Stakeholder Meeting

Homepage Traffic Not Converting, Users Not Engaging with Content

MagellanTV struggled to get users to sign up for free trial subscriptions from their homepage, where the single largest portion of their traffic was landing. Very few users that landed on this page were engaging with their content through the browsing experience.

Despite the option for users to watch previews of documentaries and explore their platform before subscribing, users were bouncing from the page. Users that did click into the browsing experience were not converting at a rate much higher than those that did not interact with their content. Without gathering more extensive data regarding the user’s experience with browse mode, it would have been difficult to determine the reason for these low conversion rates. Working with the client’s leadership team, we recommended conducting a usability test on the landing page and browsing mode to understand how each compared to user expectations and influenced their impression of MagellanTV.

Study Design

Maximizing the Impact of Data Collected for Conversion and Engagement Metrics

MagellanTV’s browsing experience was almost identical for subscribers and non-subscribers in terms of exploring the available content. The only difference for a non-subscriber was that they were only able to preview the first 5 minutes of a video, whereas subscribers could view the full content. With this in mind, focusing on the browsing experience would generate insights to inform MagellanTV’s broader product strategy as well as their conversion rate optimization roadmap.

Users in the study would be lead to the browsing experience through the homepage in order to collect data specific to the impact of this page on their likelihood to convert. Our goal was to identify the barriers to engaging with the browsing experience as well as to identify content strategy opportunities within the page layout and messaging that may be negatively impacting the user experience.

The study attempted to address the following research questions:

• How are users currently searching for content within the site?

• What user pain points currently exist within the MagellanTV browsing experience?

• Is the user browsing experience consistent across desktop and mobile devices?

• What kinds of information are most important to the user’s browsing experience?

• Which features of the MagellanTV browsing experience do users find most useful? Least useful?

• How does the browsing experience impact the brand perception of MagellanTV?

Data Analysis

Affinity Mapping to Reveal Broad Trends

After completing usability studies with 7 participants that self-identified as documentary enthusiasts, I collected notable responses from the recorded test sessions and created an affinity map to reveal common trends in their experiences. Distinct patterns emerged for users across mobile and desktop devices that provided clarity regarding user interactions with the landing page as well as the browsing process.

Key Finding

Positive Sentiment for Browsing Option, Negative Sentiment for Landing Page

Users were not immediately recognizing that they could preview content before signing up for a trial subscription. The landing page hero region focused on trial sign ups, leading many users to express feelings of pressure and a desire to leave the site immediately. Once users were able to locate the browsing experience, they were appreciative of the opportunity to “try before they buy”. Most users expressed overall positive impressions of the site and its content by the end of their usability test session.

AB Testing Plan

Provide Immediate Browse Mode Call to Action

Having identified what I considered to be the primary cause of the low landing page conversion rate, I recommended following up our usability study with an AB test on the hero region of the landing page. I hypothesized that providing users with an immediate call to action for the browsing mode would improve the rate of video previews as well as total free trial sign ups. In order to mitigate the risk of removing the existing call to action completely, I worked with the client and our internal CRO team to create 3 unique variations.

• Variation 1 - Replacing the “Try for Free” button with a “Browse Titles” button

• Variation 2 - Add a “Browse Titles” button with primary treatment and give “Try for Free” secondary treatment

• Variation 3 - Add a “Browse Titles” button with secondary treatment to the existing hero region

AB Testing Results

Improvement in Total Sign Ups and Content Engagement

At the end of the AB testing period, each variation achieved higher conversion rates for both video previews and subscription trial sign ups. Of the variations, Variation 3 resulted in a video preview conversion rate over 85% higher than the original and a trial sign up conversion rate nearly 10% higher than the original.

Our hypothesis was supported, and we believe conversion rates were significantly impacted due to increased user awareness of the ability to browse content before needing to register for a subscription trial. The good will generated by this user flow and user interest in the content they saw in the browsing experience likely influenced final conversion decisions.

Browsing Experience Improvements

Shift from Conversion to Engagement Metric Optimization

Though we were successful in beginning to optimize the landing page and make progress against MagellanTV’s revenue-driving goals, the usability test revealed points of friction within the browsing experience that may negatively impact retention and user engagement metrics. Our next goal is to work against an AB testing roadmap constructed based on user testing feedback to address these concerns.