How a three-word A/B test led to triple-digit conversion growth
Case study
Customer name: Going
Customer industry: Travel
Customer goal: A better way to gather data to understand customers’ needs and motivations.
Unbounce’s services: Concierge plan and A/B testing
Results: 104% increase in conversions, month-over-month
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Paul Park
Paul is a writer on Unbounce’s content team who lives and breathes storytelling. (It’s like oxygen but with better plotlines!) Ask him what he’s up to at any given moment and you’ll get answers ranging from folding paper dragons (y’know, origami) to catching up on the latest cool tech, and finding other ways to channel his inner geek.
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Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Marie and Pierre Curie. John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Each of them were great on their own, but when they came together they became more than just the sum of their parts. These are cases where one plus one doesn’t equal two—it equals pure awesomeness.
That’s the power of a dynamic duo. By working together and combining strengths, collaborators can overcome challenges and achieve heights they had only previously dreamed of.
Going, a company of about 50 employees, is dedicated to helping people travel the world without breaking the bank. Like many (all?) marketers, they were struggling with issues that affected their ability to better understand their customers.
When Going signed up with Unbounce’s Concierge team, they were able to overcome obstacles and tap into the power of a truly effective partnership. Going scored some eyebrow-raising, fist-bump-worthy conversion results and Unbounce gained a happy customer who was enthusiastic about sharing their great experience with the Concierge team and Unbounce’s A/B testing solution.
Here’s how it all went down.
Going forward: getting to know Going
Most people love to travel, but they don’t love dishing out more cash than they need to for flights. Going recognized that saving money on air travel is not only easy on the wallet, but it also gives travelers more freedom to explore wider travel possibilities.
When you sign up at Going.com, you get access to a service that alerts you when really great flight deals are available at your local airport. Whether you are a solo traveler fueled by wanderlust, planning a family vacation, or looking to get the most out of your retirement, Going can help you broaden your travel horizons.
But people can’t take advantage of stellar travel deals if they don’t know about them. Forrest Schaffer, Senior Manager of Growth, is dedicated to spreading the word about Going. A core part of his job is to better understand potential customers: what they’re looking for, what drives them to convert, and how Going can best communicate benefits to them. Personalization is crucial, because everybody travels differently.
Forrest Schaffer, Senior Manager of Growth at Going
Landing pages are essential to Going’s marketing strategy because they can test different ways to package their services. With Unbounce, Going can create as many variants as they want to see what’s working (or not working). “You need to use a landing page to ultimately win customers over,” Forrest says.
The struggle was real (before Unbounce)
Before he partnered with Unbounce, Forrest was wrestling with two main issues: scale and measurability.
- Scale: Every time Forrest’s team wanted to test an element on a landing page, they’d need to create at least two pages per test. And since they manually ran a ton of tests that required tracking multiple URLs, this became a recipe for chaos—it was bloated, messy, and prone to errors that could derail their efforts.
- Measurability: They needed to track important metrics (like number of signups) through an even 50/50 split using different URLs, making it time consuming and difficult to ensure accuracy.
What he didn’t know at the time was how easily those issues could be solved with the right technology. As Forrest’s team created a plan to move forward, they also searched for a solution that would work seamlessly with their current tech stack and allow them to move quickly, without requiring a lot of time and effort to get everything working properly.
These issues were interfering with how Forrest’s team gathered data, and that data was an essential part of how Going wanted to personalize their approach as they moved forward. By gaining a deeper understanding of their audience, Going could segment potential customers into distinct cohorts and then craft content that truly resonated with each group.
Forrest knew there had to be a better way to get there. And he found it with Unbounce.
The perks of a perfectly productive partnership
Forrest was looking for a solution that could scale to any size, provide solid ROI, and integrate seamlessly with Going’s existing tools—and with Unbounce’s Concierge plan he got exactly that.
Concierge plans provide hands-on, personalized support that’s perfect for larger marketing teams and agencies. By signing up for a Concierge plan, you’ll have access to the expertise of a dedicated team of CRO professionals and all the tools and resources you need to launch campaigns quickly, scale without compromise, and maximize your ROI.
Hitting the ground running
Working with the Concierge team was a game-changer. It all started with a kick-off meeting so the Concierge team could understand Going’s situation and needs. Then the Concierge specialists guided Forrest’s team through an onboarding process designed to give them everything they needed to get up to speed as quickly as possible.
Going appreciated how the Concierge team could help them handle large volumes of user signups while moving fast from the start. “It just made sense for us to go with a package where we could get the help that we need to be successful right out of the gate,” Forrest says.
The Concierge team was quick to tackle any questions and helped Going shape their program in a way that just clicked. From pushing data to the right channels with the proper tracking, to making sure the many available integrations played nice with their tech setup—the Concierge team got it all sorted out and running smoothly.
