Taking a customer-centric approach to marketing, founder and CEO of Getuplift, Talia Wolf, harnesses the power of emotional marketing techniques to increase visitor conversions. 

Her natural interest in conversion rate optimization (CRO) and experimentation was sparked through her early work in a social media agency, later moving on to become an expert in the field – consulting for many companies on the subject, and speaking on stage at Google, MozCon and Search Love.

Guest host and AB Tasty’s Head of Growth Marketing UK, John Hughes, spoke with Talia about emotional marketing as a tool for optimization, delving into how customer research can facilitate the experimentation process, reduce the rate of failure, and earn the buy-in from company stakeholders.

Here are some of the key takeaways from their conversation.

What is emotional marketing?

Based upon the idea that emotion drives every single decision that we make in life, the emotional targeting methodology shifts the focus of your online marketing content from your solution, features, or pricing, to your customer. Rather than playing a guessing game and simply reshuffling elements on a page, this technique requires a deeper understanding of human behavior. By identifying customer intent and buying motivation, you can create an optimized experience, which meets their needs and increases conversions.

Backed by academic research, the fundamental role of emotion in our daily choices can be integrated into your strategy to better cater to your customers by figuring out a) their biggest challenges and, b) how they want to feel after finding a solution. What is their desired outcome? 

With this in mind, you can optimize your digital communications with high-converting copy and visuals that speak directly to your customers’ needs. By shifting the conversation from the product to the customer, an incredible opportunity opens up to scale and multiply conversions.

How do you build and measure an emotion-based experiment?

Firstly, experimentation should be backed by research. From customer and visitor surveys, to review mining, social listening and emotional competitor analysis, Talia encourages extensive research in order to create the most likely hypothesis upon which to base an A/B test. 

Once you know more about your customers, you can review the copy and visuals on your product page for example, and from your research you might discover that your content is not relevant to your target customer. You can then come up with a hypothesis based on their actual needs and interests supported by compelling social proof, and write a brief for your designer or copywriter based on the new information. 

From there you can build your experiment into your A/B testing platform with a selected North star metric, whether it’s check-outs, sign-ups or add-to-carts, to prove or disprove your hypothesis. And, while we know that nine out of 10 A/B tests fail, emotional marketing facilitates the hypothesizing process, strengthening the chance of creating a winning experiment by testing variables that can actually impact the customer journey.

How to persuade stakeholders to support your experiments.

When it comes to CRO, there are often too many chefs in the kitchen, especially in smaller organizations where founders have a concrete vision of their customers and their messaging. 

Talia explains that a research-based approach to experimentation can offer reassurance as part of a slow-and-steady strategy, backed by evidence. This personalized methodology involves talking to your customers and website visitors and scouring the web for conversations about your specific industry, rather than simply following your competitor’s lead.

It becomes a lot easier to propose a test to a founder or CEO when your hypothesis is supported by data and research, however, Talia recommends resisting the urge to change everything at once and rather, start small. Test the emotional marketing in your ads or send out an email sequence requiring only a copywriter, and share the results.

When you’re trying to get buy-in, you need to have a strong hypothesis paired with good research to prove that it makes sense. If this is the case, you can demonstrate the power of emotional marketing by running a couple of A/B tests: one where the control is the current solution-focused content and the variant is a customer-focused alternative, and another which highlights how customers feel right now versus how they want to feel – two important variations which help you to relate better to your customer. The key to garnering support is to take baby steps and continuously share your research and results.

What else can you learn from our conversation with Talia Wolf?

• Why B2B purchases are more emotional than B2C. (15:50)
• How to stand out in a crowded market by knowing your customer. (20:00)
• How emotional marketing impacts the entire customer journey. (25:50)
• How to relate to your customer and improve conversions. (32:40)

About Talia Wolf

Conversion optimization specialist Talia Wolf is the founder and CEO of Getuplift – a company that leverages optimization strategies such as emotional targeting, persuasive design, and behavioral data to help businesses generate more revenue, leads, engagement and sales. 

Starting her career in a social media agency, where she was introduced to the concept of CRO, Talia went on to become the Marketing Director at monday.com, before launching her first conversion optimization agency, Conversioner, in 2013. 

