Microsoft Case Study

Microsoft Office Live Small Business (OLSB) United Kingdom (UK) provides easy-to-use tools to promote and manage a small business online.

UK customers start for free with everything needed to create a professional web presence, including simple site building tools, hosting, business e-mail, and 20+ business productivity applications.

Traffic is generated through display and search advertising.

Though it is one of the fastest-growing small business services in the UK, the Office Live Small Business UK team felt performance could improve further and sought to understand specific elements that drive sign-ups.

They partnered with Webtrends Optimize to improve performance for traffic generated from PPC activities. The success event was defined as a click-out into the sign-up funnel.

Objectives included:

• Strengthen click-through performance
• Increase sign-ups
• Understand which specific factors drive sign-ups and why

Webtrends Optimize executed a website optimisation programme which included the creation and development of a new landing page combined with MVT testing.

Step 1:

A specific landing page was created, the first one developed for OLSB-UK. Keyword campaigns were redirected from the home page to the new landing page.

Design objectives included incorporating optimal elements from previous OLSB tests, including UK-specific elements, and more business-focused messaging.

Step 2:

Execute MVT testing to determine the optimal combination of page content. The test included five individual factors (page elements); four of the factors with two levels (versions) and one factor with four levels.

Using the advanced Webtrends Optimize personalisation platform greatly reduced the number of experiments and test duration to pinpoint the optimal page and maximise conversions.

Overall, conversion rates improved more than 500% over the baseline control page.

The factors with the highest influence included:

• Call-to-Action Button
• Hero Shot
• Product Description

A simple copy change on the Call-to-Action button to “Start Now!” was the dominant factor. Interestingly, both the Headline and Sub-Headline had virtually no influence on conversions.

Based on known traffic demographics, 3 different Hero Shots featuring women and 1 Hero Shot featuring a man were tested. Interestingly, the winning Hero Shot was less corporate-looking and more casual.