Success Story

How Veeam Software Increased Its CTR Using A/B Testing

161.66% Click-through rate

About Veeam Software

Veeam Software, an elite VMware Technology Alliance partner and a Microsoft-managed partner, develops products for virtual infrastructure management and data protection. Veeam is a multinational company with global headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, with more than 800 employees and 39,000 customers worldwide.

They used VWO to run optimization tests on their website.

Goals

In December 2011, Veeam used KissInsights (now Qualaroo) to run a survey targeted at all visitors to their product pages. The question asked was “What other information would you like to see on this page?” and a lot of answers said “Pricing.” The company does not publish pricing information on their pages, because they sell through partners and discounts given out by different partners may vary. However, they did have a Request a quote link that led to a Sales Inquiry form.

The goal of the test was to increase the click-through rate to the sales inquiry page.

Tests run

Hypothesis

Changing the link text from Request a quote to Request pricing will increase the click-through rate.

Test
Based on the survey results, they used VWO to A/B test between Request a quote and Request pricing.

Here’s the original image, or the Control version:

Here’s the changed image, or the Variation version:

Veeam Software variation - VWO case study

Conclusion

A straight 161.66% increase in the click-through rate from 0.54% to 1.40% with 100% statistical confidence (VWO reports 99.9x% as 100%). That’s a huge increase, and it must have taken only about 2 minutes to set up the test.

Some of you might feel that this result would be more concrete if the number of leads generated would drastically increase. Well, you’re right. However, optimizing a website involves tweaking multiple steps of the sales funnel. The next step after optimizing the click-through rate to a sales inquiry page would be to try and increase the form submit rate.

Insights

Veeam have done a lot right here. The first was starting off by gathering data and feedback. The best conversion (and scientific) experiments start with observation and asking for feedback. Then, they listened to their customers. As you probably know, it’s difficult to go wrong if you listen closely to your customers and change accordingly.

The final bit of actionable insight is to be direct and clear in your communication. This is especially true of the web, where consumers are attuned to filtering out anything except the core information they’re looking for. If they don’t find it quickly, they just bounce.

What do you think of the test? What would you do in the next steps? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.