Case Study: How I Boosted Click-Throughs By 44.5% On This Travel App Homepage

Case Study:

How I Boosted Click-Throughs By 44.5% On this Travel App Homepage

I yak a lot about voice of customer data and the power of  imagery on this blog.

But I’ve never actually published a case study that details how I go about using those techniques to write conversion-focused copy.

Well, I thought it was about time that changed.

So Rick Bulich at GyPSy Guide was kind enough to let me talk about my process for writing copy for his app’s homepage.

It’s a story about road trips, big ol’ headlines and why you can never read too many reviews on TripAdvisor.

Here we go…


The original GyPSy Guide homepage
Gypsy_oldlong_2


The new GyPSy Guide homepage
GyPsy-long view_1

The Client: GyPSy Guide
A mobile app that automatically plays professional-quality audio tours while you’re on a road trip. It uses GPS technology to figure out where you are, so it can play the right tour commentary at the right time.

The target audience: Middle-aged American couples who take road trips as part of their vacation. They love the freedom of exploring an area on their own by driving themselves and enjoy learning about their surroundings along the way.

The Challenge: The original homepage lacked a clear value proposition. It didn’t communicate any benefits or tell an engaging story about how the app worked.

The Solution: Conversion-focused travel app copywriting based on voice of customer data mining on TripAdvisor and App Store reviews; new formatting to better communicate key messages.

The result: After running an A/B test, the new version of the homepage increased conversions by 44.5%. Our goal was to improve the number of click-throughs to the destination pages. Five-Second Tests on Usability Hub also showed increased understanding of GyPSy Guide’s value proposition.

The backstory…

Rick knew his travel app was pretty awesome.

His customers knew it too. And probably so did all the folks who read the 150+ raving online reviews about GyPSy Guide.

But did people arriving on the app’s homepage realize it? Not so much.

We ran the GyPSy Guide website through two usability tools — User Testing and Usability Hub — that told us people arriving on the site didn’t realize what made the app so great.

Some users also had trouble even determining what the page was about.

And that meant loads of qualified prospects were likely leaving the website, not realizing that a GyPSy Guide app would make the perfect companion on their next road trip.

The usability test results weren’t all that surprising.

Rick had already realized the challenge in communicating the unique value of GyPSy Guide when writing the original homepage copy himself.

It’s not a super-simple app to describe, after all.

So to create homepage copy that did GyPSy Guide justice, I turned to Rick’s customers for a little help.

The web copy I (sort of) wrote

You can’t write conversion-boosting copy unless you first understand who your customer is and what they want.

Normally, I  survey or interview my clients’ customers before writing a single word. But that wasn’t an option for this project, since Rick didn’t have an e-mail list of customers to tap into or enough traffic to do a website survey in a reasonable amount of time.

So instead, I turned to mining reviews on a website I know oh-so-well: TripAdvisor.

If you’ve worked with me before, you know I’m a huge proponent of mining user-generated reviews for messages that will connect with your audience and drive conversions. It’s a technique I learned directly from the original conversion copywriter herself Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers (she explains the process in detail here).

Basically, by ‘swiping’ verbatim messages written by customers, you can reflect what people are thinking, feeling and experiencing when they arrive on your website or landing page. Do it right and travelers will be more likely to realize that your business is perfect for them.

So I dove into TripAdvisor and App Store reviews hunting for benefits that GyPSy Guide customers rave about, problems they rant about and memorable phrases that stood out as especially insightful.

Afterwards, we had a pretty good idea about what the audience found most desirable about GyPSy Guide. They love the app because:
[custom_list style=”list-1″]

  • They get the same in-depth information that they would from a professional tour guide
  • It helps ensure they don’t miss the most important sights on their trip
  • No data/cellular network needed, so it’s not expensive to use
  • It’s easy to use because it plays automatically as you drive (no scrolling needed)

[/custom_list]

Now, there were a few issues with the original homepage, but from a copywriter’s perspective, the biggest problem was the lack of a value proposition. This is crucial for most travel brands, but especially for a unique start up like GyPSy Guide.

A value proposition tells your best prospects why they should choose you over the competition. It highlights what makes you unique and desirable.

And one of the best ways to communicate a value proposition is with the homepage headline.

It was the talk of the TripAdvisor…

While mining user reviews for the GyPSy Guide project, there was one phrase repeated over and over again. Here are a few verbatims:

“Like having a tour guide in the car with us!”
“Like having your own personal tour guide in the car.”
“…it’s like having a solid B+ grade guide in the car with you.”
“Just like having a live guide in your car!”
“It really is like having your own personal guide sitting in the back seat.”