Today, with her proven strategy in hand, Talia teaches companies all over the world to optimize their online presence using emotional techniques.

About 1,000 Experiments Club

The 1,000 Experiments Club is an AB Tasty-produced podcast hosted by Marylin Montoya, VP of Marketing at AB Tasty. Join Marylin and the Marketing team as they sit down with the most knowledgeable experts in the world of experimentation to uncover their insights on what it takes to build and run successful experimentation programs.

The post Tapping into Emotional Marketing | Talia Wolf appeared first on abtasty.

Conversion optimization specialist Talia Wolf is the founder and CEO of Getuplift – a company that leverages optimization strategies such as emotional targeting, persuasive design, and behavioral data to help businesses generate more revenue, leads, engagement and sales.

Starting her career in a social media agency, where she was introduced to the concept of CRO, Talia went on to become the Marketing Director at monday.com, before launching her first conversion optimization agency, Conversioner, in 2013.

Today, with her proven strategy in hand, Talia teaches companies all over the world to optimize their online presence using emotional techniques.

The post Tapping into Emotional Marketing | Talia Wolf appeared first on abtasty.

In this webinar, Tula Skincare, the renowned probiotic skincare brand, outline the challenges they face in getting data-driven personalization and customer engagement.

We explore how to access first-party data, including implicit and explicit data, to enhance the customer experience.

We share strategies on how to make customers feel valued and rewarded for sharing their information. How to do that while creating a seamless customer journey. Fun ways you can engage with your audience. Lastly, get insights into the collaborative teams and processes necessary to be able to test and experiment in these areas!

Webinar Highlights:

• Accessing first-party data: Implicit and explicit insights
• Engaging through interactive quizzes: Tula’s success story
• Seamless data collection: Adding value without interruption

The post Mastering Customer Engagement with Tula appeared first on abtasty.

CHALLENGE

Groupama wanted to find a way to better adapt their A/B testing approach to fit customers unique emotional needs. They already had a testing solution in place but were curious about the innovative emotional targeting from EmotionsAI.

TEST IDEA

An A/B test was created focusing on the quotes form. The “Intuitive” segment was shown a reassuring message on the quote form promising the protection of their private data. Meanwhile, the “Rationals” segment was shown the form without the extra messaging, allowing them to continue without distraction.

RESULTS

Within 2 weeks, Groupama had their results. It was an instant win, with targeted messaging from EmotionsAI leading to a 10% increase in quote submissions. They also saw a 2 point increase in passage to the next step of the quote form, nudging customers further through the funnel.

TAKEAWAYS

With an early success of the first test, Groupama decided to implement EmotionsAI due to the immediate return on investment they saw.

The post Groupama increases quote submissions with EmotionsAI appeared first on abtasty.

CHALLENGE

The team at La Redoute was eager to change up the way they optimized the website. They wanted to find ways to improve engagement through optimization, especially on mobile. 

They turned to EmotionsAI by AB Tasty to help deliver the most individualized experience possible for visitors to their site. 

Using AI-powered segmentation to build better experiments, they started to let the psychology behind their customers’ decisions help shape their optimization.

RESULTS

After implementing EmotionsAI and creating new emotions-based audience segments,
La Redoute saw a significant impact on their engagement rates. The enhanced customer experience led to a 4% increase in revenue per visitor as well as a 3% increased conversion rate.

TAKEAWAYS

Since using EmotionsAI, La Redoute has tripled the success rate of their A/B tests, completely changing their approach to optimization. 

The post La Redoute triples A/B test success rate with EmotionsAI appeared first on abtasty.

In this e-book, we outline four common cognitive biases and how you can leverage each in your experience optimization strategy to drive increased conversions featuring real use cases from AB Tasty clients.

What is cognitive bias and how does it relate to CRO?

Cognitive bias can be defined as the systematic tendency, used by the brain as an information processing shortcut, to base judgment, memory, decision-making, etc., on one’s personal frame of reference instead of on rational logic.

By designing a website with common cognitive biases in mind – or by testing website optimization ideas based on these biases – CRO experts are routinely able to increase conversion rates – simply by gaining a better understanding of why and how online consumers make decisions.

The post Psychology Hacks for Experience Optimization appeared first on abtasty.

