Article

Is Your UX Killing Your Campaign?

Consumer Behavior google ads UX

November 20, 2023

I hope you’ve all had a great week – and if you’re in the US, you’re getting ready for my absolute favorite holiday (Thanksgiving)!

This week’s issue was inspired by an actual, downright dreadful customer experience I had last weekend – which got me thinking about how many other, less severe issues cost advertisers. I think it’s helpful context, so without further ado:

Over the past month, my wife & I have spoken off-and-on about upgrading our home security system – nothing too crazy, but something better than the DIY Ring thing we have in place. Those discussions turned serious when our insurance company offered a nice incentive (in the form of a reduction in our premiums – not just a smaller increase!) if we upgraded.

As with all things, it was on the “to-do” list, never quite making it to the top. Until last weekend, when I was inspired to get it done. That kicked off an hour of furious searching, reading and review-seeking, all of which led us to believe that Xfinity Home would be the best – and the easiest – option (we already have Comcast for cable, internet and our mobile phones).

After coming to this decision, I searched for “Comcast Home Security”, clicked on the branded ad (yeah, I’m that person), and was taken to the Xfinity Home Security landing page. I scrolled to the CTA, clicked on the “Buy” button and inadvertently kicked off what I now regard as the worst prospect experience of all time:

63 minutes

96 screens (yeah, I counted)

13 unique log-ins

6 form submit failures

5 attempted add-to-carts

3 chat sessions

2 apps used

1 phone call

All to get an installation scheduled for 2 weeks from now.

There’s no two ways about it: this was easily one of the absolute worst prospective customer journeys I’ve ever experienced. There were loops of doom. There were broken forms. Carts disappeared. Various links led to auto-log-outs (which required me to log back in again, get another 2FA code, enter it…ugh).There were inept customer service reps. It was a comedy of errors. I nevertheless persisted, and eventually, with the kind assistance of my third customer service rep (Parikshit, who was awesome), I got it done.

In any other situation, this would’ve been a lost conversion. I was there, ready to go – and for 62 minutes, I wasn’t able to buy the thing I wanted because of a hands-down atrocious experience. This is obviously an extreme example, but it got me thinking: how many advertisers lose business due to poor prospecting experiences? How frequently do advertisers attribute poor results to campaign performance, when user experience was really to blame?

Most importantly: how often do digital advertisers actually audit customer experiences? How often do we put aside everything we think we know, everything we’ve planned, those meticulously-crafted user journeys + funnels, and actually try to do the things our prospective customers are trying to do?

Based on my experience, I’m going to say: not as much as we should.

The rest of today’s issue is dedicated to remediating that issue – starting with the silent conversion killers, then moving onto how to conduct a UI/UX audit (along with justifying it to your stakeholders + clients). Let’s get to it:

The 7 Deadly Conversion Killers

UI/UX issues are as varied as the ocean is deep – but there are some that are just plain bad, with ample evidence to support the contention that they materially, negatively impact conversion rates, conversion volumes and overall profitability.

1. The Broken Conversion

In reviewing our historical audit data, broken conversions (defined as a form/calculator/function that doesn’t submit, a CTA that goes to nowhere, or a broken checkout experience) appear at least in just over 15% of websites. This is the single-easiest way to kill your conversion rate: don’t let people convert!

There are three tactics I recommend to avoid this particular issue: (1) create a weekly task (yes, weekly!) to test each conversion action on your website; (2) create negative conversion events for submission + validation errors on any conversion action (form, checkout, etc.) and pipe those into GA4; (3) set alerts (also in GA4!) to notify you of any material changes in total conversion volume and/or rate. Yes, they’ll ping your inbox at an annoying clip – but that’s 100% better than finding out days, weeks or months later that your conversion actions were broken.

2. Broken Experiences / The Road To Nowhere

There might not be anything more frustrating to a user than doom loops. I define these as a series of screens that (effectively) take the user in a circle → page A links to page B, page B links to page C, and clicking on something on page C sends you right back to page A. This is a simplistic example of an all-too-common problem – even Google Ads’ help documentation suffers from it. This is most common in help/resources sections, but I’ve seen it on service pages (for one home services business: the home page directs to the service page, service page “Contact Us” CTA sends the user…back to the homepage).