And it wasn’t just what they said, but the context in which they said it — always in an enthusiastic, excited tone. Expressed as a solution they were looking for. A benefit.

So I swiped it.

I plunked that phrase almost verbatim into the homepage headline slot, making a slight tweak by adding ‘driving app’ to better meet the expectations of visitors arriving on the page. That final headline again was:

The Driving App That’s Like Having A Tour Guide In Your Car

Here’s the hero section, so you can see it in action…

GyPSy_homepage

Here’s exactly why I used that phrase as the main headline:

It met visitors at their level of awareness:
We were fairly confident that users arrived on the GyPSy Guide homepage because they either…

a) heard something about GyPSy Guide (through online reviews or print advertising) and Googled it
b) stumbled onto the homepage while doing other vacation research.

So website visitors overall were likely somewhat aware of the GyPSy Guide brand,  but didn’t fully appreciate the benefits of the app or the problem that it solved.

(side note: using of a pop-survey like Qualaroo or WebEngage can help shed even more light on a visitors’ level of awareness.)

Before trying to ‘sell’ the app, I wanted to make sure people instantly understood what they would get from using it. And I think this headline accomplishes that.

And because we suspected some people were learning about the app from online reviews, using a ‘swiped’ headline also came with an added bonus.

Imagine someone reads a TripAdvisor or App Store review that says GyPSy Guide  is ‘like having a tour guide in your car’. They Google GyPSy Guide, land on the homepage and then what do they see? The exact same message!

Having the headline reflect the reviews gives the brand further credibility and builds trust.

The analogy makes it memorable
Analogies can be gold for a copywriter because they create ‘word pictures’ in the prospect’s mind.

I loved the ‘like a tour guide in your car’ simile because it forms an image for the reader, which is much more likely to be remembered than a fact-heavy statement. Plus, we’ve now taken a vague concept (a driving app) and communicated its meaning in real terms that everyone can understand.

It conveys a benefit, but doesn’t give it all away
I was tempted to go ‘deeper’ with the benefits here, perhaps even using a loss aversion-style headline like “Stop Missing The Best Sights On Your Road Trips.”

But I didn’t.

That’s because I was confident that customers (and therefore, qualified prospects) saw the very idea of of ‘having a tour guide in your car’ as a benefit. So I hoped that highlighting this would be compelling enough to grab people’s attention and entice them to read the subhead, watch the video or click onto a destination link for more information. 

It matches the value proposition
Here’s the heavy hitter. This headline expresses exactly what’s unique and highly desirable about GyPSy Guide to the reader. It’s the driving app that’s like having a tour guide in your car. No one else makes this claim.

Sure, there are other tour guide-style apps out there – but GyPSy Guide was the only one made exclusively for road warriors. The value proposition is rounded out by the sub-headline…

GyPSy Guide plays automatically as you drive, telling you
about the best sights and attractions before they whip by.

 …which provides more specifics about the app and expresses another strong message/benefit that came across in the VOC data: GyPSy Guide prevents you from missing the best sights.

The copy below the fold delivered on the promise made by the headline, reinforcing the benefits mentioned by past customers: not missing out on the best sights, ease of use and the quality of the tour commentary.

I suspect that the 44% lift in click-thrus had a lot do with the clearer value proposition. But it certainly didn’t do all the work.

Wait, you thought this was just about copywriting?

Even the most compelling messages are no good if people don’t notice them. That’s why we needed to ditch the small front size and blow up the headline so it grabs people’s attention right away.

I also scrapped the photo of the Canadian Rocky Mountains that was originally featured prominently on the homepage — although this image is nice, it only connects with people who were interested in a road trip through this region.

Will those heading to Hawaii resonate with that pic of majestic peaks? Probably not.

So instead, I embedded a video describing the ins and outs of GyPSy Guide. This isn’t a straight-forward app — it needs a bit of explaining to really appreciate how it works. And although I’m a huge fan of copy (obviously), I thought that the video provided the right amount of information at the right time. Video script copywriting is very important, by the way. 

Plus, the length wasn’t too bad at 1:26. If it were much longer, I probably wouldn’t have put it here.

And finally, I included a clear call to action telling people to click on the images to select their destination. Originally, I thought this was one of the biggest weaknesses of the page, but testing on Usability Hub showed that some people naturally seemed to want to click on those images.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that Usability Hub testers are not qualified prospects; they’re designers and marketers. So I only use this tool to gauge the overall clarity of a page and never use it for obtaining data for messaging.