We have worked extensively to enable businesses to dynamically customize website content, product recommendations and promotional offers based on individual user preferences, behavior and demographics.

However, website experiences have not lived up to customer expectations when it comes to feeling understood by brands. If brands can’t bring relevance to their audience, at the very least they should reduce frustration and negative emotions.

The role of emotions

Emotions have a big impact on the entire purchasing journey. Brands not only need to understand customer preferences, but they also need to understand the emotional impact behind each decision. People are not always rational when it comes to making buying decisions – and not all people react in the same way.

Emotions play a huge role in how we make our decisions. In fact, once we start to think of the customer journey as a succession of micro-decisions (e.g. clicking on a CTA is one of them), we can easily understand how important it is to serve a personalized experience depending on emotional profiles. 

What if you can understand your customers beyond the surface level? To make concrete data-driven decisions based on the abstract notion of emotional needs in order to connect with audiences like never before? To be equipped with more knowledge and data on your customers’ behaviors? To be able to use language to describe different shopper personalities? 

How can you optimize according to the distinct desires of each person?

The next step in digital personalization: AB Tasty’s EmotionsAI

Hundreds of behavioral patterns uncover your buyers’ emotional needs and train our EmotionsAI algorithm.

At AB Tasty, we love to push the boundaries of digital experiences which is why we are excited to launch our most recent acquisition. With EmotionsAI, you can experiment with unique, personalized messages for each visitor type, delve into data to understand their needs, conduct tests to identify effective messaging and construct personalized journeys targeting specific emotional needs.

Formerly known under the name Dotaki, this new technology is based on years of psychographic modeling, customer journey mapping and AI technology combined with real-time interactions on your site and device usage.

Brands are already using EmotionsAI and AB Tasty to:

• Understand the emotional needs of audiences to bolster their Experience Optimization roadmap with effective messages, designs and CTAs that activate their visitors.
• Have more winning variations by digging deeper into what works and for which type of personality with analytics.
• Personalize campaigns by targeting based on emotional needs in the AB Tasty Audience Builder.

Customer Segmentation By Personality Type

EmotionsAI can help you understand what type of visitor is on your site. For instance, if they were classed as a “Competitive” visitor, they would react strongly to either social proof or labels that indicated previous sales or limited stock on products. If they were considered a “Safety” visitor – they would be looking for a clear, secure payment system, with easy reassurance along the way. Pragmatic visitors, who are looking for “immediacy” want the quickest route to order completion, with as few blocking points as possible.

Results

Once you are able to classify visitors with EmotionsAI, you can then start using winning variations to address their specific needs.

You can instantly identify when a variation meets the emotional need of a portion of the audience. The impact on the test success rate is impressive: with EmotionsAI, it is possible to detect a significant impact on sales in 3 times more A/B tests. This opens the door to easily implement personalizations targeting visitors on the most relevant criterion: the emotional.

In addition, the emotional segments make it possible to identify which stages of the online journey do not respond well enough to the emotional needs of the audience and generate a shortfall. This gives you ideas for future tests, for example, adding a reassurance strip to a basket stage. A/B tests based on these emotional insights have a success rate twice as high as the average.

We have seen a massive increase in revenue from previous customers. More than 60% of test variations show a successful business impact compared to 10% without EmotionsAI. Additionally, personalization campaigns using EmotionsAI have driven revenue increases ranging from 5% to 10%.

Stay ahead of the curve with the next step in experience optimization by mastering emotional personalization with EmotionsAI. Let your audience be seen by incorporating learning algorithms to map customer behaviors for predictable buying profiles.

EmotionsAI is an AI-Powered Segmentation Tool by AB Tasty, allowing for better personalization and higher conversion rates.

Want to find out more? Get in touch with us today!

The post The Future of Digital Personalization: EmotionsAI by AB Tasty appeared first on abtasty.

This webinar goes into detail on the importance of personalization, practical steps you can take to make your customers known, the most highly valued segments you need to target, and ways in which experimentation can help you do this.

We look into how emotions play their part in customer decisions and how you can use AI to adapt your messages, experiment with unique personalized messages for each visitor type, delve into data to understand their needs, conduct tests to identify effective messaging, and construct personalized journeys targeting specific emotional needs.