The easiest way to identify loops is with the behavior flow report in GA4. If you happen to loathe GA4 to the point where you won’t use it, install Microsoft Clarity and review the recordings. My favorite sessions to watch are the longest ones, with the highest event counts – these are people doing a *lot* of stuff on your site, which means they’re more than likely having issues. If neither of those is an option, do it yourself (or, better yet, ask someone who doesn’t work in marketing to do it for you).

3. Use Navigation That Works For The User

This is a pet peeve of mine. So many brands (particularly those in niche spaces and/or complex industries) have navigation that aligns with their business and/or their industry parlance, not the preferences and knowledge level of a non-expert (read: ordinary) visitor. My affectionate term for this is “VEGO” – visit where eyes glaze over. This typically manifests in several ways: (1) heavy use of site search (after all, where’s a regular human supposed to find answers?); (2) Christmas Tree usage patterns (going to a category page, then clicking back-and-forth between each sub-category page relatively quickly); and (3) heavy use of out-of-journey contact methods with specific issues/request (i.e. people submitting a general contact form for a specific service request).

Once again, GA4 can help you identify these errors (if you have a proper configuration and the patience to use it); else, Clarity and user testing. The single-easiest win here is tracking each site search (you can do this in GA4!) – and when (not if) you see new users searching for the same 3-5 things over and over again, add them to the homepage or a landing page or your navigation (or all three!). Make it easy for people to find what they want and be clear on what they should do next.

4. Slow Pages + Bad Loading Experiences

At this point, we’ve all heard a statistic about the importance of page speed. Most of us know that it’s important. Nevertheless, relatively few marketers truly prioritize it.

Whether a 2-second delay in load time reduces conversion rate by 47% (as reported in Forbes) or 55% or 38% isn’t material or particularly interesting – what is interesting is the number of sites that continue to neglect page speed and load times despite the overwhelming evidence that doing so has a material, negative impact on overall performance.

This is the easiest thing in the world to monitor. GA4 and Clarity (or any of a dozen other tools that are widely available and relatively cheap) all do a remarkable job of it. But the real secret – and the real user experience magic – isn’t in the average load time; it’s in the breakdowns. Is your site slower on some devices or browsers than others? Are there regions (such as rural areas) where your load times are substantially higher than in urban areas? Do various device types have shorter load times than others? I’ve recently reviewed a site where the average load time was an excellent 2.2s (and so the brand didn’t think there was an issue). However, it turned out that a commonly-used device among a core audience segment (an older iPhone) was actually loading at >5s – and the conversion rate among those users was 70% lower than the site average. Averages hide insights.

While the specific example above references load times, the same is often true for mobile experiences. Most sites are designed for desktop (yes, yes they are), and mobile is just something we do in the build. No, it’s not how things should be done. Yes, it neglects that >60% of sessions for most sites are from mobile devices.

One of the best investments an agency (or web developer shop, or internal marketing team) can make is purchasing the 3-5 most commonly used mobile devices among their target audience (you can get that from GA4, too!), then using those for all testing mentioned in this article. While most emulators are solid, they aren’t perfect – and the devil is in the details. Mobile’s share of traffic is only increasing – and if your current mobile experience isn’t exceptional, you’re likely leaving money on the table.

5. Lots of Words Without Saying Stuff

There’s a tendency among marketers to write as if they’re being paid by the word (and yes, I realize the irony of that statement coming from someone who regularly writes 2,000+ word newsletters). This isn’t a field of dreams. Just because you write it doesn’t mean they’ll read it (in fact, our data shows the opposite: people read *less* where there are more words on a landing/home page).

Your copy on every page should be as clear, direct and concise. If you haven’t edited your on-page content to the point where it actively hurts to remove another word, you haven’t edited enough. The difference between mediocrity and brilliance often comes down to editing. And most sites just aren’t edited enough.