How it all paid off…

We ran an A/B test using Optimizely with the original homepage pitted against the new version. Because the website didn’t get a swack load of traffic, we ended up running the test for seven weeks before getting an acceptable sample size.

And as mentioned above, the homepage with the new copy won with a 44.5% increase in click-throughs to the destination pages (99% statistical probability).

Gypsy AB results____

So this meant that 45.5% more visitors who arrived on the GyPSy Guide homepage decided to click onto a destination link, which would be the next logical step in the website’s sales funnel.

But we still wanted to be positive that anyone who landed on the homepage would understand what GyPSy Guide was about. So we went back to Usability Hub to see how people would react to the new copy and formatting.

First, a quick explanation on how Usability Hub’s Five-Second Tests work: a person is shown a web pages or graphic  for just 5 seconds and are then asked  a question or two about what they saw. They submit their responses and we get to read them later.

When we ran the first set of 30 tests on the original GyPSy Guide homepage we got a smorgasbord of comments from people. We asked the question ‘What Does This Company Sell?’.

The responses indicated that people had just a very basic idea of what GyPSy Guide was, but didn’t fully realize the benefits it provided.

Here’s the word cloud based on the test. The larger the words in the graph, the more times people mentioned it.

 

wordcloud_old

The most commonly used word to describe ‘what this company sells’ after viewing the original homepage was ‘vacation,’ which was interesting considering that word didn’t actually appear anywhere on the page.

Overall, the wide variety of words used to describe GyPSy Guide suggested that people didn’t fully understand what the page was about.

Now, here’s the word cloud for the new version of the homepage:

wordcloud_new

 

 

This time, most of the answers to the question ‘what does this company sell’ were pretty bang-on. The graphic aboves highlights that, showing that the responses were more focused on the service GyPSy Guide provides. ‘Guide’, ‘app’ and ‘tour’ were most commonly used (followed by ‘GPS’), which are all key descriptors of the product.

Surprisingly, however, the words ‘drive’ and ‘driving’ were not as prominent as I expected. This is despite the words appearing in both the headline and sub-headline.

It’s never really over…

Ah, there’s always more work to be done.

We relied entirely on user-generated voice of customer data found on TripAdvisor and the App Store to formulate the messages and write the copy in this project. That’s really the bare minimum.

Moving forward, I suggested that they use a Qualaroo-style pop-up survey to get a better idea of their visitors’ level of awareness.

Plus, there are other opportunities for improvement: for example, the sales funnel should be examined to determine the best time to send prospects to the App Store (where the actual paid conversion takes place).

Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process. Bottom line: the more you learn about your customers and how they perceive your business, the easier it will be to get results that will help your travel business grow.

–Dustin Walker

The Client: GyPSy Guide
A mobile app that automatically plays professional-quality audio tours while you’re on a road trip. It uses GPS technology to figure out where you are, so it can play the right tour commentary at the right time.

The target audience: Middle-aged American couples who take road trips as part of their vacation. They love the freedom of exploring an area on their own by driving themselves and enjoy learning about their surroundings along the way.

The Challenge: The original homepage lacked a clear value proposition. It didn’t communicate any benefits or tell an engaging story about how the app worked.

The Solution: Conversion-focused travel app copywriting based on voice of customer data mining on TripAdvisor and App Store reviews; new formatting to better communicate key messages.

The result: After running an A/B test, the new version of the homepage increased conversions by 44.5%. Our goal was to improve the number of click-throughs to the destination pages. Five-Second Tests on Usability Hub also showed increased understanding of GyPSy Guide’s value proposition.

The backstory…

Rick knew his travel app was pretty awesome.

His customers knew it too. And probably so did all the folks who read the 150+ raving online reviews about GyPSy Guide.

But did people arriving on the app’s homepage realize it? Not so much.

We ran the GyPSy Guide website through two usability tools — User Testing and Usability Hub — that told us people arriving on the site didn’t realize what made the app so great.

Some users also had trouble even determining what the page was about.

And that meant loads of qualified prospects were likely leaving the website, not realizing that a GyPSy Guide app would make the perfect companion on their next road trip.

The usability test results weren’t all that surprising.

Rick had already realized the challenge in communicating the unique value of GyPSy Guide when writing the original homepage copy himself.

It’s not a super-simple app to describe, after all.

So to create homepage copy that did GyPSy Guide justice, I turned to Rick’s customers for a little help.

The web copy I (sort of) wrote

You can’t write conversion-boosting copy unless you first understand who your customer is and what they want.

