How increasing landing page congruence affects cost per subscriber
Hoover Institution
Experiment Summary
Timeframe: 12/01/2014 - 12/25/2014
The Hoover Institution wanted to add new subscribers to its highly-regarded military history and foreign policy newsletter Strategika. Facebook ad targeting allowed them to find new subscribers by targeting these specific interests, but after a few weeks of the campaign, cost-per-subscriber was still higher than original projections.
The landing page did a good job selling Strategika — it constructed a strong value proposition, showed plenty of credibility, and made a clear call-to-action that highlighted all of the benefits of subscription. But we hypothesized we could increase the conversion rate on the landing page by making a single simple change — making the landing page look more like the ad.
The ad had a historic picture of American soldiers storming a beachhead in World War 2. We changed the landing page to have this same background, and shortened the copy to fit.
Research Question
Our hypothesis was that by increasing congruence (or visual consistency) between the landing page and the ad, we could improve landing page conversion and lower the cost per subscriber.
Design
Results
| Treatment Name | Conv. Rate | Relative Difference | Confidence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C: | Control - Strategika branded page | 25.0% | ||
| T1: | Congruent Page | 34.8% | 39.2% | 100.0% |
This experiment has a required sample size of 163 in order to be valid. Since the experiment had a total sample size of 3,687, and the level of confidence is above 95% the experiment results are valid.
Flux Metrics Affected
The Flux Metrics analyze the three primary metrics that affect revenue (traffic, conversion rate, and average gift). This experiment produced the following results:
0% increase in traffic
× 39.2% increase in conversion rate
× 0% increase in average gift
Key Learnings
Not only did this new page with increased congruence convert 40% more people to subscribers, because Facebook was optimizing for converisons, it lowered the cost per subscriber by 86% — a huge savings that allowed Hoover Institution to effectively acquire nearly twice as many subscribers with their original budget.