The Tiny Layout Tweak That Led to 20% More Conversions [Test Results]

By cdelprincipe@hubspot.com (Curt del Principe)

Free Download: A/B Testing Guide and Kit

One tiny little layout change netted us an almost 20% increase in on-page conversions.

They say a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a rainstorm on the other side of the Earth. Well, today’s story makes me think that maybe that’s true.

Conjurer of conversion, Rebecca Hinton, is back with another test you can try for yourself. This time it’s all about social proof and where it belongs on your page.

But before you jump straight to the how-to, I’ll also cover why you shouldn’t run off and do this without testing it first.

Butterflies and Best Practices

It’s pretty non-controversial for both B2Cs and B2Bs to add social proof to their websites in order to boost conversion, right?

You know what I’m talking about. Testimonials from happy customers. The logos of your biggest clients. Photos of your legions of fans gleefully offering up their firstborn children. (Too far?)

So why is social proof always tucked away at the bottom of the page? Or hidden on its own page like some secret Victorian wife in the attic?

“While social proof is helpful, chances are it’s not what your visitors came for. And you don’t want to push what they came for right out of their radar.”

That’s Rebecca Hinton, the CRO strategist behind this and many other incredible conversion optimization successes at HubSpot. (If you’ve been following this column, you’ll know Rebecca’s also responsible for the test that boosted paid ad CVR by 11%. And I’m certain this won’t be the last one I share. She’s that good.)

But while her point makes perfect sense, it poses a conundrum: Visitors actually need to, y’know, see all those testimonials in order for them to work.

“According to heat maps, only 50% of users scrolled far enough to see the social proof,” Rebecca explains.

But work it does! Despite the fact that only half of our visitors saw them, the social proof sliders were still the second and third most-clicked elements on these landing pages.

So pop quiz, hotshot. If you move your social proof higher on the page, it pushes your marketing content down. But if you don’t, nobody sees it. What do you do? What do you do?

Split Testing the Split

Whenever we have a dilemma, Rebecca’s answer will always be: Test it and find out.

For the control group, she kept the page as it was, with a social proof module containing both customer logos and written testimonials near the bottom of the page.

For Variant B, our CRO team separated the two. The customer logos became a small and unintrusive slider tucked right up under the hero banner, while the testimonial portion stayed near the bottom of the page.