Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate 10-30%:

White Paper Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate 10-30%: Data Validation: The Secret to Landing Page Optimization

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White Paper Table of Contents Introduction... 2 What is Data Validation?... 2 Client Side Validation... 2 Server Side Validation... 3 Presenting Validation Results to User.......................... 3 What it Takes to Implement Server Side Validation.... 4 Do s and Don ts... 5 Conclusion... 6 Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate 1

Introduction When it comes to landing page optimization, we often focus our attention on page layout, compelling call-toactions, and motivating copy. All of these elements are extremely important, but they are meaningless without accurate data. If users enter bad data on landing pages or forms then no amount of split A/B testing can compensate. A lead has no value if they are unreachable. If you have no way of contacting the prospect then the lead quickly goes cold. Many of our customers see invalid contact data for 10% to 30% of their leads. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to this problem. Data validation is a critical, often times neglected, step in landing page optimization. It is an effective way to drastically improve the contactability of your conversions. What is Data Validation? Data validation ensures that the user enters valid information into form fields. It is an optimization technique that is often times overlooked, but it can have a significant impact on real conversion rate. This can range from ensuring a user simply enters a form field, or as complete as making sure that the user has entered information that is valid. Contact information that can be validated includes email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and more. Performing data validation in real-time is better than cleaning a database, since you can prompt the user to enter correct information. If the contact information is corrected in real-time then you can recover the lead. Once a user has left a landing page, an uncontactable lead will have to be thrown away or you will need to correct it with an append solution. Landing page validation is the best way to salvage bad leads and prevent errors from occurring at the source. There are two types of validation: client side and server side. Both will help you retain lead value and overcome the contactability problem. Client Side Validation Client side validation is executed in the user s browser, typically on the page through JavaScript. The advantage of client side validation is that it is interactive (i.e. while a user is typing). The main disadvantages are tied to the fact that this validation technique is dependent upon JavaScript, a limited programming language. According to a Yahoo! study, 1-2% of visitors have disabled JavaScript. Similarly, there are certain browsers that do not fully support JavaScript. Moreover, client side validation source code is exposed, so anyone can see validation algorithms. It can be susceptible to hacking, since this technique is vulnerable to robots. 2

Server Side Validation Server side validation is executed on the server that processes the form submission. It is a flexible and powerful technique. The advantages of server side validation are that it can still validate even if the user has JavaScript disabled; it has no browser dependencies; and the code cannot be viewed by people or robots. The main disadvantage is that it is not as interactive since it is performed after the form is submitted. We recommend a combination of both data validation techniques. This will ensure the highest value lift off of conversions. Use client side JavaScript to validate that required fields are completed while the user is filling out the form and server side to perform a more thorough validation. Presenting Validation Results to User First and foremost, you should always make sure your landing pages clearly indicate what you are expecting from users. This ensures your audience understands which fields in your form are required and the allowable values. If the user has entered invalid information then they need to be prompted on what is incorrect and needs to be fixed. In most cases, you will want to get the user to correct the invalid data without moving forward. The most common and effective way to do this is to flag the pieces of data that are invalid. For example, say you have a form where you are collecting name, phone, and email address. If the user enters an invalid email address then you should clearly flag it in the form itself and set expectations on what the user needs to do to make it right. Twitter has an excellent, simple and clear registration form that does just that. The screenshot below shows how the social network indicates invalid form information. Each incorrect field is flagged with a red X and clear instructions on how to fix it. Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate 3

The presentation for correcting the data is an ideal candidate for Split A/B testing. This will reveal which graphical treatment and copy perform best in driving users to correct the invalid information. What it Takes to Implement Server Side Validation It is very simple to add server side validation to your landing page or form. For example, the following code snippet is from a Google AppEngine Python landing page example that calls StrikeIron s Email Verification service. 1. First, create the REST call to StrikeIron - note the strikeironuserid and strikeironpassword must be replaced with your StrikeIron credientials. You can signup for a free trial here: http://offers.strikeiron.com/emailverification/ restcall = http://ws.strikeiron.com/strikeiron/emailverify5/emailverification/verifyemail?licenseinfo.registereduser.userid =strikeironuserid&licenseinfo.registereduser.password=strikeironpassword&verifyemail.email=%s&verifyemail.timeout=90 % self.request.get( emailaddr ) result = urlfetch.fetch(restcall) 2. Next we check that the HTTP request and response was successful and use minidom to parse the XML response. if result.status_code == 200: dom = xml.dom.minidom.parsestring(result.content) statustextelement = dom.getelementsbytagname( StatusDescription )[0] statusnumberelement = dom.getelementsbytagname( StatusNbr )[0] emailaddresselement = dom.getelementsbytagname( EMail )[0] emaildomainelement = dom.getelementsbytagname( DomainPart )[0] statusnumber = gettext(statusnumberelement.childnodes) domainpart = gettext(emaildomainelement.childnodes) 3. Based on the return codes, we determine if we are going to display an error or prompt the user to correct. StrikeIron offers granular data on why the email address was invalid, so we will simplify this to a binary of valid or invalid. # Check the return codes to if the email is valid if statusnumber == 200 : #Email valid emailvalid = True elif statusnumber == 203 : #Email valid emailvalid = True elif statusnumber == 202 and domainpart!= yahoo.com : # Flag MX Will Accept + Yahoo as bad emailvalid = True else: emailvalid = False 4 4. Lastly, we either direct the user to the thank you page if the email is valid or ask them to resubmit if it is invalid.

if emailvalid == True: template_values = { emailaddr : gettext(emailaddresselement.childnodes), thename : self.request.get( name ), url : / } path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname( file ), outputok.html ) self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values)) else: # emailvalid == False, print and error message and retry template_values = { emailinvalid : True } path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname( file ), index.html ) self.response.out.write(template.render(path, template_values)) It is easy to integrate real-time server side validation through a Web service to ensure your prospects are entering valid lead data on landing pages. It is simple to implement server side validation in any other web development environment including Ruby, PHP, Perl, Java, etc. Do s and Don ts Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate 5

Conclusion 1. Most landing page optimization books, blogs, webinars and whitepapers focus on the content and visual aspects of getting a user to convert. We encourage you to continue to improve these critical elements, but you should also incorporate data validation techniques. 2. Data quality is the foundation for effective lead generation web forms and landing pages. Do not be complacent by ignoring the simple and effective safeguards available to prevent users from entering invalid contact information. 3. Dive deeper into your conversion rate, which may not account for the fact that users both knowingly and accidentally enter invalid information. By using simple server or client side validation, you will be able to increase your real conversion rate. 6

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