Is the title of this post sensational? Maybe. But we will show you how you can dramatically improve conversions across your website within a fraction of the time it takes versus some of the other testing techniques.
We are talking about the five-second test which allows users to give us their first impressions of any webpage, graphic or offer. And this allows you to get meaningful input to dramatically improve it.
Let’s get started.
What is a 5-second test?
A five-second test involves presenting an image, such as a design, or marketing material, to a participant for five seconds. The time is deliberately limited to allow you to replicate, as closely as possible, a user’s first impression of the asset.
After they have seen the content, we ask a series of targeted questions about their recollection, covering things like:
- What stood out the most
- What the offer is
- Who the offer is for
- What’s the perception of value
- How trustworthy it is
Below is a screenshot of the admin interface (with sensitive information covered). You can see the demographical information and survey responses easily available.
With a relatively small number of participants, as low as 20, we can get valuable feedback on whether the most critical aspects of the design are effectively delivered within moments of being seen. This can be used for both quantitative and qualitative feedback.
In a world of ever-decreasing attention spans, grabbing a user’s attention quickly and effectively is becoming ever more important. Studies, like this one from NNG, make this clear, showing that visitors will only give you a few seconds before deciding whether to stay or leave. So getting the best execution of your assets across your site from campaign to campaign is mission critical.
Typical feedback in five-second tests in eCommerce
When we use five-second tests in eCommerce to review our customers’ existing promotional headers, product pages and sign-up offers, we often get feedback like this:
‘I can’t tell what you are selling’
‘Hmmmm??’
‘I think this has expired?’
‘I have no idea what this means’
Imagine this is the first impression on your homepage, collection page, product page or email sign-up offer? What would this be doing to your conversion rates and profitability metrics?
With this said, unless you are doing this already, there are almost certainly areas of your website that can be falling into these traps. If your review process is exclusively internal then you will be too close to your product or offer to truly know how this is viewed and understood for the first-time viewer. It’s unavoidable – we see the same things again and again and take them for granted.
Things that almost always win in our tests
Whilst every test needs to be considered on its own merits, there are certainly some common threads we see, here are a few examples:
- Clearer copy. When it comes to writing copy descriptive beats clever. For example, consider these email sign-up options:
- Sign up and join our squad (bad)
- Subscribe for our latest offers (better)
- Subscribe for personalised discounts once a month (best)
- Images match proposition
- More specific. For example, look at these delivery options descriptions:
- Expedited delivery (bad)
- 2 business days (better)
- Delivers next Tuesday 28th March (best)
Areas you can start testing
Hopefully your excited to see how this can improve areas of your own site and the potential gains. You can test pretty much any section of any page in your site. The areas we’ve had the best success from are:
- Hero headers and headlines
- Homepage sections on offers
- Shipping explanation
- Sign-up offers – e.g. subscription pop-ups
- Top fold of product pages
The business case for five-second tests in eCommerce
We undertake a whole range of testing types, e.g. AB testing, tree tests, card sorting, first-click testing, recordings etc. The five-second test is amongst the best for return on investment.
A quick test of 20 – 50 people can give you qualitative and quantitative insights that can uncover blind spots, share how your target customers think and confirm your proposition is on point.
Yet the relative investment is small. Grab an image, plan the questions and upload to your platform. No developers required, no complex testing calculations or long waits for statistical significance. Typically in 24 hours you have a full view on your test.
You can even split test two versions to understand which ones resonates better with your audience. This is a tiny cost compared to executing something that lands sub-optimally on your live website.
It’s so powerful, we sometimes use this to pre-test AB tests – this helps us have higher confidence levels in the AB tests which in turn reduces the cost of this.
Set up a 5-second test for your store today
Here’s a step by step process for how to set up your own 5-second test
- Start with a clear target / hypothesis for the test (this ensures helpful results rather than just interesting ones)
- Choose a tool such as Lyssna or Lookback
- Upload your asset and write your questions, focussing on the two or three most important
- Recruit your participants. Don’t worry if you don’t have your own, the platforms allow you use their panels to target your desired demographic.
- Gather the findings – most simply you can group this by people who ‘get it’ or don’t.
- Iterate and repeat until you have the killer execution!
