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

One small layout change gave us almost a 20% increase in on-page conversions.

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

Conversion magician, Rebecca Hinton, is back with another test that you can try for yourself. This time it’s all about social proof and place on your page.

But before you jump right into the instructions, I’ll also explain why it shouldn’t run away and do it without testing first.

Butterflies and best practices

It’s pretty much a no-brainer for both B2C and B2B businesses to add social proof to their websites to increase conversion, right?

You know what I’m talking about. Testimonials from satisfied customers. Logos of your biggest clients. Photos of your legions of fans joyfully offering their firstborn children. (Too far?)

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

“While social proof is useful, it’s probably not what your visitors came for. And you don’t want to throw what they came for off their radar.”

This is Rebecca Hinton, the CRO strategist behind this and many other amazing conversion optimization successes at HubSpot. (If you follow this column, you’ll know that Rebecca is also responsible for a test that increased the CVR of paid ads by 11%. And I’m sure this won’t be the last I share. She’s so good.)

But while her point makes perfect sense, it poses a conundrum: Visitors actually have to, you know, see all of these testimonials for it to work.

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

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

Well pop quiz, man. 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 Split testing

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

So she designed the test on our behalf Affiliate team.

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

For variant B, our CRO team separated the two. Customer logos became a small and unobtrusive slider located right below the hero banner, while part of the testimonials remained at the bottom of the page.

Hopefully this would be the best of both worlds: more visitors would see some form of social proof, but the thin line of the logo wouldn’t overwhelm our marketing content too much.

But is a small logo line really enough to make a difference?

Turns out the answer isn’t just “yes,” but a 19.5% increase in signups for software that says “hell That.”

Rebecca says it with a little more tact.

“Putting a band with customers’ logos gives it an air of legitimacy. Oh, they have customers with logos I recognize? It builds trust.”

Now some of you are ready to run off and put some logos on your site just because “HubSpot said so.” So here I am going to share the scary part of the story to convince you to test it first.

Mysterious variant C

Rebecca had a hunch it could be even better, so she took a bigger swing with the C variant.

In this version, the logos still moved to the top of the page, but she replaced the customer testimonials at the bottom with customer success data. Consider short statistics like “After 1 year, HubSpot users closed 55% more deals.”

“And I thought, wrongly, that this would surpass the testimonials,” she explains with cuteness and good humor. “Because when I read them, I find them very convincing. You drive 114% more website traffic. You generate 129% more inbound leads. It’s convincing to me. That’s exactly what I want. To apply!”

Turns out it is opposite was true. Variant C reduced conversion by almost 10%. Ugh.

Rebecca believes that the negative result is the result of the fact that the statements are from customers, while the data comes from the company itself.

“People trust people more than companies,” she says. “They have this healthy skepticism, which is completely fair. And that’s why we test, right?”

And that’s why you should test it too.

Small adjustments to take away

If you’re ready to give this a try, Rebecca has some tips for you to consider.

1. Start with insight.

“I always think that my ideas are good because they are mine. But my idea was to add customer statistics, and that was lost,” he shrugs. “What helps is having insight based on data, not hunch.”

In this case, the insight backed up by the test data came from checking the heatmaps. When Rebecca noticed that only 50% of our visitors had seen the social verification module, the test she designed was the logical next step.

So instead of simply mimicking this test, take a look at your data and see what insights could inform a brand new test.

2. Consider the visitor’s intent.

“If we were targeting a site that had a lot of return traffic or was deeper in someone’s user journey, I wouldn’t expect social proof to be as effective.”

Part of the reason this test worked was because it was on sites that were targeting brand new visitors. If your landing page is talking to returning customers, they may not care about logos or testimonials from other customers. This is where the audience could actually be influenced by the data points.

The only way to know is to consider what a visitor expects to encounter on such a site and then test, test, test.

3. Double-check your results after implementation.

“If we get a trial win, we implement and then wait two weeks,” explains Rebecca. “Then we find the data before the test started (because you don’t want to include the test data) and compare the period before and after.”

Don’t think of this as another test—it doesn’t have to be all that scientific. This is more about making sure there are no unintended consequences.

“We don’t want to match the original test results. That is neither realistic nor reasonable. There are too many external factors. All we ask is to see your results directed draw up.”

Since your newly made changes are likely to affect a wider range of pages than the test itself, there could be room for unforeseen problems.

“If you don’t do it before and after the check, the problems can last for months.”

How to make a logo slider

Since we have already covered how to do an A/B testI’ll show you how to add a logo slider and just trust that you’re doing the right thing if you test it first.

Obviously, the exact instructions will depend on the CMS you’re using. (If you don’t know what that means, you should probably ask your web designer before you touch anything further.)

I’ll show you how to do it in Content huband you can adjust your steps accordingly.

1. Go to website pages, landing pages, or blog depending on the type of site you’re working with.
2. Hover over the page name and click “Edit”.
3. In the editor, look for the button that says “+ Add” on the left sidebar.
4. Expand The media category and then click on Image slider module and drag it to the desired location. (You tested the location, right?)
5. Go back to the left sidebar, hover over a blank slide and click “Edit” icon.

You can now upload your customers’ logos as images and even add descriptions below them. Just make sure you use the same size image for each logo to keep your slider looking professional.

Don’t forget to press “Apply changes” when you’re done, so you don’t have to load them twice like I did.

While the results may not be exactly the same for your audience, as long as you base your changes on insight-based tests, you’re bound to find butterflies that blow your mind.