With the Concierge team by their side, there was no need to submit a ticket for software developers to build out landing pages or create custom code. This enabled Forrest’s team to focus on the work that was directly under their control and move things along at their own pace.
Here’s one example of flawless execution: During the setup phase, the Going team needed a conversion script that would ensure all the data was being sent to the right places and tracked properly. Based on their past experiences, the Going team knew that this could be very complicated and it was often an ongoing battle to get it running smoothly. But to their amazement, the script the Concierge team provided just worked, right off the bat—thanks to the team’s technical expertise and the close attention they paid to Going’s needs.
Daniel Kim, Solutions Specialist at Unbounce, was part of the Concierge team that helped Forrest’s team get up and running. “We really tried our best to make sure that we onboarded Going in a way that best suits their needs and their experiences,” Daniel says. “We worked with them to put their knowledge and our knowledge together to make sure that their marketing campaigns were ready to go and set up for success.”
Daniel Kim, Solutions Specialist at Unbounce
In good hands
After the initial setup Daniel passed the baton to Cecilia Drozdz, Customer Success Manager at Unbounce, to manage Going’s account moving forward. Cecilia was responsible for helping the Going team with training, implementation services, conversion optimization support, integrations, page audits, providing access to new features and tools, and more.
Cecilia Drozdz, Customer Success Manager at Unbounce
“My role is to support my clients, first and foremost,” Cecilia says. “I make sure they’re taken care of so they get everything they need, which could mean anything from providing training to getting them started with an integration.”
When it comes to working with Forrest, Cecilia goes on to say, “We’re helping Going increase their landing pages conversions and, ultimately, their marketing ROI. They’re diversifying their pages for different ad platforms, developing many different types of landing pages that will cater to different audiences. I’m helping with all the strategy, the workflows, and the additional training that might come up.”
How A/B testing three words led to 104% more conversions
Using the A/B testing tool in Unbounce’s landing page builder, Forrest ran a simple A/B test that culminated in some pretty darned amazing results.
One key part of Going’s business model is giving potential customers a taste of what Going offers, so they can decide if they want to become a member. Going provides two free ways to try out their service:
- Sign up for the free plan with limited features.
- Explore a free, two-week trial of one of the premium paid plans.
The latter option allows customers to explore all of the great value Going offers, which ultimately benefits customers who are yearning for cheap flights and leads to more paid signups.
Going’s standard approach to this point was to ask visitors to sign up for the free, limited plan and hope they would eventually opt for a premium plan. However, Forrest had an inkling that if customers saw the full value of a premium plan for themselves, more of them would be likely to pay for it.
So Forrest explored this hypothesis through an A/B test. On Going’s homepage, they tried out two different CTAs: “Sign up for free” vs. “Trial for free”, changing only three words.
Who knew changing three words could make such a difference?
The result? Well, you’ve already seen a preview in the header above—they saw a massive increase in the trial start rate: 104% month-over-month.
“This experiment, as small as it was, legitimately changed the way that we’re able to spend on media,” Forrest says. “Our conversion rate through paid channels is now higher than organic for the first time ever, so this was a massive win for our company.”
Forrest is also very happy with how easy it was to achieve these amazing results. “Unbounce did an incredible job at ensuring the traffic was split 50/50, and my favorite part was that we only had to use one URL. It relieved a lot of stress and reduced costs—so it’s the go-to solution, in my opinion.”
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The success of this test left Forrest excited about exploring even more opportunities to achieve skyrocketing results with Unbounce. “We’re really excited to start using Smart Traffic,” Forrest says, referring to Unbounce’s AI-powered conversion optimization tool. “It’s going to allow us to have evergreen landing pages that are built to convert users to our product. This enables us to constantly iterate and improve, and then fold that into our evergreen strategy, which is just fantastic.”
Reaping the rewards
From the quick, seamless start to the solution-oriented, hands-on support to the seamless interface of the A/B testing tool, Forrest’s experience with Unbounce and the Concierge team has been a match made in marketing heaven.
“The Concierge team has been fantastic,” Forrest says. “We’ve definitely seen improvements with our conversion rates as we’ve tested our landing pages, which has been massive for the business, of course. But I think some of the other hidden gems that folks won’t necessarily talk about are the time savings that Unbounce will give you.”
“Whether you’re a team of one or 20, Unbounce is just going to make your life easier,” Forrest continues. “I would highly recommend Unbounce for any team out there that’s looking to take their landing pages to the next level. Between the technology, the ease of implementation, and the dedicated team that we’ve had who walked us through everything and answered all of our questions, it’s just been really invaluable.”
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