We discuss:

• Personalizing the customer journey
• Understand the emotional needs of audiences to bolster their Experience
• Have more winning variations by digging deeper into what works and for which type of personality with analytics

The post Enhance Your Personalization With AI appeared first on abtasty.

The Social Proof Hypothesis

“Social proof is one of the most useful tools of persuasion a brand can employ. Used well it can enrich the customer experience and help customers make an informed decision based on what others are doing” explains Beth Hodge, Head of Optimisation at Conversio. “Working together with Hunter Boots and AB Tasty we wanted to measure whether social proof can improve the experience for Hunter customers and ultimately drive incremental value. Importantly we also had to consider how to serve a message that aligned with the Hunter brand and how it should be applied to different geographic segments considering Hunter Boot’s broad international customer base”

 To do this Conversio defined a strategy to test and measure AB Tasty’s social proof capabilities and individually measure the impact on UK and US customers. Conversio’s detailed data-first approach wanted to establish which messaging and metrics most resonate with the customer, which pages and locations social proof has the highest impact and the optimum thresholds that define exposure. “It’s critical that when launching social proof you optimize all the elements of the experience to maximize your results, it’s about the continuous refinement of the experience” adds Beth.

About Conversio

Conversio is a leading independent optimization and analytics agency, headquartered in London and partners with AB Tasty. They are down-to-earth e-commerce experts who use data, insight, and continuous experimentation to sustainably grow your business

IMPLEMENTATION

After an initial proof of concept and refining the experience with optimized messaging and positioning social proof demonstrated a +9% conversion rate improvement for the UK site and +6 for the US site.

“What was clear from our analysis of those customers exposed to social proof was that we needed to apply specific tactics and design by market to maximize the value of this feature, for example, it was clear that product view data had a bigger impact on US customers than it did in the UK” explained Beth.

Hunter Boots now had a solid foundation on which to grow and expand their use of social proof.

As part of Conversio’s approach to further refining the customer experience of social proof they worked closely with the AB Tasty team to make use of the social proof API. This gave Hunter Boots greater flexibility about where and when to serve these messages to their customers. This included intelligently rotating two different social proof metrics on the product pages vs. a single message which had shown the initial promising results. This further improved on the conversion uplift already seen by 2% in the UK and 1% in the US.

Next Steps – Building on the success

“We are pleased to see the addition of social proof resonating so well with our customers, we have worked with Conversio to ensure the messaging feels on-brand while still highlighting product popularity. This is especially impactful for the rollout of new footwear product categories like commando boots and sandals as customers are less knowledgeable on these products. Social proof really helps us drive newness, and supports conversion rate across our well-known rubber boots. We are excited to see where we can optimse this experience going forward”

 Bryony Longden – Head of eCommerce Operations

Conversio already has plans in place to trial social proof badging on the product list pages as well as using it in the post-add-to-bag experience. Providing extensive experience and end-to-end conversion expertise, applying pre-eminent data analysis, insight and testing methodology to the optimization of e-commerce businesses by means of continuous improvements to their website performance and efficiency.

TAKEAWAYS

The implementation of social proof on Hunter Boots’ website proved to be a successful tactic, resulting in a significant increase in conversion rates for both the UK and US sites. A data-first approach and optimization strategy allowed for the refinement of the social proof experience, tailoring it to specific markets and product categories. It provided Hunter Boots with greater flexibility and opportunities for further optimization.

This success serves as an example of how social proof can be a valuable tool for brands to enrich the customer experience and drive incremental value.

The post How Hunter Boots Drove Value with Social Proof appeared first on abtasty.

Watch On-Demand

An exciting roundtable event, featuring our agency partners, Spiralyze, Dentsu, Jellyfish and Cro Metrics.

Our panel of experts share their insights and strategies for creating a seamless customer experience through data-driven decisions. They also provide practical tips and best practices for using data to optimize your website, increase conversions and drive customer engagement.

Perfect for anyone looking to improve on how to use their data and gain a competitive edge. We try to understand what it means to be customer-centric, while also looking at how to improve the digital experience through experimentation and personalization.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from the best and take your customer experience to the next level.

Watch Now!

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