Normally, I  survey or interview my clients’ customers before writing a single word. But that wasn’t an option for this project, since Rick didn’t have an e-mail list of customers to tap into or enough traffic to do a website survey in a reasonable amount of time.

So instead, I turned to mining reviews on a website I know oh-so-well: TripAdvisor.

If you’ve worked with me before, you know I’m a huge proponent of mining user-generated reviews for messages that will connect with your audience and drive conversions. It’s a technique I learned directly from the original conversion copywriter herself Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers (she explains the process in detail here).

Basically, by ‘swiping’ verbatim messages written by customers, you can reflect what people are thinking, feeling and experiencing when they arrive on your website or landing page. Do it right and travelers will be more likely to realize that your business is perfect for them.

So I dove into TripAdvisor and App Store reviews hunting for benefits that GyPSy Guide customers rave about, problems they rant about and memorable phrases that stood out as especially insightful.

Afterwards, we had a pretty good idea about what the audience found most desirable about GyPSy Guide. They love the app because:
[custom_list style=”list-1″]

  • They get the same in-depth information that they would from a professional tour guide
  • It helps ensure they don’t miss the most important sights on their trip
  • No data/cellular network needed, so it’s not expensive to use
  • It’s easy to use because it plays automatically as you drive (no scrolling needed)

[/custom_list]

Now, there were a few issues with the original homepage, but from a copywriter’s perspective, the biggest problem was the lack of a value proposition. This is crucial for most travel brands, but especially for a unique start up like GyPSy Guide.

A value proposition tells your best prospects why they should choose you over the competition. It highlights what makes you unique and desirable.

And one of the best ways to communicate a value proposition is with the homepage headline.

It was the talk of the TripAdvisor…

While mining user reviews for the GyPSy Guide project, there was one phrase repeated over and over again. Here are a few verbatims:

“Like having a tour guide in the car with us!”
“Like having your own personal tour guide in the car.”
“…it’s like having a solid B+ grade guide in the car with you.”
“Just like having a live guide in your car!”
“It really is like having your own personal guide sitting in the back seat.”

And it wasn’t just what they said, but the context in which they said it — always in an enthusiastic, excited tone. Expressed as a solution they were looking for. A benefit.

So I swiped it.

I plunked that phrase almost verbatim into the homepage headline slot, making a slight tweak by adding ‘driving app’ to better meet the expectations of visitors arriving on the page. That final headline again was:

The Driving App That’s Like Having A Tour Guide In Your Car

Here’s the hero section, so you can see it in action…

GyPSy_homepage

Here’s exactly why I used that phrase as the main headline:

It met visitors at their level of awareness:
We were fairly confident that users arrived on the GyPSy Guide homepage because they either…

a) heard something about GyPSy Guide (through online reviews or print advertising) and Googled it
b) stumbled onto the homepage while doing other vacation research.

So website visitors overall were likely somewhat aware of the GyPSy Guide brand,  but didn’t fully appreciate the benefits of the app or the problem that it solved.

(side note: using of a pop-survey like Qualaroo or WebEngage can help shed even more light on a visitors’ level of awareness.)

Before trying to ‘sell’ the app, I wanted to make sure people instantly understood what they would get from using it. And I think this headline accomplishes that.

And because we suspected some people were learning about the app from online reviews, using a ‘swiped’ headline also came with an added bonus.

Imagine someone reads a TripAdvisor or App Store review that says GyPSy Guide  is ‘like having a tour guide in your car’. They Google GyPSy Guide, land on the homepage and then what do they see? The exact same message!

Having the headline reflect the reviews gives the brand further credibility and builds trust.

The analogy makes it memorable
Analogies can be gold for a copywriter because they create ‘word pictures’ in the prospect’s mind.

I loved the ‘like a tour guide in your car’ simile because it forms an image for the reader, which is much more likely to be remembered than a fact-heavy statement. Plus, we’ve now taken a vague concept (a driving app) and communicated its meaning in real terms that everyone can understand.

It conveys a benefit, but doesn’t give it all away
I was tempted to go ‘deeper’ with the benefits here, perhaps even using a loss aversion-style headline like “Stop Missing The Best Sights On Your Road Trips.”

But I didn’t.

That’s because I was confident that customers (and therefore, qualified prospects) saw the very idea of of ‘having a tour guide in your car’ as a benefit. So I hoped that highlighting this would be compelling enough to grab people’s attention and entice them to read the subhead, watch the video or click onto a destination link for more information.

It matches the value proposition
Here’s the heavy hitter. This headline expresses exactly what’s unique and highly desirable about GyPSy Guide to the reader. It’s the driving app that’s like having a tour guide in your car. No one else makes this claim.

