Background
ZAGG is one of the largest e-commerce sites for mobile electronic accessories. After success selling the invisibleSHIELD in 2006, ZAGG has grown with the industry into a leading online marketplace for mobile device accessories of all types.
Challenge and Goals
The product pages on ZAGG.com presently utilize three types of imagery for product display: static images, video and 360º product images. The original design of ZAGG’s product pages placed the static product image as the default for visitors. ZAGG’s conversion and usability analyst, Kollin Kilian, ran an A/B test to determine whether presenting the video or static image as the default on the product page led to more clicks on the “add to cart” button. He found that showing the video as the default yielded a 27% increase in revenue per visitor. Not satisfied with this testing victory, ZAGG looked for further optimization opportunities.
“The video default was selling, but you always want to be testing,” Killian says.
Equipped with Optimizely and their existing video and photo assets, ZAGG set out to design a layout with an even higher conversion rate than its predecessor.
Hypothesis
Killian constantly looks to other e-commerce sites for ideas on product page design. He found 360º imagery to be a popular format and decided to test out how ZAGGs product pages would perform with that view as the default. The team’s instinct favored video as it has been a core part of their successful product strategy – however, Killian and the team thought 360º imagery could potentially be the perfect balance between static images and video.
Original
Original page with product video
Variation
Variation page with 360º image
Solution
On the first experiment with the product page, ZAGG was quickly able to learn that the video outperformed the static image. Having already built the simple test in Optimizely, all it took was a few minutes to duplicate the experiment and add a variation that set the 360º product image as the default.
“Optimizely is too simple not to use,” Killian says. “With a couple clicks you can measure engagement, revenue, and set up multiple event tags throughout the page to see how people are navigating through it”.
Results
In the first test, using the video as the default increased revenue per visitor by 27%. The second test which placed the 360º image as the default increased ZAGGs revenue per visitor an additional 12%.
The results show that using the 360º image increased ZAGG’s revenue per visitor by 12%.
Conclusion
Killian was delighted to uncover an additional revenue gain that required virtually no additional resources to test and implement. The simple change to the 360º image as the default resulted in a near 40% increase in revenue.
ZAGG’s experience demonstrates the value of A/B tests that don’t require new resources. Gains can emerge from tests that utilize repurposed content. While your development team is exploring new product ideas to build and test, you may uncover big conversion wins by applying the resources you have available in fresh ways. ZAGG demonstrates that until new features can be developed, there’s still a valuable opportunity to refine and improve conversions on your site using the resources you have today.
About Cara Harshman:
As a Content Marketer at Optimizely, Cara is constantly looking to tell innovative stories about how businesses are using A/B testing to become more successful. Have a data-driven story that deserves to be told? Email her at cara [at] optimizely [dot] com. Before joining the team in 2012 she was reporting the news in Madison, WI.
