Converting Cold Facebook Ad Traffic

• Goal:
  • grüum created a shampoo bar to rid the world of plastic shampoo bottles. To maximize the impact they created an offer where shoppers get their first bar for FREE. The offer was working well and the page was receiving massive quantities of cold Facebook ad traffic (mostly Facebook). We were hired to further improve page conversions.
    
• Solution:
  • Visitors already knew the product was free. It’s the free message that brought them here in the first place— so hammering the free message wasn’t needed. Instead, we applied a very specific strategy from our playbook to this cold Facebook ad traffic.
    
    We tightened the page copy without altering the page layout. We then added gentle nudges at strategic locations to help visitors discover our long-form sales pitch. To see what we mean by a long-form sales pitch, keep reading.
    
    The test was designed to work for both mobile and desktop visitors.

• Outcome:
  • 5.7% increase in overall conversion rates.
    
    Note 1: the testing tool declared a winner in the first 2 weeks but we kept it running for 5 weeks because we wanted to see a consistent pattern. Ultimately, we declared a winner when we had 2,778 conversions (not page visits, conversions!).
    
    Note 2: this is the outcome of just one test. Over a 90-day project, dozens of tests are run. The total lift of those tests adds up to 20% or more.

Our Hypothesis

This page was pulling in cold Facebook ad traffic. These visitors weren’t actively looking to switch shampoo brands. They were simply enjoying their Facebook feed when they saw an interesting ad for a free shampoo bar.

When this visitor got to the page they would learn that while the bar was free, shipping wasn’t (it was £8). As a marketer, it’s bloody hard to navigate once the expectation of free has been set. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Persuasive copy can do almost anything.

To thread this needle we knew we had to build a compelling selling angle. We ended up with 4:

1: Our core value is fairness (this angle was used to get the shopper over the

£8 shipping hump)
2: We have just one planet
3: The big shampoo industry will not reform itself
4: Don’t take our word, read 5,197 reviews

Control

Here is a screenshot of what the mobile page looked like before we got started.

Test Concept

Here is a screenshot of the winning idea.

We made a bunch of changes. It might be best for you to watch this video:

In the video above you’ll notice we make two types of page enhancements:

1: Micro-improvements: these are small-scale improvements that are being added so that the page can be improved without the need for a design. We made dozens of micro-improvements to the page.

2: Step 2 was to strategically display the long-form sales pitch so a maximum number of Healthy Skeptics saw it.

Outcome

The test ran for nearly 5 weeks. Exposed it to 25,000 new visitors and generated 2,778 orders. The conversion lift was 5.97%.

More Evidence

SEE ALL CASE STUDIES