A good test is to see if your core pages (home pages, service pages, PDPs, landers) all make perfect sense for your three core user types:

Speed Demon – this is the person who reads-and-scrolls down the page, likely only glancing at images and skimming headlines.
Skimmer – the user who reads each headline, the occasional call-out/bullet and some some-heads or introductory sentences
The Reader – this is the user who reads every single line of text on a given page

The distribution of user types varies by industry + sector, but all three exist everywhere. The reality is most sites don’t solve for the first two – and those two make up >60% of your audience. If understanding a headline requires the user to have read the third sentence of the preceding paragraph, or remembered something from the homepage, you’ve failed.

Put your site to the test: make a copy of the page, blur out all the non-headline text, and give someone unfamiliar with it (and the company) 10 seconds to skim it. Then ask them to tell you:

What does this company do?
What do they sell?
Who is their primary audience?
Why would you use them over someone else?
What feeling do you get while browsing the site?

You’ll be amazed at the responses you get back – but the reality is that if people you know are giving you those answers, then people that you are paying (via ads) to have sent to your site are likely having the same experiences.

6. Creativity For Creativity’s Sake

There’s an inherent desire among artists to want to stand out. That’s objectively a good thing. It’d be an awfully boring world if every piece of creative lacked creativity. But, too much of anything can be bad – and this is no exception. When the desire to stand out takes precedence over the need to be simple, easy and intuitive, a conversion-killing problem is not far behind.

Creative elements and functionalities exist to support the natural flow of your site or lander – not dominate it. Every element you include should be based on this principle. You’re not helping your conversion rate by having an auto-play video at the top of the page, followed by a chat pop-up in the bottom right, followed by a firework thingy on the scroll – all you’re doing is increasing the probability of a seizure. Just don’t do it.

7. Not Being Exclusive

Full disclosure: this one is controversial. I’ve noticed a strong tendency to be overly broad and generic in copy, imagery and experience. Here’s reality: your product or service isn’t for everyone (and if you think it is, you’re wrong). Every aspect of your site should be crystal clear on who this is for (and who it isn’t). I am continually amazed at how many brands balk at including things like:

Prequalifying language (i.e. Cart Optimization for Shopify Stores with $10M+ TTM Revenue)
Audience / ICP callouts
Pricing (i.e. Kitchen remodels starting at $78,000)
Specific, qualifying imagery (i.e. luxe cars or big houses)
Subtle status signals (exclusive clubs, gating, accredited investor mentions, etc.)
“Who We’re For” sections (i.e. we’re an agency for brands that X & Y)

On their website and landing pages – all out of fear of missing out, or based on weird edge cases where someone who wasn’t one of those things did a good thing once. Yes, some of these things will negatively impact your form conversion rate – but they’ll positively impact your qualified lead conversion rate (and positively improve your sales team + customer service team’s lives).

Be specific. Be clear. Be for something.

8. Bonus – The Post-Conversion Experience

This could be an entirely separate issue (and may be, in the future) – but for now, I’ll say this: one of the most neglected aspects of any user experience is what happens after the conversion.

Is the thank-you page remarkable? Does it provide an immediate next step?
Are expectations for what’s next clearly set?
Is the next step in the process (whether that’s a sales confirmation or appointment or nurture email) automated, delivered timely and hyper-relevant to the conversion action?
What is the actual prospect experience following the conversion? If you’re a lead-gen based business, what are the sales calls like? Is the sales team knowledgeable, helpful and results-oriented? If you’re an ecommerce business, what’s the packaging that your product actually arrives in (not what the 3PL says, but what actually shows up?)

There are a million potential points of failure in every customer journey – and most brands and advertisers are playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole trying to address the ones that come before the conversion, often to the exclusion of what happens after. While I understand that logic, I don’t agree with it – after all, the last thing you want is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with a horrid post-conversion experience.

With all of these, remember that averages hide insights. To the extent possible, review performance by page and conversion type, then pair that quantitative data from ad platforms + GA4 with qualitative data from your own reviews of the site.

This is a never-ending endeavor – but I hope that my horrible experience (and the tips above) inspire you to include regular site experience audits as part of your process. I recommend doing them weekly in most cases; if you’ve never done one, there’s no time like the present.

Until next time,

Sam

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