in the following way: If we apply this solution, then this outcome will happen among these users, because of this problem. Ex: If we include a section of customer reviews, then sales will be higher among new users because we will provide a mechanism of social proof that will make our website more trustworthy.
- Gather data: Data can come from literature, our AB tests, and all other user research methods available (see image below)
Source: https://juneux.com/blog/2015/03/28-ways-to-know-your-customers/
- Refine, Alter, Expand, or Reject hypothesis: According to the results of our experiments, we will have, ideally, more knowledge about our hypothesis. We can then proceed to accept it, reject it, or alter its scope, to begin a new cycle of experimentation.
- Develop general theories: Theories that potentially explain the original problem and are consistent with most or all the available data.
As you just saw, hypotheses should always be linked to a consumer psychology principle. There lies the importance of knowing about them. Below are then 5 of the most popular psychological triggers used in the e-commerce industry:
- Anchoring: This principle indicates the propensity of our human brain to constantly look for comparisons. One of the ways in which brands appeal to this trigger is by offering sales or discounts. We tend to compare different products and choose the one that offers a higher value (price, quantity, etc.)
- Loss-Aversion: As humans, we tend to avoid loss. Scarcity is normally used by online merchants to trigger sales, even though it might not be necessarily true. Another widely used tactic is to communicate to the user from a loss frame: telling potential buyers “to stop wasting time and hurry up” has a subtle influence towards action.
- Social proof: We are a social species, then we like to be part of groups. Reviews are the perfect example of this principle since it assures a potential buyer that he is not the first one buying a product (rarely anyone wants to be the first one buying something) and that he is joining a group of already satisfied buyers. Apple indirectly appeals to this principle, linking the purchase of its products to joining a group of exclusive users.
- Foot-in-the-door: We frequently connect with new people, and when we do it, we feel a compulsion to honor that bond by performing small actions. The chances of you accepting a request after you agreed to a smaller one before are higher. Brands use this principle by connecting early on social media with potential buyers and encouraging them to perform small actions that will ideally lead to a purchase (ex: liking a post, subscribing to a page, etc.).
- Authority: Humans believe in authority figures, which is why many products are endorsed by celebrities or influencers.
When creating our AB test, we must then be aware of these and many other consumer behavior principles, as they will help us increase our winning rate. We should also consider the following general aspects:
- Ideally, you should have more than 1.000 conversions (sign-ups, transactions, etc.) per month to run tests. Doing so below this number is not recommended as numbers will be too low for them to have statistical significance. If you have few conversions, focus on increasing that number first and then start optimizing.
- Run AB (Default/Challenger) tests. ABC, ABCD, or experiments with a higher number of variations (more challengers) are normally performed by organizations with a high volume of conversions.
- Test duration will be defined by your current conversion rate, the number of unique visitors on your test page per week, the expected improvement over control, and some other factors, but make sure that duration is set in whole weeks (to account for weekend effects. So not Wednesday to Sunday, for example) and that it is no longer than 4 weeks (as the sample might get diluted i.e. losing reference of our test users, as longer than 4 weeks, the chance of users deleting cookies is higher). Whenever possible, duration should be adjusted to 1,2,3, or 4 weeks (as this depends also on your specific business cycle and business case). You should start with client-side experiments (deployed from the user’s browser), as these might be faster to deploy. Once an organization grows, it normally finds a balance between client and server-side experiments. Data protection laws and restrictions on cookies will most surely speed up this transaction, but we can wait some time to see how the industry reacts.
- Whenever possible, we should rely on front-end developers instead of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) code editors to create our tests, as some invisible changes might leak into the code and affect the whole test.
Most of the information here presented makes part of the AB testing section of CXL’s Growth Marketing program. For this module, they’ve included technical information (statistics foundations and the use of automation tools) as well as organizational insights (how professional AB testing programs look like, a complete overview of the planning, execution, results, and escalation phases of an optimization program, and the different organizational structures in which optimization teams can be established at organizations). This is, by far, the best education that I’ve found so far in Growth Marketing. You should check it out if you’re currently working or want to transition into a career in Growth.
Let me know in the comments section what you think. Does the company that you work for have a website optimized for consumer behavior? Which psychological triggers can you see on your company’s website? If you’re interested in growth and digital marketing, make sure to listen to our podcast El Antipodcast: El Cliente NO tiene la razon.
Sources:
https://co.pinterest.com/pin/113715959314190860/
https://juneux.com/blog/2015/03/28-ways-to-know-your-customers/
[1] https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-consumer-psychology-2794899#:~:text=Consumer%20psychology%20is%20a%20specialty,relate%20to%20goods%20and%20services.
