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What Does Your Order Button Say?

August 29th, 2008 by Mike Reining Read more about Copywriting, Split Testing, Website Optimization

Have you ever wondered what impact the language on your order button could have on the conversion rate of your site?

We did and we were shocked to find out what a huge impact such a tiny change could make to the conversion rate of our site.

Well, since we believe in continuously testing just about everything, we went to one of our web sites (www.SilvaUltraMindSystem.com) and we tested two versions of our order button.

Version A:

OrderNow

 

Version B:

TryItNowRiskFree

 

Which one do you think performed better for us?

The winner is:

TryItNowRiskFree

 

Even more surprising, the conversion rate was a whopping 39% greater when we used "Try it Now Risk Free" in our order button vs. "Order Now"

We also tested another version:

AddToCart

 

Again, we found out that the winning version was:

TryItNowRiskFree 

 

This time, the "Try It Now Risk Free" button performed about 10% better.

At the end of the day, this is a great example of the power of testing.  We usually use the Google Web Site Optimizer to rapidly setup our A/B and multi-variate tests.

If you take only one thing away from this blog post, then it should be:
1) Always keep learning
2) Always keep trying new things

You might be surprised at what you find out.  In this case, if our Order Now button would say "Order Now" instead of "Try it Now Risk Free" it would cost us over $20,000 in lost sales per month and that is only for one site alone!

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About the Author

Mike Reining Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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7 Responses to “What Does Your Order Button Say?”

  1. Abdl Rahman

    The use of "try" in copy is almost always work when done right... interesting observation and thanks for confirming my own set of data.

  2. Bryan Eisenberg

    This is a technique we described as using point of action assurances on buttons. Amazon was one of the first websites to do it, and many people stopped doing it after Amazon removed it. You can read about that evolution of Amazon's add to buy area you can at http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/02/26/amazon-shopping-cart/ .

    Thanks for reminding people how these point of action assurances can positively impact conversion rates.

    Bryan Eisenberg
    Best selling author of Call to Action and Always Be Testing

  3. Carl Juneau

    Hi,

    All links to button images are broken.

    CJ

  4. Mikael

    I am constantly amazed with all the great stuff that you come up with. I know that most of the things you mention was originally "invented" by someone else but I am just glad that you keep reminding us to never stop testing.

    And I agree, the picture links are broken.

    Regards,
    Mikael
    http://www.antphilosophy.com

  5. Ameet

    Hi Mike,

    What would you suggest using for a form 'Submit' button?

    Thanks,
    Ameet

  6. Charles Kirkland

    WOW. I have done a lot of button testing but this tip was worth your weight in gold.

    Thanks
    Charles Kirkland

  7. Kathleen Gage

    I have tried both the "Buy Now" and "Try it Risk Free" buttons.

    If I am going to offer a guarantee for a product or service (which I usually do), I do like the "Try it Risk Free" as the conversion rates are higher.

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