Sure, there are other tour guide-style apps out there – but GyPSy Guide was the only one made exclusively for road warriors. The value proposition is rounded out by the sub-headline…

GyPSy Guide plays automatically as you drive, telling you
about the best sights and attractions before they whip by.

 …which provides more specifics about the app and expresses another strong message/benefit that came across in the VOC data: GyPSy Guide prevents you from missing the best sights.

The copy below the fold delivered on the promise made by the headline, reinforcing the benefits mentioned by past customers: not missing out on the best sights, ease of use and the quality of the tour commentary.

I suspect that the 44% lift in click-thrus had a lot do with the clearer value proposition. But it certainly didn’t do all the work.

Wait, you thought this was just about copywriting?

Even the most compelling messages are no good if people don’t notice them. That’s why we needed to ditch the small front size and blow up the headline so it grabs people’s attention right away.

I also scrapped the photo of the Canadian Rocky Mountains that was originally featured prominently on the homepage — although this image is nice, it only connects with people who were interested in a road trip through this region.

Will those heading to Hawaii resonate with that pic of majestic peaks? Probably not.

So instead, I embedded a video describing the ins and outs of GyPSy Guide. This isn’t a straight-forward app — it needs a bit of explaining to really appreciate how it works. And although I’m a huge fan of copy (obviously), I thought that the video provided the right amount of information at the right time.

Plus, the length wasn’t too bad at 1:26. If it were much longer, I probably wouldn’t have put it here.

And finally, I included a clear call to action telling people to click on the images to select their destination. Originally, I thought this was one of the biggest weaknesses of the page, but testing on Usability Hub showed that some people naturally seemed to want to click on those images.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that Usability Hub testers are not qualified prospects; they’re designers and marketers. So I only use this tool to gauge the overall clarity of a page and never use it for obtaining data for messaging.

How it all paid off…

We ran an A/B test using Optimizely with the original homepage pitted against the new version. Because the website didn’t get a swack load of traffic, we ended up running the test for seven weeks before getting an acceptable sample size.

And as mentioned above, the homepage with the new copy won with a 44.5% increase in click-throughs to the destination pages (99% statistical probability).

Gypsy AB results____

So this meant that 45.5% more visitors who arrived on the GyPSy Guide homepage decided to click onto a destination link, which would be the next logical step in the website’s sales funnel.

But we still wanted to be positive that anyone who landed on the homepage would understand what GyPSy Guide was about. So we went back to Usability Hub to see how people would react to the new copy and formatting.

First, a quick explanation on how Usability Hub’s Five-Second Tests work: a person is shown a web pages or graphic  for just 5 seconds and are then asked  a question or two about what they saw. They submit their responses and we get to read them later.

When we ran the first set of 30 tests on the original GyPSy Guide homepage we got a smorgasbord of comments from people. We asked the question ‘What Does This Company Sell?’.

The responses indicated that people had just a very basic idea of what GyPSy Guide was, but didn’t fully realize the benefits it provided.

Here’s the word cloud based on the test. The larger the words in the graph, the more times people mentioned it.

 

wordcloud_old

The most commonly used word to describe ‘what this company sells’ after viewing the original homepage was ‘vacation,’ which was interesting considering that word didn’t actually appear anywhere on the page.

Overall, the wide variety of words used to describe GyPSy Guide suggested that people didn’t fully understand what the page was about.

Now, here’s the word cloud for the new version of the homepage:

wordcloud_new

 

 

This time, most of the answers to the question ‘what does this company sell’ were pretty bang-on. The graphic aboves highlights that, showing that the responses were more focused on the service GyPSy Guide provides. ‘Guide’, ‘app’ and ‘tour’ were most commonly used (followed by ‘GPS’), which are all key descriptors of the product.

Surprisingly, however, the words ‘drive’ and ‘driving’ were not as prominent as I expected. This is despite the words appearing in both the headline and sub-headline.

It’s never really over…

Ah, there’s always more work to be done.

We relied entirely on user-generated voice of customer data found on TripAdvisor and the App Store to formulate the messages and write the copy in this project. That’s really the bare minimum.

Moving forward, I suggested that they use a Qualaroo-style pop-up survey to get a better idea of their visitors’ level of awareness.

Plus, there are other opportunities for improvement: for example, the sales funnel should be examined to determine the best time to send prospects to the App Store (where the actual paid conversion takes place).

Conversion rate optimization is an ongoing process. Bottom line: the more you learn about your customers and how they perceive your business, the easier it will be to get results that will help your travel business grow.

–Dustin Walker

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